I think it entirely depends on the stories. I can see there being an issue in Tolkien's use of humans of different ethnic/racial descriptors as fighting for Sauron, although there may also be historical reasons for why he chose to do that (Tolkien was writing within a very European mythic sensibility, and Europe had been invaded for centuries by Arabic and Asian peoples).

Yet when it comes to orcs and trolls and goblins, I see no problem why it is problematic to describe physically hideous creatures as being morally evil by default. At the same time, we see within the Warcraft mythos that orcish people in that universe have been treated with a lot more "humanity" than in Tolkien's world. That is fine within that world. In Tolkien's world, the orcs are servants of darkness and vile by nature. In Tolkien's world, people struggle with evil internally (particularly in relation to the ring) but evil is also externalized in the evil creatures of the world. Sometimes fantasy gives authors the opportunity to embody and externalize evils that often have roots in the internal and so depict the battle against evil in an external way. This is a function of imagination and mythopoeia. Certainly, that can be done in a racially insensitive way, but that is not a given. Not all fantasy must be so terribly morally ambiguous as is in vogue in today's fantasy. The Chronicles of Narnia contains both creatures wicked by default and individuals who have chosen evil. I don't think that is a problem as far as storytelling.

This is sort of old news now, but I've been meaning to bring this up for a few days.

Anyway, the news is that Wizards of the Coast, publishers of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game (which they acquired from TSR in 1997), have announced that they are going to be making some cosmetic changes to the games to better represent diversity and change alleged racist content. I first found the announcement on Tor.com, which can be read below and which also links directly to the company statement:

https://www.tor.com/2020/06/29/wizards-of-the-coast-takes-steps-towards-changing-racist-dungeons-dragons-content/

I can't say for sure, but I think that, once upon a time, I might have been a bit troubled by this "politically correct" move, but as I am increasingly finding myself distanced from both straight right or left ideologies, I applaud their intentions. For one thing, here is an article on Black Gate that's also worth reading on the subject:

https://www.blackgate.com/2020/06/30/inherent-evil-is-lazy/

As I've grown more fond of stories, I can see the benefits to this from a writing standpoint. Fantasy - and by extension all genre fiction - can't stay in a bubble or it will stagnate. Yes, that may mean it gives a platform to some positions that you might not necessarily agree with, but if you shut out those voices, then it comes across as exclusionary. It can't stay the same way that it was in the 1950s. The genre needs to grow and adapt to modern developments in culture and even shed a lot of its more problematic material.

For one thing, I don't think that it was ever meant to be that way in the first place, and at least from my limited "research", genre fans have been making these arguments for years. For instance, take the announcement from both links regarding the characterizations of orcs and dark elves (drow), both typical fantasy archetypes. Now some may argue that this may come across as a denial of evil in the world, that what should be called out as sinful and despicable is being treated as valid. However, I don't think the authors and creators of such characters ever meant for them to be necessarily inherently evil - that's just something that imitators and followers have exaggerated and taken out of context. I'm thinking in particular about J. R. R. Tolkien and the orcs. While some, again, may decry this as a move by "PC culture", from what I've read, Tolkien always had difficulty in reconciling his own depictions of the orcs with his devout Catholic beliefs, hence why The Silmarillion was unfinished at the time of his death. It seems that his plan for Middle-earth was always for evil to be a deliberate CHOICE, not something inherent, as if comparatively unattractive species are diabolical by nature, but he had difficulty in finding a proper solution. Everyone who read and capitalized on the books simply ran with the ugly-is-evil and born-evil narratives, to the consternation of many who realized the unfortunate implications. The choices of Wizards of the Coast in this case are simply a long overdue correction of something taken far beyond the original context.

So I'm glad that they're making the effort, because, in a world that's increasingly ambiguous and polarized, treating everything as black and white seems a little too simplistic and reductionist now. In order to be more truthful and honest, writing needs to acknowledge the complexity of life.

So what's you're opinion on the decision? Do you think that "inherent evil" is a lazy way out in writing? How do you go about reconciling right and wrong with ambiguity?

Well, just when it looks like we might be getting a bit better, we're pretty much back to where we started. That's the bad news, unfortunately. I'm afraid I don't have much good news for you, but I do have some recommendations to pass your time. Hopefully, they're keep you light-hearted in these troubling times.

