I like making my non-human characters psychologically inhuman as well as physically. Obviously I don't have a PhD in applied xenopsychology, but I've found a trick online for coming up with an inhuman mind by re-arranging Maslow's Hierarchy. Humans as a species fear death above almost all else, we try to stay alive by gathering in tightly controlled groups for strength in numbers, and anything deemed "Outside" of the group's dogma is seen as a death threat that must be either scared off or destroyed. This has led to immeasurable pain and suffering throughout human history: Group X decides "As long as Group Y exists, then there is a chance that they will try to subjugate kill us in the future, therefor we have to subjugate/kill them right now!" and goes on a rampage, retroactively proving Group Y right when they had said the exact same thing, and the conflict escalates. Spoiler: Our Theme Song as a Species I like challenging myself to come up with species whose brains do not biologically work this way.
@Simpson17866 I would have to agree with you there. I try to incorporate similar traits in the species I create. Though I think that a lot of the biases created in species is typically due to misunderstanding of each other, when it comes to Sci-fi any way.(Fantasy I don't know so much about) I learned that little bit from Timothy Zahn's Conquerors Trilogy, the whole war between the two races was just one ginormous CF of a misunderstanding. Turns out even advanced civilizations can make big (and devastating) mistakes, based on being presumptuous and having the need to annihilate another species due to having a lesser degree of intelligence. In my WIP, it is more focused on the joint cooperation of species to engage in freeing humanity from it's own inability to govern itself without being a dictatorship run by a few power mad twats. There is also a little bit of racism per se, with one of my MCs and their thoughts toward a particular race that stems from having negative interactions with them in the past. Though he is learning that they are not much different from his own kind, and that there is a difference from hating an entire species and hating the ass hats that happen to be apart of it. Of course there is plenty of human on human brutality, but that is nothing new under the sun.
Plus, you know how a lot of SciFi/Fantasy writers talk about how much they hate the "Planet of Hats" construct? Star Trek is one of the worst examples, despite otherwise being an incredibly progressive series: Klingons are all hot-blooded warriors, Vulcans are all cold-blooded stoics (well technically not, but nobody knows that), Ferengi are all greedy, but Humans can be one thing or another (selfish or selfless, brave or cowardly, intellectual or practical, hot-blooded or cold-blooded). The one thing all of those have in common is that they were created by Human writers Our Hat is that we assign Hats more value than they deserve ("Muslims want to kill everyone" "Gays don't love each other" "Poor people are lazy") because we care about Group versus Group narratives more than we care about discovering what individuals think in reality. There are no Planets of Hats in the real world to the degree that there are in Human fiction, but we will think that there are when we meet other species and then start stereotyping them the way we stereotype each other. ... The irony here being that I - a human - am stereotyping Humans by complaining about how much Humans stereotype. Our nature is to stereotype, but there are some of us who learn to resist this temptation better than others do, and I'm thinking that there are non-Humans in my Urban Fantasy world who stereotype as much as many Humans do. It's just the exception for their species rather than the rule. I would love to read that
@Simpson17866 Are you sure? It is basically a story with a ton of violence, and some good intentions. It also is loosely based around some conspiracy theories, because I thought that it would make it seem more interesting. Also saved me a truckload of time having to figure out just what would and wouldn't work. Sadly I must admit listening to the rantings of Alex Jones was a help, even though I do not subscribe to his way of thinking, but is entertaining.
