Outside is a land and I'll walk it when I'm certain
Talking with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch about the frankly exhausting prospect of pulling our democracy through this election only to have to pull it through another election all over again in four years, which is of course preferable to the alternative, launched me onto thinking about how all the fantasy I read as a child did warn me this would happen. None of the touchstones of my childhood had a done-and-dusted, tidy conclusion to the war of light and dark. If anything, they emphasized the opposite:
"Evil conquered?" said Gwydion. "You have learned much, but learn this last and hardest of lessons. You have conquered only the enchantments of evil. That was the easiest of your tasks, only a beginning, not an ending. Do you believe evil itself to be so quickly overcome? Not so long as men still hate and slay each other, when greed and anger goad them. Against these even a flaming sword cannot prevail, but only that portion of good in all men's hearts whose flame can never be quenched."
—Lloyd Alexander, The High King (1968)
"For remember," he said, "that it is altogether your world now. You and all the rest. We have delivered you from evil, but the evil that is inside men is at the last a matter for men to control. The responsibility and the hope and the promise are in your hands—your hands and the hands of the children of all men on this earth. The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world . . . And the world will still be imperfect, because men are imperfect. Good men will still be killed by bad, or sometimes by other good men, and there will still be pain and disease and famine, anger and hate. But if you work and care and are watchful, as we have tried to be for you, then in the long run the worse will never, ever, triumph over the better."
—Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree (1977)
"Then you will go back to the world from which you came," he said, "and it will be as if you had never left. You will each go back to grief and loss, but you will have the strength to survive them, for echoing at the back of your minds —not quite seen or heard, not quite apprehended—will be all those things that you have learned on your journey here. Like the leaves on the trees each year, you will grow and change. And indeed, you may never find wisdom or contentment in that world into which you were born—but you may if you are lucky see a light that blazes far more brightly, even though it must in the end burn itself out."
—Susan Cooper, Seaward (1983)
It spoke to her, not with words but as if she were thinking to herself. My shadows are still abroad in the world. As I have done evil, for some time yet they still shall. Stop them. Stop me.
We will. Always.
Then the worlds are saved, as long as you save them all over again, every day.
—Diane Duane, High Wizardry (1990)
Over and over, I found this theme of the imperfect world, the constant saving, not even bleakly, but factually. It would be nice to imagine that the ending of Alan Garner's The Owl Service (1967) unbinds the valley from the wheel of the myth on which it has been fixed ever since it was immemorially forced into the pattern of Blodeuwedd, but it went without saying for child-reader me that the story would fall in time on the next generation, who would have to make up their minds to owl or flowers, and so on until perhaps at last the valley was so changed with time that it could no longer act as a reservoir of story and perhaps not even then. Even Tolkien, who makes less a of a speech about it, returns his painfully victorious characters to the Scouring of the Shire, and taking ship for the Grey Havens, and the explicit shift of responsibility from the numinous into the workaday:
"I am with you at present," said Gandalf, "but soon I shall not be. I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you."
—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (1955)
I had wanted to write, before the election, about two reasonably different movies which put me in mind of one or all of these passages, but it has been a stupidly hammering year on the heels of other stupidly hammering years and neither of them has yet been possible, but the entire point here is that the work of the world doesn't go out of style. I don't know where anybody gets the idea of an ultimate victory unless they've got their head up the Rapture or something. I never did feel betrayed by C. S. Lewis, but I still don't believe in The Last Battle (1956).
spatch about the frankly exhausting prospect of pulling our democracy through this election only to have to pull it through another election all over again in four years, which is of course preferable to the alternative, launched me onto thinking about how all the fantasy I read as a child did warn me this would happen. None of the touchstones of my childhood had a done-and-dusted, tidy conclusion to the war of light and dark. If anything, they emphasized the opposite:"Evil conquered?" said Gwydion. "You have learned much, but learn this last and hardest of lessons. You have conquered only the enchantments of evil. That was the easiest of your tasks, only a beginning, not an ending. Do you believe evil itself to be so quickly overcome? Not so long as men still hate and slay each other, when greed and anger goad them. Against these even a flaming sword cannot prevail, but only that portion of good in all men's hearts whose flame can never be quenched."
