Another Place To Inhabit

With all of this recent anticipation of the Hobbits movie and the "brohood" of the Ring, I've become quite sick of Tolkien lately.  The Fantasy genre is positively swimming with creative folks embroidering ad nauseam the world of Middle Earth and its inhabitants. You'd think there were no other worlds to inhabit.

The Romantic era gave us medievalism, and with that all of the traditional values conferred upon the practice and valuation of all things from the western European Middle Ages: chivalry, nationalism (tribalism), traditional gender roles, religion /magic, dragons, folk tales, and general pagan shenanigans. And with the advent of the barbarian, a whole industry was born that centered around a particular masculinity that still beats its chest in culture today.

I really don't fit into this genre at all. It's a new feeling of late and so my portfolio doesn't yet reflect this realization. None of these Middle Earth stories have any real appeal to me as there are no characters for whom I feel any sympathy. Not that there aren't heroines (or people of color...?) in these traditional stories, I just can't get enthused about the roles they *do* play. Guinivere? Seriously, come on. How about Eowyn? You mean Joan of Arc?  The idea of exalting the methods of any woman's immolation via beautifully crafted paintings is a kind of aggrandizement of which I'm psychically not capable. Others will suggest that I invent a strong female character to insert into this world. Yeah, that's been done before and no one really buys it. This world exists for a very specific segment of the population and functions in a specific way.  This is a closed story.

The Neo-medieval Time Capsule manifests as any number of permutations but is basically a world of metal-plated men with swords battling valiantly against a cantankerous beast (or each other?) for a maiden. She might be a warrior, --some assistance here, please!-- but is otherwise unable to make it on her own.   Vladimir Propp would be pleased and amused that his theory of the formulaic fairy tale still holds true. Aren't we tired of these stories yet?

The romanticism, the nostalgia of this genre is what I haven't been able to navigate. I should have known I'd personally have trouble with this genre when, long ago, I was told that my science illustration needed to be softer, less real-- We don't want to scare the kiddies! What I didn't know then that I do now is that much of the publishing industry and its illustration complement in general  is colored by the rose-tinted spectacles of Romanticism. The casting back to the past, the valuation of  traditional painting, the seeming non-existence of heroic non-white, non-males in stories, all painfully point to the fact that I really don't belong here.

So where *do* I belong? I don't lean towards the sentimental or romantic. I'm a forward-thinking person who loves science and technology in particular. Growing up I read a lot of Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert... Well, you guessed it. And I should have a lot sooner.

Science fiction is a platform for the new and innovative; it embraces new technology, ideas, people, genders, identities, and orientations. Diverse biological forms can walk around and technology and democracy is the rule. Here is a place where the improbable is made possible by science and progressive ideas. If you are feeling icky about all of the implications of medievalism in fantasy, fear not: there are lots of other places to inhabit.