Good times bad times

[altariel]

A brief discussion elsewhere about writing dystopia had me musing about happy-world stories and sad-world stories, what you lot preferred, and why.

Here is the ever-quotable Le Guin on the subject: "It is sad that so many stories that might offer a true vision settle for patriotic or religious platitude, technological miracle working, or wishful thinking, the writers not trying to imagine truth. The fashionably noir dystopia merely reverses the platitudes and uses acid instead of saccharine, while still evading engagement with human suffering and with genuine possibility" (2004: 219).

Are happy-world tales escapism? Do sad-world stories back out on the possibility for action and change? What do you like to read? Why?

[Poll #614661]

Le Guin, U. (2004) A War Without End. In: Le Guin, U., The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination. London: Shambhala Publications.

Comments

[kerravonsen]

I don't mind sadness and grimness so long as there is a hopeful ending. I don't insist on happy endings, so long as there is hope. If you give me a story with no hope (or worse, a story which had hope, and then crushes the hope in little pieces at the end) then I will throw the book against the wall, jump up and down and stomp on it, and be generally cross.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Aha, now I understand why you liked Spirits of the House! ;-) I'm guessing this is what is inspiring The Butterfly Effect?

[kerravonsen]

Aha, now I understand why you liked Spirits of the House!

Because it's a hopeful ending? Yeah, I suppose so.
Though I'm also much more of a campaigner-for-Denethor-reform than I used to be, after his character was mangled in the film. (Boo! Hiss!)

I'm guessing this is what is inspiring The Butterfly Effect?

That I'm trying to rewrite the ending of B7? Oddly enough, I think B7 is one of the exceptions -- I didn't want to jump up and down and scream at the ending, I was sort of more resigned to it; it wasn't as if there were really any dashed hopes, it was more like a classic tragedy. The blow was probably cushioned by the fact that with the long gap between season 3 and 4, I'd been watching The Omega Factor, something else which Chris Boucher was involved in, which was also rather gloomy in that our poor hero kept on losing, so when B7 ended that way, I just muttered "Typical!".

Interestingly enough, now that I think of it, though, season 3 of B7 falls into the "hopeful" rather than the "tragic" ending, since even though they've lost their ship, they're all still alive (at that point), Servalan is probably dead, and they do have some hope of not being stranded forever.

Sure, the motive for "The Butterfly Effect" is trying to see, in a disciplined manner, how one small change could lead to greater changes (and a less tragic ending), but it's also cuz I'm a sucker for Avon-is-a-telepath stories...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I can't remember if I've recced this to you already, but Dwimordene's Lie Down in the Darkness, Rise up from the Ash is a step by step retelling of LotR: how would the Quest turn out without Gollum. It's extremely dark, however (and still a WiP at the moment).

[kerravonsen]

I can't remember either, but "extremely dark" and "WIP" are not sounding appealing to me, because if it's a WIP, how can I know if it isn't just going to be an extreme downer all the way to the end...? LotR itself was dark enough in the dark bits...