—Lloyd Alexander, The High King (1968)
"For remember," he said, "that it is altogether your world now. You and all the rest. We have delivered you from evil, but the evil that is inside men is at the last a matter for men to control. The responsibility and the hope and the promise are in your hands—your hands and the hands of the children of all men on this earth. The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world . . . And the world will still be imperfect, because men are imperfect. Good men will still be killed by bad, or sometimes by other good men, and there will still be pain and disease and famine, anger and hate. But if you work and care and are watchful, as we have tried to be for you, then in the long run the worse will never, ever, triumph over the better."
—Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree (1977)
"Then you will go back to the world from which you came," he said, "and it will be as if you had never left. You will each go back to grief and loss, but you will have the strength to survive them, for echoing at the back of your minds —not quite seen or heard, not quite apprehended—will be all those things that you have learned on your journey here. Like the leaves on the trees each year, you will grow and change. And indeed, you may never find wisdom or contentment in that world into which you were born—but you may if you are lucky see a light that blazes far more brightly, even though it must in the end burn itself out."
—Susan Cooper, Seaward (1983)
It spoke to her, not with words but as if she were thinking to herself. My shadows are still abroad in the world. As I have done evil, for some time yet they still shall. Stop them. Stop me.
We will. Always.
Then the worlds are saved, as long as you save them all over again, every day.
—Diane Duane, High Wizardry (1990)
Over and over, I found this theme of the imperfect world, the constant saving, not even bleakly, but factually. It would be nice to imagine that the ending of Alan Garner's The Owl Service (1967) unbinds the valley from the wheel of the myth on which it has been fixed ever since it was immemorially forced into the pattern of Blodeuwedd, but it went without saying for child-reader me that the story would fall in time on the next generation, who would have to make up their minds to owl or flowers, and so on until perhaps at last the valley was so changed with time that it could no longer act as a reservoir of story and perhaps not even then. Even Tolkien, who makes less a of a speech about it, returns his painfully victorious characters to the Scouring of the Shire, and taking ship for the Grey Havens, and the explicit shift of responsibility from the numinous into the workaday:
"I am with you at present," said Gandalf, "but soon I shall not be. I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you."
—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (1955)
I had wanted to write, before the election, about two reasonably different movies which put me in mind of one or all of these passages, but it has been a stupidly hammering year on the heels of other stupidly hammering years and neither of them has yet been possible, but the entire point here is that the work of the world doesn't go out of style. I don't know where anybody gets the idea of an ultimate victory unless they've got their head up the Rapture or something. I never did feel betrayed by C. S. Lewis, but I still don't believe in The Last Battle (1956).
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I have re-read it as an adult, and I still like the literal apocalypse of Narnia when Time squeezes out the sun, but otherwise I understand your stance.
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A lot people did see Star Wars.
I just see this simplicity so often attribtued to fantasy and it makes me wonder what fantasies people are reading, or imagine other people read.
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Also, I'm betting some of it comes out of fantasy gaming (TTRPGs and video games).
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I don't object to the ending of the world as such. As you point out, we know from the example of Charn that worlds come to an end and new pools form. The way in which it is written to happen felt artificial and unsatisfying to me as a child and as an adult I violently disagree with the idea that life is a school-term and heaven is a holiday and life is a dream and heaven is the morning and all the stories on this earth are meaningless against the real story which you have to die to be part of.
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Hah: I edited out of my comment because it felt too snarky "unless it's David Eddings, the second time around."
I keep forgetting how much Mercedes Lackey I read in middle and high school just because other people left it lying around. It was in many ways a completely un-formative experience, although I retain select opinions all these decades later. I think I just didn't have the right id.
Also, I'm betting some of it comes out of fantasy gaming (TTRPGs and video games).
That I would entirely believe. Games have to end.
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(While I suppose I still hope for something like the outcome of The Last Battle, all those beautiful stars falling happily and going farther up and farther in, I know that has little to do with the battles we have a responsibility to fight here and now.)
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If this was the actual intent at one point, it failed almost immediately by starting with the battle. And indeed, the franchise mostly stuck with thrilling battles until quite recently, with Andor.
I have long felt that JMS was aware of that failed promise, and structured Babylon 5 to try and actually fit that structure. And while certainly flawed, I think it came much closer. It definitely had the element of "You're never done saving the world."
