Dragonflight
discussion
Why Pern is so Unrealistic
If there is no religion, then there is atheism.
No. Atheism is defined as a religion. It is the lack of belief in any sort of deity. Pernese don't even have that. They have irreligion, which is no religion whatsoever. They don't even have any concept of a higher power, a fact that I find startling. Almost all cultures in history have developed a religion; why didn't the Pernese?
Of course it's unrealistic! The dragons could never fly with just wings. They'd have to be telekinetic as well and lift some of their weight that way. The Thread doesn't breed, just fall and muck things up. It should have taken over the planet long ago. Then there's the time travel. Why worry about it? Pern is fun.
Actually, your points are moot. I've looked a little into proportion and lift rations, and its likely that at least the first dragons could have flown, and maybe the present greens and blues (being the smallest). (The big golds, no chance.) The Thread could possibly not take over the planet due to the fact that it's often self-defeating. Most of the surviving Fall (and keep in mind that not a lot of the surviving Thread actually burrowed) would contains itself. As long as some of the plants survived, they would certainly have time to repopulate between the Fall years.
Sic wrote: "No. Atheism is defined as a religion.No, wrong.
It is the lack of belief in any sort of deity. Pernese don't even have that.
You just said that they did.
They have irreligion, which is no religion whatsoever. They don't even have any co..."
Not a word...
Here's my point: most atheists know and admit they are atheists. They say "There is no God, there is no true religion, they're all wrong."But in all of the books of Pern, no one expressed any belief of any sort. Nothing for or against any sort of religion. This would be excusable...if it weren't for the fact in the Pern series, there are over 20 books. There's plenty of room for such important thought, and there's nothing, and that's disturbing.
Look, I'd be fine if they all rejected any sort of deity and burned everyone who didn't. But doing and saying nothing about the most important issues of life? That's disturbing.
I think it's a interesting perspective to take. Are there no wars because there is no religion on Pern? As to why Pern lacks both Anne McCaffrey had this to say:22) Q: Why are the people of Pern not religious?
A: As you probably realize, during a terrible war situation people either cling as their last hope to the religion of their choice, or they become agnostic, losing their belief in a Good, Kindly Wise Deity who has allowed such atrocities to happen to innocent people.
The colonistswho went with Admiral Benden and GovernorBollwereof thesecond type, especially from groups who had suffered from atrocities committed BECAUSE of religion: notice what's happening in Kosovo and Iran. What happened to the Mormons in the USA? So no ORGANIZED religion was brought to Pern and none was set up. There is however, a strong ethical code among the colonists and by this they govern their lives and interactions. Not even thread was allowed to alter these precepts. - Anne McCaffrey
Also : "I also don't have organized religion on Pern. I figured - since there were four holy wars going on at the time of writing - that religion was one problem Pern didn't need." - Anne McCaffrey
I'll go with Anne. It's her universe after all.I certainly didn't miss religion - in fact, until now I didn't even give it a thought. Shows that a good story doesn't need religion to hang a hook on, no matter what Frank Herbert thought. Admittedly the first time I read this book was only 35 years ago.
I never really noticed the lack of religion.also, people have a threat from outer space, its less likely to fight against other people when when you have a common "enemy"
I never noticed it either. It's just not important to me at all. But I like what Anne had to say.
Perhaps the lack of religion leads to the lack of war.
Well everyone has their opinions. I read it and found it interesting, because he merely gives this reader an insight into the characters lives. Nothing more nothing less.
I didn't miss religion in the books. I just figured that the Pernese were too much evolved to need religion and that they replaced it with a strict or at least a very clear ethical code.
Hmmm anyone going to reply?
I always thought that the lack of war between the colonists, apart from the minor skirmishing sort of thing that Fax did, was because all the colonists already had a common enemy in the Red Star. The dragon riders were their standing army against that threat.
Yeah but after 400 turns of no threads they started to think that the threads were a myth. That's why.
But wasn't it hinted that Thread would be back? At least, that's what I read into it. Over and over again.
Yes but after 400 turns (before they found out that the past was to come to the future) all of things they had to destroy the threads (besides the dragons) ,including the number of weyrs, had disappeared. So all they had were a few dragons as proof. Most myths are created with some truth or something that exists
Serena wrote: "I think it's a interesting perspective to take. Are there no wars because there is no religion on Pern? As to why Pern lacks both Anne McCaffrey had this to say:22) Q: Why are the people of Pern..."
This explains why none of the colonists had religion. Makes sense.
But it doesn't explain why they never set one up. Think about this: Is 5000 years long enough for a religion to start?
Also, this explains some of the lack of war, but not all. There's plenty of violence and fighting due to simple greed.
I'm guessing that they thought that the threads or/and the red star were a religion and that it was quickly loosing faith.
Sic wrote: "But it doesn't explain why they never set one up. Think about this: Is 5000 years long enough for a religion to start?"It is certainly long enough for people to leave such superstitions behind.
This is funny because of all the things to point out about it being unrealistic, OP missed the biggest one--two planets passing close enough to each other to share lifeforms via outer atmosphere, but not affecting orbits due to gravity disruption. In reality, the planets would have collided and destroyed all life. But McCaffrey needed a good threat to make the story more interesting. I always skimmed over the dumb scenes with the thread. But, OP does raise good points about religion. Fwiw, I think perhaps there was no religion on Pern because the human colonists (from a future Earth from us today) had made peace with that and it was not contentious. On Pern, they have to worry about thread falling which explains why there is no war. And... there is war or threats of war... any time a few centuries have gone by without thread, causing people to question whether thread was a lie or not. Perhaps no religion is why there is no war?
