Can A Politically Themed Story Still Be Interesting

[Cap'n Gravelock]

Can a story or RPG adventure have (real world) political themes and still be worth reading or at least not be off-putting?

[2D8HP]

Can a story or RPG adventure have (real world) political themes and still be worth reading or at least not be off-putting?

Um, yes.

:confused:

Are you for real?

You list your occupation as "school teacher", and while I've never gone to college, my memories of "Literature" classes in Junior High and High School is that was what it mostly was.

Okay, some works by Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, and pretty much everything by George Orwell come to mind.

As far as RPG's a Call of C'thullu adventure had the Spanish Civil War as a background, which is...

...and it's not alone.

I don't think that this discussion may go far without getting too close to breaking Forum rules, but basically the answer is yes, but tread carefully.

[Cap'n Gravelock]

I know. If you haven't noticed, I also listed my nationality as Filipino so we might not have the same political climate. I just wanted to make sure is all.

Thanks anyway for the reply.

[3WhiteFox3]

Can a story or RPG adventure have (real world) political themes and still be worth reading or at least not be off-putting?

I find that you used the term (real world) political themes, as often, fictional politics are a reflection of the politics of the author , the society the author lives in, or historical political ideas.

The Star Wars political conflict (specifically the original trilogy) is about as fictional as you can get (Empire vs. Rebels). But Order vs. Freedom (keeping these ideas broad in order to stay clear of forum regulations) have political parallels throughout history.

I personally think that all works are, at least in part, political in nature. Though I know that some disagree with that assessment.

[Brother Oni]

Can a story or RPG adventure have (real world) political themes and still be worth reading or at least not be off-putting?

Yes, massively so. A major theme of the early A Song of Ice and Fire books (and by extension, the Westeros based storylines in early seasons of A Game of Thrones) is political manoeuvring (ie the aforementioned game of thrones), all of which are based on historical events.

A large majority of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is subterfuge and politicking, although the warfare that ensues when that politicking breaks down is more famous. There's a Chinese saying that "The old shouldn't read Three Kingdoms, the young shouldn't read The Water Margin'; The Water Margin is full of idealistic bravado and essentially machismo which isn't the best behaviour for young people to emulate, while Three Kingdoms is full of manipulative social and political tricks that the old should really know better not to use.

Branching out a bit, there's plenty of drama series (The West Wing, In the Thick of It, Yes (Prime) Minister) that are based on modern politics.

I can't think of many games with modern-era political themes, aside from the obvious like the Democracy series and to an extent, simulation games like Tropico and Urban Empire where dealing with various political factions is a major part of the game.

[BWR]

Branching out a bit, there's plenty of drama series (The West Wing, In the Thick of It, Yes (Prime) Minister) that are based on modern politics.


Not what I call a drama, exactly. The most consistently entertaining and brilliant show ever written? Quite possibly, but not a drama.
/nitpick

[snowblizz]

Not what I call a drama, exactly. The most consistently entertaining and brilliant show ever written? Quite possibly, but not a drama.
/nitpick

I think what Brother Oni zeroes in on is the political manoeuvring in the show which would certainly qualify as drama. As a comdey show it's comedy is built on the drama of the clashing views and wills and goals of the newly appointed inexperienced idealistic politician and the jaded stick in mud civil servant who knows how things actually works and expects it to continue. The fricition, drama if you will, between these is what drives the comedy. Unlike say Benny Hillesque "slapstick".



Can a story or RPG adventure have (real world) political themes and still be worth reading or at least not be off-putting?
I believe we have adequately established that yes it can. I would point out it can be tricky. People don't like to be hit over the head with stuff especially things that go agains't what they believe in. Which means you easily can get into the off-putting part. It also results in work that in this day and age will be termed "partisan". IE it's hard to balance without leaning one way or another and be considered preachy.

[Saph]

There's a big difference between a story that contains politics and a story that is politics.

Stories containing politics can absolutely be good. Game of Thrones is the obvious example, where most of the story is about the manoeuvring between the various factions. The key is that the politics is something that happens in the setting.

The problems start when you get a story that is a piece of politics, ie it's written in part or in whole as a piece of social/political advocacy. These tend to be pretty annoying if you don't share the author's opinions, and their overall quality also tends to be bad, since the events in the story are specifically chosen to prove the author correct. They also tend to steer away from hard questions or ambiguous morals (like the ones you get in, you know, real life).

