Daniel Cuervonegro's Blog, page 2
October 9, 2022
Hollywood, Employment and Writing: the case of Pre-modern Societies
I suppose we should not be surprised that Hollywood sometimes gets things wrong when dealing with the past. They get adaptations wrong, they get physics wrong, they get psychology and morality wrong... It's a long list. But one of the most prevalent errors we tend to encounter in our popular culture is our understanding of Pre-modern societies and how dynamics of power were most likely to happen between them. I say most likely since there is no real way for historians to know. Because of this we must abide ourselves to one theoretical pillar or another, in this case the sociological theories of Emile Durkheim. We will follow on his teachings regarding solidarity and how it kept societies together, back then as now.
So how does hollywood present the typical medieval village? With an impoverished peasantry and an abusive lord that oppresses the weak. With gender oppression from the male to the female and class struggle that seems too similar to what we see today. With a clergy that is at once hypocritical regarding their treatment of the most unfortunate and aware of this hypocrisy. The elites shine as the embodiments of power-sustaining forces that serve only those on top and their legacies. It's also not strange to find modern issues presented in pre-modern times, like the corruption and sexual deviation of the powerful, their abuse of stimulants (like drugs and alcohol), and their distance from the lower classes. In order to dispel some of these popular culture mishaps, I herein will present some reasons that may explain why Hollywood-like institutions tend to get history so wrong, how to get it right(er), and how to identify coherent elements in history that you can translate into your own stories so as to make them better.
The concept of labor in pre-modern institutions:
In a recent episode of the Rings of Power, there's a scene wherein a man speaks to a crowd regarding their trades and, in a sense, their future employment now that foreigners have arrived on the island. If you've seen it you probably had some immediate thoughts: can an elf and a man truly present a threat to an economy of thousands of laboring men and women? This seems somewhat akin to modern-day issues. This economy seems strangely pathetic. Something feels wrong about this. And something is wrong with it. While The Rings of Power is just the latest culprit in a long list of hollywood crimes against history, it's a common occurrence even in audiences, some might say, borne out of laziness or lack of creativity. But's neither laziness, ill intent, or negligence.
There are two main reasons for this, that is, two main reasons for putting the problems of our present in our understanding of the past and future. If you've heard the saying "history repeats itself," you may be close to finding one of these errors. It's a common saying and something most historians teach, always warning about unsolved errors of the past and how they'll present themselves in the future if left unattended. In reality, there's nothing about history that works in repetition. Not a single moment looks like another nor has an age shown us its cyclical patterns in clear historical fashion. What repeats in history is not the history itself, not the events, but the species and its psychosocial archetypes. It's the collective subconscious and our own creaturely nature that bind us and that we can identify through time as belonging to a single mold. Repeating cycles of events, however, are never the case, and the closer we look the more we can identify the differences. The more we can see the geographical and sociological imperatives that distinguish them; the climate nuances that alter events and developments, and the random events that redirect entire sequences of cause and effect in new interesting ways.
A second reason why it's common to find representations of the past so akin to our present and so akin to each other is that there are indeed patterns in history that create the illusion of similitude. These patterns are called processes, a series of circumstances that, when encountered, often lead to similar developments. These processes do not determine the history per se, not the details of it and its exquisitely unique textures. Rather, they swerve history in somewhat predictable rivers of consequence, thus creating patterns of interaction that can help us attempt to predict events. In reality, these patterns are illusions, stepping stones historians place themselves in order to better understand what cannot be fully understood. We see these patterns like we see faces in the drops of our windows as it rains. We find them because we're looking for them. Their existence is a measure of our blindness, and still, it remains the only way in which we can make sense of the invisible, the elusive, the past.
This is not to say that Hollywood-like productions are excused in how they portray our past, present, and future, be it in history, fantasy, or science fiction. But the explanation does help us see where we can err and why. Given this, let's now proceed to our example of labor in Pre-modern societies.
During the turn of the 19th century, in England, some towns had been experiencing a series of radical changes. Industrialization and urbanization started more or less in the 1750s and accelerated year after year with inventions like the water frame and the spinning jenny. These machines replaced human labor and altered historical processes that had been in place since the agricultural revolution. Up to this point, the idea of labor and employment simply did not exist as we know it today. Individual work and the considerations of a job were bizarre occurrences left for the uniquely talented, the artificers. Individuality for these pre-modern societies was a deviant form of behavior, left exclusively to those so unique, so heroic and gifted, so divinely guided, their deeds would come to redefine the group, and not the other way around. And here's where we identify the issues with the concept of employment in The Rings of Power, for Pre-modern societies worked as a unity. They were collectives in the strict sense of the word. As in a soccer team all members are required, their efforts vital for the functioning of the group. One cannot score unless the others are in place, working hard to keep tensions low, to shift gravities and forces, to define the present moment and create the future. All work together, and while only one team member can score the goal, if it happens it was, indeed, a group effort. A team's accomplishment. Likewise, when it came to the production of food in agricultural societies, when it came to the building of structures, to the securing of roads, the rearing of children, the tending of animals, the protection of the group, it was all a team effort. If one fails we all fail. If one succeeds, we all succeed. We did not have employment, we did not look for work. We were the employment, the work itself, the victory or the failure.
This is why when needed, lords worked in the fields as much as their serfs cooperated with the defense of the village. It's the reason why men and women participated in the rearing of children, why women labored under the sun or conspired in the court as much as any man and in their own little ways. Because Pre-modern societies have mechanical solidarity and because they see themselves as part of a whole, sharing their collective consciousness. This does not mean there were no given roles. Quite the opposite, the roles in these societies were so strict precisely because of it. A defender cannot simply stand out of line and become a striker, lest the entire team crumbles in disarray. The pieces on the board were inalterable because the individual members did not matter. The king or queen themselves were not figures of unique quality whose will had to be followed and who we served blindly or else. Rather, they were servants of the highest force in all societies, the collective will itself. They were guided by the divine authority of this unconscious will, forged out of foundational epics and moral (religious) baselines, and with one purpose: the group's endurance and fertility. The deviant behavior of individuality was more scrutinized and considered to be even more bizarre and wicked the higher you went up the hierarchical pyramid. This is where the tales of corrupt kings become, not melodrama, but moral teaching.
So let's return to 19th-century England to see what happened when machines started replacing team members in droves for the first time. When individuals suddenly started making so much wealth they could preserve their individuality and still be needed by the group. This is an example of how mechanical solidarity starts to falter the harder and the fastest, giving way to organic solidarity, a sense of interdependence to one another that finally allows for diversity of thought (the breaking of the collective consciousness), and individuality as a way to survive. When ordinary men were left without a spot in the team, when they were cast from fenced plots of land (enclosures and the enclosure act), and started to wander about the streets. What was the initial response to the sight of these wandering men who had nothing to do? No way to contribute? They were deemed ill. It was thought that not having a job, being unemployed, was a disease of the heart, a malady of the mind and the spirit. Criticized for their inherent failure, these men were cast aside, only to be recognized over time as more and more of them started crowding the enclosures, begging for a piece of the commons where to sow their seed, or a spot in the factories, where to toil like the rest. These men would engross the lines of the alcohol epidemic that soon plagued these towns and cities, and would resort to thievery and spousal abuse as a means to cope with their society's sudden rejection. They would become the "failed man" we scorn in our deeply entrenched aporophobia (fear of poverty and the poor), and the first indications that individuality was finally present and that those who were afraid of this sickness would use to scream "they're taking our jobs!"
