Bittercon: "I'm So Special"

[intertext]

For those on my flist not able to join oursin and brisingamen at Wiscon, or who did not go and have fun at Kalamazoo (or even those who did!) but who would like to participate in a Con panel, there is lively discussion at papersky, sartorias and katenepveu and others coordinated in the community bittercon. Here's my panel topic:

"I'm So Special" - Wish Fulfillment Fantasy and Science Fiction

From Harry Potter to Heroes, there's a whole sub-genre of SF in which the "outsider" suddenly discovers that he or she is not an outsider but a member of some elite class of beings (wizard, superhero, Herald). There is a sub-genre of this trope in which the person becomes special by being CHOSEN by some kind of sentient animal - think particularly of the works of Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey.

My question is not so much about the popularity of such a class of novels - I think the attraction is fairly obvious - but whether any of these authors, or others, have dealt with the notion of being the one NOT chosen. J K Rowling never really allows her characters to interact with "normal" Muggles, only the dreadful members of Harry's family - I'd love to read something from the perspective of such a character. There are several Pern novels in which some of the suspense is derived from the viewpoint character not being chosen by a dragon when expected to be so, but I believe that all of them end up with that character being chosen in the end.

I've often thought of writing something called "The Unchosen" from the perspective of someone in that position who feels, perhaps, bitter (hey - Bittercon!) and excluded. Do any works exist in which the main character is "normal" within a society such as I've described and comes to terms with it?

A related question is that these, with the possible exception of Harry Potter, seem to fall into the category of "guilty pleasure" reading - basically not terribly good books that are nevertheless fun escapism. Are there any "good" works, by which I mean books that you don't have to apologize for reading, that fall under this category? And if not, why not?

Comments

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Brekke refuses to Impress again after Wirenth is killed by Prideth.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Right - I'd forgotten her. That subject - what happens when the imprinted animal/whatever dies - is touched on in most of the works. I think there are several instances of it in Lackey, for example. In the early Jennifer Roberson series about - is it the Cheysuli? - that becomes an important plot point as I think I remember that the human dies or goes mad with the death of his/her totem animal.

[lotusice.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest Elric of Melniboné (Moorcock) as a good example.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Oh, Elric is chosen all right, just by a particularly perverse and unsympathetic god, among other supernatural entities. Chosen for dire things is not the same thing as having a boring everyday sort life. And the thing about having a boring everyday sort of life is that it's really not easy to make compelling stories about. Though I'd nominate Maureen McHugh as someonwe with a gift for this, particulalry in China Mountain Zhang.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, what a good topic. This is something I used to think about a lot. (And write about a lot, but gassing on about one's stuff is irritating enough in one's own blog, but unforgivably in someone else's.)

Trying to think of examples where I've seen it done. The closest coming to mind right now is the romantic version, an early novel by McKillip, illustrated by her sister (the seventies style of the drawings is mindboggling) called The Night Gift. She deals extraordinarily well with being the one Not Picked, even though it's by a boy, and not by The Fates or Destiny to be Queen of the Megaverse, complete with violet eyes.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Oh my - the one McKillip I haven't read, though I know of it. Finding it might be an epic quest, though.

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

China Mieville's latest, Un Lun Dun, is pretty much just that - a book where the Chosen One's sidekick is the heroine. She gets pretty bitter at one point when a prophecy describes her as "the funny one."

Mieville's not subtle with some of his points but it's quite well done.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

I'm not a huge fan of Mieville, but have seen that book in the shops and thought it looked interesting.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

This might be a stretch, but what about when the outsider finds this out, but ends up being the anti-hero throughout the book? Sorry -- sleepy at the moment, but I was thinking of one of the Darkover Novels ... Two to Conquer, I think. Actually, there are all kinds of being chosen -- and rejected -- in that particular book. And I just mixed up Bard and Paul in my head. But I think the point I started out with was that there we have an example of several kinds of being 'chosen' and having that status taken away.

For me, I have to say that the first six Deryni books never seemed like a guilty pleasure, and I think that Kelson at least fits your 'outsider who gets powers' scheme. Of course, I was at school when I read those. Dunno how guilty I'd feel now!