One of the lead protagonists in my Doctor Who fanfic is a vigilante serial killer, and my new Urban Fantasy WIP is about a gang of human drug-dealers-turned-bank-robbers who get caught up in the schemes of a vampire who wants to go down in history as the next Jack The Ripper (and who claims to have already been the Zodiac Killer). Try me
People want to believe what they want to believe. Religion and propaganda, all just stories. The Bible is taken at face value, even though it uses facets of other religions that society had conquered. It's all just twisted to fit different agendas. All of our saints are just ways to disguise outlawed worship of pagan gods. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_Paganism I've had discussions, turned into arguments, over these topics. Someone starts quoting the Bible, I disregard it saying it's not a reliable source. Blah, blah, bunch of people wrote it without ever meeting eachother. I.E. the bible is just a bunch of stolen stories from conquered religions. If we go to progaganda you can see men become monsters. The Nazi propaganda machine is a good example. Both the U.S. and Russia dealt in propaganda campaigns during the Cold War. I get some people get defensive over the issue of Nationalism, but that's just another form of propaganda. No nations are perfect and by extreme nationalism you're resulting in separatism, which I feel lowers humanity as a whole. Nothing wrong with having pride in your nation, but not at the expense of bigotry or misguided fear mongering. About the article, though, one example I've always found hilarious is Batman & the Joker. The Joker is a psychotic serial killer that is repeatably sent to Arkham Asylum which he then later escapes from. He has no superpowers and is seen as a nemesis to Batman. The police would have killed the first opportunity present. No trial -- execution style. Instead after years of back and forth one writer decides that Batman kills the Joker and has an emotional breakdown over it. Oh know, I just killed a human being. Who cares that he killed hundreds, maybe thousands, of people. He was a human being. I've never liked the hero reinforcing the point that Thou Shall Not Kill even though it's obvious it's the logical choice. "Quick, shoot him!" "I... I can't. He's still a human being." "He's 99% machine now and is about to cause a nuclear holocaust!" "But the 1%!" "Your mom died of radiation poison! Shoot him!" "Oh no, the dramatic emotional turmoil, I can't handle it." -Shoots himself- Would rather that alternative than all of the pointless back and forth in many stories. A lot of people act like human life is the most precious thing in the world. I'm sorry, but I'm a realist; it isn't. Everyone is born and then dies. You have say a max of one hundred years, more likely a lot less. You age and your body degrades, you literally decompose upon death. Eventually there's nothing recognizable left of you to identify you as existing. Now, the memory of you can hold on. How many people would honestly be affected by any single persons death? If they're a powerful figure in society it's possible it'll make waves, but for most people what... twenty or less? That's being generous with some people. Out of those say twenty, there will be degrees of closeness. A person might mourn you, but eventually they'll move on. Carry the ( ^ ) speck of dust compared to the universe, blah blah. It's not the most precious commodity. 1) We, as humans, kill countless other life forms on a daily basis. 2) We harm our own planet, shortening its potential life span by millions of years. 3) We, as humans, kill each other as shown by countless historical instances. It's like being Pro-Life and support the death penalty. I just roll my eyes. Being a vegetarian, but you still eat fish (pet peeve, it's called pescatarian). Pro-choice, but against the death penalty. South Park has done a few good episodes over these subjects. At least, I found it funny. Oh well, I'm ranting. I liked this article. I just let those moments slide, in movies, but tend to be a lot harsher when reading books. Movies, the ones I go out to see not the ones at home, are just mindless enjoyment for me. I don't need it to be the perfect example of artistic expression. The grading scale has a pretty steep curve for me. It would have to be awful for me to say I didn't like it.
Vigilante Justice. This isn't just fantasy, but it's pretty prevalent, and it's insanely common in urban fantasy and whatever genre we're calling Superhero fiction: Authors love coming up with reasons for the heroes to be vigilantes. It's not even just that the normal people in place to keep peace can't handle the current problems, they're usually also inept at their own jobs, corrupt, and couldn't help catch a real criminal if that criminal turned themselves in. In real life, if you take the law into your own hands, you WILL screw things up, and innocent people WILL get hurt. This is just as true for Joe Shmoe as it is for police officers who try and circumvent the law, too. (This isn't to say that there aren't reasonable examples in fiction, and more often than not the author will come up with lots and lots of very plausible reasons why the Protagonist is the only person who can save the day, but that doesn't change the fact that we're pretty much glorifying our vigilantes.)
