To Instruct and Delight

When the world seems dark and full of dangers, we turn to stories for reprieve, but what do we make of these stories when they are infected by that very same grief and concern. As authors, what responsibility have we to curb that fear, and when do we owe our audience a reflection of the world, no matter how grim?

E.S. Anderson: David, I have an ongoing conversation with a friend about the most recent Superman film. I saw it on one of my rare date nights with my wife and it was a *moment* for us. We left the theater smiling. There was a rainbow. Birds sang. Was this honest fallout from a kid-free evening, or recognition of a film designed to actually improve the happiness of the viewer?

I am fascinated by the response to this film. There were a lot of eyes on it from the beginning, as it is the first big-screen Superman actor change since Henry Cavill's run (he was under-utilized. See The Man from U.N.C.L.E., for reference). James Gunn’s ability to somehow turn Guardians of the Galaxy into a blockbuster had many of us very excited about what was to come. Then he said in an interview that Superman was an immigrant, and that all Superman films were essentially about the politics of the day and “basic human kindness.” That Superman was originally written by two Jewish men living in America during the reign of Nazi Germany, and their experience was indelibly tied to the character. This set off a backlash from every conservative pundit in the country, labelled the film as “woke” months before it was released, and predisposed a decent amount of people to consider it a failure. Ink was spilled; guest speakers were greeted; mayhem reigned.

(Dalton: "He used to run this place?...Why do they want to kill him?"
Tilghman: "He told them they should be nice."
Road House, 1989)

Of course, the outcry had little basis in reality and most every claim was easily refuted by even a half-hearted viewing. But even after the false outrage died away, many still walked away from the theater with a very different reaction than my wife and I. My friend’s qualms were, in order 1) stylistic differences–the Snyder darkness and stoic strength of Cavill’s vs Gunn’s playful and bright approach 2) Luthor wasn’t menacing enough–compared to some really well-realized villains like the current Penguin or Heath Ledger’s Joker and 3) that the film incorporated current events into its storyline that mimic, or at least echo, Ukraine and Russia/Gaza and Israel.

I shrug my shoulders to Problem 1. We each have our own preferences in media and mine are much more inclined towards the campy and joyous than the dark and gritty, especially after the twenty year run of grit introduced by Christopher Nolan. What was once novel is now tired; but I can write that off as personal preference and not a failing of the film.

Problem 2 is similar. The effectiveness of a villain is specific to the individual. What one finds menacing, another finds amusing. For some, a clown is a clown. For some, a clown is IT.

But Problem 3.

I took a class on The Inklings in college and we studied the creative works of Tolkien, Lewis, and Charles Williams. A significant part of our conversation in comparing The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia (both being fantastic works written for children) was that Lewis wrote his with purpose. As my professor said, Lewis wrote, “with his thumb on the scale.” Tolkien wrote, by his own admission, out of a desperate need to escape the realities of his life, and a similarly desperate need to apply his linguistic hobbies. Lewis wished to teach, to develop the morals of his young readers towards Christian virtue. Now which man was the better author?

Yes, the political events of Gunn’s Superman remind us of current world events. Yes, the actions of the villains feel very familiar. Yes, we often wish we had heroes who could drop dictators from the sky. Does that make the film worse than one devoid of any real-world corollaries? And if so, how do we, as writers, choose between instruction and delight?

D.C. McNeill: Tolkien was the superior author, discussion over, verdict rendered. But if we assume I have not solved reality, we must contend with the fact that all work is inherently political, and therefore instructive in some way, intentional or otherwise. Tolkien’s Rings corpus is a Restoration Fantasy, replete with a holy (godly) bloodline and a martyr--the ways and methods Tolkien and Lewis explore these same ideas in their respective works is one I think about often. Not a bit: I was raised by an atheist who read us Lewis, and so I was cautious of any instructive text for a long time.

(side bar: I once blew a trivia night where we stood to win $100 each by confusing Lewis Carrol and C.S. Lewis, a relatable mistake I hope)

I saw Superman with my brother on a freezing evening in the middle of winter, which turned out to be the perfect conditions to experience such a delightful, hopeful film. During the scene in which Superman confronts Luthor, and essentially demands Luthor act like a god damn human being and show some decency, I teared up. I would have cried if alone, instead I misted over a bit and went very quiet on the walk back to the apartment. The film is, yes, a direct exploration of the ongoing genocide in Gaza City, and concludes, rather obviously, that genocide is bad. Period. Superman learns he is from a caste of Kryptonians who wish him to enslave Earth, and he says no, immediately. His moral conviction is refreshing, if not instructive, as you suggest.

