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

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[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 :)