Seriousness of Story

Stories are a very serious thing. One shouldn't underestimate their ability to communicate ideas and shape thought, even those that aren't marketed as serious (especially those, actually).

Stories are the playground of ideas. They thrive off of the question "What if?". And even if they aren't specifically written to "teach", they are saturated in the worldview of their author. Beliefs about how the world works, people's relationships with each other, what is truth, morality, etc. is present in every character, scene, beginning, ending, and middle.

Stories also have the ability to cut through people's natural defenses, none better than those stories that are a delight to read.

Stories can give people, in a way, experiences that they wouldn't normally have. Lead them to ask questions they wouldn't normally ask. Force them to experience emotions that might not otherwise experience. Take them to places they can't go.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way when speaking of fantasy and science fiction: "The Fantastic or Mythical is a Mode available at all ages for some readers; for others, at none. At all ages, if it is well used by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevances. But at its best it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus, instead of 'commenting on life', can add to it."

Of course, I think, delight in the story, in and of itself without any of these considerations, is what gives the form its power in the first place. You must be able to engage with a story in order to get anything out of it. And that is something, I think, that not everyone can or wants to do. Stories shouldn't be read first and foremost as a way to learn ideas. That seems, to me, a more secondary thing, though inseparable.

So yes, I take even the light fiction seriously. I think over it. I consider it. I analyze it. That is, I give it more than a passing thought. And I love to discuss it :)

Post New Republic

As mentioned in the post "New Jedi Order and Legacy of the Force", the time when I would have enjoyed the Star Wars expanded universe books came to an end with the so-called "Post New Republic" era books. There is something about the situations and character developments (and deaths) in those series that just breaks my heart and sucks away everything about Star Wars that I loved. That may seem like an over-reaction, but to me it almost feels like an understatement. Not only do I dislike the Post New Republic books, but for me they taint everything that has come before. They leave a "bad taste in my mouth". 

I was having trouble understanding this until discussing a popular fantasy series with a friend. Neither of us was very fond of the series and what it came down to was the pointlessness of everything that happened. What the characters did wasn't important because there was no hope; everyone would die, things wouldn't change, there was nothing to look forward to. That is exactly what I feel the Post New Republic books did to the Star Wars universe; they removed hope and caused too much destruction. I don't feel excited by the "drama" of it, but instead feel robbed of victory. 

They crossed the line and in their quest for more 'exciting' stories went too far.