That scene in The Rings of Power is misplaced, not because the issue presented does not matter, but because it destroys the illusion that Numenor is a pre-modern society and that they are a team, a group that shares a uniquely valuable and powerful collective will. It destroys the notion we all have inside our sociological psyches that jobs and having a job is a modern construct and that once, not too long ago, we had a place in our communities. Now, this is not to say that individuality only exists post-industry. It's not to say people were not individualistic in pre-modern societies or that the sense of being an individual entity is something recent and common only to us. The stories we find in the dramas of history, the stories of envy and deceit, of betrayal and spiraling emotions remain true to some level. Hollywood is not failing out of willful negligence but rather from a miscomprehension of history and where we come from. Who we were before the world changed so much so fast.
So what can you do as a writer? My advice is to preserve the spirit of the collective consciousness natural to pre-modern societies and show individuality for what it is, the behavior of the gifted or the insane. Distinguish the modern conditions of interdependence as the only means through which individuality can be allowed in a society without reproach. Not that individuals in medieval times would not have temperaments, dreams, and hopes, nor that they would not strive to be that unique defining spirit, but that an event of such nature would meet a reaction from the community, either a call to action or a restraining force that whispers, we need you here and doing this. Restrain from seeing the elites as completely separated from the communal, and never allow yourself to marginalize entire groups in pre-modern societies. Remember that having a role to play was not a form of lesser existence but a required and blessed effort respected and needed by all. Identify those characters that break these bonds of solidarity as unique in temperament and following peculiar roads of self-exile from their group. These can be tyrant kings, forlorn peasants who dream of travel, and defiant knights who wish to escalate regardless of the ruin they might bring to their communities.
October 2, 2022
My Take on Rings of Power (first 5 Episodes)
It may be too soon to say, but as of its fifth episode, The Rings of Power is well produced... but you won't remember it. You will remember some things about it. The controversy, the banter, the insults from one side or the other. You will remember the actors (and their characters), and the agendas in-show and out. But not the story. It seems like this tale, shown to us in magnificent billion-dollar visuals and sound design, is worth more symbolically (as an ideological pillar and a statement of financial power) than in its own right as a fantasy-inspired story that needed to be told. And while I tend to dislike visually over-produced media with colors that seem too bright and dialogue that seems too precise (lacking an organic feel to it or a sense of gravitas), the show's problems transcend its presentation.
The issues I have are not the casting of racially diverse actors or the moments of female empowerment that are both well earned but also, at times, rather cheap. Instead, the story fails, so far, in the way it's told. I may be out of line when I say that, just because something is Tolkien-related, doesn't mean it's good. Also, I'm sure too few will gasp and wince when I say that seeing the billion-dollar budget on every take is irrelevant and that dazzling our senses does not mean a story is good or worthwhile. The fact of the matter is, high-quality visuals are expected by now and remain the bare minimum audiences are hoping to see on their screens. This may be unfair, but it's true. It's part of what producing on the elite tiers of audio-visual entertainment must entail; incredible cinematography, great sound design, high-quality editing, etc. This show lifts these two banners proudly. It screams "look everyone, this is Tolkien! This is high-budget! High budget Tolkien once again and on your home screens!" More so, the show seems to whisper and, at times, cry out loud "this is important! This is a milestone!" And it is. No doubt about it. On all counts the show is right in telling us of its importance. After all, we did crave more high-quality, high-budget Tolkien. We also want our cultural milestones to matter and be relevant to our time.
So let's be fair and give the show the points it deserves.
This is indeed a milestone, and a good one, for never in our history has so much money been given to art and to the genre of fantasy. We may imagine pre-modern societies pouring their sweat and blood into the creation of pyramids and cathedrals, great statues, murals, and paintings, but never merely for the art and never solely for the genre of fantasy. In their mythos it was neither art nor fantasy, not a genre but a dimension of their reality, the spiritual worth of the world brought to its physical form in the great deeds of our ancestors. The Rings of Power is art. Merely art. And that's the beauty of it. It's an aesthetic experience that speaks in the tongue of our current zeitgeist and that accounts, like a memory in our collective minds, for historical realities, wants, and wishes. Most importantly, it will account for what we were doing and enjoying (or not) as a society back in the 2020s. What gave us respite and a moment's solace in what we have been, what we are, and where we want to go from here. The show, like all pieces of art made in this time, is a part of our deeper voice, the fragment of us that whispers of transcendence, of inner reflection, of introspection, and growth. Beauty, like Dostoievsky so well put, will save the world, and art, being the minuscule nodes upon which beauty is made by us rather than the cosmos, might be where we ought to place our hopes for a better future.
And that's my greatest concern about The Rings of Power and all the shows that so lately plague our screens and haunt our times of leisure. It tries to be beautiful. It tries to be art that can elate us and inspire us, and then forgets the type of art it should be. The show is not a painting or a statue, not a monolith or a great scroll in the skies. It's not a visual experience. It's not a song or a great concert of melodic wonder. It's neither of those things because it's both. It's a story. And as a story it seems lost and uninspired. Here's where watching the series came with constant disappointment. The story itself, for all its worth as the confluence of both cultural legacies as powerful and significant as Tolkien's and what all the money in the world can buy, is poorly written. It's based on coincidences and melodramatic moments, awesome vistas that soon become another flavor too sweet, and a score that, for all my love of OSTs, seems to simply vanish seconds after each of the violin's notes. It's unnecessary to delve into the deeper problems of the narrative and how it's jaded by the use of green screen, as when two elves travel cross-country to simply turn the corner of a hill and reach Khazad-Dum. No luggage, no servants, no horses or chariots, no struggle. I have been known to take more stuff on my journey to the grocery store. It's also unnecessary to question the coincidences or the misplaced slapstick comedy and incoherent fighting sequences, like when Galadriel faces Numenoreans as a petulant child would, rather than how a wise millenial swordmaster who actually wishes to teach his inferiors would.
The story that is there, the one we can see, is discernible only behind mists of supposed beauty that miscomprehends pre-modern societies and their art. It's behind dialogues that misrepresent the very characters that speak it. After five episodes of a show with all things going for it, all I can say is, this is not the foundational society of the Anglo-germanic tradition, with its fascinating pre-modern structure and belief systems and the beauty of its subtle yet intricate art. It's not the origin story of ancestral characters that contain centuries in one mind and breath; that have seen the great trees grow and wither and die, and that are all that humans wish to be, permanent. It's not a tale of them, of these great mythical people who could mold the earth to cities and share an existence with the oldest things. It is, and I'm sorry to say it, a story about us. And in this regard, in telling a story about who we try to be today, The Rings of Power finds its greatest triumphs. Perhaps this is the echo of our current zeitgeist, the soul of our memetic legacy. That we are lost. Lost in who we are and how we should look to others. That we are lost in where we come from and where we want to go. That we have been left forlorn in what we want on our screens and how it should look and feel. And while this might be where this show shines the most, in showing us this fault, it's not where it should. Not as art. Not as beauty. Not as a story.
