Now, obviously if a book is meant to be very family friendly in its storytelling, obviously these real world issues would be jarring to include in the narrative, especially if basic violence is barely present. But for stories like Game of Thrones, why do people think that just because dragons and ice zombies exist, things like incest, rape, child murder etc. also can’t exist in what is meant to be a real world, just with fantasy elements.
It’s just the author taking the fantasy genre and making it realistic. Which, in fact, is the traditional style of fantasy, depending on how you view the genre. The Greek myths, like the works of Homer, were the “fantasy stories” of Ancient Greece (it’s believed many of the myths were never intended to be “canon” to religion, just stories to be told and the gods being so vital to the way of the world, naturally they made appearances). It was only as time went on that books became more sensitive and fantasy soon became a pretty go-to genre for children where, at worst, there’s some bloody violence.
For the past 50ish years though, authors are going back to the roots of fantasy in bringing fantasy elements into a mirrored world of our own. Not bringing elements of our world into a kid-friendly version with dragons.
Yet, people seem to think this doesn’t make sense. The moment dragons are present, something as dark as sexual assault is now “too dark” to include. I simply don’t see how this tracks. As said, fantasy has always combined realism, in all its dark horror, with stories that feature centaurs or wizards.
Not wanting to read a book that has these dark subjects in them, that I understand. We all have our preferences and boundaries. However, to say that an entire genre shouldn’t be allowed to include this or that is ridiculous. It’s totally valid a book with talking dragons also has dark content like children dying or violent witch trials. It being “realistic” is entirely logical. It’s a realistic take on a world with fantasy elements.
That’s how I see it anyways. If anyone who happens to see this post has the mindset that fantasy and realism shouldn’t intersect, I’d love to read your explanation/logic on the thought process.
EDIT: Based on the comments all seeming to single out sexual assault as the forbidden fruit of topics to feature in books, when I was referring to dark topics in general, it’s made me now shift my attention to a new question that I’ll be posting sometime soon.
by PallasPenguino
15 Comments
Totally agree
Most “dark” fantasy writers aren’t being “realistic” with sexual assault, they just like sexual assault (or similar) as a theme. That doesn’t mean they’re perverts, it could just mean they find it an easy plot device to use, or sometimes that they’re just kinda gross or see women as props. If we were going for absolute realism we would not only include the obvious bathroom breaks, but we would also have men being castrated and executed by being impaled on spikes they’re forced to sit on – these were, after all, varying degrees of common in the past as evidenced by eunuchs and the Spanish Empire respectively. You’ll also note that, weirdly enough, men getting assaulted is very rare in these books, even though, surprise! it actually happens quite a lot in the Greek myth you allude to (usually by other men). I can only imagine how all the defenders of fantasy SA scenes would react if the next big fantasy book had explicit male-on-male rape.
Naturally, if we were to match how some of these fantasy writers write sexual assault, these would be described in great detail as well, and yet they’re not nearly as common as the old “just get the woman assaulted” plot point.
Why? Because they want to include sexual assault. It’s as simple as that.
Contrast that with, eg. *Circe* which has sexual assault because it’s specifically a critique of Greek myth (which had tons of that), but it’s not written in great detail meant to tantalize. If more (usually male) fantasy writers treated sexual assault like Circe did, people would roll their eyes a lot less.
Tldr: It’s not about “realism” it’s about what you choose to portray and how.
It’s not that the two should never intersect, it’s that you don’t get to include scenes of sexual assault “for the realism” and also have dragons. Realistic or nah, pick a lane.
I’m of the opinion that if you’re sensitive to certain things then you just shouldn’t read them. Writers can make what they want and you as the consumer can make the conscious choice to consume or not. It’s annoying seeing adults acting like they’re passive in this and have no agency.
> If anyone who happens to see this post has the mindset that fantasy and realism shouldn’t intersect, I’d love to read your explanation/logic on the thought process.
I’d be surprised if anyone replies to this because practically no one thinks this. There are definitely people who are tired of the all the rape and sexual assault in books, particularly adult sci-fi/fantasy, how it’s often used as a crutch to show that the world is “adult” and “dark”, and how it’s pretty much only done to women, how it’s sometimes described in graphic, near pornographic detail. But who thinks fantasy is a kiddie genre? Would be bizarre.
Because the writer makes a conscious choice what to put into their book, based on their personal ethics, their world, and the genre and audience they’re aiming it at
For every aspect of a book, first describe what it is in plain terms, then ask yourself “why did the author include this?” and “how else could the author have achieved the same goal?”. Welcome to literary analysis.
Suppose there’s a scene where a dragon torches a whole village then flies off to its mountain roost. Why did the author include this? Maybe to show us how strong the dragon is, to provide motivation for a character who had loved ones in that village, to appeal to the audiences who want there to be big dragons in their fantasy. Are there other ways for the author to have achieved these same goals? Sure, some of them — there are plenty of ways to provide motivation for characters — but if you want to have a big dragon, then you have to have a big dragon, and that’s that!