Luthor, I suspect, is uncomfortable for conservative pundits because he is a fairly accurate representation of the banal, lame-as-hell tech oligarchs they are in bed with. Lex’s plan to conquer the world and establish a new reality is the thesis of “Patchwork”, the playbook for Silicon Valley. I imagine they dislike the Israel comparison because they know they are presently endorsing the cold-blooded eradication of human beings. I will spare you, and the reader, my elemental disgust and rage: there is a time and a place, and we are discussing stories here but fuck those people.

Earlier in my writing career I would have suggested that all writing ought to be instructive in order to be useful and productive (read here productive to mean producing an excess of its inputs, not strictly productive under capitalism). I find myself these days becoming a theory guy more and more, and valuing representation more and more. Having read one of your manuscripts, I would guess you are inclined toward instruction with a lining of bombastic optimism. My answer though, is that as authors we are charged with approaching each project with care and at times the work chooses as we make it. Some works develop into instructive critiques or warnings, while others exist in some amorphous category of “delightful ennui” - I am thinking of Emily St John Mandel’s novels or indeed everything Alfonso Cuarón writes. Perhaps what I am circling is a question of representation. Do we attempt to represent something that is, something that should be, or something that cannot be.

For me the answer is we ought to represent something we feel is emotionally true. If in a given moment we feel that instruction is that, then go with your chosen god(s). If we think that in fact delight is that, then sure, why not. But we need not make these as mutually exclusive. The rare work that does both are, to me, the nadir of our craft. The Batman (2022), while being dark and moody, is a masterwork about hope in the face of a cynical world while being a tremendous thriller.

Where I come unstuck in my argument is when we contend with works that are… something else entirely. Allow me a digression: at age seventeen, while working full-time in a kitchen, my brother and I visited my Dad’s house in the Sunshine Coast. This, you must understand, is a two hour drive or so. A long drive for us on a normal weekend in Queensland, and for some reason we drove separately. A stupid thing to do given our penchant for beer. I arrive, settle in, crack a few beers, and I facetime my then girlfriend for an hour before dinner.

Dinner is great, and then after more beers, the group agrees to watch Van Diemen's Land (2009). At this point in my life I had watched Alien and plenty of gory horror, but let me tell you Eric, nothing prepared me for this film. There is the idea of cannibalism, and then there is the representation of cannibalism. Halfway through I had to excuse myself and go to bed, and I did not sleep for a very long time. I have vivid memories of the sound of metal meeting flesh to this very day. Van Diemen’s Land is a brilliant and ugly, traumatising text that exists alongside other challenging works like Pathologic and Targets. They are instructive, delightful, and horrifying. And so I leave you with this: what text holds in your mind as both instructive and delightful, and if at all, do these challenging texts occupy your palette?

E.S. Anderson: David, when I consider a challenging film, I immediately think of Straw Dogs (2011). A remake of a 1971 Duston Hoffman film, this movie bothers me in ways that I am still trying to unwrap (none of which relate to production. The actors were fantastic, the pacing was perfect, and the payoff was satisfying). If you aren’t familiar: David, a screenwriter and Amy, an actor, move back to Amy’s hometown in the deep south so that David can write his magnum opus. They hire Amy’s ex-boyfriend and his buddies to fix their roof and this brings forth the conflict that eventually results in an assault on Amy and David having to defend the house by killing everyone.

David’s discomfort with the town and its people reminded me of my own move as a 7-year-old to Alabama, where I understood nothing, knew nobody, and was confronted with completely foreign ideas of masculinity and violence. I was bullied and confused for years, until I found a sense of humor and some passing confidence. The four former-football stars still living in their hometown, working odd-jobs and feeling that life had passed them by, sounded like a few people I still know from home. The casual ease with which these men can enter the home and assault Amy is terrifying, as is David’s helplessness within the social constructs before life-or-death takes over. This movie is on my list of ones I’ll probably never watch again, but it was very well done.

For Christmas this year, I talked my family into watching The Green Knight (2021), written, directed, and edited by David Lowery. I am very familiar with the source text and was hopeful that the movie wouldn’t erase the fact that it takes place during Christmas. Adaptations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tend to be difficult because the story beats aren’t very familiar or comfortable to us, but I had heard good things and looked forward to it. And the first half of the movie was spectacular. I can’t remember the last time I was so struck by visuals. The cinematography was incredible and they worked very hard to create an artistic rendering that reminded me of Julie Taymor’s work.

