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The opening scene of the game of thrones series tells of humans who venture into an unforgiving winter landscape, if nature killed them we would reconcile that as "expected" and even "normal". In this essay I review the judgement of morality as given by the author from the evidence of their texts. I will state my own preferences and understanding of the texts used, and come to a conclusion that is consistent with my appreciation of said texts. Referenced stories: A Game of Thrones, The Lord of The Rings (and related), Harry Potter, Dune, Pan's Labrinth, StarWars. (Warning: long read)

The opening scene of A Game of Thrones
Man fought against nature and lost. We would not require a moral judgement of nature. As a brief aside, I will acknowledge that some people may assign value judgements of good or evil to nature that requires nature to have a thinking will (more on that later). In this scene one of the characters witnesses a the bloody remains of a massacre of which children and adults have been gore-rotted  at this point there is no complete understanding of what happened so we cannot assign blame or make a moral judgement.

Shortly after we read that some or the characters are killed by an unknown terror that could be an animal, a person or something else unworldly. We don't really learn enough about it from the opening scene to make much of a judgement. I believe that people will not assign blame to any particular thing and hence cannot judge a thing to be wrong. There was no wilful killing. This is akin to the statements that Sam Harris makes with regards to morality; would we judge a bear to be morally wrong if it mauls a child? I think very few people would assign blame to the animal as it did what we expected and that it did not make a rational decision in the same way that a human does. Similarly, dying of hypothermia does require us to place a value judgement upon nature and to call it evil or wrong.

In the next scene of the story we learn that one of the people who escaped from the opening scene is to be executed as a traitor. I did not fully understand the reason why or how this person escaped, it seemed like a bit of a plot device at the request of a publisher to have action in the opening scenes; however, not to digress we learn that one of the main characters, a protagonist, has to execute this supposed traitor. It is an act which I also couldn't quite fathom as to why it was necessary but I at least accepted that this is what would happen. A human must kill another human as it is what the law requires. Depending on your ideology, this will either be seen as morally right or morally wrong. We can draw obvious parallels to modern capital punishment but in this essay I wish to state no preference to either, and I wish to state that I have no desire to tell you what to think.

Evangelism

Why do I wish to do neither? Because I absolutely abhor idealistic evangelism. It makes for poor story telling and is thoroughly inane, it is also frowned upon as a valid form of fiction writing yet many authors and story tellers continue to do it. Gods, why? Please stop doing this if you write fiction or ever plan to. Dear reader, you are too stupid/ unwise to make up your own mind so I will feed you with my ideology and tell you what to think. Never can there be a more contentious and condescending style of story telling than ideological evangelism.

Fortunately, George RR Martin does NOT do this. It is one of the things I appreciate about his work and better yet that he actually has great skill as a wordsmith. In his books people meet unjust ends yet at no point does the author tell you who to side with, nor who you should judge, he leaves that to you as the reader. I've had many conversations about the characters in his works and had a lot of fun disagreeing with friends about who is a fun character to follow or who is better than another. Agreement upon friends is not necessary as we respect each other's point of view, naturally it helps if the person in the discussion has a well thought out opinion and knows how to properly defend their point of view regardless of the content of their opinion. I'm of the persuasion that the discussion will always be richer on the back of a story that leaves such judgements unmade and open.

On the other hand I feel that Harry Potter forces moral judgement upon you, if you fully agree with it then perhaps there is no reason be upset yet it still does no over the look the fact that it is book story telling. I've never read the books but I've seen the films, that said I have at least read some passages from the books and will openly admit that Rowling has the ability of a great wordsmith, the style and construction is mature but the underlying evangelism detracts from my enjoyment.

The folly of dualism

You may then wonder where I stand with Tolkien whom is one of the greatest writers yet a central construction is the dualistic, and binary, nature of good and evil in his works but here lies the naivety in that assumption. Tolkien does use words like good and evil but rarely does he assign the value of absolute good or absolute evil to any of his characters. Sauron is perhaps the closest when he refers in an absolute way to either value judgement yet he does not do this with Melkor  (Sauron's former boss) in the Children of Hurin or the Silmarilion. Likewise of Ungoliant who appears in the Silmarillion. Both are described as treacherous or dark but neither appear to be handled in a childlike manner where the author commands you to dislike either character. Admittedly Tolkien treads close to the edge with the dark characters but on the other side I feel that his good characters are shades if grey.

Who is the most good in the lord of the rings? The elves? Yet they are reluctant to help the humans but are perhaps 'more good' than the humans yet given that they have participated in war are they are pure as the Hobbits? The Hobbit have no taste for war or conflict yet Bilbo considers killing Gollum (heeds Gandalf's words and for goes it), Frodo had wished that Bilbo had killed Gollum yet Gandalf points out that not even the wisest can see all ends. Is the explanation there that those particular Hobbits were under the influence of the ring? Perhaps, however the ring is a plot device in this case, and th underlying fact is that a moral choice is presented as a shade of grey. The good guys are willing to consider killing as a solution but are persuaded otherwise by Gandalf. I will therefore admit that Gandalf is the likely voice of the author and his opinion on morality, but on top of this is the inevitability of war and the deaths that come with it. Gandalf, Pippin and Merry are present in the battle at Minas Tirith.

