Fantasy as a genre is
in desperate need of a shift beyond feudal political relations, when
you really get down to it. An LGBTQ monarch is still a monarch, an
all-powerful autocratic parasite upon the rest of society – like,
intersectionality without a material class analysis is only going to
take us so far. I’m all for enjoying media that happens to involve
feudalism (Game of Thrones and the Fire Emblem series are “guilty
pleasures” of mine, for example), but at the end of the day we shouldn’t
celebrate a politics centered on identity to the detriment of class
relationships. Daenerys may be cool for challenging gender norms and
taking no shit from misogynists, but she’s still a domineering tyrant
who seeks to centralize her top-down rule over an entire continent.
Genuinely progressive fantasy can do better than this.
While I
will always see social justice as a completely necessary component of
anti-capitalism, liberal identity politics (politics focused on identity
to the detriment of class relationships to production and material
power) is a dead-end that will only act as a legitimizer for hierarchy.
In other words, a top-down society where 5% of the population controls
75% of the resources is considered a just society as long as that
isolated 5% reflects the general population in terms of similar identity
proportions. Brocialism without sufficient attention to patriarchy,
white supremacy, heteronormativity, ableism, and other oppressive
systems born of class society is unhelpful and callous; likewise, a lack
of focus on class – the literal skeletal structure of a society – will
keep us from getting to the roots.
Seeing as fantasy is a genre that leaves the door open for so
much imagination and possibility, it’s kind of unfortunate that the
overwhelming majority of it is set in lands with kings and peasants. If
class relationships inhibit the self-actualization of individuals in a
society (and they do), then wouldn’t a setting liberated from the chains
of concentrated power be a fascinating place to behold in a fantasy
context? Common access to a pool of magic for all people by virtue of
being human; valorous “knights” pledging loyalty to The People as a
horizontal entity, not to unaccountable tyrants or to the maintenance of
pyramid society for its own sake; diverse worlds where egalitarian
community networks trade, debate, cooperate, and share. This doesn’t
presuppose stories without conflict – hell, the door is wide open for
plot lines involving interpersonal strife, inter-network turmoil,
numerous natural disasters, resource shortages, and powerful villains
who seek to reinstate top-down rule over the common inheritance. Maybe a
series is focused on the establishment of such a society and the
dethroning of tyranny in all its forms. This is potential for a genre
with so much interesting conflict, never mind the stale,
end-of-history, free-from-all-problems world that anti-socialists assume
we push for. At no point will we ever reach a society where all matters
of debate are peacefully and uniformly settled, where all environmental
and resource-based problems disappear, where all selfish and malicious
individuals cease to exist. Even so, horizontal socialist democracy is
the best chance we have to deal with one another (and with conflict) as human beings in the truest sense possible, and it lays the groundwork for compelling lore and stories.
