I felt the same way and feel the same way about many contemporary epics. Take Dune II for another example.
The ending of the book (and the narratively superior SyFi miniseries version which proved the story could be faithfully told in all the ways the Dune II writers used to justify refusing to) had a fully-awakened Paul threaten to destroy the lifecycle of the sandworms permanently (using “changed waters” and a knowledge of the ecology of Arrakis earned from living in it among its native people) if he was not obeyed.
The spacing guild saw the threat as “no more spice ever again” and proceeded to cart the armies of all the great houses assembled in orbit home whether they liked it or not.
Paul wins a (compared to a galactic war) bloodless victory and claims the birthright he had been wrongfully deprived of by the Baron and the Emperor’s scheme to wipe out a popular and powerful great house.
In the film version we got, awakened Paul, who could see the future and choose among its possible paths, chose to threaten to “nuke the spice fields” which would in fact disrupt production for as long as it took for new ones to be formed by the worms, who would be underground and unharmed in any meaningful way by the blast or its fallout.
So instead of winning with cunning and claiming what was his back from his enemies—he instead becomes an embattled usurper whose first and greatest threat was simply ignored.
Why?
I suspect a similar aversion to endings in which a story’s hero wins unqualified victories because of their virtues rather than qualified ones because of their vices.
It strikes me as if people who have the power to do so are living out a beef with the idea of heroism. This strikes me as civilizationally dangerous given the cultural importance of the idea that one person ever ought to stand against the status quo for the greater good. This seems like the idea objected to when you look at one “hero” after another be negated in “modern” retellings of their stories. This to me appears evident in most modern so-called heroic epics.
I wonder what we are risking by making the idea that one virtuous person standing against the world can make a positive difference. And I wonder what we will lose of ourselves if we persist in it.
No worries or pressure—thanks for producing writing capable of provoking long thoughts. It’s like finding water in the desert. I look forward to reading more. :)
I felt the same way and feel the same way about many contemporary epics. Take Dune II for another example.
The ending of the book (and the narratively superior SyFi miniseries version which proved the story could be faithfully told in all the ways the Dune II writers used to justify refusing to) had a fully-awakened Paul threaten to destroy the lifecycle of the sandworms permanently (using “changed waters” and a knowledge of the ecology of Arrakis earned from living in it among its native people) if he was not obeyed.
The spacing guild saw the threat as “no more spice ever again” and proceeded to cart the armies of all the great houses assembled in orbit home whether they liked it or not.
Paul wins a (compared to a galactic war) bloodless victory and claims the birthright he had been wrongfully deprived of by the Baron and the Emperor’s scheme to wipe out a popular and powerful great house.
In the film version we got, awakened Paul, who could see the future and choose among its possible paths, chose to threaten to “nuke the spice fields” which would in fact disrupt production for as long as it took for new ones to be formed by the worms, who would be underground and unharmed in any meaningful way by the blast or its fallout.
So instead of winning with cunning and claiming what was his back from his enemies—he instead becomes an embattled usurper whose first and greatest threat was simply ignored.
Why?
I suspect a similar aversion to endings in which a story’s hero wins unqualified victories because of their virtues rather than qualified ones because of their vices.
It strikes me as if people who have the power to do so are living out a beef with the idea of heroism. This strikes me as civilizationally dangerous given the cultural importance of the idea that one person ever ought to stand against the status quo for the greater good. This seems like the idea objected to when you look at one “hero” after another be negated in “modern” retellings of their stories. This to me appears evident in most modern so-called heroic epics.
I wonder what we are risking by making the idea that one virtuous person standing against the world can make a positive difference. And I wonder what we will lose of ourselves if we persist in it.
Need to give this more thought later. Thanks for commenting at length, Greg.
No worries or pressure—thanks for producing writing capable of provoking long thoughts. It’s like finding water in the desert. I look forward to reading more. :)