Then I really began to question the “why” of this movie. Gawain’s strange adventures on his way to the Green Chapel are fun and weird, but seem very disconnected from the story. Why are there giants and a semi-magic fox? Why did Gawain’s mother, Morgan Le Fay, orchestrate all of this? The character arc we expect–that the young and brash Gawain needs to learn some humility and grow into the successor to Arthur’s throne–never happens. In fact, Gawain states many times over that he is not a knight, and so isn’t held to the chivalric code necessary for many of the plot points. The original tension in the story comes from Gawain trying to be a good knight and failing, not only because he lies to his host to try to prevent his own death, but because he was attempting to maintain the honor of his host’s wife. In the film, Gawain has an orgasm, leaves early, lies to the host, and only removes the garter when a vision shows him how awful his life will be if he runs away again.

I’m left with much of the same frustration I’ve felt with other adaptations. It chooses to be bleak. This story is untouched by popular media. It could have been anything, gone in any direction. Lowery did such an incredible job in creating a mystery and setting up the character of Gawain to go out and quest, to become a better man. But the movie ends with a sigh, that Gawain has flaws that can not be overcome, that he is no knight and never will be. Arthur is old, magic yields no results, the round table is broken, and chivalry is dead. Lowery made a beautiful movie that forced a lack of morality into an inherently moral story, and I think it suffered for it, though most critics seem to disagree with me about this.

D.C. McNeill: I have seen that particular Green Knight adaptation, and I’m reminded of my own feelings toward postmodernism and the kind of implosion of the literary crit movement by way of short form video (truly the most cursed format of any media). That feeling is that we can sometimes inadvertently engage with texts on our terms, not on the terms of the text itself. There is text, and then there is how a text teaches you to read and engage with it, which here we will call conveyance. I think my issue with The Green Night is that the story does a bumpy job of conveying how it should be read. This sounds like it resulted in your expectations being failed because they were incorrectly set.

That said, I think The Green Knight does a tremendous job of holding up the Arthur mythology and spearing it through in a postmodern view. The quest is not noble but a duty. The King is not magical, rather his authority casts a long shadow, indeed. I did enjoy this deconstruction, along with the jaw dropping art direction, but perhaps where I agree with you is that the deflationary tactic of making auto-critical stories can strain my tolerance. I think here in contrast of Community, for example, a TV show that uses its rather silly and comedic pretence to write very thoughtfully about the human experience, almost starting at a deflationary position and attempting to push air back into the narrative.

On this topic, I finished Emily St John Mandel’s bashful novel The Lola Quartet last night, and far from genre fiction, the story makes itself about four musicians and the way their lives bisect and weave through the decade from age seventeen to age twenty-seven. Like all of Mandel’s work the prose is sharp and gorgeous, and I’m left thinking of the book constantly. I have a number of outstanding questions and unsolved plot cul-de-sacs, but mostly I miss living with these characters. Mandel’s tendency to flicker between memory and reality and interiority means that by the end of a novel, you’re not on any one character’s side, but instead beset by the circumstances of their lives. This is true of all Mandel’s novels, except for Sea of Tranquillity which actively undermines this structuring principle by being a novel about time travel. Suddenly the flowing prose and confluence of memory are inseparable from the high sci fi concept. Similar to The Green Knight, this could be a deflationary move, but Mandel manages to hold onto the throttle and keep the ship upright (this evolves into a luxurious and brief meta commentary on the nature of the novel as a produced artefact itself). The critical difference between the two pieces is that Mandel does not begin her story with the protagonist already burdened by their own lack of purity as we see in The Green Knight. Events and time conspire to break the spirit of these characters and challenges them to do good despite the risks and despite a lack of clear moral punctuation.

So in response I would say this: the postmodern movement posits there is among us not a single innocent, not a one, down to the man (ostensibly under the influence of mass capital as Jameson argues). I’m tempted to ask you a question in the opposite direction: do you ever find overtly moral films to be unrealistic or trite at times?

E.S. Anderson: The first example of an “overtly moral” film I can think of is American Sniper. This one is hard, because the film is honestly trying to show the moral toll on troops following orders into battle, who then have to return home to live ordinary lives while the horrors of war haunt and deprive them of the peace they deserve. But in doing so, it only brings forward the tenuous nature of the Iraq War itself, the depiction of the Iraqis, and the nature of trauma.

