Speculative Fiction and Politics - A Brief Snippet of Thought

A YA sci-fi/fantasy book is in itself a serious political novel. That’s what fantasy and science fiction are by their very nature. The best speculative fiction reflects the world as it is and as it can be. It is both hope and warning. Just saying.

Your stories can change the world and the times.

So I Ordered Pizza And...

usually our cat Jake is super-social and wants to cuddle anyone who comes to the door. But almost always, the pizza delivery person doesn’t want to pet the cat and so Jake is left confused and dejected. So in the special instructions for my delivery, I said, “Pet the cat if he asks.”

That little turkey refused to come down off the arm of the couch. I arranged a cuddle session, the pizza guy even asked where he was, and Jake just wouldn’t come down. He wasn’t even upset, he was just puddled there like, “Nope. Nope, I’m good.”

Now he’s puddled on the floor next to me asleep and I’m just like, “You turkey.”

Why Haven't I Updated Once Yet?

I’m dead. X___X

Okay, actually, it’s because I’ve been polishing House of Gears to submit it to the amazing @kimi-reads-and-writes so she can edit it for me in time for Pitch Madness. I’m hoping, anyway. I’ve got a good feeling. I’ve restored a lot of the original plot points I’d initially taken out because I thought they would make the book impossible to sell. Every time I do that, I end up regretting it, so I’m just going to stop now unless an actual industry pro tells me otherwise.

If Neville Had Been the Chosen One (Tumblr Discussion)

Not…really? Because wouldn’t the situations be flipped, then? Like, Alice and Frank were tortured to madness and ended up in St. Mungo’s and Neville went to live with Evil Grandma and the Uncle-Whose-Name-I-Forget-Who-Dropped-Him-Out-A-Window, right? And the Potters were murdered, minus Harry because Mom Magic, right? So wouldn’t it just flip around?

Frank would say, “Alice, it’s him, go, take Neville, I’ll hold him off” right? And Alice would sacrifice herself to save cute little Baby Neville and the house would explode like it apparently did in the book and Baby Neville would get shipped off to…

Well, actually, I don’t know where, because Evil Grandma is Frank’s mother and it would have to be someone related to Alice and we don’t know much about Alice’s fam, do we? 

But let’s for theory’s sake say he gets sent to Alice’s sister just like Harry got sent to Lily’s sister. And Alice and Frank are dead. Meanwhile, Lily and James are being tortured by Bellatrix and Barty Crouch Junior (as Alice and Frank were in the canon).

Which sort of reminds me, I’ve always wondered where Neville was when his parents were being tortured because I feel like anyone who would torture someone that much with a curse like that wouldn’t hesitate to torture a child the same way to hurt the parents…

Anyway, Lily and James tortured into madness, Alice and Frank dead, Harry living with…probably Sirius, because Sirius was Harry’s godfather and also wouldn’t have been the Longbottoms’ Secret Keeper (although possibly if Voldy had gone after the Longbottoms, they actually would’ve never died, because the only reason the Potters died was because Voldemort fished the Secret out of Peter Pettigrew, who wouldn’t have been the Keeper for the Longbottoms, and so the whole arc with Sirius in Azkaban and Remus being depressed and alone and James being dead and Peter being a traitor and posing as a rat probably wouldn’t have happened at all).

So, I doubt Snape would let Lily be tortured like that, just like he wouldn’t let her be killed. And since Voldemort himself wasn’t going after the Potters in the Neville-is-the-Chosen-One AU, Snape actually could’ve gone to the Potters’ house himself and killed whoever was there except maybe Bellatrix (say what you want, that b**** can duel) but I’m sure he could’ve fended her off long enough for Dumbledick and Hagrid to show up (and Sirius…I seem to recall that’s when Sirius gave Hagrid his motorcycle). And Dumbledick could’ve handled Bellatrix. Or our Madame McG, absolutely no question.

Anyway, the Longbottoms were tortured for hours. Which means in this AU, instead of dying in 10 minutes, the Potters would’ve been tortured for hours and the Longbottoms killed in 10 minutes. Which means probably someone could’ve popped up - Sirius, Remus, Dumbledick, Hagrid, Snape, or a combination of those five dudes.

Which actually means they probably could’ve saved the Potters from ending up like the Longbottoms in the first place because it seems like the reason the Death Eaters had time torture the Longbottoms for that long in the first place was because no one knew beforehand that they were going to be targeted (it seems like the Death Eaters did it for a lark rather than because they worried about the prophecy)?