But there are reasons for this.
I think that I, like most inheritors of recent colonial territories, understand this show's pain. I can almost feel the anguish in its make, in its textures. Here we must speak of how The Rings of Power has been talked about more regarding its representation than its story. Because if it's going to be a story about us and not Tolkien's mythos of his own people, then we need to understand why.
It might seem like it doesn't matter, like coherence in adaptation is more important and that representation should begin locally, in its foundations. It's been said that if POCs want representation they should tell their own stories, their magnificent and fascinating foundational epics. And it's true. But what about the others? What about those who are neither here nor there? The Americas are a wonderful place to analyze historically precisely because its processes are so recent. Every civilization that exists today does so over the shoulders (or ruins) of another. But never as recently and as spectacularly fast as in the case of the Americas. Many races, belief systems, cultures, and peoples live here, and only a tiny minority are endemic. Some would say none are endemic, since even native-Americans came here merely a few tens of thousands of years ago. So who is from here and what is their culture? Is it European? Christian? British? Herein lies the issue, doesn't it? For what is the culture of one who has been stripped of his ancestor's culture and given another? Is it the one that was or the one that is? Do we want them to be assimilated, so as to become invisible, or not? If the first, then why complain when they make part of our culture as our culture makes part of them? If the second, then why become angry when they don't speak our language or follow our traditions to the point?
This is an important distinction because if POCs are not merely different members of our communities but actual members of our communities, then they are also participants in our cultures and makers of it. They not only find themselves in the memetic legacies of a shared history but are makers of that memetic legacy. Tolkien himself must have known this for he fought, maybe not alongside, but surely in the same team as millions of POC members of the United Kingdom and its global empire. And while some members of our current cultures may find divergences in shared histories some time 200 or 300 years ago, as far as their recent histories entail, the whitest brit is as worthy of Tolkien's mythos as the darkest. After all, they are both Christian/Catholic, both speak English, both share land and the issues of that land, both are on the same team, for good or bad. This is their modern reality. The sociological contradiction, which stems from what Emile Durkheim described as mechanical solidarity, is at the root of The Rings of Power's issues. The show focuses, not on telling us a story, but on displaying the contradictions of our time; that we want a return to our mechanical solidarities in which similitude and the collective unconscious was guide, but also wish for the complete assimilation of what used to be entirely different. In a way, we want the cake of colonialism and to eat it too.
I can only hope the story of Tolkien's first age will eventually unravel and the issues here presented will fade, allowing it to become something worth every minute. After all, as said before, never in history have art and the fantasy genre been as important. Never has such an effort been made for their graces. We who love fantasy would do well in remembering that the billionaire behind this show and the agendas that struggle for a crown over its glory or corpse are completely secondary. That as members of memetic societies we are bound to a future we create and that we can push our differences aside and demand, not that this art be political or not, but that it's good. That the story is well written and well told. That it takes us into a wondrous journey and makes us live on the edge of tears. Because a century from now the zeitgeist will change, but not the story told. Not the art itself. Fantasy needs this kind of heart, this kind of passion. If there's to be discussions about representation and POC elves, let them be secondary. If there's to be criticisms of billionaires and what they can do and should do, keep them in other places and moments. And if there's to be fantasy in our world, let it be for the glory of our kind, now and forever, for the guidance of our children and the elation of our spirits. Let it be as well told as we know we can tell them. Let them be art, so that beauty can continue to change our world for the better.
October 1, 2022
The Atlas of Dreams Book 1: Sins of the Maker
“So begins the story of the cosmic hunt. Of how we tried to kill the beast and stop the sun from dying out, and of how we learned that those who wish to make light must accept burning things up.”
This is a tale of genetic and memetic legacies in the distant future we instinctively all dread. The Atlas of Dreams follows Sara, a young girl with historically unequaled intellectual capacities, as she is proclaimed the thirty-fourth incarnation of God, a desperate rite for a people in close proximity to the universe's impending heat death. Forced to deal with a struggling world as well as the chaos inside herself, she gains allies and foes and seeks the means to face her people's destiny, as well as uncover the truths behind mysterious forces operating in her world.
The Atlas of Dreams is a Latin American science fantasy epic adventure in which humanity strives to preserve the one thing that will always elude us, time itself.
Buy it on Amazon by clicking here.
Book 1: Sins of the Maker (released)
Book 2: The Weight of Our Crimes (editing process)
Book 3: Those who Bear Fangs at God (being written now)
Book 4: The Wings of Our kindness
Book 5: Children of Ends
You might feel like I feel when joy overwhelms me and I know I'm truly happy. You may feel a certain dread, a great fear that looms where happiness lives as if it were envious of it. Hateful. It is the fear that life, in such a state of ecstasy, will one day end. Burdened by this sense of our ultimate, unavoidable fate, we face the anguish and anxiety of death. We thus shy from our own happiness, if only to return to a state in which what will inevitably be lost is not worth the suffering. And so we suffer. The paradox of the living and aware is that we long only to live and know only that we will die. This existential dread is followed by a denial of death which leads us to believe what cannot bore evidence. We believe in ourselves as protagonists of existence, and worthy above all. We believe natural laws will shift and change for our benefit and that our fears are void since a great love in the sky nurtures us and will grant us that eternal wish we all share; to be eternal. We believe in God, not the being but the state, the dimension of endless love upon which we will one day live. But this too, despite its force, will never suffice. Not when the universe grows cold and the stars dim, and the heat death, not of us but the universe, is within sight. Then, no myth or belief will suffice. The Atlas of Dreams is a story about the ways in which humanity faces this time; where we place our hopes as the universe dims, who we look at for solace, who we fight for and why. It is a tale of yearning and sorrows and the transcendence of the human will in the face of time's end. For we do not fear our death as much as the death of time. We do not dread our end as we dread the end itself. But what if something could be done? What would be the sacrifices? The cost of a new beginning and a second breath for mankind and all the creatures of our world? Would we be willing to pay it?
Buy it on Amazon by clicking here.
September 28, 2022
An interesting little video on one of my previous works: Eoris Essence
Hello everyone, just wanted to let you know I once worked as the lead creator of Eoris Essence, a tabletop roleplaying game about the death of God in a high-fantasy, high-magic fantasy setting. The game didn't do very well financially but was well received in other regards. Because I don't like talking up something I made, here's a video I casually found today about the game from someone who actually was lucky enough to get a copy. (by the way, all physical copies had to be destroyed because we lacked the financial muscle to keep them in storage in the US).
September 26, 2022
Timeframes and change over time: an event in the Timeline of Choice.