I'm not saying that a “modern” War movie is easy. Marvel took WW2 with Captain America; DC limped in with Wonder Woman in WW1, not because they wanted to, but because Marvel had already gotten WW2. These are the easy wars, the ones with clear aggressors and easy moral high ground. Can you imagine Captain America in Korea? Or Superman flying at the front of an American invasion of Ho Chi Minh? Comic books won't touch these other wars, because imaginary conflicts are prefatory to the horrific. I sometimes wonder if this complication of social conflict results in the downfall of the social Hero. If the situation is complicated enough, there can't be enough support behind the martyr or war hero that ends the conflict.

I've never been a “flag” guy. I was never a part of a household that flew a flag, so the entire concept is foreign to me, but I've taken enough walks around the neighborhood to know that people enjoy supporting their “thing.” Sometimes it's a university. I can get behind this, as a guy who got a scholarship and an assistantship which made my higher education almost free, my current house, kids, wife, dog, cat, cars, and lifestyle are directly tied to the support they gave me. So fly free, University flags. Let the whole neighborhood know who paid for your inclusion on our cul-de-sac.

We have a neighbor who we're friendly with. Been out to drinks, wave on the way to work, let them know if their house is ablaze–that kind of neighbor. About 2 days after the event, they put up a “We are All Charlie Kirk” flag on their house. And I am so torn, now. Because a relatively forgettable Christian pseudo-politician's name now waves to me every day when I go to work. And nothing in any of our conversations ever hinted at them caring at all about the Christian faith, or values toward this or that, or even *gasp* gun control, the only policy which might have prevented the murder at hand. So now I have a very normal neighbor, with a flag on their house that confuses me.

So my question is–can I still enjoy The Green Knight? The art direction is beautiful and the chutzpah to adapt such an ancient and difficult story, while bringing on Dev Patel, warrants several rounds of applause. But there's this big waving flag out there, and it says that innocence has been lost, that we are now trying to claw our way upward from the muck. And I thought the story deserved more.

I'm standing in the same place, as the world turns about, watching people build an ark to save themselves from the drizzle estimated to last till 4pm, with a chance of fog.

D.C. McNeill: Jarhead is the only acceptable war film in my household. The story of how the jingoism and inhumane rhetoric of the American war machine literally breaks these young men. Most poignant to your note about American Sniper is the scene where the unit we follow are preparing to be deployed. The tension is barbed wire through your gums: they all want to be deployed, because they’re all brainwashed with the dogma that they ought to seek glory in combat, but they’re equally horrified for their lives, and perhaps what this might make them into. When they learn they won’t see combat, one of the squad implodes, yelling and foaming at the mouth, cosmically disjointed by the collapse of this tension. I’ll also note that Iraq “war” is a uniquely American term, that is an invasion and always has been if you hear it from any other piece of soil.

This flag business is almost incomprehensible to me. This is not a thing here. I repeat: not even a little bit of a thing. There are three flags that are flown here with corresponding meanings. The Australian flag denotes a proud racist. The indigenous flag indicates a broad range of “well things are fucked, aren’t they” political view on the imperialistic founding of Australia. And finally the pride flag (and variations there upon), which indicate exactly what you’d imagine. But those are rare. I see maybe one flag a month, tops.

The Kirk flag is perplexing, I grant you that. But we can never know the true heart of people, nor how gullible they are to propaganda (we all think we’re immune, that’s how they get you). The way I explained the flags there has an agenda, all speech is political, after all. In this case I was hoping to convey the alien landscape that is the “United” States of America where a regular person might think it normal to hang a flag that implies we are all infamous gigantic loser, racist and misogynist Charlie Kirk because… he believed in guns? And we all should protect the right we have to be shot? Or perhaps it is simply a dog whistle should the secret police show up: look, I’m one of you. Who can say these days?

I had a Christian friend (don’t laugh, they are real) and we sustained a normal-ish friendship for about eighteen months. I lamented a lack of progressive politics in my country, they lamented the opposite. A real “will they won’t they” situation. I’m no debater. I roundly despise the exercise. But we endured many detailed discussions about morality, and though she’s nowhere near as dangerous in her thinking as a Kirk or Peterson, occasionally the enjoyment of the friendship butted up against the obvious incompatibility of our worldview. Could I still enjoy this relationship, despite this? Only until a comment about “well I don’t mind migrants but I sometimes think the country should be more traditional” caused me to terminate our friendship quietly.

I’ve reread The Hobbit recently, and while the book is superior to anything Carol has done, I cannot stand the English “he’s a lil scamp!” vibe that carries that book. Tolkien's failed rewrite to fit in with The Rings Cycle is the power-clashing of the writing world. Cosmically important objects and locations stult the comedy and whimsy, and vice versa. Is it still funny when Bilbo can’t climb into a tree and the dwarves bicker about who forgot him? Yeah dude. So the question really is: would you still get a beer with The Green Knight, knowing what you know now?

