Recently in Fantasy Category

I have a few requests in case anyone reading this blog can help. If you've been following my recent submissions and approvals for the Blackwell philosophy and pop culture series, you might have some idea of why I want some of the following information if anyone has it readily available. If you have exact quotes or specific scenes from the movies or issue numbers in the comics, that would be wonderful. I have a large number of X-Men comic books (mostly from the mid-late 80s until the early 90s, but I have reprints of older stuff too), but if it's easy for anyone to find some then it will make my work much easier in two weeks once I'm done grading and begin writing, so I can focus on the philosophy.

1. I'm looking for any instances in X-Men movies or comic books where any character or the narrator uses race-language or species-language to refer to mutants as distinct from humans. This includes when it's morally loaded but also when it's not. I'm interested both in Magneto's elevated view of the rights of mutants as superior beings but also in the factual claim that mutants are a separate race, sub-species, or species.

2. I'm also looking for instances where Magneto has given moral justifications for his questionable or immoral actions, again from the movies or the comic books. (I have no cartoon episodes to verify the information.) I'm interested in his attitude toward humans and the moral difference he sees between mutants and humans. I'm also interested in any general moral principles he might state in the process of explaining his reasons for doing things. Any specific descriptions of Magneto's actions as terrorist would also be nice or descriptions of particular actions he's taken that are morally questionable or outright immoral would also help me.

3. For those more wizard-inclined, I'm hoping to compile a list of seemingly-chance occurrences in Harry Potter, where something not under the conscious control of any character, i.e. lucky occurrences, are absolutely crucial for the major plot of the book to move along, particularly if Harry's success or the bad guys' defeat or frustration in their purposes hinges on it. I'm also looking for specific instances where any characters talk about issues related to destiny, the various prophecies, time travel and changing the past, free will, and so on. If you can give page numbers in the American paperback editions (hardcover for Deathly Hallows) or chapter numbers otherwise, that would be great. But even just mention of the events and how important they are could help me if it's something I haven't thought of yet, especially if it's a really big deal.

Whatever help anyone can offer is appreciated.

I wrote before that my proposal for a chapter on mutants and the nature of race was accepted to The X-Men and Philosophy volume and that I'd submitted three other proposals for two other volumes. I haven't heard anything one way or the other about my submission about The Hobbit, but I found out today that one of the two proposals I wrote for Harry Potter and Philosophy was accepted. They liked what I submitted about the limits of authorial intent, but they had a number of good submissions on that topic, and they decided they'd rather go with my proposal on destiny in Rowling's series, so they accepted that one. You can see the blog version of my initial thoughts on the matter here.

Before I even started graduate school, I hoped to be able to write popular-level philosophical discussions about questions that I thought needed serious philosophical reflection that science fiction and fantasy often raise, and I guess now I get to write about two topics I care a lot about in two fictional worlds that I've spent a lot of time in. These will be my first publications besides a book review (although it was a book review that made several substantive points, some of which I thought were genuine contributions to how to think about the issues). That means I need to work hard to submit some parts of my dissertation to journals pretty quickly to avoid giving the impression that I'm a lightweight when it comes to publication. Still, I'm glad to have the chance to contribute to these volumes.

Amazon.com has a page reviewing J.K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which she wrote out by hand, distributed four copies of to people important to her, and sold the fifth to the highest bidder (with the proceeds donated to charity), and the highest bidder turned out to be Amazon. Unfortunately there's no way to read these stories for yourself, since it's not (at least at this point) being published (and I know of no plans ever to do so. One of them, at least, is already present in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and it plays an important role in the plot of that book, but the others are new (although I believe all the titles were mentioned in that book).

It consists of five short fairy tales told in the wizarding world of Harry Potter. A few elements of magic as Rowling conceives of it do appear, but mainly these can stand alone as simply good fairy tales. I was less impressed by "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" (although it may be better as a story than the impression I get from the review), but the other four strike me as very well-conceived stories with excellent moral lessons, often with nice twists at the end, excellent ironies, and so on.

Many of the things I appreciate about her books seem to be in these stories as well, especially in "The Fountain of Fair Fortune" and "The Warlock's Hairy Heart", which serve as illustrations of what great virtue and its opposite, respectively. The latter tale strikes me as something Edgar Allen Poe could have written. It's impressive that she managed to turn her title "Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump" into what's not just a plausible story for such a name but a fun romp illustrating a nice moral lesson. "The Tale of the Three Brothers" is, of course, not new to those who have read the seventh Harry Potter novel, but it is a great fairy tale in its own right, and that one we can actually read in its published form (which apparently differs in a few details from the handwritten version in this work).

I really wish these end up being published so we can all read the actual stories. Until then, I do appreciate having the Amazon reviews. I'm glad they ended up with the fifth copy.