But Dumbledore would’ve known who the Prophecy’s “target” would be and if it wasn’t Harry, Snape would’ve had Harry covered and the Order (the Old Order) would’ve had the Longbottoms covered and no traitorous Peter means no sold-off Secret which means no dead Longbottoms, and Snape running to Dumbledick about saving Lily and co. (as he does in the movie, so acted because JK Rowling herself said it made more sense than the book) would’ve meant a PTSD-ridden James and Lily because torture but still very much alive and probably not insane like canon Frank and Alice due to lack of torture time.

And also Bellatrix would be dead, which means no Cursed Child.

So if Neville had been Voldy’s target instead of Harry, we could’ve had:

- Living Potter Parents
- Not crazy Longbottoms
- No abusive Dursleys
- No treacherous Peter
- No incarcerated Sirius
- No abusive grandma
- Possibly a more confident, self-assured Neville
- No dead Sirius (he was killed by Bellatrix)
- Reconciliation between Snape, James, and Lily (honestly, them dudes need to just become friends and let the past go because after this, the Death Eater thing wouldn’t be an issue anymore)
- No dick teachers at Hogwarts (except Umbridge…and does Lockhart count?)
- Possibly less viciousness between Harry and Draco
- Quirrel wouldn’t be possessed
- Harry would’ve grown up knowing Tonks (since Andromeda is Sirius’s favorite cousin)
- No Cursed Child
- Also no Umbridge actually because there would be none of this “Voldy’s dead, Potter’s a nut, be good little children and eat your waffles” because either Voldemort would still be alive or he would’ve been killed via Horcrux doom and not Mom Magic
- Neville would actually be kind of a badass because he’d be like John Conner, ever hunted, trained from babyhood to kick magical butt (I think one of the reasons he was so Squib-ish is because he was so traumatized by the thing with his parents, which wouldn’t have happened in this world)

- Still alive Voldemort though

I feel like this would’ve made for a very interesting alternate history, though. Like, I realize the whole point of this was “Snape sucks,” and I feel you because the man’s a dick (…was a dick…now he’s dead) but actually this turned into a whole thing where I realized it would’ve been so much better for literally everyone except Voldemort if he’d picked Neville.

If Countries Established a Minimum Household Income Before Allowing People to Have Children (Supposedly We Could Greatly Reduce Poverty)

Saw this on Tumblr and while it may be technically true, in order for that not to lead to extreme fascist control, we’d have to give them the option of birth control first, or make it readily available somehow, to the impoverished. Otherwise, what? They force women to have abortions like in Perfect Ruin? Or forcibly sterilize you like what happened to Black Widow? They repossess the kid*? They fine you like in Terra Nova? What?



*Matilda reference

Prythian Lies East of the Sun and West of the Moon

Yeah, but there’s no reason not to think the B&B themes carried over into the second book, considering that ACOTAR had more than one fairy tale threading through it, so why couldn’t ACOMAF have more than one myth/legend/folkloric thingy in it too? In ACOTAR, not only do we have B&B, but we have “The Ballad of Tam Lin,” where a knight is kidnapped by a faerie queen and his lady-love has to go to the faeries and complete several trials in order to win him back.

Also, the B&B aspects of ACOTAR were heavily influenced by East of the Sun, West of the Moon - in fact, it’s far more similar to EotS/WotM than B&B, because in EotS/WotM, the beast-character is stolen from the main character, his awesome magical house-mansion is destroyed, and the the girl has to travel all over the world to where the evil magical queen is holding the dude prisoner - and then she has to accomplish several tasks set by the queen, while doing housework and getting help from a double agent, all while the prince-dude is pretending he doesn’t know her (in some versions it’s because he’s under a spell, in other versions it’s to protect her).

The only thing really missing from this is the MC getting help from the Four Winds, except that Feyre gets help from Nesta, Rhys, Lucien, and…the old lady fae maid…Ailis? We’ll say Ailis, all of whom could count as the Winds. Nesta is fiery and sharp-tempered? Southern Wind. Lucien is all warm and kind of friendly after being chilly and dickish? West Wind. Ailis is demure and sweet? East Wind. Rhysand is a bad@$$ mofo and the most powerful dude in Prythian? North Wind.

The other big thing? Although Tamlin becomes a bigger douche is ACOMAF, he is much nicer than most modern interpretations of the Beast in B&B usually are (thanks to Disney) in ACOTAR. But in EotS/WotM, the beast-dude isn’t much of a douche except when his beasty nature gets the better of him. Tamlin acts more like the Bear King/Beast King in EotS/WotM in ACOTAR and more like Gaston in ACOMAF.

So while SJM says ACOTAR is straight up B&B, it’s not. It’s mostly EotS/WotM with a huge side of The Ballad of Tam Lin (I mean, dude, even the name is the same) with some thematic elements of B&B that don’t really pop up until the EotS/WotM and Ballad of Tam aspects get shunted to the side in ACOMAF, and then we’re full on double-playe of B&B and H&P.