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

What about Carrot?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

But isn't Carrot really king in all but name and trappings?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

George R. R. Martin's written a couple of short stories from that perspective: "Slideshow," about a guy who gets to explore space once, but isn't good enough to be chosen again; "Fast-friend," about a guy who doesn't get a Spider Robinson-type space symbiont, arguably "A Song For Lya," though the path the hero doesn't take is is of highly dubious merit.

Martin and Lisa Tuttle's Windhaven has a heroine who starts out as a Chosen One, but [spoilers elided] doesn't stay one.

This may be a theme more commonly explored in short stories than novels, as it tends to be depressing, and few sf and fantasy writers want to be depressing for an entire novel.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

But wouldn't it be great if you could somehow deal with that conflict in the character's heart and make it not depressing.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

Sorry ... me again. Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence had lots of examples, if I understand you correctly. The Drew children are all pretty normal, and stay that way. They are normal human foils to those who are chosen. Their humanity gives them strength, and also puts them at risk. But they are all central characters who have to consciously deal with the fact that they don't have those powers. Magic happens around them, and to them, but their roles are mostly reactive.

In that same vein, how would you categorise the children of this world in The Chronicles of Narnia (i.e., leaving out Narnians like Cor in The Horse and His Boy and Caspian)? I can see the argument for the Pevensies being chosen, but really, their coming is foretold more than that they are 'chosen' (unless you want to talk theology!). But if the Pevensies are, I think it's clear that Eustace is not, at least, not in Dawn Treader.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Re: the Dark is Rising: yes, that's an interesting example because the Drew children are mundane. And I think the "unchosen" aspect adds weight to that choice that Will Stanton gets to make at the end. They are not given that choice.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

C.J. Cherryh wrote a book that kicked that stereotype to bleeding shreds -- the starry-eyed girl who believes that the psychic horses have bonded with *her* kicks off hell on earth because of her delusions. And, no, they didn't.

Anybody remember the title?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Rider at the Gate and the marginally more cheerful sequel, Cloud's Rider. Although technically speaking, she actually is one of the Chosen ones... just not in a good way.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I've been fascinated with this for a while, though I don't know that I've done anything with that fascination yet.

I know that, more and more, I get impatient with books that treat the non-chosen characters badly. Every character is the hero of their own story; and non-chosen characters think this way too, and don't see the "special" characters as more important than them--nor, really, are they. And I think whether the author understands this can often show through in the writing.

Put more simply: the mundanes aren't evil. They aren't even unimportant. They're simply not the viewpoint that was chosen for this tale.

[janni.livejournal.com]

They're simply not the viewpoint that was chosen for this tale.

In the stories where they're not chosen. Didn't mean to say they couldn't be chosen there--they could, and the author has to understand that when writing them, I think.

[diony.livejournal.com]

I can't, exactly, think of any novels that both focus on the unchosen and allow them to remain unchosen by the end.

What springs to mind instead is a very good anime series I saw last year (based on a series of Japanese novels, but they haven't been translated into English yet, so I can't say how much similarity there is), in which two girls get teleported to a magical world yadda yadda, one of them is The Chosen One, and the other one isn't, and thinks she should be, and is manipulated by various people due to this belief until she eventually comes to the realisation that, no, she really isn't the Chosen One and would be much happier if she went back home and made friends and generally tried to be a reasonable human being. This is depicted as the hard-won result of painful personal growth and absolutely a victory for her.

Come to think of it, later in the same anime there's a story arc focusing on two other women, one of whom thinks all of her problems would go away if she was a Chosen One, the other of whom was the daughter of a Chosen One who screwed things up so badly that he got killed & thus his family became ordinary again. Both of them have to go through sufficient personal growth to understand and accept that they have meaningful choices and personal power and lives of their own without needing to be Chosen.

Eventually all the novels will be translated and I'll read them and then I'll know if they count.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

That sounds absolutely perfect - exactly the sort of thing I was wanting. What is the name of the series?

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Not a book, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer has the Chosen/not-Chosen tension. And since Buffy has a habit of dying, triggering a new Slayer, and then coming back from the dead, you have that added twist.

But don't ask me to name particular episodes...

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd thought of Buffy. And of course, Joss Whedon, as he is wont to do, to some extent upsets the whole concept in the very last episode. I won't be more specific in case there's anyone for whom that might be a spoiler.

