It is confusing that such a high percentage of the stories here, and in new movies, and in video games seem to glorify war. Having seen a great deal of violence, these days I eschew any exposure to it. Having explored the works of many authors here, many of the earlier authors wrote sweet, winsome stories, but these days it all seems to be about killing one another.
It seems sad, so very sad.
Comments
Interesting observation
but not all of us use violence as a prop. In all my stories here there are very few cases of violence and apart from one story that is about WW1 all instances of violence are recounted (As in the past) and not in the present.
There are a lot of stories here that I won't read because they don't interest me in the slightest. I stopped reading most SF years ago when it all became Science Fantasy rather than Fiction. The same here. Stories with Wizzards, warlocks and witches are quickly passed by. I don't care if the don't have violence in them or not. The same goes for stories that involve Cheerleaders, tricks bets and the like. These have IMHO been done to death many times over.
There is violence for violence sakes and there are stories that show a historical event such as Dunkirk. I watched this years film because my father was one of those rescued so it has a personal interest to me. Hollywood's passion (or addiction) for gratitious violence in films is probably what you are talking about and I do agree with you.
Don't get too depressed. There are some authors here that do try to develop characters and coherent story lines without resorting to violence.
Samantha.
PS,
As a bit of self plugging, most of my stories have happy endings.
You are one of a few.
I did not wish to name, names, but yes your stories seem more real to me.
Thank you.
A
I seem to be your antithesis,
I seem to be your antithesis, if it's "real" then why would i want to read it? I've experienced plenty of reality, most of it bad, as such i enjoy taking a break from it and enjoying fantasy. Be it the stereotypical elves and dwarves, or the more fanciful sci-fi, or even vampires and werewolves, it grasps my imagination like nothing else. Not despite it's obvious contradictions to reality, but *because* of them.
In many cases
It's not a celebration of war but rather delving into the consequences of it. Extreme situations bring out the best and worst of humankind and lend grist to the mill of storytelling. I can't think of a more violent film than Saving Private Ryan but the ending when Ryan asks if he had lived a life that was worth the sacrifices made is worth all that came before it.
Nancy Cole's books are great examples of celebrating living in the midst of the horrors of war.
Just some thoughts.
Commentator
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Sweet, non-violent stories are hard to write
A lot of stories have the hero(ine) being beat up by bullies at school. This happens even if the beatee does not transition. this is real life. I guess you don't mean this.
A long time fan of Ian Flemming's 'James Bond' I am always guessing when the 'gratuitous violence' will start. It fits better with Bond than here, I guess.
Karen
hmmmmmm
Karen: Do you expect me to talk?
Goldfinger: No, Ms. Lockhart, I expect you to write!
Love, Andrea Lena
Stories need to have conflict
Stories need to have conflict to drive the plot along and some people will use violence to do so. I do with physical, emotional and mental violence. I never used violence as a way to get cheap heat.
I am more concerned about the cost of war on society going down than more stories having violence in them. I live in the UK but still am a US citizen and we paid no real cost to enter the last two wars. The American public has not been asked to sacrifice anything for the war. When the US started the war in Afghanistan it was the first time in history that a nation which went to war actually lower taxes, instead of raising them to bank the conflict. People much rather buy a bumper sticker made in China which says support the troops than have their taxes raised so we do not put the war on the nation’s credit card. We passed the cost of the war to the next generation.
The cost of war this time around also went down by having no draft. Now we are not asking the entire country to have the chance of paying a personal chance to support the war. It is passed to the poor and those with sense of duty to country rather than to all.
Yes some people join the military for the love of country, but a vast many of them join to help better themselves economically. I know many people who joined the military and the vast majority of them were poor and did so to get skills which the army trained them or money for college.
There has been no rationing of goods to help the war cause. Instead of having “Meatless Monday” and “Wheatless Wednesday” We were told to go shopping to support the troops instead.
The media and people are turning a blind eye to how we are treating the vets which are coming home. The VA is now charging more copays than ever to Vets, those men and women who put their life on the line for the interest of our country should never have to pay for health care again. It is a selling point the recruiters use in high school to get people to join. The biggest supporters of the war denied that we have a homeless vet and vet mental health problem in America.
Then with the government outsourcing more and more of our military activities there is a profit motive for war. Profits should never be a part of decision process of why we go to war.
Yes we have an issue of glorifying war. It comes from the cost of war not being shared by the entire public. I bring these points up for I think the glorification of war is a symptom of those issues rather than the main issue itself.
Let peace begin with me
I comment about where this glorification of war might be coming from
but I'd better not, I don't want to start a Flame War...
for the axe had convinced them that because his handle
was made of wood he was one of them.
An alternate future.
Homo Sapiens are predators, and these days just fighting it out seems more acceptable than being peaceable. Perhaps one element might be increasing overpopulation of the globe, and there are theories by studied folk that suggest population density and conflict are linked. Most of what I am currently working on are dystopian, post apocalyptic tales where the survivors either leave for distant planetary systems, or in some cases, are helped by good aliens, and have good, idealistic endings because I find writing about the demise of humanity to be distasteful. The idea of just fighting it out forever seems distasteful.
I agree and disagree.
I agree that far too many movies and video games seem to glorify war and even worse, gratuitous violence.