Not Always and Not Until the End - The Defining Quote of Harry Potter

Quote wasn’t creepy. The quote was sad and awful but ridiculously fitting. Especially since the context was more of “I will always be unhappy for the rest of my life because of the horrible things I did” versus the “I still love Lily” because yeah, he loved Lily, but the fact that his Patronus is still a doe means that he’s never had a good thing happen to him that didn’t involve her - all of the memories he uses to fuel that Patronus are of her.

Which is really sad but also kind of fitting. Like, he did it to himself…you know? Yeah, it’s sad that he’s miserable and stuff but it’s his own fault (doubly so because it seems like he was never nice to any of the teachers or anything so he has like, absolutely no friends even now) and he knows it’s his own fault which makes it so much worse and even when he’s conjuring a creature that’s supposed to represent pure joy he’s reminded of how he f***ed up his own life and ruined everything in a way that could never, ever be fixed.

And the whole point of HP really (the series) is that everything is f***ed up in ways that have yet to be fixed (Slytherins still “evil,” the Ministry really not cleaned up, nothing major has happened to fix all the issues with the government; like yeah, Wizard Hitler be dead, but what about Wizard Mengela? Wizard Himmler? And all the other Wizard Nazis who escaped prison?) or can’t ever be fixed (Lupin/Tonks, Fred, Dobby, Collin). 

And Cursed Child didn’t really help and Fantastic Beasts is set way back before that so basically, yeah, Wizard Hitler is dead but the Nazis are still in power and yet apparently “all was well,” or as well as could be expected, which is about as well as “my ex-friend who’s the only person I ever loved and who ever loved me not only married the guy who tortured me for years, but I ruined it all by getting her and him killed, I’ve realized what a dick I was but it’s too late, so I’mma try to help fight the evil I’ve created…and then f*** it all up again because Dumbledore, but hey, if I hadn’t been an ass, this wouldn’t have happened…oh, and now I’ve died the same death as my childhood enemies. Ergh, blegh.”

And then we just…start the series all over again. Infant being dropped off on a doorstep in the middle of the night by a decrepit old sociopath, dead parents, blown up house, abusive guardians, and a talking snake, and somehow we expect it not to end with Harry being betrayed by a decrepit old sociopath, a dead Wizard Hitler and dead Hog-baes, abandoned abusive fam, and a hacked up snake.

After all this time, do we still keep coming back to Hogwarts hoping McG takes that baby and pops it off to someone else? Hoping somehow it’ll be less painful? Always. And we always, always, always get stabbed in the heart with Winky’s alcoholism, Sirius blasted through the mirror, Draco blackmailed into trying to kill Dumbledick, Ron abandoning Hermione and Harry because Horcrux, Dobby dying to save Harry and company, Luna’s dad having to do bad things to protect his daughter, Fred dying with his last laugh ringing in Percy’s ears, Baby Teddy never seeing his parents again, Collin’s corpse on the ground, the Slytherins as a group turning evil because Slyther-slither mofos, and then randomly Harry and Ginny shacked up and had three kids which makes everything better.

You know what? Screw it. James, Sirius, Snape, and Dumbledick were all douches. Pick a Dobby quote. Didn’t he have that nice thing about being with friends or something before he died?

People Say Matched Is Stereotypical Dystopian Fiction And...

I can’t agree with the stereotypical, if for no other reason than there’s no war or major battles affecting the main plot. The Hunger Games was all about the violence - which isn’t a bad thing, just saying. Delirium? People were dying or being imprisoned left and right, lobotomized, blah blah blah. The Maze Runner? I don’t even know the percentage of dead kids. Divergent? All the death and dying and shooting and guns and blood. There’s typically so much death by violence in modern dystopian novels. Not so in the Matched trilogy. There’s some in Crossed but not much compared to other series.

Also, you say love triangle, but it was more of a tangle? Cassia sort of likes Xander, Xander loves Cassia, Cassia loves Ky, Ky loves Cassia, Ky gets a crush on Indi, Indi still mourns her dead boyfriend, Indi loves Ky, Xander loves…the doctor girl from book 3, I forget her name, who is mourning dead husband but loves Ky, I mean…I don’t know, I thought that was an interesting message: your first love isn’t always your last. How often do we see that in YA?

I'm Reading Ivory & Bone by Julie Eshbaugh And...

“"Walk three miles in all that dirt? You won’t be fit to be seen!”

“I shall be fit to see Jane, which is all I want.”

It’s not a point-for-point adaptation, but I totally see it. And we have now come to the moment when Jane goes to visit Bingley and gets sick and Lizzy goes to take care of her. :)