Modifying humanity

[nancylebov]

Three popular series with what seem to be human characters, but I'd say not exactly.....

One is George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. The people are somewhat less cooperative than real world people, and less interested in wisdom. It's set at a more or less Renaissance tech level (they have plate armor, but I don't know how well the rest of the tech matches up), but in the real Renaissance, people had religion and philosophy. I'm not saying they were extremely wise or kind, but they weren't as horrendous. Or am I too optimistic about the real world?

The next is Tolkien's hobbits. They're read as humans, and explicitly described as a branch of humanity, but they're clearly much less violent.

Rowling's wizards are psychologically much tougher than humans. As far as I know, a human (or muggle, if you prefer) would not have come out of Harry's childhood in as good shape as he did, though I'll be interested in comments about what's known about resilience. I don't think a human could have come out of Azkaban sane.

Any other notable examples of modified people? Or is it just likely that if a piece of fiction is going to have a unified tone, then some part of the human range has to be left out?

Comments

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Lawrence Watt-Evans Lords of Dus series has as it central character Garth the Overman. Overmen are literally modified humans, sorcerously created several ages ago by powerful human wizards. I think Overmen (or at least Garth) are slightly less intelligent than humans on average. When I asked him in person Watt-Evans disagreed and just thought Garth was naive. It is possible he suffers mostly from not having an RPG background - during the initial event which sets off the whole series I was almost literally shouting "No! Don't do it!."

I've only read a few of the Harry Potter books, but other than Harry himself what examples of psychological toughness do you see? I remember thinking the wizards lacked creativity in general and found their resistance to technology absurd.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

The next is Tolkien's hobbits. They're read as humans, and explicitly described as a branch of humanity

Treebeard thinks they are something entirely different, and adds them into the long list (First name the 4, the free peoples) as such. Is the origin of hobbits mentioned in the appendices? It has been a few years since I read them.

[carbonel]

An overt example is the "angels" in Sharon Shinn's Samaria books.

[(Anonymous)]

The next is Tolkien's hobbits. They're read as humans, and explicitly described as a branch of humanity, but they're clearly much less violent.

This sort of variation is actually possible within our family. Compare common chimpanzees to bonobos. Interestingly, hobbits are the only race in Tolkien's world, other than the Great Spiders, to be or ever have been matriarchal -- as bonobos are the only great ape to have female-dominated societies. Even more interestingly, bonobos were only discovered to exist as a seperate subspecies after Tolkien's death.

Though bonobos, of course, are much more violent than hobbits.

Rowling's wizards are psychologically much tougher than humans. As far as I know, a human (or muggle, if you prefer) would not have come out of Harry's childhood in as good shape as he did, though I'll be interested in comments about what's known about resilience. I don't think a human could have come out of Azkaban sane.

This could be a side-effect of the gene for magic-use.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Honestly, human resiliance has a far, far greater range than you might think. Sure, an AVERAGE human would be unlikely to come out being an orphan locked under the stairs for their entire childhood . . . but real, live humans have grown up in equally horrible conditions and come out sane. Harry's remarkable for that, but not inhuman.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

If you are thinking in terms of apparently modified for plot/genre premises, rather than overtly modified, there is a whole literary clade of private detectives who have statistically implausible resilience to being repeatedly hit on the head.

[gildedacorn.livejournal.com]

>I don't think a human could have come out of Azkaban sane.

It's not clear that wizards came out of Azkaban sane either. Sirius Black came out *functional* (which, I agree, is, more than any human probably would have), but he had any number of neuroses. (Some of which would have been better dealt with if he hadn't been stuck in his mother's house with Snipe snaping, I mean Snape sniping at him.)

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Martin's Game of Thrones world was used in an article I read once to serve as a classic example of a crapworld (I think that was the term used: a world in which there exists little nobility, little honesty, little faith or decency, and in which all the expectations of cynics come out true*) within the fantasy genre.

*(Imagine a hardback copy of Atlas Shrugged slamming into a human face— forever.)

[enegim.livejournal.com]

Tangential: thank you; that's a very good description of why I found the book(s) unreadable.

I don't think its that cut and dried

[tahkhleet.livejournal.com]

Read biographies of the lesser and greater nobility of Europe. It reads like either a soap opera or a gang war. My friend Rowyn did a master's thesis on La Morte D'Artur and researched Mallory and his world a great deal. Her conclusion was the King Arthur legend got such a revival because the gangbanger-like "knights" of the land understood they were pretty scummy but had just enough decency to wish they were better than they actually were. At least, a few of them, like Mallory, who left some correspondence that he wrote while writing Morte (I think it was in prison).

I mean, the War of the Roses was one long litany of faction jostling, betrayals and realignments. Only when it could not be avoided did actual battles happen o_O Since Martin modeled his civil war on the War of the Roses afaik he's being pretty true to history.