Following on the theme of choosing historical timeframes that, like characters, have an identifiable arch, this post will explore one historical event and how it can relate to the Timeline of Choice below:
Timeline of Choice
The holocaust: A systemic, government-directed and government-sponsored long-term annihilation initiative of the Jewish, communists, Roma, interior intelligentsia, homosexuals, trade unionists, so called "brown and dark races" and mentally and physically disabled people and culture in the entirety of the expansive German Empire. Expressed in the Timeline of Choice we identify, firstly, the impact of a memetic legacy that cemented the basis of the German ideal of a nation in three historical echoes. By calling his rule the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler, leader of the political movement National Socialism of Germany (Nationalsozialismus), was setting eyes and hearts on the glories of a memetic past that could be idealized and therefore instrumentalized. The memetic potential was there for him to use, to potentialize and weaponise. It could be said the movement itself –what led the nazis into power– began, not with Hitler, but with the first historical Reich (the Holy Roman Empire) or the first modern version of it, (the recent unification of the German Republic), and was echoed into motion by the Second Reich (Bismark's German Empire), or the original Third Reich as proposed by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck (the meeting of left and right extremes in the Weimar Republic). This underlying current of events may even suggest the rise of nazism and the consequent holocaust as endemic to the historical process and thus inevitable. But this is not so. While all societies, especially those with longer known histories that can accrue harsher tensions are prone to this, it was the specific events of the timeframe between 1910 to 1940 what created the conditions for such a radical policy as was the Final Solution (which led to The Holocaust). In terms of choosing this Timeframe, a writer may identify a series of subsequent consequences, cause that lead to events that lead to causes, which formed in essence and form the Holocaust itself. Let us now examine the Timeline of Choices and its elements to see exactly how these played out during the timeframe. The Genetic Legacy, in this case the racial purity desired by the German governmental body, derived from the pre-modern notion of mechanical solidarity which defined the German people in opposition to a globalizing world that had failed them and rejected them (see WW1 and the Treaty of Versaille). The natural response to a globalising impetus that demonised the German people after the fatality and tragedy of The Great War was to withdraw into common ground. In this case the common ground of the unchanging and once prosperous genetic legacy of being Aryan (an interesting mistake, given that Aryans are originally those who came from modern-day Iran/persia and who claim an even more successful and potentialised memetic legacy as the originators of civilisation and the first speakers of Indo-European tongues).
In their relation to nature, the time period itself shows constant radical change. It is easy to imagine that, with all that was changing in terms of their understanding of nature and their relationship to nature, the germans of the time must have felt close to being able to define and redefine every element of the world around them. They claimed the skies in the 1910s by flying and merely thirty years later had conquered the atom.
In their type of solidarity it is clear, especially given the power of an event such as The Holocaust, that a regression into pre-modern ideals of mechanic relationships was radicalised to a point of harmful reactions to an unwanted state of perceived invasion (or social poisoning) from the so-called Other. In this case, solidary to the German "aryan" overwhelmed all relationships to the point in which anger and resentment towards the invaders became the only moral choice. Standing in solidarity to the germans became the only way to be a german. This redefined their moral foundations as well, making it moral, not just necessary, to oppress the Jews, communists, homosexuals, Roma people, trade unionists etc.
September 25, 2022
Sins of the Maker: Editorial Review
Sins of the Maker attempts to explore the fissures that exist in our worldviews regarding God and its importance to human societies. Some long to live in a world where we are intrinsically loved just by being who we are. Others are unable to cradle the idea of a superior being that watches over us, a benevolent tyrant at best, a horrible executioner at worst. Growing up I loved my parents and I feared them. I wanted to be like them and I wanted them to feel proud of me. I was terrified of failing them. Yet, for all that I was, my father died before I could do any of those things that seemed so important. He never got to read my books or meet the love of my life. He won't seem e get married, will never meet my children, and will be absent on the day of my funeral, in both form and, somewhat, memory. His death, somehow, created in me the drive to finally act, to finally be like him and see him proud if only in the version of him that now lives in me. I wrote The Atlas of Dreams, in part, as a means to find meaning in death and ultimate nothingness. More than death itself, this book was written to celebrate the harsh reality that it is not only death we fear, but the death of others and, most of all, of our universe. If we can live on in our children and our deeds, if we can become the best thing we can ever be, a memory, then all is threatened by that unavoidable moment when cosmic heat death will make life impossible. When time itself may compress and wane... and stop. The most famous human will be forgotten, our greatest deeds will mean nothing. It shall be as if it never was. This is the greatest sin of our maker, to give us life and make us witnesses of its frailty. Of its end.
And so I wrote The Atlas of Dreams and chose Sins of the Maker to be the title of its first episode.
This book has many characters and all of them have issues with their makers; their mothers, their fathers, their God, their ideas and their beliefs. And everyone, from the incarnation of God, to the warrior, the boy, the atheist, the one who has everything and the one who has lost it all, they all suffer and fight with the clear notion that the Sins of their Makers define them. That these errors of the past were indeed errors. That they were crimes against us... against me. I say this because I felt, for a long time, that my relationship with my father was an error of time. That it was wasted in petty fights and minuscule victories I would trade in an instant. I found now, after having written the book, that his legacy, memetic as it is, was the gift itself and not the sin. That there are no Sins of the Maker, but just beautiful elements that fashion us in our minds. Whatever he did, whatever his life was, my father is not to blame for me in any but for the good that remains. So it is for the protagonists of The Atlas of Dreams. They realize, slowly, how the sin is not the error but the lesson, the victory over time. They learn to find hope in themselves and the memories handed to them by a species that desperately wants to be.
So, I guess, Sins of the Maker is a story of love and hope for those who made us and who we blame so often for our crimes. It is but a first step, the first book in five that attempts to tell the story of humanity from the heart out. It is followed by book 2, The Weight of our Crimes, book 3, Those who Bear Fangs at God, book 4, The Wings of Our Kindness, and Book 5, an epilogue for the story, Children of Ends.
I hope you enjoy it.
Daniel Cuervonegro.
September 22, 2022
History & Fantasy for Writers: The Purpose of Timeframes in History 1.1
The purpose of this post, thus, is to shed some light on how to distill a measure of realism by taking a step away from the symbolic and memetic acumen of our history. The process of doing so, if done correctly and with honesty, will not only give weight and worth to the stories being told. It may also guide you into new realms of understanding with which to more masterfully imagine, envision, outline, and structure your stories.
Choosing an Era is not choosing a timeframe:The first thing you must remember is that beginning your story in a medieval European setting, for example, means nothing to a historian. Which means it should mean nothing to you as well. As with most eras in our history, the variation across centuries is immense, and the changes that happened were as marked then as they are today in regions of interest like cities and centers of power. When you decide on a specific era and location for your setting, be it directly (on Earth as a historical parallel) or indirectly (in a fantasy setting of your own creation), the specific timeframe is more important. The timeline of choice will determine one base element of your setting that will remain unchanged and four overarching elements that will change through time (in the short, medium, and long run).
