Read Online Star Wars on Trial by Keith R. A. DeCandido, David Brin, Tanya Huff, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Matthew Woodring Stover - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Keith R. A. DeCandido, David Brin, Tanya Huff, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Matthew Woodring Stover
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Spear-carriers"? If the same cannot be said for the numberless Klingons and Romulans and gods-knowwhat blasted to atoms by the Enterprise?
All these questions boil down to One Big Question: when you try hard enough,you can find elements to attack in just about anything, can't you?
As Mr. Brin is a hostile witness, a simple "Yes" or "No" will be sufficient. Please remind him that he is under oath.
DAVID BRIN: If it pleases the Court, may I begin my response by quoting from Homer's great epic poem, The Iliad, chapter XXI:
Forthwith the hero left his spear upon the bank, leaning it against a tamarisk bush, and plunged into the river like a god, armed with his sword only. Fell was his purpose as he hewed the Trojans down on every side. Their dying groans rose hideous as the sword smote them and the river ran red with blood...
... and when Achilles's arms grew weary with killing them, he drew twelve youths alive out of the water, to sacrifice in revenge for Patroclus. He drew them out like dazed fawns, bound their hands behind them.... Then he sprang into the river, thirsting for more blood.
All right, it wasn't just one wave of his hand.
Still, might I ask the Court, especially, to note the words "like a god"?
Moreover, let me make something clear: I never claimed that all Campbellian-style legends portray kings in ways that modern people find admirable! After all, despite recent moves back toward aristocratism, we are still rebels! It will take a lot of propaganda to make us turn away from our enlightenment revolution, to re-embrace the bad old ways.
Yes, it is easy to see the flaws of kingship in fellows like Agamemnon and Menelaos, though it can be a bit harder to notice in sweetened and sanitized figures like King Arthur, or Elrond, who had better press agents. Still, what's fundamental is that Homer and his ilk never let their common folk choose any other path. As in Star Wars, they must pick sides between demigods-usually the side that looks prettier. They never get to try a wholly different way.
Since Mr. Stover raised the subject of more recent literature, let's discuss Captain Nemo! Without a doubt, Jules Verne did tug at some of the same emotional strings as in classic tragedy. Nemo rails against the warmongering and oppressive "system" fighting it with great courage, ingenuity and success ... till he is brought low by his own arrogance and pride. Hubris, again. But, in this case, at least Nemo's rant against entrenched power gets heard. And note, he may be a genius, but he remains nothing without a skilled crew that shares his dream. (Again, the naval metaphor, leaving us with the best character of the book, the Nautilus!) This is a complex, hybrid tragedy, but one with lots of modernist elements, more than enough to call Verne a fellow revolutionary!
Let me also leap to defend Steven Spielberg, who actually strove hard to personalize German soldiers in Saving Private Ryan, at least as much as an American G. I. might have had time to do. (Limited point of view.) Especially impressive was the personal fight between two alpha warriors, and the way the winning German granted a nearby coward the chance to opt out ... only then, later, that coward gathered the courage to do his job. On a larger scale, can Mr. Stover truly not see this wonderful film as a true archetype of what I'm talking about? Myths that portray citizen soldiers standing up for their civilization, sometimes bickering, sometimes getting too angry, but nevertheless always returning to stand up?
it is not merely the fact that millions die that proves a tale to be anti-democratic. Millions are dying during Deep Space Nine and during Schindler's List! Yet, these dramas preach a very different lesson than kingly leadership or the authority of demigods. The crux is this: are people fighting and dying for elites, or for the accountable institutions, laws and general decency of a civilization that ought to be theirs to share and own? Government by, of and
All these questions boil down to One Big Question: when you try hard enough,you can find elements to attack in just about anything, can't you?
As Mr. Brin is a hostile witness, a simple "Yes" or "No" will be sufficient. Please remind him that he is under oath.
DAVID BRIN: If it pleases the Court, may I begin my response by quoting from Homer's great epic poem, The Iliad, chapter XXI:
Forthwith the hero left his spear upon the bank, leaning it against a tamarisk bush, and plunged into the river like a god, armed with his sword only. Fell was his purpose as he hewed the Trojans down on every side. Their dying groans rose hideous as the sword smote them and the river ran red with blood...
... and when Achilles's arms grew weary with killing them, he drew twelve youths alive out of the water, to sacrifice in revenge for Patroclus. He drew them out like dazed fawns, bound their hands behind them.... Then he sprang into the river, thirsting for more blood.
All right, it wasn't just one wave of his hand.
Still, might I ask the Court, especially, to note the words "like a god"?
Moreover, let me make something clear: I never claimed that all Campbellian-style legends portray kings in ways that modern people find admirable! After all, despite recent moves back toward aristocratism, we are still rebels! It will take a lot of propaganda to make us turn away from our enlightenment revolution, to re-embrace the bad old ways.
Yes, it is easy to see the flaws of kingship in fellows like Agamemnon and Menelaos, though it can be a bit harder to notice in sweetened and sanitized figures like King Arthur, or Elrond, who had better press agents. Still, what's fundamental is that Homer and his ilk never let their common folk choose any other path. As in Star Wars, they must pick sides between demigods-usually the side that looks prettier. They never get to try a wholly different way.
Since Mr. Stover raised the subject of more recent literature, let's discuss Captain Nemo! Without a doubt, Jules Verne did tug at some of the same emotional strings as in classic tragedy. Nemo rails against the warmongering and oppressive "system" fighting it with great courage, ingenuity and success ... till he is brought low by his own arrogance and pride. Hubris, again. But, in this case, at least Nemo's rant against entrenched power gets heard. And note, he may be a genius, but he remains nothing without a skilled crew that shares his dream. (Again, the naval metaphor, leaving us with the best character of the book, the Nautilus!) This is a complex, hybrid tragedy, but one with lots of modernist elements, more than enough to call Verne a fellow revolutionary!
Let me also leap to defend Steven Spielberg, who actually strove hard to personalize German soldiers in Saving Private Ryan, at least as much as an American G. I. might have had time to do. (Limited point of view.) Especially impressive was the personal fight between two alpha warriors, and the way the winning German granted a nearby coward the chance to opt out ... only then, later, that coward gathered the courage to do his job. On a larger scale, can Mr. Stover truly not see this wonderful film as a true archetype of what I'm talking about? Myths that portray citizen soldiers standing up for their civilization, sometimes bickering, sometimes getting too angry, but nevertheless always returning to stand up?
it is not merely the fact that millions die that proves a tale to be anti-democratic. Millions are dying during Deep Space Nine and during Schindler's List! Yet, these dramas preach a very different lesson than kingly leadership or the authority of demigods. The crux is this: are people fighting and dying for elites, or for the accountable institutions, laws and general decency of a civilization that ought to be theirs to share and own? Government by, of and
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