1. Kinzvlle

    Kinzvlle At the bottom of a pit Contributor

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    The bent mirror

    Discussion in 'Fantasy' started by Kinzvlle, May 18, 2016.

    Not sure if this was the right place to put it but this seemed like the best place. (though maybe it should have gone in general) Some of you may have heard me mention my view on using fanstey as a bent mirror emphasizing certain aspects of society and the world well minimising other things and wrapping it in escapism to make it slightly more palatable than directly discussing more heavy topics. I`ve also enjoyed this idea and approach so I took note when I came across a article labeled bent mirror fiction on a site I use for research at times.

    https://www.academia.edu/16304003/The_Bent_Mirror_Speculative_Fiction_for_Social_Justice

    Thought this may be an interesting read for some of you here.
     
  2. HelloImRex

    HelloImRex Senior Member

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    The bent mirror idea seems fine. A lot of stories use fantasy to comment on aspects of the world and can do so with less risk of being abrasive since its all set in an imaginary setting. The actual article though, it sounds like that masters student procrastinated then only had a night left to do his assignment. He spends a page summarizing the plot of The Shining then tries to tie it to the masculinity of the character or something by saying all of the supernatural stuff is a metaphor for family structure or something. I don't know, none of that makes sense and definitely seems like something someone would write after an allnighter. It's actually a pretty clever way of trying to cover up procrastination. You take a bunch of stories you read for fun and spend half of your assignment summarizing them and the other half saying imagery in the story alludes to random stuff that indirectly leads back to your thesis. It worries me how cynical I am sometimes but I did take the time to read the whole paper so I might as well comment on what I honestly think of it. In conclusion, while your idea is sound and it's a good way to construct a story that paper is just some guy playing the game of school and trying to get his degree.
     
  3. Witchymama

    Witchymama Active Member

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    I noticed a while back that I was doing this. A lot of the issues my MC faces are related directly to issues I have witnessed. Religious prejudice, in general but even within the pagan community, female sexuality as depicted by mass media versus how it actuality is, and drug addiction, in particular narcotics and opiates. Hopefully I have managed to achieve this without being abrasive or preachy.
     
  4. agasfer

    agasfer Member

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    The article basically states the obvious: fiction often carries with it a moral, even if it is not explicitly stated. Or, to put it in 1984 terms: words can be used for subtle brainwashing. (The "socialist realism" terms of early Soviet Russia took this to its most distressing extreme, saying that literature automatically brainwashes, so it should be used to brainwash "correctly".) This need not be bad: a lot of great literature carries messages. On the other hand, a lot of enjoyable literature also doesn't. The problem with literature with a message, whatever the genre, comes primarily when the author starts to preach. To take an example from Russian literature of the ways to give a message, on one hand you have, say, "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky, with clear messages which do not ruin the story-telling; on the other hand you have Leo Tolstoy's last novel, "Resurrection", which was a disaster because it was too clearly and tiresomely preaching.
     

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