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labellementeuseI outlined this to my flatmate tonight while I was doing the dishes so it's not fully thought-out or anything but it's a complete thought, so I thought I'd make it a post.
We were talking about the difference between Being Human UK and Being Human US (I haven't seen much of the latter) and she concluded that she had been frequently surprised by BHUK's willingless to let narrative and plot points have consequences. Because it gets marketed in a way that seems to stress its (minimal) sitcom aspects, she said, she kept expecting it to reset somehow, or flinch, but it never does and pretty rapidly becomes not a sitcom at all.
I have just been reading Mike Carey's Felix Castor books, which if you haven't read them are basically what you would get if you took Harry Dresden, made him English, limited his powers to ghostbusting and dumped him in a slightly-alternate werewolves-and-ghosties London. What flattie was saying about Being Human reminded me both of this series and of the Dresden Files which - if you're not up to date - have now escalated the drama to the point where I just don't understand how Harry manages to so much as move his little finger. (I guess people are pretty often chasing him ...) The Carey books, which are a finite series, are doing something similar although in a more structured way, and I thought the comparison was pretty edifying.
Because while the Dresden Files books are, in terms of actual plot terms, very grim, they're still trying to rub on as if they're basically a bit funny and a bit violent and a lot riding-a-dinosaur-through-the-streets-of-Chicago. Which, I don't know about you, I don't remember the last time Harry did anything *nearly* as fun as riding a dinosaur. So the tone and the expectations are beginning to contrast pretty seriously with the content. The Carey books, on the other hand, started out much more serious in tone and have stuck with that, so when actions have consequences it's more expected and they don't violate the tone of the series. But there's still a progressive grimness to them.
And it just struck me that there's a bit of a structural problem there. If you're writing serial media - TV, book series, whatever - you want, in principle, actions and plot points to have consequences, and in urban fantasy where the worlds are usually just a little darker than our own to start off with the actions and consequences are usually grim-ish, so you end up with a kind of cascade of darkness. This is basically a combo of TVTropes' Rule of Escalating Threat and Sorting Algorithm of Evil but I think it's particularly a problem for urban fantasy for a couple of reasons:
- Urban fantasy has a terrible tendency to skew too dark and I personally just hate that
- It's often not what urban fantasy is pitched or marketed as, especially if the alternate worlds don't start out that grim. The appeal of urban fantasy - the appeal, IMO, of any serial fiction - can't sustainably be "Here's an awesome character! Get invested in their life! Now watch as we inevitably grind away at it until everything you liked about the characters and setting is gone!"
Obviously it's avoidable - Charles de Lint avoids it by keeping his series tied to a setting rather than a character so he never runs into a happily ever after. Detective fiction manages it by disallowing narrative consequences so everything is neatly wrapped up at the end. But as someone who is an urban fantasy fan it's frustrating. I love to see characters in worlds really pretty close to mine doing really pretty similar stuff to what I do, except cool, because it's with magic and they save people. You know? I don't actually want to read about characters in unbelievable extremity, trying to choose between sacrificing half their loved ones and sacrificing the world, or what atrocity they will have to commit against some personally sacred moral position in the name of ends that justify the means.
End o' rant. I need to catch up with the Toby Daye books so I can see how they fit into my Grandiose Theory.
We were talking about the difference between Being Human UK and Being Human US (I haven't seen much of the latter) and she concluded that she had been frequently surprised by BHUK's willingless to let narrative and plot points have consequences. Because it gets marketed in a way that seems to stress its (minimal) sitcom aspects, she said, she kept expecting it to reset somehow, or flinch, but it never does and pretty rapidly becomes not a sitcom at all.
I have just been reading Mike Carey's Felix Castor books, which if you haven't read them are basically what you would get if you took Harry Dresden, made him English, limited his powers to ghostbusting and dumped him in a slightly-alternate werewolves-and-ghosties London. What flattie was saying about Being Human reminded me both of this series and of the Dresden Files which - if you're not up to date - have now escalated the drama to the point where I just don't understand how Harry manages to so much as move his little finger. (I guess people are pretty often chasing him ...) The Carey books, which are a finite series, are doing something similar although in a more structured way, and I thought the comparison was pretty edifying.
Because while the Dresden Files books are, in terms of actual plot terms, very grim, they're still trying to rub on as if they're basically a bit funny and a bit violent and a lot riding-a-dinosaur-through-the-streets-of-Chicago. Which, I don't know about you, I don't remember the last time Harry did anything *nearly* as fun as riding a dinosaur. So the tone and the expectations are beginning to contrast pretty seriously with the content. The Carey books, on the other hand, started out much more serious in tone and have stuck with that, so when actions have consequences it's more expected and they don't violate the tone of the series. But there's still a progressive grimness to them.
And it just struck me that there's a bit of a structural problem there. If you're writing serial media - TV, book series, whatever - you want, in principle, actions and plot points to have consequences, and in urban fantasy where the worlds are usually just a little darker than our own to start off with the actions and consequences are usually grim-ish, so you end up with a kind of cascade of darkness. This is basically a combo of TVTropes' Rule of Escalating Threat and Sorting Algorithm of Evil but I think it's particularly a problem for urban fantasy for a couple of reasons:
- Urban fantasy has a terrible tendency to skew too dark and I personally just hate that
- It's often not what urban fantasy is pitched or marketed as, especially if the alternate worlds don't start out that grim. The appeal of urban fantasy - the appeal, IMO, of any serial fiction - can't sustainably be "Here's an awesome character! Get invested in their life! Now watch as we inevitably grind away at it until everything you liked about the characters and setting is gone!"
Obviously it's avoidable - Charles de Lint avoids it by keeping his series tied to a setting rather than a character so he never runs into a happily ever after. Detective fiction manages it by disallowing narrative consequences so everything is neatly wrapped up at the end. But as someone who is an urban fantasy fan it's frustrating. I love to see characters in worlds really pretty close to mine doing really pretty similar stuff to what I do, except cool, because it's with magic and they save people. You know? I don't actually want to read about characters in unbelievable extremity, trying to choose between sacrificing half their loved ones and sacrificing the world, or what atrocity they will have to commit against some personally sacred moral position in the name of ends that justify the means.
End o' rant. I need to catch up with the Toby Daye books so I can see how they fit into my Grandiose Theory.
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Date: 2012-08-31 12:50 pm (UTC)Oh hey, you haven't read Tanya Huff's Keeper books (I think I lent the first one to your sister?) They are urban fantasy without the horror elements, funny instead of grim, and also the third one has two girls falling in love whilst saving the world! In a shopping mall! With mall elves!
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Date: 2012-09-01 07:59 am (UTC)