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.

slightly tangential thoughts.

[roadnotes]

I agree. I tend to think of it as "Actions have consequences; think for yourself, then act; and be prepared to pay for your actions... and some of them will have costs that you can't even conceive of yet." I'm blurring on titles (I'm only slightly up, and was woken up by unhappy family news, so the part of the mind that cross-references is not functional yet), but I think that in good YA, there is a ripple effect from a character's actions. (I think A Wizard of Earthsea might be my canonical example of a protagonist learning the truth of that.)

[nancylebov]

Here's a discussion of the stories like Polar Express where the moral is "Believe!".

[sartorias]

Thank you,that was quite interesting--and even moreso as it represented all kinds of POVs but didn't descend into acrimony.

[asakiyume]

Wow, that was cool. I found myself having all kinds of contradictory reactions.

There are different kinds of knowing, and some things can't be reasoned out--if you try reason, you just won't get far.

On the other hand, I do resent it when people tell people not to reason stuff out. Apart from the obvious reasons why it might be bad to tell people not to try to reason stuff out, it seems to me to be as prejudiced a way of thinking as the way that tells people to stifle their imaginations.

I guess--I like to believe, but I don't want to be told to turn off my reason, either.

[ex_fashioni]

My biggest beef with YA lit is when the moral message is practically written out in NEON! This is what you SHOULD do. This is what's GOOD! And RIGHT!

I also dislike intensely when messages are delivered in black and white with no shades of gray. Which is funny, since I just recently received a review on Adiós that criticized me for making Fabiana such an obvious villain what with her obvious sexuality and makeup. I guess I failed there, because while on one hand, she was the villain of the piece in an almost caricatured sort of way-the sexuality and makeup were in there as a deliberate exaggeration (and clearly, that particular reader hadn't ever seen Sabado Gigante *g*). Whether or not she'd been dressed a whore or a schoolgirl, her real villainy lay in her insecurity and how far she was willing to go in order to win

[sartorias]

Some readers are going to object to a motif that has weighted significance for them--but if no one else is dinging you on that score, I'd just regard it as that person's idiosyncrasy.

[avengangle]

Hm. I just read (a few days ago) Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely and one of the things I've been musing about is that it's a very moral book, even if the hero isn't in school and has all sorts of tattoos and piercings. I'm not really sure how to fit that back into this topic, but it was interesting to read the discussion here and try to feed it back into my own thoughts.

[sartorias]

I'm thinking of putting this topic up at Athanarel--seems to me it would be relevant.