[Anonymouswizard]

The problems start when you get a story that is a piece of politics, ie it's written in part or in whole as a piece of social/political advocacy. These tend to be pretty annoying if you don't share the author's opinions, and their overall quality also tends to be bad, since the events in the story are specifically chosen to prove the author correct. They also tend to steer away from hard questions or ambiguous morals (like the ones you get in, you know, real life).

As somebody trying to write a story that is written as semi-political allegory, it's hard to both keep it entertaining and keep it from strawmanning the other side. I've gone with an unrealistic setting that probably could not happen in real life (widespread ecological collapse by 2100) because it fits with the pro-science pro-trying to mitigate this stuff now angle I'm going with, but there's a lot of difficulties in keeping it good (one of the things is that the main character is essentially a police officer, and so unarmed, to reduce the ability to solve problems with 'and then they were shot'). It's still going to be heavily biased and probably hard to enjoy for those with opposing views, for the simple fact that I can't bring myself to promote views I dislike.

Now I understand that being too political tends to lead to being unentertaining, and the same happens when your force your politics at the reader

[Liquor Box]

I think that people use the word 'political' to mean different things. Maybe it carries a subtly different meaning in different English speaking countries.

Some people use the word 'political' to refer to refer to the governance of a country or some smaller institution, and particularly the attempts to become the governing power within a democratic system. By that definition discussing the 2016 presidential campaign, or the merits of the Trump presidency would by political. But things like Star Wars, discussions on feminism, whether abortion should be legal (or a myriad of other stances on social issues), wars (although the reasons behind them can be connected to politics, and even discussion on the balance between taxation/public spending, is not political. This use of the word is consistent with the dictionary definition https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/political

Others seem to use the word much more broadly - to refer to any discussion of a contentious social issue.

[Kitten Champion]

Hmm... can a story be entertaining and have Politics in it? Sure. There are plenty of stories which have explicit political themes and are rightfully heralded as timeless classics going all the way back to Antiquity. Of course there are also plenty of works which do it poorly, but the same claim can be made for works with no such pretensions as well.

RPG adventures though? That's more of a challenge. You of course can bring politics into a game setting and make it an important aspect of the story, having factions with different aims and philosophies that intermingle is part of the fun. To have anything coherent to say though beyond very simple acknowledgement of they existing would need a degree of authorial control which a traditional RPG doesn't really have.

You could say that, for instance, your post-capitalist cyberpunk dystopia has heavy anti-corporate themes implicit to it as a setting. To go beyond it merely being window-dressing though it needs something compelling in the narrative. As it's an RPG, it doesn't necessarily mean anything like that will happen or, at least, that it'll be at all incisive or interesting when it does, reducing it more to flavour than substance.

[Reddish Mage]

The problems start when you get a story that is a piece of politics, ie it's written in part or in whole as a piece of social/political advocacy. These tend to be pretty annoying if you don't share the author's opinions, and their overall quality also tends to be bad, since the events in the story are specifically chosen to prove the author correct. They also tend to steer away from hard questions or ambiguous morals (like the ones you get in, you know, real life).

Right, I recall how vapid and preachy Guilliver’s Travels and Alice in Wonderland were for their contemporary political angles. Off with their heads, indeed.

Also hated being tortured with the socialist propaganda of Grapes of Wrath, or the communist-hating 1984. Then there’s the liberal preachiness of Catch 22. I can’t believe that anyone ever found Atlas Shrugged to be any good, given its unabashed libertarian message by its Social Darwinist author.

Did I mention how “Cry, the Beloved Country” left me in tears from boredom, when I wasn’t ranting about how dare they turn a naked attack against apartheid into a novel?

Mark Twain’s anti-slavery screeds and other contemporary political commentary ruined his novels like “Huck Finn.”

While we’re at it, “A Handmaid’s Tale” was trash. In fact, the entire literary output by the politically concerned English-majors and anyone in English departments have not produced a single worthwhile piece of literature in the last half-century or so (ignore the Nobel Prize committee and international best sellers lists, what do they know).

Its good to know that social advocacy doesn’t belong in literature. It allows me to throw out a good portion of my personal library, and most of what I read in a college-level lit classes.

I suppose the political messages in “The Hunger Games” and the current crop of teen novels is just fine since there is no clear political advocacy to it. You know, I thought of “The Hunger Games” when I learned how housing and other welfare benefits in the United States are partial entitlements, which means only a fraction of the eligible poor get it or even how full entitlements keep narrowing their eligibility criteria. You know, how filling out eligibility forms, signing up for lotteries, and making certain (seemingly arbitrary or counterproductive) lifestyle choices becomes, in effect a literal game about warding off hunger.

