Reader Question Day #29 – reading speed and the oppression of mages

Manwe asks:

Does this mean you’ll be checking out the author’s (Poul Anderson’s) other work?

Absolutely. Everyone says THE BROKEN SWORD is really good, so I’m going to try and find a used or library copy someplace.

I’m curious, on average how long does it take you to read a book?

About a week, usually. These days the only time I have to read is usually on my lunch break. If a book is really good I’ll read larger chunks on the weekends.

ProudAlly asks:

Two questions, both related. I see you are a fan of the Dragon Age series, and based on your posts, I think that you think the forced imprisonment of mages is justified. Do you believe the forced imprisonment of mages is justified?

I suspect this question comes in response to this old post, which occasionally generates angry emails since people sometimes see the mages in Dragon Age as parallel to various real-life groups. So my answer has three points.

(If you’re not familiar with the mages in Dragon Age, a good background is here.)

First, I think within the context of the game world some sort of control or authority over mages is necessary, because when Dragon Age mages go bad, they go really bad. This isn’t a matter of discriminating against a small, disliked minority, like the Dalish or the urban elves – a mage who goes bad can literally summon armies of demons and kill thousands of people. (In the first game, all the deaths at Redcliffe and the Circle Tower were caused by two –just two – mages who stepped over the line, Jowan and Uldred.) True, mages have the right to not to be brutalized, but non-mages also have the right not to have their faces eaten by demons.

Second, the Dragon Age world’s mechanism for policing mages, the  Chantry’s templars, is both corrupt and broken, and actively results in mages going bad. This is especially exacerbated when the policing mechanism is run by a mentally unbalanced person like Knight-Commander Meredith in Kirkwall. When the only choice before mages is to submit to someone like Meredith or to wield blood magic and summon demons, blood magic suddenly looks a lot more attractive.

Third, I didn’t fully realize it when I wrote the old post, but the question “how does society handle people with superhuman abilities” is an old one in SF/F, and it has been explored many times. The creators of X-Men have been writing about it  for decades, which leads to your second question.

Second question. Do you think the mages are meant to represent  LBQT persons?

I think the game developers meant for them to represent oppressed minorities in general (Anders in Dragon Age 2 is particularly preachy about “being who you really are”), but I think the comparison doesn’t actually work.

Why? Because while the mages can make people’s heads explode by thinking about it in the Dragon Age setting, in the real world, there are no groups with innate superhuman abilities.

This is a recurrent theme in SF/F, where people with superhuman abilities, whether wizards or mutants or telepaths or whatever, are treated with fear and suspicion by the general population. Very often the writers will draw comparisons with contemporary oppressed groups, with morals about tolerance and “being who you really are.”

However, the comparison isn’t exact because in the real world no one possesses highly dangerous innate superhuman abilities. There are no oppressed groups that have the ability to wreak massive wide-scale harm using magic, mutant powers, or telekinetic force. Granted, such groups could do harm via conventional weapons or WMDs, but that’s simply technology, not superpowers. Technology can always be copied or stolen.

So, in the end, the question is purely speculative: how would a society deal with mages (or other people with superhuman powers) in its midst? We don’t really know, because no one group has ever had superhuman powers, and so therefore we can only speculate (hence, speculative fiction). The dynamic has never actually existed in human history. And since it has never existed, writers have to draw on more common experiences, like that of oppressed minorities.

Personally, if people with superhuman abilities actually did exist, I suspect they would quickly become the ruling elite. Like, if a third of the population of the US suddenly manifested telepathic abilities, we’d have a few years of social chaos to adjust, and in 15 years it would be written into law that to be a US Congressman, you have to be 25 years old, a citizen of the United States, and a Class 3 Telepath or higher.

Marcus writes:

Who do you see as your target audience?

Anyone who will buy my books!

Though I don’t have hard numbers, but I suspect the readership for THE GHOSTS has more women, and the DEMONSOULED series has more men.

-JM