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(no subject)
A few days ago I scribbled out a drabble and threw it at FFN. I didn't think much of it at the time but I wonder increasingly if the point actually got across. In a way it's one of my pretentious experimental works, playing intensely with preconceived notions and previous knowledge based on canon. I have no idea if it works, since the only reviewer so far didn't have that previous knowledge, and a bunch of other Henry fans expressed approval it without comment.
But, okay, I feel the need to blab about what it was "about" somewhere, even if that's kind of authorially dishonest. (The work should make the point, etc etc...)
When we hear about sympathetic characters doing unsavory things in unfortunate circumstances -- specifically, when we hear them recount these things themselves -- we get perspective and context that very few others have. It's striking how quickly moral judgments turn around when (for example) we learn that a murder had a motive, and that motive was revenge for something reprehensible.
But most of the time, we are on the outside, and we perceive creepy strangers as creepy.
That's half the point of this drabble -- to challenge fans' sympathy. This is what that incredibly sad moment in his life looked like to anyone else. And it looked like unprovoked mass murder. The kid wiped out a village.
The other half of the point is to challenge the absence of sympathy. It's precisely because we know Henry's take on the situation that we can read between the lines of this account. The villagers witnessed his parents' incredible neglect, and offered no aid. Owing to his otherness (which may have very well been a result of the aforementioned), they had little concern for him and would have preferred it if he had not been in their space. Ultimately, when Henry snaps, they attribute the incident to his inherent otherness all along.
But we know he had reasons. For starters, one might wonder if he should have been expected to care about so many people who did not care about him. Beyond that, we know for a fact that there was a big Something that made him snap -- the death of the one who was essentially his foster mother -- and was directly caused by the villagers themselves.
And that part, the fact that the villagers might never understand the role they played from day to day as they went about living their lives as perfectly normal people, is the central tragedy I was going for.
(Does that come across at all? Maybe I'm just too obsessed with thinking about school shooters and the like and it's always at the front of my mind.)
But, okay, I feel the need to blab about what it was "about" somewhere, even if that's kind of authorially dishonest. (The work should make the point, etc etc...)
When we hear about sympathetic characters doing unsavory things in unfortunate circumstances -- specifically, when we hear them recount these things themselves -- we get perspective and context that very few others have. It's striking how quickly moral judgments turn around when (for example) we learn that a murder had a motive, and that motive was revenge for something reprehensible.
But most of the time, we are on the outside, and we perceive creepy strangers as creepy.
That's half the point of this drabble -- to challenge fans' sympathy. This is what that incredibly sad moment in his life looked like to anyone else. And it looked like unprovoked mass murder. The kid wiped out a village.
The other half of the point is to challenge the absence of sympathy. It's precisely because we know Henry's take on the situation that we can read between the lines of this account. The villagers witnessed his parents' incredible neglect, and offered no aid. Owing to his otherness (which may have very well been a result of the aforementioned), they had little concern for him and would have preferred it if he had not been in their space. Ultimately, when Henry snaps, they attribute the incident to his inherent otherness all along.
But we know he had reasons. For starters, one might wonder if he should have been expected to care about so many people who did not care about him. Beyond that, we know for a fact that there was a big Something that made him snap -- the death of the one who was essentially his foster mother -- and was directly caused by the villagers themselves.
And that part, the fact that the villagers might never understand the role they played from day to day as they went about living their lives as perfectly normal people, is the central tragedy I was going for.
no subject
The challenge to the readers' sympathy is perfectly there, I think. Giving the story from the villager's perspective certainly lends that perspective and if you'd asked me, I would've said that, particularly, was what the story was going for.
The challenge to the absence of sympathy I don't think comes across, or at least, I don't think it would necessarily occur to the reader unless they came into the story thinking about it, or thought about it a lot afterward. I think the problem here is both one of length (it's really hard to get "villager unthinkingly plays a small part in the conditions that cause a kid to go apeshit, and never really gets it because he turns a blind eye to the small tragedies leading up to it, bla bla" across in 500ish words) and maybe like... overly subtle or something? Unreliable narrators are hard and I know it's been a while since I've read Henry stuff but it hasn't been too long—a more upfront reminder that, hey, the villager is willfully turning a blind eye to some serious stuff here... idk man
/reallyobtsueperson'stwocents
no subject
A more upfront reminder -- hmmmm.
It might have been wise to give the story a different frame that would let him be more honest and give an example of a specific Bad Thing People Did in passing (and wave it off), perhaps. It's difficult for me (and my beta) to assess because Henry's sads are at the front of my mind, as well as the issue of absence of sympathy in general, and I have a rather biased perspective on it, alas.
no subject
In terms of point #1, that absolutely seemed to be the intent and it worked.
Does that come across at all?
No, I don't think so. I think you'd have to build up that sort of indictment in a very different manner than in the course of a drabble for it to really work. I mean, you can set up Strawman Plegian as a representative of some kind of collective failure in this village's ability to raise a child, but then who's to say what Strawman Plegian was grappling with in his own life? In between the war with Ylisse and the, uh, state religion, what the hell was actually going on in the life of individual Plegians? I kind of think the provincial callousness came through, but honestly it didn't make me question anything much about the narrator or his story. I had more of a "Yeah, that's people" reaction.
I mean, the idea you raise above of indicting the Plegian villagers collectively kind of brought the Thracians to mind-- "They're shitty people who abandon their kids! Yeah, but they're starving. And you're guilty of making them starve, la!" Once you start flipping the lens around to view someone's guilt you can pretty much go forever with it-- Henry, the villagers, the culture of Plegia, the culture of Ylisse, Grima and Naga...
no subject
The "Yeah, that's people" level is about the level that I intended the indictment. It's worth questioning exactly how much any individual could have done in this matter, and I agree that it's not just a matter of the villagers, but the product of a long history of events that led to the present situation.
But the narrator is aware (at least subconsciously) of his reasons for doing nothing, and of his neighbors' reasons for doing nothing. He doesn't give that kind of thought to an outsider. Nor does Henry give that kind of thought to them.
Callousness is a good way to put it -- an inevitable, collective, mundane* tragedy of callousness.
*(Well, except for the mass murder part.)