E.S. Anderson: I love how Tolkien built his world–Elves from before the dawn of time, Dwarves who delve deep and craft treasures, men of broken kingly lineage. And then Hobbits are basically just English country gentlemen. Except short, and with fuzzy feet. I like to imagine that the Inklings gave him hell for that.

We're way off topic here, but I think something modern readers miss, and Jackson's trilogy avoided altogether, is the class issue inherent in Sam and Frodo's relationship. Especially for those of us who live outside overt class systems, “the help” doesn't hold much meaning for us. But Frodo and Pippin are the equivalent of landed gentry, and going to Mordor with his gardener is like a duke going to war with his butler. Sam only ever refers to him as Mr. Frodo, and is never corrected, even after Sam bodily carried him up the slopes of Mt. Doom.

The disconnect between the vibe of The Hobbit and the seriousness of The Rings really encapsulates my musings. We have two separate stories, written for different audiences, that are being forced to align. Not to tread on my brother's territory, but Star Wars suffers from this same tension. George Lucas wrote a space epic, then a sequel. Then he started having kids and his audience changed. Now, Disney doesn't know who their target audience is, so they create separate stories for children, teens, and jaded adults, and expect us all to figure out where we belong.

The 1980's saw the first rise of the dark-superhero genre with Frank Miller. His influence was such that darkness became the default worldview. Brightness and hope were relegated to the stuff of childhood. I think that for some, this dichotomy comes at the expense of joy and the appreciation of works that span tones and moods.

I'm sure a further investigation into world events would yield a correlation between hard times and campy, fun content vs periods of economic prosperity that make artists want to delve into the macabre. CNN did a wonderful series on the 1970's, and taught us that so much iconic music and art came in the fallout of terrorist attacks, war, and economic recession. When people are stressed out and hungry, they want an escape, not a reminder of how hard it is to live.

So right now, I feel that I would buy the Green Knight a beer and try to convince him that the world is not so bad off, after all. If he can just keep his head, the next cycle will start, the darkness will bleed away, and we can have new stories again.

D.C. McNeill: I always think of the initial interactions with Sam, Frodo and Gandalf in the novels, where to Frodo, Sam is merely a tool to be deployed in this conspiracy. What I find delightful about the way Tolkien apprehends the Hobbits is that Frodo, Pippin and Merry are effectively landed university pals. They are Frodo’s “special friends” after all. Not until much later when Sam meets the elves for the first time does Frodo actually realise Sam is a person with interiority. And only then after Frodo is no longer landed. Bilbo goes “there and back again” but by the time Frodo leaves the Shire, he has sold Hobbiton, and some real estate sleight of hand makes it appear that he still holds a new home, but in truth he does not. He shutters his entire life before leaving on this quest. In a real sense he joins the petty bourgeoisie in service of defeating the ultimate evil because his uncle’s weird friend asked him to. The most British thing, ever, in my opinion.

Reflecting on the last few months since we started writing to each other in much the way that Christopher and John Ronald Reuel did, I find myself moved by your position, even if I remain perpetually finger-wavey at the insistence that delight remains a key motivator for fiction. We recently finished The Road on our podcast, and your brother repeatedly asked what the point of a novel is if it only exists to convey misery and the most unpleasant parts of the human experience. Setting aside that the book contains many of the most cosmically perfect and evocative prose ever committed to page. In response to which I have been forced to clarify my position: these works allow contrast. Felix Guattari, famously a cohort of Deleuze, wrote that one of capital’s most insidious mechanisms is to distract us from addressing the wounds at the heart of society. We mediate our experience with consumerism and economy rather than contending with the horrors we inflict on each other. And I think that fiction, in being a form of estrangement, can help us colocate the contours of that darkness, and in doing so, perhaps resolve some small aspect of it within ourselves.

Not that fiction can replace all of the many proven tools, but rather that fiction ought to serve to instruct, through grief, and through delight, and that when we follow the turtles all the way down, they might be the same thing after all. Similar expressions of the electrochemical rails that stutter and swoop within our minds. We are, all of us, delightful contrivances convinced we are more. And as Guattari tells us: once we set aside our pretensions and aesthetics, it’s all a question of machines, isn’t it?

E.S. Anderson is the co-host of Diamonds in the Rough Draft podcast and author of Science-Fiction/Fantasy titles for children and young adults.