Tom Shippey – The Hero and the Zeitgeist

Heroic Fantasy, as a genre, has never been more popular. By absolute numbers this is unquestionable. I suspect that even as a fraction of the total audience of readers and viewers, it is true as well.  Tom Shippey gave a plenary address at Mythmoot V to tell us what that might signify.  (And let us pause for a moment to marvel at the fact that Prof. Shippey, whose adversarial relationship with computer technology is famous, skyped from England into a conference in Virginia which was streamed via Twitch in the cloud and watched as far away as Japan. Kudos to Ed Powell, Ringmaster!)

So: Is heroic fantasy the spirit of our age?  Because Prof. Shippey knew to whom he was talking, he started with Tolkien. In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien doesn’t use “hero” without some kind of modifier. There’s only one sincere use.  In The Silmarillion, he doesn’t use the word at all.

Here’s what the Encyclopedia Galactica Oxford English Dictionary has to say about heroes.  The various definitions align with Northrop Frye’s literary modes, once Prof. Shippey adds a line referring to current popular usage.  The examples are mine.

If we accept the historical Western idea that military glory is greater than any other, this is a clear downward trajectory. “Hero” has had its meaning lowered as the idea becomes more widespread.  Of course, the true historical progression might be a circle, as pushing through irony puts you back at the top. (cf James Joyce’s Ulysses) LotR has each kind of hero, and it’s an entertaining way to pass a long drive, thinking of which ones are which.

Why has heroic fantasy become the spirit of the age?  Prof. Shippey has been around long enough that he’s personally experienced another descending scale:

1. Leadership
2. Management
3. Administration

So where once we had leaders out front, we now have administrators who are invisible.  As the old man who taught me how to be a system engineer loved to say, “You lead people. You manage resources. You administer punishment.”  (Come to think of it, he was born not far from Prof. Shippey,  a decade earlier.)

Heroic fantasy is not an escapist genre any more. It’s a response to the things we are losing. We’re pushing back up the Frye scale because we miss leadership.

Best line of the talk: “Tyrion Lannister is someone you can look up to.”

Worst scholarly reference of the talk:  Hietikko, H. Power, Leadership, Doom, and Hope. “Management by Sauron”.  Because it’s in Finnish so nobody had read it.

Question period:

Q: is the dwindling of the Elves like the dwindling of heroes? A: An intriguing idea, but no.  (JH: That sounds like a story idea.)

Q: haven’t people always thought the past was more heroic? A: If we could call back a viking hero from the past, and ask him to do what the Atlantic convoys did in WW2, he’d say hell, no. The ancient models were more personal.   We have different requirements for heroism these days. Ancient heroes wouldn’t fare any better today than ours would fare in a fight with battle-axes.

BTW: the cartoon of a hero on a downward trajectory is by Ian Ransley.