Depicting fatalism

[Dhavaer]

In a story I'm attempting to write, my muse being sulky at the moment, there is a village whose inhabitants have made a pact with a tribe of gnolls. The gnolls agree to keep other nasties away from the village and don't wipe it out, but the villagers must not prevent them from taking anyone every thirteen months. The villagers can't effectively fight the gnolls, as they have no real weapons and there are at least half as many gnolls as there are villagers, so in terms of pure survival this is a fairly good deal.
It's not such a good deal in terms of not looking like a bunch of heartless pricks when gnolls make off with your child in the night, though, and I'd like them to come off as at least somewhat sympathetic, if not more so than the heroine. After the gnolls make off with her boyfriend she confronts his master (as opposed to apprentice, not slave), his mother and her sister asking, essentially, 'what happened' and 'what are we going to do about it' and getting progressively more enraged when the answers are 'he's gone' and 'there's nothing to do'.
I'd like some suggestions as to what arguments they'd make, not anything terribly well thought out given the emotion state of the arguers, but then, giving well thought out reasons for sitting and doing nothing might be easier than emotionally charged ones when your son is dead.

On a more practical note, does anyone know how large a population would have to be to sustain losing one person every thirteen months in addition to all the usual reasons for people dying? I have a feeling it's going to be more people than I want in this village, but I'd like to know.

[bosssmiley]

Contemporary Hinduism might be a good reference here. There's very much an idea of "If it's your time, it's your time" fatalism in popular Hinduism, stemming from their conception of predestination. It doesn't make people depressives, or self-destructive; it just cushions them against the ironies, absurdities and harshnesses of life.

Sanjeev Bhaskar and Jeremy Clarkson hashed this one out on "Top Gear" once, to hilarious effect (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoThHAcxozA) (4:40).

1 death/13 months replacement rate? Given the grotesque infant mortality rates and limited life expectancies of pre-modern societies one extra death every 400 days is just statistical variation in a community of more than a few hundred people. Especially in frontier or early industrial socieities, one more death hardly stands out from the background noise of everyday life.

[Blayze]

I'd like some suggestions as to what arguments they'd make, not anything terribly well thought out given the emotion state of the arguers, but then, giving well thought out reasons for sitting and doing nothing might be easier than emotionally charged ones when your son is dead.

Who says the emotionally charged reasons can't be well thought-out ones?

"What, you want us to help you charge in there and demand justice? Forget it! We're not the only family in this village, you know! We're not the only ones who've lost people to them! As much as I want my boy back, I don't want any more parents to suffer like this than are necessary! It's better this way... all we can do every time they come is pray they don't take one of ours, and get on with our lives if they do. We owe it to our friends and neighbours not to bring the gnolls' wrath down on them any more than is inevitable."

[Ozymandias]

Well, if you haven't read "The Lottery" it's fairly short, is available online, and sort of depicts the situation you described, although it's probably more absurd/kafkaesque than you plan in your story.

Regardless, you could have this covenant be old enough that it's become a part of the culture of the village and its residents consciously or subconsciously repress any ideas to the contrary.

You could also have a figure in the background, maybe (since there are knolls I assume it is fantastic) a resident wizard who is subtly directing the minds of the villagers (using magic! or not) against rebellion because this manipulation is the 'smart' thing to do for the populace. I think this character could be very sympathetic while simultaneously being antagonistic, and the way the villagers react when or if he/she is exposed could important.

As for the reasoning of the villagers, I agree that a "it's out of our hands" Hindu/Jainistic could be a very good and believable, but make sure they still grieve as normal instead of just sitting there dumbly. They should react the same way as if lightning struck him, because the sacrifice has come to be a force majeure to them.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Maybe there's some old person who remembers how before the sacrifices things were even worse.

[Toastkart]

You could also make the sacrifice into a religious ceremony where the victim is willing to go because he is 'saving the village' or something like that.

You could also do something similar to Watership Down where no one will answer the question 'where is...?' That might be a little too specific and too obvious, though.

[Jayngfet]

I'm wondering why the gnolls would agree to this. In the situation you describe it's like the humans are barely hanging on and the gnomes could walk all over them. If they want to eat people why go to the trouble of protecting them first?

Of course maybe the gnolls would see them as a sort of cattle then, and they're just keeping predators from their meat.

[Dhavaer]

Of course maybe the gnolls would see them as a sort of cattle then, and they're just keeping predators from their meat.

That's pretty much what I was thinking; one unusually forward-thinking gnoll priestess getting it started and then it keeping on going until it was just the way things are, like with the humans.