I'm not sure if you recognize the revolution in cultural norms in the last 800 years. We no longer think children are chattel; the drunkeness is a great past time (at least, its not a UNIVERSAL opinion), we don't have women in legal captivity to anything like the same degree (and now men end up in legal captivity too, sometimes, let no one say there is no progress...) I mean, in the middle ages it was fairly common to have a peasant just lose it, kill his worst enemies, rape one or two of them and kill himself. We think that "going postal" is a modern thing but from what I read it happens _less_ today. They didn't really seem to think that murder was bad. Cockfighting was popular, as was bear baiting, and killing a Jew or Arab or other minority while far from common was not treated as anything but a problem of public order.

I'm not saying we're all saints now by any means. I largely think we're about as evil overall, just we've bribed more people with affluence and diversions...and we have strong customs and ideologies which constrain how we express our antisocial impulses. The great problem for our society is that lately the meme has gotten steam that the real way to act out is to use the rules to fuck people over. This has always been a problem to a degree, but with the vast explosion of rules in our society, the potential lever to move heaps of excrement onto others is MUCH longer.

[subnumine.livejournal.com]

Hobbits are not particularly violent because Tolkien thought the rural English aren't. He was a linguist, not a historian, and he is thinking of the late nineteenth century, not Jack Cade or Ned Ludd.

The real difference with hobbits is that (as they must on Tolkien's premises) they are a humanoid culture with no religious practices whatsoever. They do not worship, respect, or (Frodo and other cranks excluded) know about the Valar; they have never been enough involved with Numenorean high culture to worship the One; being Christian would require revelation, which would be an anachronism; and they do not belong to any of the fraudulent cults of Morgoth or Sauron.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

IIRC, none of the humanoids except for the Elves and maybe some Numenor-influenced humans have religions.

It would have been consistent with Tolkien's other ideas for there to have been some sort of monotheism, or a not true but not entirely false religion based on the Valar, but I can understand that he didn't want to open that can of worms.

I don't know if there are technical terms for explanations from inside the story vs. explanations from outside the story.

From one angle, the hobbits are what they are because they're based on idealized Britons. From another, they turn out to be very satisfying to make stories about. I'm talking with a friend who was cheered up just by thinking about hobbits.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

I don't know if there are technical terms for explanations from inside the story vs. explanations from outside the story.

Of course there are. (http://fanlore.org/wiki/Watsonian_vs._Doylist)

[avram]

Are hobbits clearly less violent than humans? Tolkien describes historical hobbit wars (there's that bit about the invention of golf).

[redbird]

IIRC, the closest to an inter-hobbit war in Tolkien is the Scouring of the Shire; it's not entirely implausible to hypothesize a sapient species with strong enough inter-group bonding and/or avoidance-of-conflict mechanisms that while they are capable of using violence against animals, or sapients of another species, they don't seriously fight among themselves. Weapons are for killing rabbits for the dinner-pot, or wolves that are trying to steal your sheep, not for dealing with the annoying neighbor. Annoying neighbors of your own people are dealt with by gossip, snubbing, etc.

[avram]

Except that I didn't read hobbits as a species so much as a race. The humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, and orcs all read to me as instantiations of some fuzzy pre-modern category along the lines of race/nation/ethnicity.

So maybe hobbits are a nation that's never (until the Scouring) had a civil war.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Sort of the un-Celts! (If we Celts don't have a good external foe, we can spend millenia fighting each other.)

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

Or is it just likely that if a piece of fiction is going to have a unified tone, then some part of the human range has to be left out?

I think it's because we're viewing humanity not just through the author's eyes, but through the perspective of what they need/want for the story they're trying to tell. (And that "unified tone" is a big part of why GRRM was never one of my favorite authors; I want to see some contrast in my art.)

Watt-Evans' Ethshar series is another example of humanity which is remarkably good-intentioned and reasonable (in one book he gives thousands of people super powers, and we only see three chose to use them for evil).

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You're too optimistic about the real world. Martin's world has as much religion and philosophy as it's source material, and similar levels of Truth, Justice, and Freedom(tm).

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Most Heinlein books appear to have humans in them, but on closer inspection they are some genetically modified race whose tendencies don't line up with what humans do. For example, in the Free Mars one, tribes are ridiculously self-loyal and non-contentious, and the opposition folds because the heroes temporarily have the upper hand. Giving up like this is a trait I rarely see in governments.

I think Ayn Rand falls into this category too...?

[captain-button.livejournal.com]

"Free Mars one"? I'm not sure which Heinlein book you mean. Tribes doesn't seem the right word for the colonists in "Red Planet". Are you misremembering "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"?

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

Well, there are Cherryh's azi, who are definitely biologically human and psychologically manufactured.