Also this game often involving children, since eligibility and amounts depend on how many you have. I’ve even sponsored some in their annual battle to claim their children against rival claimants.

Now I just ruined the book.

[2D8HP]

I know. If you haven't noticed, I also listed my nationality as Filipino so we might not have the same political climate. I just wanted to make sure is all.

Thanks anyway for the reply.


@Cap'n Gravelock,

I'm not a moderator so my words are nowhere near official, but given some of the subject matter that you've mentioned in this and some others of your threads and are interested in, before you post much on them, it may be wise for you to re-read

Forum Rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?a=1)

to decide what to post.

For more clarifications on those rules, you may wish to PM a Mod, or ask in the

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Good luck and best wishes.

[Rogar Demonblud]

There's a big difference between a story that contains politics and a story that is politics.

Stories containing politics can absolutely be good. Game of Thrones is the obvious example, where most of the story is about the manoeuvring between the various factions. The key is that the politics is something that happens in the setting.

The problems start when you get a story that is a piece of politics, ie it's written in part or in whole as a piece of social/political advocacy. These tend to be pretty annoying if you don't share the author's opinions, and their overall quality also tends to be bad, since the events in the story are specifically chosen to prove the author correct. They also tend to steer away from hard questions or ambiguous morals (like the ones you get in, you know, real life).

Ever Read Drury's Advise and Consent? It contains both of your categories, and is pretty good with it (the sequels much less so). It's also primarily about how much of politics is less about party than settling personal pique, ambition and general wang measuring, which makes the U.S. Congress much more understandable.

[2D8HP]

Took me a bit before I remembered my sarcasm language skills.

:amused:

Anyway, some thoughts on some works you cited @Reddish Mage:

1984 (which I was assigned to read when it still took place in the "future") was one of the few novels that I can still remember the title of that I read for school that I didn't loalthe (unlike, for example The Great Gatsby, every character of which I despised).

Sadly while I was assigned it, I just don't remember Huck Finn very well, but on my own I read Twain's The Mysterious Stranger, which impressed me.

The Grapes of Wrath, movie I watched on a field trip to the Pacific Film Archive in Elementary school, and it shaped how I viewed my grandparents, but I didn't read the novel until I was sn adult with a child. I thought it was good, but not the page turner that Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle was, though to gamers I recommend Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights more.

:smile:

[Saph]

Its good to know that social advocacy doesn’t belong in literature. It allows me to throw out a good portion of my personal library, and most of what I read in a college-level lit classes.

Too bad that none of those classes apparently covered more basic subjects, such as the meaning of the word 'tend'.


Ever Read Drury's Advise and Consent? It contains both of your categories, and is pretty good with it (the sequels much less so). It's also primarily about how much of politics is less about party than settling personal pique, ambition and general wang measuring, which makes the U.S. Congress much more understandable.

I haven't, but it does sound interesting. It's definitely possible to write advocacy that's also a good story, it's just that it's extremely rare. I usually find that a good litmus test for this kind of thing is "If I gave this book to someone who votes for a different political party, could they still enjoy it?"

[Sapphire Guard]

It's possible, but the more partisan you get, the trickier it is. Authors tend to lean towards 'what needs to happen to prove my point' over 'what would actually happen in this situation'.

I think To Kill a Mockingbird handles this well, it makes its point, but treats the characters fairly. Judge, Jury, Prosecutor, Racist Neighbour, Angry Mob, Mayella are all treated like people, not soapboxes or vehicles for other people to stand on soapboxes.

[Vinyadan]

Memoirs of a Nun by Diderot is fun to read.

[2D8HP]

....It's definitely possible to write advocacy that's also a good story, it's just that it's extremely rare. I usually find that a good litmus test for this kind of thing is "If I gave this book to someone who votes for a different political party, could they still enjoy it?"


Enough Science Fiction authors that I've read have been outspoken enough that I know they vote "On the other side of the aisle" from me, but I still enjoy their work.

To get away from more recent examples, a hundred to one hundred and twenty years ago Chesterton, Kipling, London, Morris, and Wells each had very different political views, yet I still enjoy each.

[Yora]

All spy fiction is inherently political.

