The following is a reblog from Janna Noelle, a writer I’ve been following for a long time. She writes fantasy and is very careful and systematic about it (I’m still waiting to read the debut novel when it’s published), and always has interesting things to say):
“I’ve been thinking about how magic is often represented in fantasy.
I’ve written previously about how many SFF stories (poorly) represent post-racial societies. My issue with magic is a close cousin to that topic.
Magic is frequently connected to oppression within the story world. Often it’s illegal, with practitioners doing so in secret while on the run and/or in hiding from the armed forces of a state-sanctioned death squad seeking to exterminate them.
It’s an obvious attempt by fantasy writers to draw a thematic comparison to the real-world oppression of marginalized people.
It doesn’t work…”
Please go to her blog to read WHY it doesn’t work – Janna is very coherent.
I don’t read much fantasy, and don’t write it, but it hit me immediately that she’s nailed it.
She has all kinds of other great posts, too.
liebjabberings 