Bad faith fiction

[kate_schaefer]

I just read a fantasy story -- not a bad story, at that -- that depends on a standard betrayal of reason for its emotional and fictional payoff. We've all read this story: a group of people (and it can be as large as an entire society or as small as one member of a family) has rejected the magical faith of the ancestors that caused X to occur. Someone has faith against all odds that the magical faith can work after all, if only the Protagonist carries out the magic task. The magic task can be anything: a quest, a ritual, a belief, anything. Fictional tension is increased by other people making fun of the Protagonist, torturing the Protagonist, throwing the Protagonist in jail, or gently clucking their tongues and saying they don't know if the Protagonist can do it. In the dramatic payoff, the Protagonist tries the magical task, and it works.

I rather enjoy this kind of story, because of its little guy against the world theme, but it's a dishonest kind of story nevertheless. It says that magic exists, that reason, logic, and science are mistaken, and that a return to the ways of the ancestors will save us all.

I know this isn't a new critical insight into the nature of fantasy, and I know that not all fantasy does this, and I know that there is a twin story in science fiction in which one brave Protagonist uses reason and science when everyone else depends on the traditional magic of the society. That twin SF story usually isn't as satisfying a story on an emotional level, even though it's much more honest on the level of what the universe is actually like. Why is that? Why do we like the story that retrieves the golden past better than the story that calls for progress?

And when I say "we" here, am I actually just talking about myself, or do other readers have similar experiences?

Comments

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, that's what it is, but why do we like it? Do we just want the golden age?

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Part of us does. Fantasy thinking is often less rigorous, more attuned to the romantic impulse and the lie of the Golden Age of the past. (SF, of course, can be accused of falling for the lie of the Golden Age of the future.)