[Reddish Mage]

{Scrubbed}

[Knaight]

I'm with Reddish Mage here. There are stories ruined by hamfisted politics (Plague Dogs comes to mind, particularly given that Watership Down was a masterpiece, the Narnia series), but there's no shortage of politically themed stories that are interesting precisely because they're politically themed. At it's most simple politics is just how groups organize and act, and that's something of deep interest to our species.

[Blackhawk748]

Can a story or RPG adventure have (real world) political themes and still be worth reading or at least not be off-putting?

Yes, just dont be preachy or ham fisted about presenting it. Oh and be upfront about it.

[Fyraltari]

Yes, a thousand time yes.
Make your story interesting, make your characters likeable, don't demonize your opposition and you can put all the politics you want in a story.

It may even be better because you will be doing something you believe in.

[Legato Endless]

I'm with Reddish Mage here. There are stories ruined by hamfisted politics (Plague Dogs comes to mind, particularly given that Watership Down was a masterpiece, the Narnia series), but there's no shortage of politically themed stories that are interesting precisely because they're politically themed. At it's most simple politics is just how groups organize and act, and that's something of deep interest to our species.

I think part of the problem is when people think of political stories, there's a bias toward thinking first of the rambling screeds centering on some topic currently contentious in their culture in which the message was the chief aim and telling a compelling story...wasn't. It's also one of the more overt traps for amateur writers to fall into, when portrayal of the message as the ultimate inexorable correct victory is squarely in the way of the needs of the narrative or doesn't allow the narrative to breathe and be anything else but a track. Like so many things, such as the author inserting themselves as the protagonist, most people simply don't remember all the times this works.

[Vinyadan]

The Robbers by Schiller also is fun.

[Man on Fire]

Can a story or RPG adventure have (real world) political themes and still be worth reading or at least not be off-putting?

Bioshock, which is blatant, in your face, beating you over in the head with the message anti-objectivism story that literally has you beat rule 63 Ann Ryand to death spawned a cult following and two sequels.

Black Panther, which is the most politically-charged movie MCu has ever produced, is now third highest-grossing movie in USA and changes are he might climb even higher.

Comcis industry has been redefined b Watchmen, an extremely political story that was a huge sucess. Alan Moore got a chance to write it by success of his earlier, extremely political story, V for Vendetta.

So I'd say that yes, they can.

[Liquor Box]

I'd be interested in how many posters have found politically themed stories, that adhere to a political view they disagree with, to be interesting.

[Vinyadan]

Objectivism is such a small thing though, I am surprised that anyone took the time to engage in anti-objectivism.

[2D8HP]

I'd be interested in how many posters have found politically themed stories, that adhere to a political view they disagree with, to be interesting.


In Science Fiction?

Most definitely, and more interesting than stories that mirror my views.

Off the top of my head David Brin, Orson Scott Card, and Larry Niven, I agree with one or two politically, but I find the narratives of a different one or two more interesting.

No I'm not going to say which is which, because if I did....

[Scarlet Knight]

I know. If you haven't noticed, I also listed my nationality as Filipino so we might not have the same political climate. I just wanted to make sure is all.

Thanks anyway for the reply.

To answer your original question, of course a politically themed story can be interesting. Good writing, a solid plot, and intriguing characters will make any story interesting. It's just not easy to do or all authors would do it.

We in the West forget sometimes how free our political climate is. In some countries, as you are probably well aware, it is VERY dangerous to write a political story. Sometimes, the only safe way is to disguise it as fantasy or science fiction.

[Cap'n Gravelock]

To answer your original question, of course a politically themed story can be interesting. Good writing, a solid plot, and intriguing characters will make any story interesting. It's just not easy to do or all authors would do it.

We in the West forget sometimes how free our political climate is. In some countries, as you are probably well aware, it is VERY dangerous to write a political story. Sometimes, the only safe way is to disguise it as fantasy or science fiction.

THAT'S what I'm talking about!

Thank you!

Oh and it IS a fantasy story like Order of the Stick but with more elements of horror and a larger cast.

[Reddish Mage]

{Scrubbed}

[2D8HP]

....If you agree with any one of them....


Oh.

I suppose I didn't read as deeply as I thought (I had particular works in mind), so apparently I agree some with all, or with none of them.

Anyway, I thought at least one had policies that I agreed with but fiction that bored me, and that there was at least one who's fiction I liked, but policies I didn't.

If your very curious PM me an e-mail address and I'll share more than I will here.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Real world politics is an inappropriate topic on this forum. Avoid it regardless of the context or circumstances.