In her Guest of Honor speech at Denvention, Lois Bujold said:
In fact, if romances are fantasies of love, and mysteries are fantasies of justice, I would now describe much SF as fantasies of political agency. All three genres also may embody themes of personal psychological empowerment, of course, though often very different in the details, as contrasted by the way the heroines “win” in romances, the way detectives “win” in mysteries, and the way, say, young male characters “win” in adventure tales. But now that I’ve noticed the politics in SF, they seem to be everywhere, like packs of little yapping dogs trying to savage your ankles. Not universally, thank heavens—there are wonderful lyrical books such as The Last Unicorn or other idiosyncratic tales that escape the trend. But certainly in the majority of books, to give the characters significance in the readers’ eyes means to give them political actions, with “military” read here as a sub-set of political.
I’d never thought about this before, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since. She makes some really interesting points getting to that—do read the whole speech.
It is, of course, possible to find exceptions to “fantasy of political agency,” as Bujold herself does above. The more I think about it though, the more I think she’s on to something. But “fantasies of political agency” doesn’t quite cover what I see. Also, saying you have to give the characters political actions to give them significance seems like picking it up from the wrong end. Giving characters significance to interest the reader is just not how most stories work. And I’m uncomfortable with the implication that SF is a fantasy of empowerment for the powerless reader, as romance is a fantasy of love. I can see how it can be, and I was thinking about this as I re-read Janissaries, but I don’t think that’s really what’s going on with this.
I started thinking about exceptions. (I often find it easier to find something by starting from the edge and working in than by flailing about in the centre.) The exceptions are not by any means all pastoral fantasies. Random Acts of Senseless Violence is an exception that came to mind immediately. The characters in that book are caught up and powerless in a changing world. They don’t have political agency—the opposite. Then there’s the contrast I first noticed as a teenager between McCaffrey’s Dragonflight and Dragonsong. Dragonflight is about Pern. Dragonsong is set in Pern. Dragonflight is engaged with the world, Dragonsong is a story taking place in it. SF generally produces engaged-with-world stories rather than set-in stories. Random Acts isn’t a set-in story, it’s a story that explores a changing world through focusing on people not coping with it. Those yapping dogs of politics are real, and interesting, but I don’t think they’re quite central to the issue. I don’t think it’s that the characters have to engage with politics to make the reader interested. It is about reader expectations, but I don’t think it’s about what the characters do at all. Or at least, not those characters.
SF, especially in the wide sense including fantasy, isn’t a neat easily encompassed genre. It’s a huge sprawling thing that has room in it for books as different as Tea With The Black Dragon and Mission of Gravity. People who read a ton of it know it when they see it. There are precious few things that can be said about it as a commonality. One of the things that reliably distinguishes it from other genres is that in SF the world is a character. In fiction generally, characters have to change during the story. In SF, therefore, if the world is a character, the world has to change. Many of the ways of changing the world are political. If you’re having a story where the world changes, usually your central characters are going to be involved in that in some way. Rather than your characters needing to have political agency to engage the reader, the world is a character and as such needs to change and your story will be engaged with that change—whatever is happening to the other characters. This neatly brings The Last Unicorn back into the fold without it needing to be an exception.
SF is the literature of changing the world.
I love this analysis.
Does the world always change? There are books where the characters don’t change, which are in essence a musing on and exploration of the characters, or where the core of the book is a character failing to change. (Triton?)
Perhaps that corresponds to your “set in a world” stories.
To me the ‘fantasy of political agenda’ is a story where the Proper Politics are ‘Characters’ in the story in the same way that the ‘world is a character’ in ‘standard SF/Fantasy’.
In additon, ‘fantasy of political agenda’ is usually written as a lecture not a story.
I’ve read some SF/Fantasy where I was sure of the Politicial Positions of the author but enjoyed the story even when the author has different political views than me.
To me the question is ‘does the politics over-ride the story’? If the politics over-rides the story, then I dislike it even when I agree with politics.
Drak Bibliophile
Drak: I don’t think that’s at all what Bujold is talking about. What you’re saying certainly exists and is a problem. But what she’s saying isn’t that some SF has a political agenda but that ordinary SF that you wouldn’t necessarily define as political has got a lot of politics in it. For instance Cherryh’s Chanur books contain an overthrow of the order of the Compact and a reorganization with the characters of the novel playing a significant role. The same goes for The Lord of the Rings. Protagonists may start off ordinary but they shake worlds… because those worlds exist to be shaken and stirred.
Wonderful expansion of Bujold’s original idea, which was one of the most practical definitions of this genre I’ve seen in a long time. Your interpretation makes it even more widely applicable. I hope conversation on this idea will continue!
Now, are we going to start drawing connections between the current popularity of fantasy fiction and the demand for change in our own world, as evidenced by the campaign slogans of certain political figures in the U.S.?
bluejo, in other words ‘fantasy of political agenda’ is active characters who change their world in some way.