There's the race in Left Hand of Darkness, and a few others in Le Guin.

Aguably Vernor Vinge's characters are the inverse of Martin's - they're a touch too rational to real be human. I'm thinking particularly of The Peace War here.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

And Bujold's quaddies, who I think are modified for cooperativeness.

LE Modesitt has some cool stuff here

[tahkhleet.livejournal.com]

First is his "Magic of Recluce" series where the people of Recluce are an odd, powerful small island (about about a week or two to walk across it on foot on a good road) based on something that is pretty much "magick for social engineering". Basically, the people of Recluce are all taught to work low level but effective magick to ensure prosperity, lack of disease, and public order. Everyone is taught that the most important thing in life is to do everything thoughtfully and with attention to detail. People who show in a sufficiently demonstrative way are exiled. (it can be as big as killing someone or as small as refusing to learn to do your utmost best at woodworking because you find it boring)

This btw, was after the founder using order magick that infallibly told him if someone was lying or not to kill any "bad apples". There were only a couple of dozen people on the island (a guard post of a greater kingdom) and he took it over and got a good "seed" and made sure his successors knew how to do the magick so they could tell if someone was being corrupt or dishonest. Only people powerfully adept in order magick were allowed to rise to prominence. And order magick itself punished them for being dishonest. the dissonance in their heads was too painful.

Now, this isn't quite a utopia. There wouldn't be a series of novels about it if there weren't. The world outside Recluce is horrible in major, catastrophic ways but Recluce itself has some pitfalls. Lack of imagination and flexibility is a major one. The guy who invents the order-magick based steam powered, iron hulled ships that keep Recluce safe...he was kicked out for not giving up his "mad dreams about using controlled chaos to power an engine". Yet without his contribution, they would have been conquered by the chaos wizards' nation. (interestingly enough ,that nation is _also_ atypical and has something of the same systematic oddities.)

He also does a fascinating series called the Corean Chronicles which involves a race of what can only be called "Classical Greek Ubermensch Vampires". Their society is based on sucking the life force of a planet out by their inborn psychic powers to do things like make items that never fall apart as long as there is a biosphere to power the change made to the item. They don't die of old age. But they trash planets. 2-3K years and a planet is DONE. Its a lifeless husk. Sounds pretty villainous? Well, the second trilogy (the "So and So's Choice" books) addresses just what it's like from the vampire's side of things. There's even a virtuous vampire protagonist. Their society has strongly Neiztschean overtones, an obsession on "achieving" and creating "cultural wonders". Their art, music, food, architecture and literature are fantastic. However, the moral hollowness of their society is described in a sociological manual which the author quotes periodically. It basically describes how every time they use up a planet, the switch to a new one almost inevitably results in a civil war that threatens the whole exodus itself o_O

Warning:

[tahkhleet.livejournal.com]

Modesitt's books have two major criticisms, both fair:
One is he writes by a formula that loosely summarized is:
"aloof, misfit perfectionist and high achiever is thrust into a conflict beyond the scope of their day to day life. It is a conflict that threatens to result in vast, violent upheaval and destruction if it is not stopped. Using assets or skills which are rare or unique, the hero agonizes over what's happening. Then they figure it out. Then they agonize over if they have to be the one to save the day. Then they agonize over if they really have to kill cartloads (or solar systems full) of people...is it morally right? Is there any other alternative? After thinking hard they decide there is no choice and carry out their plans. They succeed, but often pay a heavy price of some sort and often feel haunting guilt or doubt over what they did".

Now, that's the "formula with everything on it". In the Corean chronicles they skip most of the guilt and don't kill NEARLY as many people as is normal. Now, every book does do things significantly differently, immo. I've read everything he's done except two books. I feel that he never did an Eddings and retold a story. Every time he explores something different in the formula. Or a nuance of some permutations of the protagonists (though his bad guys and neutral allies do kind of tend to be mostly the same-ish, though not entirely so). He emphasizes different thematic things etc. However, it is clearly formula writing.

Second criticism is he writes somewhat ponderously and tends to dwell a lot on the physical setting. I think he's trying to emphasize the 'five hours of boredom for five minutes of terror" angle...that the reason most people don't act like Matthias in Macabees is because they simply cannot believe ANYTHING can ever merit such a radical response. Yet logically, clearly, sometimes only absolute ruthless and prompt application of force will head off horrible efforts by others at self aggrandizement. (Of course, he cheats: his characters make very few mistakes (tactically, strategically they may blunder, but always recover in the end) because they almost inevitably have some ability to know for sure if anyone is lying and are paragons of moral virtue: hard working, mildly spartan, natural born leaders, and creative.) Also, he has tons of sociological and ethical ruminations.

He's my absolutely favorite author :) And his books sell well so I'm not entirely nuts to like his work so much :)