The Buffyverse - Angel included - plays interestingly with the insider/outsider idea, in that there's a whole group on the "inside" - the Scoobies, in the case of BVS and Angel and his cohorts and adversaries, in the other - for whom vampires and demons are part of the normal world, but every now and then they come into contact with a person or group for whom such things seem to be completely alien.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

There's a Samuel Delany novella called "The Star Pit" which is about pretty much exactly this. There are these people called "Golden" who are wonderful and special and can go out into hyperspace without cracking up, and then there's the protagonist of the story, who would have really liked to be one.

There's also, weirdly, Tolkien's incredibly sad poem "The Last Ship" in which a human girl watched the last elf ship leaving Middle Earth and is invited to join them:

"Firiel looked from the river bank, one step daring
Then deep in clay her feet sank, and she halted, staring.
Slowly the elven ship went by, whispering through the water.
"I cannot come!" they heard her cry. "I was born Earth's daughter."

That -- the whole poem, which is in The Adventures of Tom Bombadill -- I think goes right at the heart of being unchosen.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh, yes - I just got goose-bumps thinking about it!

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Related to this, there's an interesting subgenre of stories about the people living just outside of fairy tales and fantasy, trying to figure out what's going on. deliasherman's The Porcelain Dove and sartorais's "Mom and Dad on the Home Front" are the prime exemplars.

[delurker.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you read fanfic at all, but if you're open to fanfic, I think you'll enjoy Dudley Dursley and the Hogwarts Letter (http://community.livejournal.com/remix_redux/58321.html) by kindkit, which is an AU (alternate universe) in which Dudley is a muggle living with the Potters in a household of wizards. It's all about not being chosen, so quite appropriate to this post. :)

[intertext.livejournal.com]

I haven't read much fanfic, but that sounds interesting - thanks!

[kate_nepveu]

This is a great topic, and I wish I could contribute more than a single link to a short story:

http://nielsenhayden.com/return.html

*goes away to ponder some more*

[intertext.livejournal.com]

That's a great story! Thank you - it hits the spot, so to speak. I was also reminded of a story by papersky that I know I've read somewhere online but couldn't find, which is appropriate, if a little tangential to this topic. It's about someone who has visited a Narnia or a Fionavar and come back and is dealing with reality again.

[simonator.livejournal.com]

But part of the whole "chosen one" meme is crypto-puberty. The ugly-duckling story is enduring because to some extant, we all go through it. Not every adult is demonstrably "special," but we are all unique and vastly changed since our childhood. For a story of a "non-chosen" one to resonate we would have to see them come out of the other side of the selection process changed. And not merely bitter about not being chosen, but noticeably more adult and improved.

Learning what is is that we're not good at is still learning, albiet of a fairly unpleasent kind. Somebody once said of their elite school experience that it was humbling to discover that one was in the bottom 20% of the top 2%. And yet that is still growth, and need not be an unrelenting depression-fest.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

You're right, but my point is that I'm not sure Carrot ever knows he's chosen -- and he doesn't really turn it down.

No apologies

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

All the children's stories in which the protagonist is touched by faerie ("real" or merely implied)--charmed even--but has to give it up.

My favorite is "The Changeling" by Zilpha Keatly Snyder.

As "simonator" points out, the ordinary ugly duckling, who grows up to find strength and hope in ordinary things is a staple: fantastic elements are laginappe. The classic of the genre is the sweetly hilarious Less Than Zero.

Stories of extraordinary people who "come into their own" from obscure, even vile (for Henry the Vth values of "vile") beginnings are the stuff of nonfiction biographies, never mind novels. They can be anti-heroes (Nixon) or heroes (Lincoln) but their stories make for compelling reading.

I suspect that the wish-fufillment aspect is like heavy cream: served up straight with a large dollop of sugar it can be a nauseating compound (but still alluring to one v. v. hungry for that sort of story) - but, say as part of a savory recipe for herb-infused custard with tangy tomato-mushroom sauce (I've been re-reading my Trattoria Cookbook again. Sorry.) - it's a fine example of the artist's craft.

Or so it seems to me, at any rate.

Re: No apologies

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

*nodding*

(Only...why do I suddenly crave a snack?)