Drak
But why science fiction particularly? Why is Frankenstein or Brave New World or the Gernsbacks about political agency, when we classically thought we were just reading fiction about science?
I ask not to argue against the proposition, but to accept it and then ask how that happened. What’s the connection between technology and political freedom and responsibility?
Is it that, as knowledge is power, so technology is knowledge in the hands of the common (wo)man?
What about this… SF as fantasies of systems. Science fiction is an exploration of the way things work and interact. It can be a study of political systems, computer systems, weather systems, systems of magic, or even the ways in which all of those might interact.
Characters may or may not have agency within those systems. When they do, the stories can be explorations of the leverage points in a system. When they don’t, the stories can be about the effects of a system on those caught up in it.
del,
What’s the connection between technology and political freedom and responsibility?
I’d phrase the question differently, because I think sf is broader than just a literature about technology. How about: “What’s the connection between the future and political freedom and responsibility?”
If the world of the future is a character, then one important aspect of the world is its backstory: what events and choices (many of which would necessarily be political) led to the world of the story. And the characters’ choices and acts in the course of the story must reflect the political freedoms they have* and the responsibilities they take on.
* Is this act legal and acceptable in the context of the world? If not, what change will the act perform on what is acceptable?
“I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls, / And woke to find it true; / I wasn’t born for an age like this; / Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?”
I’d say that political agency is often the least interesting form of sf, just as politics is actually a very poor way of engaging the world. (Which doesn’t mean it can be ignored, alas.) And science is, itself, one of the great ways of engaging the world. Perhaps sf and fantasy are ways to address the kinds of social changes where the future is not a continuation of the past.
Once again, just a brilliant, brilliant analysis, which in turn gives rise to another one of these great threads that make this site such an interesting gathering place.
One question for everybody: in this analysis, would we see the rise of cyberpunk etc. as a broadening of the definition of “politics” from the Golden Age-based political model of the state to a postindustrial economic model. While there are obviously still many works within the genre that deal with governments, armies, etc., hasn’t there been a rise in protagonist-consumers since 1980? (Dick, of course, was obviously ahead of this curve.) Maybe the crossover into so-called “postmodern” science fiction ultimately stems from a redefinition of the “state”/”world” after the rise of the multinational corporation and the service economy.
I can see arguments for and against.
This is an excellent insight, particularly because it’s such a good perspective for further thought. I agree with the first poster that while in SF the world is in some sense a character, this doesn’t require that the world change – it just makes that much more likely.
With regards to the world-as-character idea, though, I think another reason why world change is such a prominent part of speculative fiction is that speculative fiction is the only genre in which authors actually can create worldwide change, rather by definition, whereas authors in all genres can work with character change. If there’s a nifty device in your genre toolbox, why not use it?
Good analysis all around.
I admit I like better the definition “fantasy of systems”, as “politics” can be limiting or misleading.
In this, it is interesting to note that science fiction normally deals with systems which, after a phase of disequilibrium, do not go back to the original state; and the aftermath thereof is part of the fun.
Meaning – in a mystery we have order, then crime alters the order, then the investigator solves the case and restores order; often at great personal cost, often in a morally ambiguous way, but order is re-established.
In science fiction, fantasy and horror, after the perturbation we have a re-adjustment on new terms; so much so that, if the original order is restored, the perception the characters have of that order is somewhat changed.
We defeat the thing from another world, but now we’ll have to watch the skies in perpetual sentry-duty.
We escape fairyland knowing there’s more beyond our horizon.
We kill the vampire but we know there might be others, and what we deemed legend was real…
In sf/fantasy the characters (and the readers) find out the world is larger, more complicated, less perfect or less benign.
This is our game – we deal with consequences.
Ah, I better cut this short… ;-)
My take on it:
In mainstream mode, change is the cause of tragedy and things are made OK by undoing those changes. When the changes aren’t undone, it’s often a tragic and/or sad ending.
In SF mode lack of change or things returning to what they were is the cause tragedy and things are made OK because of change. When there is no change, it’s often a tragic and/or sad ending.
A great example of this is Flowers for Algernon
“SF is the literature of changing the world.”
Yes, that’s so exactly right. For a while I’ve been toying with a description of SF as being stories about humanity’s relationship with technology. If you include social organization as a kind of technology (and I do), then that fits quite well–nothing engenders change in the world quite like new technologies. Politics, computers, genetics, climate change; these are the things that will change the world, and so they’re the things SF is fascinated with.
Science and technology are fundamentally world-changing in themselves, so it’s no surprise that the two go together in fiction. The rise of SF parallels the classic hockeystick curve of technological development.
(That’s the two-dimensional model, anyway. We keep getting more kinds of technology, just as we keep getting more kinds of SF.)
This is a really good post; thank you for that.