The most obvious conclusion to draw of Tolkiens morality is that war and killing are acceptable when you are defending yourself, this is likely consistent with his opinion of both world wars. This is also fitting the traditions of judeo-christian culture, morality is if course binary and that killing is wrong unless in defence. This is where my opinion would depart from Tolkien's in as much as I eschew dualistic ideology and binary modes if thought (see my previous articles ways to categorize and structure belief systems: written as the algebra and geometry of opinion). This same criticism of dualistic simplicity can be levelled at Rowling in Harry Potter and Lucas in StarWars but not to GRR Martin in AGOT. Again highlighting the strength of Martin.

I have a great fondness of StarWars but the morality is simplistic, the Jedi versus sith is of course simple dualism as you'd find in the bible and there is the unforgivable school boy error in episode 3 where Obiwan Kenobi decries that the Sith are evil because they are absolutists. Yet this is at odds with how the Jedi and Sith are depicted, both are depicted in a fairly absolutist light yet it seems that the Sith are more likely to be pragmatic to get the job done rather than depend upon the rigours of scripture as the Jedi would.

Never condescend the audience

On Pan's Labrynth I'd probably need a full essay to point out the horrors of the story telling but I don't think it deserves that much attention. It is a poorly made B-film with inane characters and childlike philosophy. Such is the director's hate of the fascists in Spain that he lets his good characters pay lip service to their ideals: the good characters have a set of ideals but they can ignore them at will and fear no repercussions because they are the good guys. This is childlike story telling at best. It isn't a wise portrayal of dualistic morality in the way that Tolkien does and not even the way that either Rowling or Lucas does, no this work really scrapes the bottom of the artistic barel in order for the director to tell us something obvious. Also contrast this to the film Downfall where the main character, Hitler, is portrayed in a human light despite his ideology that the audience already understands and has already made up their mind about, yet the creators of Downfall did not deem it necessary to tell us what to think. Truly great story telling and a well made film, and yes we were often squirming in our seats as we tried to reconcile the people on the screen with our own life choices and sense of morality. It is completely unnecessary for the directors to say "hey audience out there, this Hitler guy was a really bad dude and you should hate him and all his folk that dwelt in this underground shelter." Orly? Gee thanks Mr Director I would never have known that, can you pre-chew my food too? /sarcasm.

And again I point to GRR Martin and note his use of portraying the worst of his characters as human, with real thoughts and emotions. The worst of his characters have an air of familiarity that we can identify with despite our dislike of said characters. For example, I despise the character Joffrey yet in many parts of the story he appears as winning, much to my annoyance but this is exactly what makes good story telling. At no point is Joffrey judged by the author, only by the reader. He displays the worst of us with his frequent display of greed, lust and envy yet he also has an insecure side where his weaknesses are revealed. He runs to his mother whenever he is injured, whom he appears to love. This character that I so despise displays human characteristics that are believable.

What of Science Fiction?

I haven't said much about Science Fiction in this essay, and that's partly because of the way such stories are created. Some of the classics are written in such a way that challenges our knowledge of what is and isn't acceptable but many tend to tread the edge of evangelism and simply making an illustration of what happens when you take a strand of thought to the extreme. StarWars is a classic good versus evil style plot, although you aren't forced to side with the good in the sense that I don't think Lucas condescends his audience (at least not in the original three). The rogue is, or should be, rogue-ish; Han Solo should have somewhat questionable morality but his actions are fitting with his character. We may never behave like Han Solo but that doesn't mean that his charm won't appeal to us.

StarTrek is another that explores morality but it does stray into evangelism a few times, but I'm willing to forgive it in many of the other cases where it tests our notion of what is acceptable and what should perhaps be acceptable.

Dune is one of my favourite novels and the series as a whole is good although the greatest fades the further you go from the original. Herbert writes a lot about tyranny and the folly of following powerful and charismatic leaders. That isn't to say that all leaders are bad, or that all charismatic leaders are bad but rather we don't always tend to see the flaws of the president we love the most ( ;-) ). I don't think Herbert has succumb to dualism either, despite the myriad references to the Abrahamic religions, the author has the foresight to write the book in a fairly neutral light. He does not say which religion is better, or whether religion is good or bad. Of course he points out the problems of blind faith and the power struggles that have surrounded religion but in many cases I do not detect an overly critical personal tone. It is my opinion that he lets you make your own decisions and that he merely presents an interesting set of stories.

Conclusion

Tl;dr: Using a story to soapbox your political beliefs is a bad idea, it makes for poor reading and often highlights poor writing. This is both my point of view with regards to what I enjoy reading/watching and what I would advise to any potential authors/ movie-makers. Simplistic dualism is never a good starting point; the portrayal of good and evil as absolutes is also simplistic and best avoided (not even in children's novels). I think a good story should challenge your beliefs, if you already whole-heartedly agree with the author's political beliefs then how will it help you to grow and understand more about the world if all you are exposed to is more of the same? That applies equally well to both "wings" of the political spectrum.

Fantasy is slightly worse than Sci-fi in its evangelism but something to remain vigilant of. :-)