Suppose there’s a scene where a character is sexually assaulted. Why did the author include this? Maybe to show us how evil the assaulter is, to provide a low point in the victim’s emotional arc, to appeal to audiences like you who think that sexual assault is equivalent to gritty realism. Are there other ways for the author to have achieved these same goals? YES! There are *so many* ways to show people being evil, and so many ways to provide emotional drama, that don’t rely on sexual assault! So why did the author include them? *Because they wanted to*.
No one is saying that “fantasy” has to be kid-friendly, or that sexual assault can’t exist in fantasy worlds.
They’re saying that the *reasons* sexual assault exists in fantasy worlds are often *lazy* ones, and that authors should be critiqued for using (usually) violence against women as a shortcut when there are other ways to accomplish their same plot and characterization goals.
Most fantasy is leisure reading. It’s not illuminating the human condition. It’s not making a profound statement about life.
So when I’m picking up a series that has dragons in it to entertain myself, I’m not really thinking “Do you know what this book really needs? Some sexual assault.”
I also hate when people say “this is a world where dragons exist, you’re really think [logical inconsistency] from [character] is unrealistic?”
I think sexual assault as a plot or narrative point is overrepresented without the actual proper care and psychological impacts explored for the characters involved. It’s also overwhelmingly targeted at women. Fantasy is fiction. One has to consider the social implications of why across the board that is, and why authors do that. Also I’ve read stories where the sexual assault plotlines are contrived. Some characters shouldn’t or wouldn’t get into a situation they’d get SA-ed – either cause they’ve been shown to be strong enough to fight off assailants or have enough intimidation factor to ward them off. Also, SA is used too often as a quick way to make villains evil without buildup to why they’re that way. So basically, it’s a heavy trope that is not only overused, particularly at women, but often written badly.
Sexual assault is extremely overrepresented in fantasy to the point where it becomes ridiculous. Most of the time it’s badly handled, sexualized, used to show a character is evil or used like it’s the only way a woman can grow and change.
I don’t really care that you think that they go together. Most men don’t see any problem with it. I’ve had this discussion countless of times in the fantasy subreddit. Women are just fucking tired of this topic. Most of us get to deal with sexual assault/harassment in real life. A lot of us are traumatized by experiences surrounding this. Do you really think we want to read over and over and over again how being raped made a female character strong, like that makes it all okay? No. We don’t. There are thousands of ways to show that people are evil. There are thousands of ways for women to ‘grow’ and only one of them is rape. Yet that’s the one most authors choose. It’s exhausting and sad and I’m tired of men making topics about trying to make it okay. If you look at the top 100 list in the fantasy subreddit, over 90% of them contain some form of sexual assault or rape. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
And yes, choosing to have your female characters raped, is a deliberate choice. Authors think ‘how I can make this like I want, oh yes! Let’s rape women! That makes it realistic!’
If you don’t understand why women are tired of this shit, then I don’t know what to tell you. We are tired of sexual violence in real life, on tv and in books. We are more than sex and we’re tired of being reduced to nothing but sex. It’s exhausting and it shows a lack of imagination. Just compare it to how extremely rare it is to have male characters raped. Why is that? Because men don’t want to read that. Well, neither do we. Do better.
Personally I don’t mind dark content in my fantasy, as long as it’s written well.
Unfortunately some authors (particularly male ones) read like a bad description of porn written by someone who would be frightened if they were presented with a naked woman who wanted to have consensual sex with them (and then there are the ones who seem to enjoy writing rape).
In my opinion, that’s because in a fantasy story, you’re free to imagine a world that is drastically different than ours, even on a cultural point of view. When I started writing my story, my aim was exactly to push the boundaries of the genre in order to imagine a very different cultural context, in which women (and men) act differently than in my culture. Did I manage to do it? It doesn’t matter. I was just growing tired of see the same dynamics of my world in a fantasy world, especially if badly written.
I don’t think that this is escapism. Do you want to create a fantasy world with a culture that is very similar to ours? Do you want to explore themes that are very important today? That’s fine. That’s what Tolkien did, in fact. I just dislike when these themes are addressed in a cheesy way. And unfortunately, it happens very often with rape and gender issues.
I think it’s the shock value that also sells. The same reason why our eyes are always drawn to the news when it includes rape or murder, even if it’s distasteful. The golden industry rule of “sex sells” stands even if it’s bad sex.
It also grounds the world building, which is not necessarily to cross with realism. Sure the author can say this person did “unspeakable” deplorable things, and that’s why they are evil and you should hate them. Or the deed could be named or shown and the reader makes that conclusion themselves. It falls under the show-not-tell rule of writing. Of course it can be handled tastefully if it’s written well and still hold shock, but everyone has their writing style.
YA fantasy is safer if you want to read fantasy and focus on escapism.
This is a weird hill to die on but I guess everyone needs a hill.