But as to the authors here doing so? I don't think so, look at cyclist's A Longer War for example, a story which initially tells of Gerald's journey through war-torn Europe in 1944 through to 1946. The majority of the story actually is about him living his life after the war, and goes on to show that, as much as Gerald has grown over the years, he is still, in some ways, rather innocent to the end.
It's an amazing story, one I will be happy to read and reread many times.
And that is just one example. I myself wrote a piece about a soldier being brought home, which received several very positive responses.
To paint the whole site with a brush that implies we approve of violence is going a bit over the top.
At times, I use the plot point of a person having served, perhaps losing their life doing so, as part of a story. In each case, that is not to honour violence or war, but to show that people will step up and defend what they believe in, even to the point of death.
Any time I have violence in a story, it is because violence is something that we can experience, something that many of us manage to deal with successfully, but sometimes that violence results in the victim being unable to cope, such as in my story Betrayed.
Sometimes my stories seem quite grim, I write what the muse sends, and sometimes that involves violence and/or war. To say that all stories should be all goodness and light would be silly; conflict of one type or another is necessary to a story, as necessary as breathing is for us.
Perhaps there are a few that like to glorify war and unnecessary violence, but I wouldn't say that everyone here does so.
Thank you
That is indeed the point of A Longer War. Gerald's dad came through the last years of WWI, and suffers because of it. Melanie, in Uniforms, went through Bosnia and the Falklands, and suffered terribly as a result. In civilian life, my Annie in Ride On has major issues with PTSD following on from seeing one too many road deaths.
I have used war as a backdrop, and as a way of showing humanity. Read Mike/Melanie's comments on 'shedding their blood for the sacred motherland' and other such bollocks to see where I am coming from--"Empty eyes, filled with rain"
This is her comment on Bosnia:
"I remember one image that sums up the whole mess for me, from later on when the Albanians and the Serbs started their own land dispute, and that filthy phrase “ethnic cleansing” came into vogue.
A photo, of a young woman, in a skirt and sensible shoes, in a copse where her column of frightened people had stopped, and she had walked away from them, found a suitable place and hanged herself. No fuss, no drama, just a young woman in a modest skirt and good shoes turning slowly at the end of a rope.
We went into Bosnia in 1995, thirteen years after the rain and the mud, and it was better, but it was so much worse, and that was when I knew I wanted to give it all up.
Things came to a head with Srebrenica, and my father’s joke was just so, so bad. The UN had declared it a safe haven, and the Dutch troops were there to protect the people, and in rolled the Serbs and butchered 8,000 while the cloggies hid in their barracks so as not to get hurt.
I know this s not how they see it, but that was what we saw and heard, and if they don’t like it they can tell it to the families of the dead.
We went in as part of a “peacekeeping” force, and all the politics and crap strangled us, and they took all the men and boys and shot them, and raped the women and girls before pillaging, and only then did they burn.
And “strange fruit” grew from so many trees.
So our lords and masters did the easy thing, and bombed the shit out of them, while we pointed our Warrior turrets at them, and they laughed as the low cloud stopped the bombing from being that bad, and they raped some more.
Little Voice was louder then, so loud, and I realised something, as we came across a field where women in scarves were turning over bulldozed soil to find body parts that might belong to some man or boy they once knew, I realised that I was beginning to hate men. For this seemed to be all men, men killing, men raping, for a mixture of the same bullshit the Argie generals had spouted mixed with good old-fashioned rhetoric about their Great Sky Pixie being better than the one the others followed.
Oh yes, I lost my religion as well as my gender then."
Not glorification, oh no.
Commentator has it right as well: celebrating life in the middle of war. That is the important bit, that and showing how the human spirit can rise above abomination despite the wounds it leaves.
Glorify war
Violence is a part of who and what we are. I think that's why we see it so often in fictional works. So many people have this view of nature as being this gentle benevolent force and quite frankly it is anything but. The wilderness is unforgiving to the weak and foolish, and we arose out of that harsh atmosphere. A predator like a bear or a wolf will not hesitate to mow you down if they see you a threat. The same can be said of many large herbivores like a moose or a bison. Even a cute fluffy little rabbit might attack you, if you back it into a corner and it is left with the option to fight or die.
That being said I don't condone violence. As sapient beings most of us are, in theory, capable of controlling our impulses. Unfortunately , so many of us don't. Humans have taken violence to a whole new level. We don't just kill for survival, but for petty reasons. Largely we are motivated by things like thee almighty dollar and hatred. This leads to things like murder, war and genocide. Things we do not see in nature.
I would contend that if a story contains violence, it does not automatically mean that such a story is glorifying war. I write stories that are often quite violent, and several of my characters have gotten to be worn down by the violence by the end of the story. Lexa in Battle For Earth, mentions that she tired of the killing and wants peace. In fact, she's reluctant from the very get go. Brynn in Destiny: Legacy of a Spellbinder is so distraught over the destruction wrought by war that she almost renounces her humanity altogether. Why then do these characters fight? Because they are left without choice. I make a very concerted effort to show the consequences of the war and I think a lot of other authors here do too.
I once made asked another writer (rhetorically) "What does it say about me that I write such violent stories?" and the response is something I think about frequently. They said in essence, that it says a lot more about me that I choose to channel my violent impulsed through writing fiction than actually acting on them.
Have a deliciously devious day,