Random Thoughts and a Meme

[alanajoli]

This thought occurred to me after watching Hero, but it didn't entirely gel until I was reading Brandon Sanderson's (mistborn) recent entry on Fearless (which I have yet to see). He mentions that the movie, like many movies out of China, features the theme of acting for the good of the state. For Westerners, Americans particularly from what I understand, placing the community before the individual seems counter-intuitive. At the same time, in the fantasy and (to a lesser extent) science-fiction genres, the hero of an epic-style story tends to be the one who is sacrificing all their desires in order to save the world/galaxy/universe.

A friend of mine called Hero blatant propaganda, which I thought was a shame. It certainly does depict the good of the state as the highest ideal. On the other hand, it's an incredibly compelling story very much in the tradition of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, praising individuals of great skill while sacrificing all for the love of the Empire (though who to rightfully support as representative of the Empire and the will of Heaven is debatable in both tales).

So here's my basic question: why is it a different thing when, say, Obi-Wan Kenobi sacrifices himself so that Luke and company can get away, or when Buffy kills Angel to save the world despite the fact that he has his soul back? At what point does sacrifice for the good of the many (instead of the good of the few) seem scary to an American audience, and why?

Just a few random thoughts I've been pondering, due to my love of Wuxia fiction. :)

*

flamesrising just put up this meme, and I particularly liked it, so I thought I would pass it along to show how well read (or not) I am.

Copy and paste.
Bold the ones you’ve read.
Add four recent reads to the end.



The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials Book 1)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) - J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) - J.K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) - J.K. Rowling
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter 5) - J.K. Rowling
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Book 1) - J.K. Rowling
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) - J.K. Rowling
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Ender’s Game (The Ender Saga) - Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
Hey Nostradamus! - Douglas Coupland
The Nature of Blood - Caryl Phillips
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules -Ed. David Sedaris
Yarn Harlot by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
Spook by Mary Roach
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Suzanne Clarke
Marley and Me -- John Grogan
Gone to the Dogs - Emily Carmichael
Book the 11th: The Grim Grotto: The Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
State of Fear - Michael Crichton
The Speed of Dark -- Elizabeth Moon
Interview with the Vampire -- Anne Rice
The Vampire Lestat -- Anne Rice
The Snow Fox -- Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Anansi Boys -- Neil Gaiman
The Princess Bride -- William Goldman
Luck in the Shadows -- Lynn Flewelling
Arthur & George -- Julian Barnes
The Seven Dials Mystery -- Agatha Christie
The Stupidest Angel -- Christopher Moore
Sabine's Notebook -- Nick Bantock
Strangers in the Night -- Linda Howard
Night Tales (v.1) -- Nora Roberts
Reunion -- Nora Roberts
White Lies -- Linda Howard
Fever Season (Merovingen Nights) -- CJ Cherryh
Divine Rite (Merovingen Nights) -- CJ Cherryh
Angel With a Sword (Merovingen Nights) CJ Cherryh
Mount Dragon -- Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Ella Enchanted -- Gail Carson Levine
Dreams Underfoot -- Charles de Lint
Settling Accounts: Return Engagement -- Harry Turtledove
In Cold Blood -- Truman Capote
Happy Hour at Casa Dracula -- Marta Acosta
Not in Kansas Anymore: The Curious Tale of How Magic is Transforming America -- Christine Wicker
Wicked -- Gregory Maguire
Holy Fools -- Joane Harris
Nikolai Gogol -- Vladimir Nabokov
The Picture of Dorian Gray -- Oscar Wilde
From a Buick 8 -- Stephen King
Half a Life -- V.S. Naipaul
Kafka on the Shore -- Haruki Murakami
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater -- Kurt Vonnegut
Naked Lunch -- William S. Burroughs
The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
Fevre Dream -- George R.R. Martin
A Feast for Crows -- George R.R. Martin
The Burning -- Bentley Little
Men of Tomorrow -- Gerard Jones
Caucasia - Danzy Senna
Sacred Clowns - Tony Hillerman
Best American Mystery Stories 2005 - Various
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Sword of Truth series books 1 – 9 – Robert Jordan
Going Postal – Terry Pratchett
Tiger in the Shadows – I can’t remember who wrote this (Debra Wilson?)
Stagestruck Vampires – Suzy McKee Charnas
A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
Cosmopolis – Don Delillo
The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde
Vellum - Hal Duncan
Illicit Passage - Alice Nunn
Zahrah the Windseeker - NNedi Okorafor-Mbachu
Men At Arms - Terry Pratchett
Hyperion Cantos - Dan Simmons
A Scanner Darkly - Phillip K Dick
At the Mountains of Madness - H.P. Lovecraft
Divine Invasions: A Life of Phillip K Dick - Lawrence Sutin
Tales Of H.P. Lovecraft
Voyage Of The Space Beagle - A.E. van Vogt
Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Snakes & Earrings - Hitomi Kanehara
Rules of Engagement - John Tynes
Twilight of the Dead - Travis Adkins
Into the Reach - Alana Abbott
Zombie Survival Guide - Max Brooks
Jhereg (book one of the Vlad Taltos series - Stephen Brust
Once upon Stilettos - Shanna Swendson
Sorcerers and Secretaries - Amy Kim Ganter
Queen of the Amazons - Judith Tarr
Storm Front (book one of the Dresden Files) - Jim Butcher