Scott wrote: "Sic wrote: "But it doesn't explain why they never set one up. Think about this: Is 5000 years long enough for a religion to start?"It is certainly long enough for people to leave such superstitio..."
Considering we still have religion today...
Jon wrote: "This is funny because of all the things to point out about it being unrealistic, OP missed the biggest one--two planets passing close enough to each other to share lifeforms via outer atmosphere..."Hm...as I recall, the Thread lived in the Oort cloud and followed the Red Star in. However, no planet could be moving slowly enough to trail a cloud of Thread and not fall into the sun, if a Pass lasts 50 years.
I'm still good for the "it's fun, don't worry about it" explanation. Port a medieval society to another world, add dragons and a hint of superscience, mix and enjoy. Pern is not SF no matter how much McCaffrey protests that it is. But Pern is some durn good Fantasy.
"Pern is not SF"Besides the first book, I never ever thought of it as fantasy. I went into it expecting fantasy but as soon as they started talking about finding artifacts with a higher technology, it immediately became SciFi to me!
The dragons made it Fantasy for me. I wouldn't hold McCaffrey to the same standard I would, say, Niven, on scientific realism, or Alastair Reynolds with Revelation Space. When Niven wrote Protector, the ramjets were correctly described down to the color of light coming from the fusion jets. That was a big part of the fun of Protector for me. For Pern, there was a patina of science, but telepathic dragons pretty much kept it in the Fantasy realm so far as I was concerned.
Scantasy.Like much of A. E. Merritt's work.
Read and enjoy and don't Sheldon-ate.
Sic wrote: "Considering we still have religion today..."And it's dying, and Pern is still in the future yet.
Scott wrote: "Sic wrote: "Considering we still have religion today..."And it's dying, and Pern is still in the future yet."
Actually, religion is at an all-time high, with the Christian to non-Christian ratio around 1:6 or so.
It's not like Christianity is the ONLY religion.Thank gods.
True, but it is the largest.
As long as we're classifying that as professing, not acting ;-)
I dunno why it's considered fun to rip on people of faith. I know plenty of them that are good people. There are religious jerks as well, but there's jerks of all stripes. It's not the religion itself that makes a person bad, it's the person.
Sorry. Too much time spent with a freaking gaggle of 'em this week. Craw full of hypocrisy.If you'll notice, though, I DID specify professing vs. acting. There's a difference. I don't know many of the latter. Okay, well, that's not very clear either, lol! "Acting," as in sincerely doing, not putting on drama.
No worries! I love a good religion-based book. Heinlein did a bunch of them. Stranger in a Strange Land might be the best known, but I have a soft spot for Job: A Comedy of Justice. There, one religious person is shown to be a person of integrity. As it turns out, she is a follower of Odin. God keeps his promises, but his interpretation is not particularly kind.
My favorite has always been Mark Twain's, "Letters From the Earth," with Steven Brust' "To Reign in Hell" following. Gotta love a guy who can write Yaweh asking Satan to stay over, the angels are going to be having some pin dancing. ;-)
Well, the golden compass by Philip Pullman is a good series.
Lucifer wrote: "Well, the golden compass by Philip Pullman is a good series."Agreed; excellent books.
Nobody can disagree. Have you read the whole series?
Lucifer wrote: "Nobody can disagree. Have you read the whole series?"Yes.
Yay! Not many peoples read it.
Getting back to the original post - it has been a long time since I have read it, but I believe Dragonsdawn may have some of what the poster is looking for. I don't think there was any religion, but there was certainly conflict between factions.
If realism is what is expected in a book maybe non fiction should be read. It is called Fiction for a reason, especially Sci/Fi
For me Dragonsdawn was kind of blah. It took the magic of Pern and tried to give it a realistic history. Yeah, the characters were good, I liked the grief of Telgar's husband and seeing the first dragonriders in action. But it's like seeing a magician with the house lights up.
I didn't like Dragonsdawn too much, either. It was the last full novel of the series that I read.
Danielle wrote: "I think in the Pern books belief in the dragons was a kind of religion for the riders. They did have various oaths that were often used like 'By Faranth's first egg' or 'By my dragon's egg'. They m..."That's like saying that "Oh my God" is part of religion. It is: it's called blasphemy.
It's just something people say out of habit. I wouldn't take it as evidence of religious thinking.
Scott wrote: "It's just something people say out of habit. I wouldn't take it as evidence of religious thinking."You don't say?
...
I might need to work on how obvious my sarcasm is.
all discussions on this book
|
post a new topic
Wither (other topics)
Acorna: The Unicorn Girl (other topics)
Black Horses for the King (other topics)
Legends II (other topics)
More...
Books mentioned in this topic
Snow Crash (other topics)Wither (other topics)
Acorna: The Unicorn Girl (other topics)
Black Horses for the King (other topics)
Legends II (other topics)
More...
First, there's no war. Zero. Zip. Zilch. The only hostility using troops is in the first book (before it, actually), when Lord Fax took over a few small holds. In all 5000 years of Pern's history, that's it. No empires, no uprisings, no unruly dictators. This is stupid. People are always stubborn-headed, and sometimes they will feel that the only way to solve the problem is to fight.
Second, there's no religion. There's not even atheism. Nobody says or thinks anything about what happens after death, if there is absolute truth or if there is a God. It doesn't matter if the original colonists didn't bring any religions people with them; somebody is going to create a religion in 5000 years time. People will always ask the big questions. You can't avoid them by quarantining religion among the colonists. And whether you believe in a religion or not, you must admit that somebody will always organize their beliefs into a religion. (This lack of any sort of belief also makes for some pretty shallow characters.)