Stages of change and permanence in TimeframesUnchanging Element:The Memetic Legacy (like our genetic legacy) is a given set of blueprints that determine our constitution. In this case, not our genetic constitution (body) but our memetic constitution (mind). The meme, like the gene, is the unit of determining factors, and tends to change or be altered only after vasts amounts of information are added to the pool over extended periods of time. Because this is the nature of memetic legacies, societies may change drastically and still preserve basic and foundational elements of their original selves. Picture a futuristic Asia as opposed to a futuristic Latin America. For this reason, unless your story spans various centuries or millennia, the overarching memetic legacy will remain unaltered during a given time frame. This establishes a series of important things to take into account:Culture is ever-changing and yet static. It is beholden to its origins as it adapts itself to permanent change. The spirit of culture remains as its cosmetics are altered over millennia.Language is altered as it mixes and entwines, but the roots remain like the marrow of bone.Language is the memetic pillar upon which expansion, conquest, growth, and dominance is established. It changes, albeit slowly, and is carrier of tradition, belief, and justice systems.Justice systems are grounded on the moral basis of the memetic legacy.The moral basis of the memetic legacy is determined by the values/morals of foundational myths.Myth and symbolic meaning of the imagined past is the greater shaper of memetic legacies,
Changing Elements:Genetic Legacies: tend to remain unaltered in pre-modern societies and to change very quickly in modern societies. Genetic legacies are subject to rapid change only to the mixing of races which occurs when societies modernize and allow for instances of interdependence to occur. An example of this in the recent past is the Roman Republic and Empire, where race was known to be the tongue of the people rather than their skin color, and where slaves were allowed into the society regardless of race (or tongue), because of the interdependent relationship established between their labor and the Republic's needs. It's important to note that slaves were never citizens nor Romans per se, and that the patricians (higher classes) rarely mingled with other races (tongues) as they claimed direct ancestry to divinity. In a given timeframe of, say, a hundred years, Genetic Legacies can change dynamically, especially if there is also sudden change in moral foundations, the type of solidarity and the relation to nature the group has. As shown in the diagram, genetic legacies tend to change gradually, then aggressively. In this stage the intermixing of races is fast enough to happen between generations. This, of course, brings about a reaction from the most mechanical aspect of society (pre-modern), which lead to a regression in which races tend to re-group and return to a state of xeno and race-related phobia. The change, however, has been to great at this point and society will stabilize at a given point which can, over time, become a new mechanic status quo. In this state, even modern societies which are indifferent to race mixing may become averse of societies that are not actively mixing or that do no show the level of diversity they consider moral. To change this stability is to once more challenge the state of things over a new timeframe that is entirely new or different from the first.
Relation to Nature: pertains more specifically to the knowledge of the environment the group has. This includes technological discoveries or inventions, which can change extremely fast. In some cases we can see technologies that alter the way societies view and use the world, others and themselves. Relation to nature also determines the ways in which the group behaves in communion with their environment, which includes neighboring groups and animals/plants. As with Genetic Legacies, relation to nature shows gradual change over time that can accumulate latent potentials and bring about aggressive change. Often, these aggressive changes will continue to grow. On occasion, for example with something like steel or the atomic energy, a cultural response is warranted and there's a regression that limits its use. In the case of steel we see the cultures of chivalry and bushido, wherein the swordmaster limits himself, avoiding the indiscriminate use of the sword to usurp the freedoms of others. In the case of the atomic energy, we see the MAD policy (Mutually Assured Destruction) and the subsequent growth of nuclear disarmament policies in the UN and the global community. All in all, as time goes by in your story discoveries should be made that radically alter the way characters relate to nature, more or less following an increasing speed of change. Alteration in the way humans relate to nature is both exponential (meaning the more it is altered the faster ill will be altered in the future) and deeply influential (meaning it affects other elements of change more than any other category). For example, a departure from our mythical understanding of nature which may occur during early Renaissance Europe or better yet during the Enlightenment, leads to social upheavals, distancing with mythic pillars (like the church) and pre-modern social requisites like the monarchy. Our relation to nature alters the way we think about the world in general and thus guides us in or out of a more realistic/scientific understanding of phenomena. The closer to reality our relation to nature is, the more the group will atomize and individuality will emerge. This tends to happen because a separation from the historical myths that unite us, when replaced with cold harsh truths, brings great personal anxiety to the individual that no longer find respite. This existential anxiety is made stronger by the ever-growing notion that the living exist in paradox, at once craving endless life yet having the one characteristic necessary for death, which is being alive.
Type of Solidarity: determines if the group is still mechanical (basing its sense of unity on visual and cultural markers) or organic (basing its sense of unity in interdependence to one another). This element is the result of the confluence of both Genetic Legacies and our Relation to Nature changing over time. As the effect of such causes, the type of solidarity (from pre-modern to modern to post modern) should be the guiding wind that distinguishes your story and the passage of time within a given timeframe. While it is possible to have pre-modern societies that are genetically diverse (usually a key modern trait), it is impossible to have pre-modern societies that value individualism and inter-dependence or that see value in restorative justice rather than retributive. Given these limitations, understanding Pre-modern and Modern solidarities is fundamental (see History & Fantasy for Writers #2 of this blog). The essential elements of one society or another and the ways in which the passage of time may affect these societies may be the most prevalent and enduring idea you must present in your narrative. The type of solidarity in a given society will determine the way they see themselves and others, their understanding and relation to nature, the way their beliefs are shaped or translated and the way they express themselves through their values. Morality, thus, emerges not just from the foundational mythos and history of a group but also by its day-today behaviors to one another. The type of solidarity, thus, determines the value system, the moral basis, the system of justice, and the sense of direction (cyclical or directed) of a group. Although change in the type of solidarity may seem gradual (and they are often gradual) quick alterations in genetic legacies and relations to nature can spur a sudden change. The best example of this is the industrial Revolution, wherein a timeframe of merely 100 years (1750 to 1850), life in towns of England had changed dramatically with new phenomena emerging such as alcoholism and unemployment (seen by many as a mental disease rather than the fallout of economic processes). Like with the other elements, the Type of Solidarity will have a gradual and then an aggressive change. The aggressive change, experienced for example in contemporary society, will result in cultural and social pushback from the most traditional elements of a group. This will bring about a form of regression that will eventually naturalize and stabilize. In the case of a change from the Pre-modern to Modern, the modern man cannot go back to being Pre-modern, but he can perpetuate traditions in an emulation of what once was, defending these traditions for the worth they once bore rather than the practical effects they can no longer offer. In the case of a Modern society moving into a Post-modern, the result is similar, with groups who long for the unity of the Pre-modern creating their alternate sub-cultures, which attempt to replace the void of what was lost in order to fight the existential anxiety natural to an intelligent species.