Reading: The Three Musketeers (1844) by Alexandre Dumas

One of the most popular international books of the 19th century (and the title that forever cemented my interest in historical fiction), Dumas's legendary adventure of the young Gascon d'Artagnan and his three companions in the King's Musketeers - grim Athos, jovial Porthos, and mercurial Aramis - pitted against the wiles of Cardinal Richelieu and his scheming agent, Milady de Winter, is one of the most fast-paced, joyfully readable classics that I have had the pleasure of coming across, much of that depending on the translation (Victorian censors of the times eliminated most of the innuendos and sexual underpinings of the original text). The version offered in the links below is a recent translation from 2018 for Pegasus Books by noted RPG-scribe/swashbuckling enthusiast Lawrence Ellsworth, which captures all the excitement of the original French without being anachronistic; as of this writing, Mr. Ellsworth is in the process of retranslating the complete Musketeer Cycle, so keep an eye out for future titles down the line.

Hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Musketeers-Cycle/dp/1681776146/ref=tmm_hrd_title_7?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1593974270&sr=8-3
Trade: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Musketeers-Alexandre-Dumas/dp/1643130404/ref=tmm_pap_title_30?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1593974270&sr=8-3
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Musketeers-Alexandre-Dumas-ebook/dp/B074D4BYCF/



Viewing: The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, 1938)

Despite some admirable and memorable attempts in the modern era, I think few could deny that this classic swashbuckler is probably the best cinematic depiction of the legendary guardian of Sherwood Forest, played stalwartly by Errol Flynn in one of the most iconic roles of his career. Featuring a supporting cast including Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian (in the third of nine pairings with Flynn), Claude Rains as Prince John, and Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne, the film - a popular hit for Warner Bros. - stands as one of the most iconic adventure films in the history of the industry, aided by one of the great film scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold as well as one of cinema's most legendary climactic swordfights. Whether you're 1 or 100, it's a treasure to revisit any day.

DVD: https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Robin-Hood-Various/dp/B00407PNWO/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=the+adventures+of+robin+hood&qid=1593974456&sr=8-5
Blu-Ray: https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Robin-Hood-Blu-ray/dp/B0013N3DSE/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=the+adventures+of+robin+hood&qid=1593974456&sr=8-5
Amazon Video: https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Robin-Hood-Errol-Flynn/dp/B001NVIZ3E/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=the+adventures+of+robin+hood&qid=1593974456&sr=8-2

Well, that's all for now. I hope the coming months will find us in better spirits.

I can go both ways with fantasy. I still love epic grand adventures, having been raised on Zelda games, but smaller, character-driven fantasies can be quite magnificent as well. For me, a good story is a good story, regardless of genre. As long as I'm quite entertained, I'm satisfied.

As for my own reading, I'm juggling a bit more. I'm still reading Dickens, Dumas and Hugo, and I intend to finish them, but I've also tried shifting some of my focus to Pulitzer-winning works. I'm making headway on two in particular - John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces (1980), regarded as one of the funniest books ever written, at least in the English language, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's 1938 classic The Yearling, which is an INCREDIBLE book - I wish I read it when I was younger.

I grew up on westerns, to be honest. Mostly tv and film, but nevertheless, figures like Roy Roger, the Lone Ranger, John Wayne, were familiar elements of my childhood. I think in a way the old west is kind of an American fantasy world where anything is possible, where the rules of civilization are weak and individualism is strong. It plays into a particular image of the alpha male, a tough independent hero and often anti-hero who often takes the law into his own hands. It represents a kind of American wish-fulfillment, I think.

Required reading has always been hit or miss for me. And at times when I have had a lot of academic reading to do, I find it difficult to enjoy pleasure reading. I remember finishing a degree or two and having long duldrums of reading afterwards, like I simply had no appetite for it. I will say my appetite for reading does tend to come in waves.

I've been reading a lot lately.