Thought though--isn't the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, while Robert Jordan is the author of the Wheel of Time series? (I've read the latter but not the former, so I didn't mark it above.)

Also, I couldn't help myself and added five titles to the end instead of four. I hope this isn't breaking the rules too entirely. What have you read?

Comments

hi

[(Anonymous)]

Hey Alana... can you send me an email? I sent you a couple messages lately, and didn't hear back. So I don't know if I have an old address, or if you're super-busy, or if the sock elves that live in the dryer decided they were sick of socks and started stealing email instead. Thanks :-) Jen

Re: hi

[(Anonymous)]

P.S. ... you should really read The Time Traveler’s Wife, it's good. Stay up all night til your eyes hurt from reading in the dark good. ()

[mistborn.livejournal.com]

You ask a very good question. (Up at the top, about Hero). Perhaps the difference is simply on a cultural bias level. I certainly loved that film--and yet, it left me questioning. (Not in a bad way.) I don't have any answers, of course. However, repeated watching of that film has left me starting to like it more than Crouching Tiger, which I first upheld as the better of the two.

[lyster.livejournal.com]

It may be a little weird to reply to a message from so long ago, but I was glancing through Alana's blog looking for her review of your book Elantris and saw this.

I don't think Zhang Yimou intends the audience to take Hero at face value. The First Qin Emperor was, in history and in the movie, an incredibly charismatic autocrat supported by a political philosophy called Legalism, the central tenets of which were the strict obedience to superior officers and the crushing all dissent, especially all forms of political thought other than Legalism. As soon as he took power, the Qin Emperor instituted a national policy called "Burn Books and Bury Scholars," which did exactly what it sounds like. His reign lasted for fifteen years before self-destructing due to a classic case of Evil Advisor syndrome. Hardly "uniting all under heaven."

To my mind Zhang Yimou's Hero is not about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one, but about the appeal of Order, even terrifying, brutal, autocratic Order, to those who have lived through periods of intense chaos and social upheaval -- and the degree to which people who have lived through such chaos will sacrifice things they have no right to sacrifice in order to achieve such order. Very pertinent to the modern Chinese political situation, I think.

[eyezofwolf.livejournal.com]

Just a thought - yes you are right about Robert Jordan and W.O.T. vs Terry Goodkind and Sword of Truth series.

As for your question above - I think that a large part of it is because US citizens do not have faith and a feeling of commitment to their "State" that exists in the other cultures you mentioned. In the examples you gave, it seems like those are cultures where the people have a near unquestioning faith and loyalty to the state and often, traditionally, believed that their leaders were inspired by the divine. Here, in the United States, it is a general belief that the government and society is supposed to be there for us (or in some cases taking advantage of us), rather than something that should be supported and something we should serve. But, that's just a thought off the top of my head.

Hero is good

[exoder27.livejournal.com]

I don't really have anything to offer to this other than the fact that I LOVED Hero. And I just wanted to say hi.

[(Anonymous)]

What does it say about me that I've read 21 of the first 27 novels on the list?