Moral Foundations: are the basis of day-to-day activity within a society. The reasons why we would offer our help to others or deny it; why we would save money or give it away; why we would fight for our nation or only for ourselves; why we would feel empathy to some and not to others. It is the confluence of all changes over time, the genetic legacies being altered by intermingling of races or groups, our relation to nature changing by historical events and discoveries, our change in the solidarity we offer to one another. Moral foundations dictate our willingness to see a king beheaded and find it moral, to pursue warfare and find it moral, to kill another and find it moral... or to find morality only in restraint. It is a guide that is created by everything we are and everything that happens. It is also, informed and guided by the Memetic Legacies of our groups and as such vulnerable to both immediate radical change and regressions. In your stories, this is presented as the characters that have moral arcs, finding reasons to love others that in prior circumstances they should have hated. Moral foundations are also where most writers struggle both in the way they present their protagonists and the way they formulate their character's arcs. If you see a movie or read a book with a character that seems to have a moral foundation that seems out of place (a queen that wants to liberate her serfs from serfdom or a knight that fights for another group with no hesitation because "it's the right thing") you're encountering a fault in the understanding of Moral Foundations. For the medieval knight it was not moral to spare an infidel. Quite the opposite. It was moral only to kill him. For the Japanese that came into Nanjing in 1937 it was moral to humiliate, torture, and behead their rivals. Likewise, for the nazis it was moral to eradicate the world of Jews. The moral foundations of these peoples, while exemplary pre-modern, are also what distinguishes them from each other and from themselves in their own extended timeline. In these cases, the crusader, the Japanese soldier, the nazi, are all the result of an aggressive moral change that happens during a short period of time (decades in this cases) and that feeds on latent potentials of pre-modernity within these societies. It instrumentalizes the most vicious aspects of the group in a form of retributive justice that seeks cleansing in a faulty and misguided way. These societies, suddenly turning so violent to others, exemplarise a moral foundations change that is extremely aggressive and that, at least for a little while, created a sense of moral duty to the group that led ordinary men to do heinous acts. Like with all Elements of change, gradual moral foundation change can become suddenly aggressive (crusaders, Japanese soldiers, nazis), and then suffer a form of regression in which the radical elements are stripped away and a new universalisable moral foundation is re-established. The characterization of a people emerges from the seed of moral foundation and so must also be expressed in the reality of a fictional story. What matters here is that historical reality dictates a constant cycle of gradual, aggressive, regressive and stabilizing forces in which moral foundations are deformed and reformed.
Like your characters, your setting must also go through the process of change and face the cycle. This is where the adoption of an era like the European middle ages is simply not enough. Studying specific moments of history will shed light on the ways these elements change and should change in your novels.
History & Fantasy for Writers #3
The purpose of this post, thus, is to shed some light on how to distill a measure of realism by taking a step away from the symbolic and memetic acumen of our history. The process of doing so, if done correctly and with honesty, will not only give weight and worth to the stories being told. It may also guide you into new realms of understanding with which to more masterfully imagine, envision, outline, and structure your stories.
Choosing an Era is not choosing a timeframe:The first thing you must remember is that beginning your story in a medieval European setting, for example, means nothing to a historian. Which means it should mean nothing to you as well. As with most eras in our history, the variation across centuries is immense, and the changes that happened were as marked then as they are today in regions of interest like cities and centers of power. When you decide on a specific era and location for your setting, be it directly (on Earth as a historical parallel) or indirectly (in a fantasy setting of your own creation), the specific timeframe is more important. The timeline of choice will determine one base element of your setting that will remain unchanged and four overarching elements that will change through time (in the short, medium, and long run).
Stages of change and permanence in TimeframesUnchanging Element:The Memetic Legacy (like our genetic legacy) is a given set of blueprints that determine our constitution. In this case, not our genetic constitution (body) but our memetic constitution (mind). The meme, like the gene, is the unit of determining factors, and tends to change or be altered only after vasts amounts of information are added to the pool over extended periods of time. Because this is the nature of memetic legacies, societies may change drastically and still preserve basic and foundational elements of their original selves. Picture a futuristic Asia as opposed to a futuristic Latin America. For this reason, unless your story spans various centuries or millennia, the overarching memetic legacy will remain unaltered during a given time frame. This establishes a series of important things to take into account:Culture is ever-changing and yet static. It is beholden to its origins as it adapts itself to permanent change. The spirit of culture remains as its cosmetics are altered over millennia.Language is altered as it mixes and entwines, but the roots remain like the marrow of bone.Language is the memetic pillar upon which expansion, conquest, growth, and dominance is established. It changes, albeit slowly, and is carrier of tradition, belief, and justice systems.Justice systems are grounded on the moral basis of the memetic legacy.The moral basis of the memetic legacy is determined by the values/morals of foundational myths.Myth and symbolic meaning of the imagined past is the greater shaper of memetic legacies,
Changing Elements:Genetic Legacies: tend to remain unaltered in pre-modern societies and to change very quickly in modern societies. Genetic legacies are subject to rapid change only to the mixing of races which occurs when societies modernize and allow for instances of interdependence to occur. An example of this in the recent past is the Roman Republic and Empire, where race was known to be the tongue of the people rather than their skin color, and where slaves were allowed into the society regardless of race (or tongue), because of the interdependent relationship established between their labor and the Republic's needs. It's important to note that slaves were never citizens nor Romans per se, and that the patricians (higher classes) rarely mingled with other races (tongues) as they claimed direct ancestry to divinity. In a given timeframe of, say, a hundred years, Genetic Legacies can change dynamically, especially if there is also sudden change in moral foundations, the type of solidarity and the relation to nature the group has. As shown in the diagram, genetic legacies tend to change gradually, then aggressively. In this stage the intermixing of races is fast enough to happen between generations. This, of course, brings about a reaction from the most mechanical aspect of society (pre-modern), which lead to a regression in which races tend to re-group and return to a state of xeno and race-related phobia. The change, however, has been to great at this point and society will stabilize at a given point which can, over time, become a new mechanic status quo. In this state, even modern societies which are indifferent to race mixing may become averse of societies that are not actively mixing or that do no show the level of diversity they consider moral. To change this stability is to once more challenge the state of things over a new timeframe that is entirely new or different from the first.
Relation to Nature: pertains more specifically to the knowledge of the environment the group has. This includes technological discoveries or inventions, which can change extremely fast. In some cases we can see technologies that alter the way societies view and use the world, others and themselves. Relation to nature also determines the ways in which the group behaves in communion with their environment, which includes neighboring groups and animals/plants. As with Genetic Legacies, relation to nature shows gradual change over time that can accumulate latent potentials and bring about aggressive change. Often, these aggressive changes will continue to grow. On occasion, for example with something like steel or the atomic energy, a cultural response is warranted and there's a regression that limits its use. In the case of steel we see the cultures of chivalry and bushido, wherein the swordmaster limits himself, avoiding the indiscriminate use of the sword to usurp the freedoms of others. In the case of the atomic energy, we see the MAD policy (Mutually Assured Destruction) and the subsequent growth of nuclear disarmament policies in the UN and the global community. All in all, as time goes by in your story discoveries should be made that radically alter the way characters relate to nature, more or less following an increasing speed of change. Alteration in the way humans relate to nature is both exponential (meaning the more it is altered the faster ill will be altered in the future) and deeply influential (meaning it affects other elements of change more than any other category). For example, a departure from our mythical understanding of nature which may occur during early Renaissance Europe or better yet during the Enlightenment, leads to social upheavals, distancing with mythic pillars (like the church) and pre-modern social requisites like the monarchy. Our relation to nature alters the way we think about the world in general and thus guides us in or out of a more realistic/scientific understanding of phenomena. The closer to reality our relation to nature is, the more the group will atomize and individuality will emerge. This tends to happen because a separation from the historical myths that unite us, when replaced with cold harsh truths, brings great personal anxiety to the individual that no longer find respite. This existential anxiety is made stronger by the ever-growing notion that the living exist in paradox, at once craving endless life yet having the one characteristic necessary for death, which is being alive.