A week ago, I posted about J.K. Rowling's views on destiny, taking my starting point from this interview that she gave a few weeks ago. I ended with the thought that Rowling's own interpretation of what was going on wasn't the best interpretation of her actual text. That raises questions, however, about how an author might not interpret her own work correctly. She created it, after all. Does authorial intent have no bearing on these kinds of questions? [As with the previous post and the interview, there may be spoilers in this post, so don't read it if you don't know how the series concludes and want to find out in chronological order as the author intended it.]

So what does authorial intent contribute to the story when the text itself can be interpreted in several ways? Can an author determine that a character is, for example, gay even if the text itself doesn't make that clear? Can an author declare the character's motivations even if the text itself doesn't make them clear? This arises in the interview when it comes to the motivations and moral character of Albus Dumbledore in his various machinations in the war against Lord Voldemort.

I say the author can declare the intent of the character, even if the text doesn't, but I know some people make the text fundamental rather than the author. But even if that's right, it doesn't follow that everything an author says in interviews after the fact are canon. There's a debate over whether Dumbledore is a bit too manipulative. Apparently Rowling herself thinks so, judging by this interview, while many fans don't (or at least think he's less so than she seems to think; I'm one of those fans, by the way).

She can tell us what a character did and what the character's motivations were. She doesn't, however, have the power to determine whether those actions and motivations count as manipulation or whether they are immoral. Whether the word 'manipulation' applies is a matter of linguistic fact, and authors of a fantasy world can't determine by themselves what the word 'manipulation' means in English.

By the same token, whether what Dumbledore does is wrong is a matter of moral truth. Whatever determines morality (and views on that abound), it's certainly not authors of fantasy novels by themselves. I can't just write a novel where killing innocents for fun is morally ok. That can't be part of the stipulation within the novel. I can write a novel in a world where people think that, but I can't as an author make their beliefs true. I can write a novel whose characters speak a language slightly differently from English, where the word 'manipulation' means something different from what it means in English, but that doesn't change what we who speak English mean by the word when we apply it to those characters.

So there's room for debate over whether a character really is manipulative even if the author takes a side on the issue, and the same goes for whether what the character did (whether you call it manipulative or not) was morally wrong.

J.K. Rowling did an interview recently with a Dutch newspaper, and it included (among a lot of other things) her thoughts on destiny and free will. (For those who care about spoilers, you might not want to look at the interview or read the rest of this post.)

I have to confess that I'm a little disappointed in her response. She's very smart and well-informed about intellectual matters. But I have to wonder if she presents a false dilemma on this issue, and I'm not even sure the view she expresses here fits well with the books she wrote.

Your books are about the battle between good and evil. Harry is good. But is Voldemort pure Evil? He is also a victim.

He is a victim, indeed. He is a victim, and he has made choices. He was conceived by force and under the influence of a silly infatuation, While Harry was conceived in love; I think the conditions under which you were born form an important fundament of your existence. But Voldemort chose evil. I've been trying to point that out in the books; I gave him choices.

So far so good. It's important to distinguish between being forced into good or evil because of what happens to be true about your conception and making choices. This still doesn't say anything about the metaphysical status of free will. A libertarian will hold that these choices can't be caused by prior events if they're to be free, and a compatibilist will allow that they might be caused by prior events while still being free, because the distinction here is between being forced into something no matter what your own choices would be (merely because of the circumstances of your conception) and making choices (which doesn't yet say anything about whether those choices have explanations and if so what the explanations are).

But where she goes from here is what I find problematic: 

I've heard of people getting away with serious academic work based on the Harry Potter series, but I think this one takes the cake. Molly Diesing is a linguist who has written on the speech-acts of spell-casting in Harry Potter. I wish I had the time to read her paper, because it sounds fascinating to a language geek like me. I'm not entirely sure I'd understand some of the technical linguistics, but that wouldn't stop me if I didn't have other time constraints that I do have.

In case you haven't heard, J.K. Rowling was asked last week if Albus Dumbledore ever experienced romantic love, and Rowling revealed something that never appeared in the books: she'd always thought of Dumbldore as gay. This revelation makes sense of something in the last book that was a little puzzling otherwise, but I won't get into it in case anyone hasn't read the book and wants to get into it spoiler-free. I wish I had the time to write up my thoughts on this, but I'm glad someone has saved me the trouble. Travis at Sword of Gryffindor has already written up most of what I'd want to say:

See also the two comments linked to at the top of his post, in the update. If you haven't read the final book of the series, beware of spoilers in any of this.