I read two historical memoirs of the pacific front in WWII, A Helmet for My Pillow and With the Old Breed On Pelelieu and Okinawa. Those were interesting, to say the least. I read recently the second book of the Locke Lamora series and I just finished the second book in the Six of Crows duology. I'm going to probably start the third and final book in the Locke Lamora series. Both these series are similar -- heist and con stories in a fantasy world. I will say I feel the Locke Lamora series is better written, but both are enjoyable and a different experience of fantasy worlds. I am finding I have less and less interest in the epic scope of grand high fantasy books and I am more interested in character driven fantasy such as the above and novels like the Kingkiller Chronicles.
I've gotten a bunch of used books lately so I've got a lot to keep me reading for a while.

This post was originally going to be titled "The Enduring Appeal of the Western", but I felt that came across as more of a statement than a question, and this is definitely more of a question. Also, you might remember that I made a post a long time ago asking a similar question about horror (and I EVENTUALLY want to return to that post), and this post is deliberately meant to mimic that.

So, to get right to the point, I want to talk about Westerns. Comparatively speaking, in the long history of literature, the Western - by which I mean stories set primarily in the Western United States in the general years of 1865-1910 - is rather new and, dare I say it, distinctly American in the sense that it's regionally and topically American, although I guess that other countries have their own frontier literature as well. Much like contemporary fantasy, science fiction, and horror, Westerns are tied to cheap pulp fiction and "dime novels" as opposed to "serious" literature, and the writers of Westerns have subsequently spent a good deal of effort in justifying their existence, although there has been a good number of authors who have managed to turn out Westerns that have received serious critical attention.

However, while speculative fiction has risen in popularity and turned a corner in its public perception, you could make a case that the great days of the Western are behind it. From the end of the 1970's onward, Westerns have been steadily declining to the point where one would assume that they are pretty much obsolete and burned out. Yet there is still a sizeable authorship and complementary readership for the Western today, and I would say that the lack of quantity has subsequently led to a rise in quality.

Still, the genre has some historically recurring problematic elements with regards to representation and politics, at least in regards to the portrayals of Native Americans and women as well as a perceived glorification of violence, toxic masculinity, and "Manifest Destiny." So, in this day and age, why is there still such a fascination with the American West? Why do these stories keep coming up again and again?

I ask this slightly rhetorically because, personally, I love Westerns. I didn't use to, of course. Back in my teenage years, soaked in fantasy and video games, Westerns were reserved for something that the old people watched on Turner Classic Movies in the nursing homes but never really held my interest. Then, in my community college years, as part of a project in one of my English classes, I saw Clint Eastwood's final Western film, 1992's Best Picture winner Unforgiven, and I can only say that I was blown away with how good it was (subsequently, Unforgiven is definitely in my top 20, if not my top 10, favorite movies I've ever seen). As a result, I've seen more and more classic Westerns over the years, and my fondness for the genre has grown, despite my reservations with some of the issues I've already mentioned. I also wouldn't have been caught dead reading Western fiction in the past, but as of the writing of this post - June 6, 2020 - I can now count two Western novels among some of my favorite reads: Charles Portis's True Grit (1968) and Jack Schaefer's Shane (1949).

So what is your experience with Westerns and why do you think it has such a hold over the public to this day, though somewhat lessened with time? What's so special about them that we keep revisiting them and creating them? Is this an unhealthy obsession with an era best left to the history books, or is there something timeless in the Western that will never go out of style that can be harnessed for constructive purposes?

I'm a little late here, but better now than never.

Well, we're in June now, and summer is just around the corner. However, while we have started to open up, thing just keep getting bad. I don't know how to help, as it seems everyone thinks they have the right solution.

In lighter news, I've been given the go-ahead to incorporate other non-fantasy genres into the recommendations, so, with a slight cheat, here are some adventurous titles.

Reading: Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson

One of my absolute favorite books, this quick read - easily finished in a couple days or less - is the definitive codifier of the modern pirate mythos, following young Jim Hawkins as a brief association with an old sailor at his parents' establishment leads to the discovery of a treasure map which points to the location of the horde of the notorious pirate Captain Flint; teaming up with a noble doctor, a bumbling magistrate, and a dutiful sea captain, Jim gets roped into danger quickly when the crew of the ship is revealed to be a secret gang of pirates, led by the legendary one-legged sea cook Long John Silver, a man both dangerously charismatic and surprisingly sympathetic. A classic of Victorian boys' adventure tales, Stevenson's first novel is a bare-bones, rip-snorting riot of a story which shouldn't fail to get your sea legs going.