Type of Solidarity: determines if the group is still mechanical (basing its sense of unity on visual and cultural markers) or organic (basing its sense of unity in interdependence to one another). This element is the result of the confluence of both Genetic Legacies and our Relation to Nature changing over time. As the effect of such causes, the type of solidarity (from pre-modern to modern to post modern) should be the guiding wind that distinguishes your story and the passage of time within a given timeframe. While it is possible to have pre-modern societies that are genetically diverse (usually a key modern trait), it is impossible to have pre-modern societies that value individualism and inter-dependence or that see value in restorative justice rather than retributive. Given these limitations, understanding Pre-modern and Modern solidarities is fundamental (see History & Fantasy for Writers #2 of this blog). The essential elements of one society or another and the ways in which the passage of time may affect these societies may be the most prevalent and enduring idea you must present in your narrative. The type of solidarity in a given society will determine the way they see themselves and others, their understanding and relation to nature, the way their beliefs are shaped or translated and the way they express themselves through their values. Morality, thus, emerges not just from the foundational mythos and history of a group but also by its day-today behaviors to one another. The type of solidarity, thus, determines the value system, the moral basis, the system of justice, and the sense of direction (cyclical or directed) of a group. Although change in the type of solidarity may seem gradual (and they are often gradual) quick alterations in genetic legacies and relations to nature can spur a sudden change. The best example of this is the industrial Revolution, wherein a timeframe of merely 100 years (1750 to 1850), life in towns of England had changed dramatically with new phenomena emerging such as alcoholism and unemployment (seen by many as a mental disease rather than the fallout of economic processes). Like with the other elements, the Type of Solidarity will have a gradual and then an aggressive change. The aggressive change, experienced for example in contemporary society, will result in cultural and social pushback from the most traditional elements of a group. This will bring about a form of regression that will eventually naturalize and stabilize. In the case of a change from the Pre-modern to Modern, the modern man cannot go back to being Pre-modern, but he can perpetuate traditions in an emulation of what once was, defending these traditions for the worth they once bore rather than the practical effects they can no longer offer. In the case of a Modern society moving into a Post-modern, the result is similar, with groups who long for the unity of the Pre-modern creating their alternate sub-cultures, which attempt to replace the void of what was lost in order to fight the existential anxiety natural to an intelligent species.
Moral Foundations: are the basis of day-to-day activity within a society. The reasons why we would offer our help to others or deny it; why we would save money or give it away; why we would fight for our nation or only for ourselves; why we would feel empathy to some and not to others. It is the confluence of all changes over time, the genetic legacies being altered by intermingling of races or groups, our relation to nature changing by historical events and discoveries, our change in the solidarity we offer to one another. Moral foundations dictate our willingness to see a king beheaded and find it moral, to pursue warfare and find it moral, to kill another and find it moral... or to find morality only in restraint. It is a guide that is created by everything we are and everything that happens. It is also, informed and guided by the Memetic Legacies of our groups and as such vulnerable to both immediate radical change and regressions. In your stories, this is presented as the characters that have moral arcs, finding reasons to love others that in prior circumstances they should have hated. Moral foundations are also where most writers struggle both in the way they present their protagonists and the way they formulate their character's arcs. If you see a movie or read a book with a character that seems to have a moral foundation that seems out of place (a queen that wants to liberate her serfs from serfdom or a knight that fights for another group with no hesitation because "it's the right thing") you're encountering a fault in the understanding of Moral Foundations. For the medieval knight it was not moral to spare an infidel. Quite the opposite. It was moral only to kill him. For the Japanese that came into Nanjing in 1937 it was moral to humiliate, torture, and behead their rivals. Likewise, for the nazis it was moral to eradicate the world of Jews. The moral foundations of these peoples, while exemplary pre-modern, are also what distinguishes them from each other and from themselves in their own extended timeline. In these cases, the crusader, the Japanese soldier, the nazi, are all the result of an aggressive moral change that happens during a short period of time (decades in this cases) and that feeds on latent potentials of pre-modernity within these societies. It instrumentalizes the most vicious aspects of the group in a form of retributive justice that seeks cleansing in a faulty and misguided way. These societies, suddenly turning so violent to others, exemplarise a moral foundations change that is extremely aggressive and that, at least for a little while, created a sense of moral duty to the group that led ordinary men to do heinous acts. Like with all Elements of change, gradual moral foundation change can become suddenly aggressive (crusaders, Japanese soldiers, nazis), and then suffer a form of regression in which the radical elements are stripped away and a new universalisable moral foundation is re-established. The characterization of a people emerges from the seed of moral foundation and so must also be expressed in the reality of a fictional story. What matters here is that historical reality dictates a constant cycle of gradual, aggressive, regressive and stabilizing forces in which moral foundations are deformed and reformed.
Like your characters, your setting must also go through the process of change and face the cycle. This is where the adoption of an era like the European middle ages is simply not enough. Studying specific moments of history will shed light on the ways these elements change and should change in your novels.
July 18, 2020
History & Fantasy for Writers: Pre-modern and Modern Societies
The first type of solidarity is called Mechanical Solidarity:
This type of Solidarity focuses on visual and cultural markers. It is determined by race, fashion, tradition, habits, language, shared history/myth, ways of doing things. It is closed to outsiders and aggressive towards change.
In mechanical solidarity we say:
We share attributes. We are similar to one another.
We have “Collective Consciousness.”
We say:
We are one. We are a team.
We are similar and where we go you go.
We are alike in face and colour.
Alike in what we eat and how.
Alike in our beliefs and belief systems.
We say:
We live in the same land,
And will die for the same causes.
We speak the same tongue and are the many in one.Mechanic solidarity uses a form of justice called Retributive Justice. Retributive, as the word implies, seeks to make an example for the group from the misgivings or sins of the individual. The group lesson is what matters and the group cleansing of whatever evil is described in the criminal act is paramount. The purpose of Retributive Justice is to return to a state of harmony within the group in its relation to existence. This may come in the way of exile, torture or death.The second type of solidarity is called Organic Solidarity:
This type of Solidarity focuses on interdependence. It is determined by what the individual can offer the group. It is indifferent or aggressive towards tradition, dismisses cultural roles in exchange for practical use of individuals, and promotes individualism.
In organic solidarity I say:
I am useful. I am different from you.
I have my own consciousness.
I say:
I give you something and you give me something.
I am different but you need me.
I don't care about your history.
About your race.
About your language.
I say:
I live in the world, here or there.
I will die for my own pursuits.
I need the system to endure.
I am the one in the many.
Organic Solidarity uses a form of justice called Restorative Justice. Restorative, as the word suggests, is the intent from society to restore the sinful individual back to a state of usefulness. Because we are interdependent to one another, we can no longer exile, torture, or kill our members. There is group to teach, either, so the moral lesson of crime would be lost due to lack of an audience that can relate and empathise with the sinner. Instead, Restorative Justice offers an opportunity for the individual to be reformed and restored back into society. There is no return to harmony or no search for such a thing, since the cosmic parameters of existence for an organic society are irrelevant to the individual.Mechanical Societies are Tribal and seek the conservation of ideas and traditions:
They are afraid of change.They use Retributive Justice to keep things stable.They have a sense of collectivism.Individuality is seen as negative.Organic Societies are individualistic. Its members are united by interdependence:
Division of labour creates interdependence.They use Restorative Justice to keep the system going.They have a sense of Individuality.Individuality is seen as positive.Retributive Justice
Also known as punitive justice, it seeks to restore things to the norm through chastisement.
