In message <8v0rs1d6311cnotj1ir6lp5cvs84aku6u5@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
William Marnoch <william@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> I stumbled across something on-topic on the Interweb, so I though I
> may as well post it here, since we have been a bit starved of on-topic
> conversation in recent years.
>
> On another forum someone posted a link to some reviews herely:
> http://www.christianfantasy.net/eddings.html
(actually they linked to
> the Terry Goodkind page, as there is some amusingly over-the-top
> criticism). Out of curiosity, I looked to see what they thought of
> David Eddings' works. It does seem slightly incongruous to see them
> rate his work as 'dangerous'.
It certainly does :)
> Reading the review, unlike some other similar review websites (such as
> the fundamentalist reviews of Hollywood movies site that was widely
> mocked on the Internet a while back), they're not too irrational,
> although I completely fail to see why the lack of a monotheistic
> religion in Eriondia is worth noting even if you are the sort of
> person who does believe in such things.
I think you have to imagine a kind of mindset which is trying to train
other
people to believe uncritically in a number of things. Hence exposing them
to
any kind of different ideas has to be avoided where possible.
Which is an attitute I personally find pretty repulsive but there you are
:)
I guess they must justify it to themselves as saving the other people.
Anyone who's worried about Eddings subverting peoples religous beliefs
really
can't be too confident of how convincing their religion is.
> I'm not sure I agree that DE was intending to be subversive, and I
I'm sure he wasn't. It might be interesting to try and work out if there
is
any social commentary in the books but frankly that's very likely taking
them
rather more seriously than the author did :)
> think the reviewers are forgetting that the books are set in the
> (pseudo-) Middle Ages. Those were often pretty nasty times where the
> rule of law was only intermittently enforced. Setting a series in such
> a world where some of the characters were nobles, politicians,
> military leaders and so on and not have a high pro****tion of them
> acting in ways we might consider reprehensible would be unrealistic
> and trying to apply too much modern morality to condemn all their
> actions would be absurd.
>
> Thoughts?
My first thought was that taking any kind of morality from a light hearted
fantasy book is past absurd.
My next thought is that these people are doing much of this as a result of
a
*direct* (personal in several cases) order(s) from gods/prophecies which
is
the kind of thing you might expect religous fundamentalists to like :)
(The old testament has enough smiting in it to keep anyone happy.).
Anyhow they're doing all of these things to heal the universe which
strikes
me as a pretty much overriding moral imperative in context! It's also all
quite Greek in some ways - in the end there isn't a lot of free will
involved
..
Finally modern morality was not designed to be applied in a world with
gods &
demons walking around on a regular basis, people living more or less
forever
etc :)
I wonder what they'd make of something like Thomas Covenant ;) (or the
Mistwraith books.).
--
****__. Martin Carpenter .__****
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