Trade: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140437681?tag=randohouseinc7986-20
Mass Market: https://www.amazon.com/Treasure-Island-Signet-Classics-Stevenson/dp/1101990325/ref=tmm_mmp_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AFX4DRI?tag=randohouseinc7986-20



Viewing: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)

A watershed in the history of action/adventure films, the first installment of the exploits of occult archaeologist/professor Indiana Jones is considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made, and for good reason, being a collaboration between visionary director Spielberg and Star Wars creator/writer George Lucas. A homage to the old serials of the Golden Age of Hollywood, this story finds Dr. Jones on the trail of Nazis who seek to unearth the location of the biblical Ark of the Covenant in an effort to make Hitler invincible, tangling with both an old childhood flame and an unscrupulous competitor. Relentlessly fast-paced - so much so that it may be taken for granted today - the film, in my own personal opinion, still holds up to this day and remains a personal favorite.

DVD: https://www.amazon.com/Indiana-Jones-Raiders-Lost-ARK/dp/B0014Z4OMU/ref=tmm_dvd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1591234469&sr=8-3
Blu-Ray: https://www.amazon.com/Indiana-Jones-Raiders-Lost-Blu-ray/dp/B00FZIJ18Y/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2F23ACOSWK882&dchild=1&keywords=raiders+of+the+lost+ark+blu-ray&qid=1591234469&sprefix=raiders+of%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-3
Amazon Video: https://www.amazon.com/Indiana-Jones-Raiders-Lost-Ark/dp/B00GIWIPVA/ref=tmm_aiv_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1591234469&sr=8-3

Well, that's all for now. I hope we have better days ahead of us. Until then, I'll see you all around.

Recently, I've been thinking about things. While I kind of want to make a large post about it, it's usual for my interest to peter out as I get going, so I'll just try to say what I can. It pertains mostly to reading, though other forms of media fall under it too.

As you may have noticed from my constant posts on the subject, I have a particular obsession with books. Buying books has pretty much replaced my childhood/adolescent fixation on video games, though I'll admit that I still treasure video games and long to get back to them at some point. It's been slow going, what with budgeting myself and even replacing some of the books I previously got with what I feel are nicer, more informative editions. But in a short period - in the span of a couple recent weeks, it seems - books have won me over in a different way, though it's been some time coming, I guess.

You see, I've been spending a lot of time surfing the Internet not just looking for books to buy but reading ABOUT books. I feel that the more I know about the history of a book and its author, the more I enjoy it, which is why I guess I get so enthusiastically excited about getting new books. I'd also like to draw attention to a quote from the last episode of the popular yet controversial Game of Thrones TV series, spoken by the character of Tyrion Lannister:

"What unites people? Armies? Gold? Flags? Stories. There's nothing more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it."

Whether it's movies, video games, books, television, or anything else, nothing beats stories. We can't live without stories. Both directly and indirectly, I've been raised on stories, and I love finding them. As a result, I find that, as much as a good video game, there is an inestimable joy to reading - the pleasure of getting lost in a good tale well told (because I feel a good story depends on how it's told). I've made posts and topics in the past talking about my love of fantasy, and while that hasn't abated, I can't say that I don't favor any other genres any less. No matter what kind of book it is, I can get completely enthralled by it. To speak of some of my most recent selections, it's been wonderful to get pulled into Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and island survival adventures, or the rollicking bravado of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers, or Charles Dickens's satirical genius in The Pickwick Papers, or even the sheer epic romantic ambition that is Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. Even now, I'm thinking of what I'm going to read next, and I'm excited for it. I just can't get enough of it, and it's taken me so long to fully appreciate it, if I really have reached that point.

But the joy of stories can't be forced. While my high school education was inevitable, the concept of "required reading", though I guess it serves a purpose, rather irks me because I don't think you can make someone enjoy reading - it has to be something you find for yourself. What's more, I really do greatly enjoy old books, but that might not be to everyone's taste, so I would say that it's important to read books that interest YOU personally. Don't necessarily depend on what a bunch of old men have deemed worthy of the "Western Canon" - read whatever you can get your hands on, but do it with caution. Spend your time on good books.

I think there was more I was going to say, but I believe I've forgotten it already. Oh well. At least you have what I've started to get a discussion going, if you should so choose.