It makes sure whoever committed a crime is severely punished as a means of collective example.
It is done to secure ideas and traditions.
Things must remain equal.
Restitutive Justice
Also known as restorative justice, it seeks to restore things to the norm.
Wants the individual back into the system so they can continue to provide whatever they provide.
So... how do you use this is a fantasy world?Explore the ideas above and think about how you describe your world's inhabitants. Are they interlinked by similarities or interdependence? Are they working together for their own individual benefit (a salary) or the collective benefit (working for the benefit of others).Do they behave the same (pre-modern)?Do they behave individually, having personal quirks (modern)?
In the world of The Atlas of Dreams, like in the world of the late Renaissance, both of these types of societies vie for control of the institutions. As a writer I had to be sure to present the people's behaviour as inherently pre-modern, all structures and institutions essentially there to direct the people into what is known as "right behaviour." However, there are indications of a quick and sudden change to modernity. This happens because more and better technologies are both dug from the ground and invented while more diverse societies are starting to engage in conversation with the rest. The dependency on others and the use of technologies that replace labour create a change in aesthetics. It also allows for individualistic Characters to emerge.
In a story where these elements make part of the reality of the setting, a mix between pre-modern and modern people is not out of place, even if it feels like it (and it should feel like it). To have characters that display strange mannerisms, modes of dressing, of speaking and most importantly of thinking, makes sense since they, usually the rich and powerful, are starting to display their individualism while society can do nothing about it because they "need" him or her. They have become interdependent, a modern trait.
This also brings us to punishment. Pre-modern societies use retributive punishment in order to set an example and to condemn the act so that the status quo can be preserved. In this case, any character that demonstrates too much individuality would be "put in place" even for the most menial of behaviors. This so that society can be preserved as-is, a means to control. Modern societies don't care (or should not care) about punishment, pain or example. If your local punitive system believes in such things it's still holding to elements of the pre-modern (and it's either a primarily religious community or one with little interaction with foreigners). Modern societies are focused only on one thing: is the perpetrator of a crime useful to society or not? If they are not, they need to become useful as fast as possible. If they are useful they need to return to the system as fast as possible.
So in your stories, how are your characters being punished? Are they put back into the system after receiving an education or at least some sort of reformation? Ar they tortured and killed? These things speak volumes of how your world interacts with the logic behind pre-modern and modern societies, and it's a key element of how you devise your fantasy world.
Taking The Atlas of Dreams as an example, Caelestis Valheim, a high-borne noble, has the privilege of being an atheist in a strictly faithful society, for two reasons. He's wealthy and powerful, so he can access these forms of modern solidarity first in a society that's deep into the change even before he was born, and second, he's living in a time of greater changes that allow everyone more freedom and individuality. The major event that granted this was the change from the Theocracy to the Imperium. From priests rulings the world to Emperors. A religious dictatorship that values beliefs and controls the mind to a military dictatorship that values power and controls the body. This character, while at odds with his people, cannot be punished in a pre-modern fashion, not only because of the power he has but also because the world is starting to see the value in interdependence. What they need from him is more valuable than the example he would set.
History & Fantasy for Writers #2
Accord to Emile Durkheim (check him out) there are 2 types of solidarity (what keeps people together):
Mechanical Solidarity:
We share attributes. We are similar to one another.
We have “Collective Consciousness”
Example–
We are bearded and white.
Cultivate potatoes and fish.
Believe in Odin and Thor.
Live in the same land.
Speak similarly.
Organic Solidarity:
We depend on one another.
“Individualism” and inter-dependence
Example–
We are all very different from each other.
But… we rely on each other.
We all serve society in a different way.
We need the system to endure.
Mechanical Societies are Tribal and seek the conservation of ideas and traditions.
They are afraid of change.
They use Retributive Justice to keep things stable.
They have a sense of collectivism.
Individuality is seen as negative.
Organic Societies are individualistic. Its members are united by interdependence.
Division of labour creates interdependence.
They use Restorative Justice to keep the system going.
They have a sense of Individuality.
Individuality is seen as positive.
Retributive Justice
Also known as punitive justice, it seeks to restore things to the norm through chastisement.
It makes sure whoever committed a crime is severely punished as a means of collective example.
It is done to secure ideas and traditions.
Things must remain equal.
Restitutive Justice
Also known as restorative justice, it seeks to restore things to the norm.
Wants the individual back into the system so they can continue to provide whatever they provide.
So... how do you use this is a fantasy world?Explore the ideas above and think about how you describe your world's inhabitants. Are they interlinked by similarities or interdependence? Are they working together for their own individual benefit (a salary) or the collective benefit (working for the benefit of others).Do they behave the same (pre-modern)?Do they behave individually, having personal quirks (modern)?
In the world of The Atlas of Dreams, like in the world of the late Renaissance, both of these types of societies vie for control of the institutions. As a writer I had to be sure to present the people's behaviour as inherently pre-modern, all structures and institutions essentially there to direct the people into what is known as "right behaviour." However, there are indications of a quick and sudden change to modernity. This happens because more and better technologies are both dug from the ground and invented while more diverse societies are starting to engage in conversation with the rest. The dependency on others and the use of technologies that replace labour create a change in aesthetics. It also allows for individualistic Characters to emerge.
In a story where these elements make part of the reality of the setting, a mix between pre-modern and modern people is not out of place, even if it feels like it (and it should feel like it). To have characters that display strange mannerisms, modes of dressing, of speaking and most importantly of thinking, makes sense since they, usually the rich and powerful, are starting to display their individualism while society can do nothing about it because they "need" him or her. They have become interdependent, a modern trait.
This also brings us to punishment. Pre-modern societies use retributive punishment in order to set an example and to condemn the act so that the status quo can be preserved. In this case, any character that demonstrates too much individuality would be "put in place" even for the most menial of behaviours. This so that society can be preserved as-is, a means to control. Modern societies don't care (or should not care) about punishment, pain or example. If your local punitive system believes in such things it's still holding to elements of the pre-modern (and it's either a primarily religious community or one with little interaction with foreigners). Modern societies are focused only on one thing: is the perpetrator of a crime useful to society or not? If they are not, they need to become useful as fast as possible. Of they are useful they need to return to the system as fast as possible.
So in your stories, how are your characters being punished? Are they put back into the system after receiving an education or at least some sort of reformation? Ar they tortured and killed? These things speak volumes of how your world interacts with the logic behind pre-modern and modern societies, and it's a key element of how you devise your fantasy world.
Taking The Atlas of Dreams as an example, Caelestis Valheim, a high-borne noble, has the privilege of being an atheist in a strictly faithful society, for two reasons. He's wealthy and powerful, so he can access these forms of modern solidarity first in a society that's deep into the change even before he was born, and second, he's living in a time of greater changes that allow everyone more freedom and individuality. The mayor event that granted this was the change from the Theocracy to the Imperium. From priests rulings the world to Emperors. A religious dictatorship that values beliefs and controls the mind to a military dictatorship that values power and controls the body. This character, while at odds with his people, cannot be punished in a pre-modern fashion, not only because of the power he has but also because the world is starting to see the value in interdependence. What they need from him is more valuable than the example he would set.