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Also of relevance, the Sith have as a central propaganda point that the Republic is causing society to stagnate. Which is self-evidently *true*, given that the game is set thousands of years before the movies, yet is in broad strokes the same tech level and culture.
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Let us hope for flowers.
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I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Stars farewell.
*hugs*
Nine
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It's unfair of evil across the board, which is kind of its shtick, but one should still object.
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*hugs*
You're welcome. Their words were a major-league assist.
(While I suppose I still hope for something like the outcome of The Last Battle, all those beautiful stars falling happily and going farther up and farther in, I know that has little to do with the battles we have a responsibility to fight here and now.)
(I grew up on this world and the work of it: I am glad you pitch in to its fight.)
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You're welcome. Strength to your arm.
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nor bid the Stars farewell.
I had been listening.
*hugs*
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You're welcome. I would not mind if it served as a spell.
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You're welcome. They formed much of the deep strata of the inside of my head.
Let us hope for flowers.
*hugs*
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"Every generation of Centauri mourns for the golden days when their power was like unto the gods! It's counterproductive! I mean, why make history if you fail to learn by it?
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That bit from Silver on the Tree stuck with me.
(The Last Battle felt unsatisfactory to me as a child for various reasons and I've never had the desire to revisit it - I strongly suspect my opinion of it would not improve.)
Thank you for this.
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"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
the work of the world, by definition, is unending. it's possible that's the appeal of the idea of apocalypse for so many people, one singular great change, a time after which the work can be set down. but that's an illusion. the apocalypse we're living is a Long Emergency, no one singular change but an ongoing cascade of small things getting worse and never recovering.
that said, some kind of return to the status quo for long enough for everyone to get some rest would be a relief.
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Also, give me the old days when a person could meet unrelenting hate with violence.
It's counter to your thesis, but I'm stuck here with my sharp, sharp teeth and a kid who noped out of Susan Cooper over what happened to Hawkin, because his sense of justice is so consuming that he had heard all he needed to of the story.
*
Not believing in the last battle is one of the reasons I left Christianity.
Also I am shivering all over at these pertinent reminders from our shared reading past.
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Or maybe it's because of the formula "happily ever after" in traditional fairy tales. But that's just the classic ending of a comedy (as opposed to a tragedy). We draw the curtain here, on the smiling couple and feel no need to point out that they will no doubt face rocky times in their future.
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Up Lobelia's umbrella.
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The actual ending of Silver on the Tree frustrates me as it does so many readers, but Cooper is so strong on the responsibility: "For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you."
(The Last Battle felt unsatisfactory to me as a child for various reasons and I've never had the desire to revisit it - I strongly suspect my opinion of it would not improve.)
About fifteen years ago, I re-read all the books together for the first time in years and concluded that The Magician's Nephew had at some point become my favorite and there were two scenes in The Last Battle that worked for me as intended and the rest I was powerfully not the target audience for.
(The other scene is the apparition of Tash, which is basically character assassination on an apkallû, but still effectively vivid and weird.)
Thank you for this.
You're welcome. Exhausting or not, it's the only thing to do.
*hugs*
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Tikkun olam or bust.
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I'll give you Sharkey, you dirty thieving ruffians!
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I agree that would be really nice.
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*hugs*
It's counter to your thesis, but I'm stuck here with my sharp, sharp teeth and a kid who noped out of Susan Cooper over what happened to Hawkin, because his sense of justice is so consuming that he had heard all he needed to of the story.
Your kid would have had the Light fuck on off out of the affairs of humanity long before Bran was born, that's all.
Re: *
For the sake of what your childhood would have called your soul, I'm glad you did.
Also I am shivering all over at these pertinent reminders from our shared reading past.
*hugs*
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You're welcome. It echoes.
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It's still awful to have to keep doing the work, and keep fighting the fight. But it's the shape of the world and it's worth doing, and the victories do happen and do matter.
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Besides which I don't know what else to do.
*hugs*
Of the three original books, I actually have the least connection with High Wizardry, except for everything at the end with the Lone Power: a great disastrous fall like a lightning-stricken tower's. Which parts of L'Engle fit into this constellation for you?