The Raven King
Mar. 20th, 2009 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackMister Norrel, Fairies, and Psychopaths
Many cult media shows have a "lovable bastard" character, who doesn't care for anyone, or only a small number of close friends, but we love watching them cut loose anyway. House MD. Rorschach. Spike. Belkar (occasionally). This is essentially a psychopath who happens to find it beneficial to cooperate with society.
A science fiction aficionado will then ask "would (or does) society work if EVERYONE is like that?" Eg. if we evolved from solitary predators instead of tribal hunter-gatherers? It's always hard to imagine questions like that. The idea of mutual aid is so fundamental. However, we have a ready-made example with elves or fairies in stories like Jonathan Strange.
In many stories, elves (or fairies) are portrayed as seeing us like animals, explaining their complete otherworldly disregard for us. They may become fond of an individual human, like a human can be fond of an animal, or House Md be fond of James Wilson. However, another way of looking at it is that the fairies see EVERYONE like we see animals.
In Jonathan Strange, there's probably some variation, but all the fairies we see more or less fit the description. A society of psychopaths. It's perfectly possible to work with a fairy if you are strong friends, or have strong mutual interests. Fairy kingdoms tend to be very authoritarian, I imagine, and not have strong family bonds. However, if a fairy happens to want and be able to kidnap someone, no amount of persuasion will tell them not to for someone else's sake! The society is hard to make better, but rubs along somehow.
Mr Norrel, the Raven King, and God
When I first read Jonathan Strange, I accepted all the characters as they were. Later, I admitted how utterly awful Mr Norrel could be. More recently, I looked at his vituperation of fairies in magic and asked if there was truth in it. He was certainly wrong to some degree: magic only really worked when someone wild was involved. He was certainly right to some degree: dealing with fairies and casting magic without academic learning was a bit like playing with plutonium. Any real understanding was certainly obscured by his ire.
Most of the characters (and notably Strange), with greater or lesser reluctance, accept the Raven King as the ultimate authority on magic, and maybe the North of England. Mr Norrel doubts for most of the book. Does he have a point? The Raven King, though human, is like an ultimate fairy, in being ruthless and uncaring except (a) with affection for England as a whole and (b) immensely powerful.
In the 12th century, a powerful and competent ruler is a pretty good deal, whatever kind of society you have. In the 19th century, it may or may not be: you might hope for some compassion. At this point, I suddenly felt a comparison between how those characters saw the Raven King, and how some (but not all) people see God. I hadn't seen why being powerful and creating and nurturing and having grandeur was necessarily a good reason to put my trust in a god (even if it existed), if He wasn't good by human standards. And yet with the Raven King all that existed to a lesser degree, and I did emotionally resonate with the idea of throwing down boring old life and following him.
Many cult media shows have a "lovable bastard" character, who doesn't care for anyone, or only a small number of close friends, but we love watching them cut loose anyway. House MD. Rorschach. Spike. Belkar (occasionally). This is essentially a psychopath who happens to find it beneficial to cooperate with society.
A science fiction aficionado will then ask "would (or does) society work if EVERYONE is like that?" Eg. if we evolved from solitary predators instead of tribal hunter-gatherers? It's always hard to imagine questions like that. The idea of mutual aid is so fundamental. However, we have a ready-made example with elves or fairies in stories like Jonathan Strange.
In many stories, elves (or fairies) are portrayed as seeing us like animals, explaining their complete otherworldly disregard for us. They may become fond of an individual human, like a human can be fond of an animal, or House Md be fond of James Wilson. However, another way of looking at it is that the fairies see EVERYONE like we see animals.
In Jonathan Strange, there's probably some variation, but all the fairies we see more or less fit the description. A society of psychopaths. It's perfectly possible to work with a fairy if you are strong friends, or have strong mutual interests. Fairy kingdoms tend to be very authoritarian, I imagine, and not have strong family bonds. However, if a fairy happens to want and be able to kidnap someone, no amount of persuasion will tell them not to for someone else's sake! The society is hard to make better, but rubs along somehow.
Mr Norrel, the Raven King, and God
When I first read Jonathan Strange, I accepted all the characters as they were. Later, I admitted how utterly awful Mr Norrel could be. More recently, I looked at his vituperation of fairies in magic and asked if there was truth in it. He was certainly wrong to some degree: magic only really worked when someone wild was involved. He was certainly right to some degree: dealing with fairies and casting magic without academic learning was a bit like playing with plutonium. Any real understanding was certainly obscured by his ire.
Most of the characters (and notably Strange), with greater or lesser reluctance, accept the Raven King as the ultimate authority on magic, and maybe the North of England. Mr Norrel doubts for most of the book. Does he have a point? The Raven King, though human, is like an ultimate fairy, in being ruthless and uncaring except (a) with affection for England as a whole and (b) immensely powerful.
In the 12th century, a powerful and competent ruler is a pretty good deal, whatever kind of society you have. In the 19th century, it may or may not be: you might hope for some compassion. At this point, I suddenly felt a comparison between how those characters saw the Raven King, and how some (but not all) people see God. I hadn't seen why being powerful and creating and nurturing and having grandeur was necessarily a good reason to put my trust in a god (even if it existed), if He wasn't good by human standards. And yet with the Raven King all that existed to a lesser degree, and I did emotionally resonate with the idea of throwing down boring old life and following him.
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Date: 2009-03-20 02:58 pm (UTC)