Ben Witherington had a good review a while back of Tolkien's The Children of Hurin. For those who are completely out of the loop, this is an unfinished novel of J.R.R. Tolkien, parts of which appeared in The Silmarillion. Christopher Tolkien, who edited the last volume, turned what existed of the bulk of this novel into a real story. Apparently it's much easier to read than most of the posthumous publications of Tolkien that Christopher Tolkien has edited, but it's not all that much like the more widely-read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Sean at myelectionanalysis makes great use of a Harry Potter reference in his reflection on the Ames, Iowa strall poll, speaking of Sam Brownback's taking third place and Mike Huckabee's coming in second:

I know a lot of people think that his third place showing is enough to keep him in the race. I’m not so sure. He threw everything he had into Ames, and still came up short. I think donors who are considering Brownback are going to look long and hard at him, then turn to Huckabee. One of them needs to exit quickly though, as neither can live while the other survives.

This is such a nice appropriation of pop culture that I had to mention it here, but I think it's accurate too. Huckabee and Brownback are marketing themselves to those who because of some intellectual vice (ignorance, too comfortable accepting lies without checking them, inconsistency in who to trust) see Romney as a pretender to the pro-life label. Huckabee could be a contender, but if Brownback is taking much of his support he's not going to have a chance. Brownback doesn't have much of a chance if Huckabee steps out, but the same is not true in reverse. So on the assumptions of those who wrongly fail to recognize that Romney is the best pro-life candidate (which is all that's driving the Brownback campaign at this point), Brownback ought to get out.

According to Wikipedia's article on the Dragonriders of Pern series, Anne McCaffrey says to read Dragondrums before The White Dragon, even though the publication order (and presumably the order she wrote them) is the reverse. Does anyone know if she really did say this, and can it be substantiated? Wikipedia usually requires citation for such claims, but I see none about this claim.

The final Harry Potter novel is due out tomorrow, and most bookstores are treating that as one minute past midnight tonight. Our copy will be arriving by mail tomorrow, because we did the Amazon preorder deal, which should save us some money over buying it in a bookstore.

I thought I'd record some predictions as to what will happen in the seventh book before my predictions could be tainted by actually seeing the book. Since some may read this who haven't read through book six yet, I'll put the predictions in an extended entry to leave the front page free of spoilers for earlier books. 

A little while ago, Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy wrote a brief but interesting review of the new Tolkien novel The Children of Hurin. One statement stood out to me as especially interesting:

The story also emphasizes Tolkien's view (perhaps influenced by his experiences in World War I) that waging war against evil often requires time and patience, avoiding both premature defeatism and premature large-scale offensives.

I don't know whether this is accurate to Tolkien's intent, but I thought the ensuing discussion in the comments was very helpful in terms of why he takes Tolkien this way. But what's perhaps more interesting to me is that this seems like a perfectly normal use of the word 'evil', one that assumes nothing in particular about the metaphysical or moral content of the term. Speaking of fighting against evil in this sense does not involve any assumption about some force of evil in the world, never mind about whether such a thing is as powerful as any good force.

It amazes me how many philosophers I know think that using 'evil' as a noun in this way somehow reveals a hidden Manicheanism or dualism in one's view of good and evil (i.e. the view that good and evil are equally powerful forces). Sometimes the claim is put that President Bush is "ontologizing evil" by using the word 'evil' as a noun in this way, which is philosophical shorthand for the same point. A friend of mine called me up last week for other reasons, but the conversation degenerated to a series of his gripes against some of the views I've argued for on this blog that he'd been holding in for a couple years and had to get out before he leaves town (at least that's what it seemed to me he was doing), and at one point he just couldn't fathom how I could possibly think President Bush is not a dualist of this sort given how often he uses the word 'evil' as a noun in this way.

This kind of abstract language isn't all that uncommon. Are people ontologizing cancer as if it's some all-powerful force in the universe when they say that we're forming a crusade against breast cancer? Are Mothers Against Drunk Driving treating drunk driving as some evil force on the level of divinity if they speak as if they're waging a war against drunk driving? Are politicians ontologizing corruption as some spiritual force as powerful as God whenever they speak of fighting corruption? I don't see how it's any different when it comes to fighting terrorism, fighting terror, or fighting evil. It's a credit to the Volokh Conspiracy readers that no one repeated that meme in the comments.

J.K. Rowling regularly speaks against this sort of thing. It's one thing to photshop women as a matter of course to increase their bust size and thin their waist. Not that it's not immoral with adult women, but it seems to me to be a completely different matter to do it with someone who is underage (just turned 17, probably 16 when she took the picture) who is portraying someone even more underage (15 at the beginning of the movie, 16 at the end).

Several of the commenters have already made this point, but I'll make it again here. If whoever was responsible for this perverse act doesn't think Emma Watson is attractive enough to teenagagers as she is, then our culture's standards of beauty have become even more warped than I had thought (and I've long thought them to be pretty twisted). We already tell girls in too many ways that they're not good enough unless they look like Emma Watson. Now it turns out even Emma Watson isn't even good enough as she is.

Update: More here. I've also now linked above to Rowling's own rant against this sort of thing.

Update 2: Warner Brothers claims that they didn't authorize this. They've asked IMAX to remove it from their site.