Bittercon: The Pill in the Sugar--Morals in YA Lit

[sartorias]

What about moral messages in kids' or YA stories? Are they actually organic to our traditional story structures? Do most kids notice, appreciate, or resent them? Any well-taken (or cautionary) examples from famous SF or fantasy? If "Obey authority" isn't to your taste, is "Think for yourself" still a bit bitter on the tongue?

Comments

[asakiyume]

:-D

[sartorias]

No, I see where you are going. I think Philip Pullman actually created a far more didactic allegory in His Dark materials than even his despised target, C.S. Lewis did with his Narnian Cycle, because he couldn't seem to let the story and ideas develop, the authirial hand just had to come down and swat the characters into the direction they should go, and he couldn't resist the old Victorian tendency to sermonize to make damn sure you got the message. His characters became, at least to my eye, paper tigers.

[asakiyume]

Yes, characters shouldn't be turned into puppets. They should at least *appear* to have some free will, be allowed to explore and grow in more than authorially programmed ways.

[danceswithwaves]

Interesting that you mention that, because I even after reading His Dark Materials for a second time, knowing of people's comments on his series -- especially the last book -- I couldn't seem to find fault with it. On the other hand, C S Lewis' The Last Battle always felt contrived to me, and I couldn't really understand why the world had to die.

In that case, I wonder if what makes something a lesson versus just part of the story depends mostly on the reader, and only a little on the heavy-handedness of the writer. Because if I consciously look at either of those stories I can see the other point of view, but they don't enter my mind while I'm reading, or even soon after I'm done.

[sartorias]

Yep--like most human endeavors, I guess these questions, and reactions, are going to vary a lot from individual to individual. And then even within the same individual, over time.

[green_knight]

he writers I care to read all want to do more than simply show the world as it is; they want to muse on how it could be

Or as it _should_ be - and there's a fine line between portraying the kind of people you'd like to surround yourself with and the kind of treatment you think everybody deserves, and preaching or creating cardboard characters that are too good to be true.