fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2292 ]

[ SECRET POST #2292 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2292 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

[Criminal Minds]

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02.

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03.

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04.

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05.

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06.

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07.

[Zero Escape]

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08. [repeat]

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09.

[Veronica Mars]

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10.

[Mariqueen Maandig/How to Destroy Angels]

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11.

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12.

[Fire Emblem Awakening]

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13.

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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

14. [SPOILERS for Teen Wolf]

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15. [SPOILERS for Walking Dead]

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16. [SPOILERS for Walking Dead]

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17. [SPOILERS for Walking Dead]

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18. [SPOILERS for Hell on Wheels]

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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

19. [WARNING for rape]

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20. [WARNING for guro, non-con]
http://i.imgur.com/1TrlMId.jpg

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #327.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Based on the discussions of Narnia a few days back, what is a book (or books) that you read and enjoyed as a kid, but didn't quite understand the allegory until you were older?

Mine would have to be Lord of the Flies. I read it when I was 9 and thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't get a lot of the symbolism until later on.

Afternoon of the Elves.

I still don't really understand what the hell the ending of that book was about. But that's probably not an allegory. So nevermind?

Well...His Dark Materials, for one.

I'm still not sure there's that much of a religious message in the first two, but considering the last one sort of beats you over the head with it and then I got it, I'm not sure how good I am at picking up on these things. :)

I'm in the same boat as you. I didn't get it until the third and then everything clicked and I remembered all the things from the previous two books and went, "Oh..."

I'm normally quite good at picking up these things, even then. I think I just either wasn't paying attention or was in denial or something. I don't know.

Not exactly a 'missed the allegory' example, but there were more than a few books I read as a kid which I failed to notice contained fairly explicit sex until I reread them later in life.

I love your icon!

Not exactly an allegory, but I didn't get that His Dark Materials was a Narnia subversion atheist tract. I actually only read one Narnia book, but I knew what it was about by the time I read HDM.

There was also the time when I had to read Animal Farm for high school English summer reading, along with two other books. On the first day of class the teacher made everyone say which of the three books we read was our favorite and why. I hadn't liked any of the books, so I ended up giving some bullshit answer that Animal Farm was my favorite because I liked books about animals. I cringe forever at that because I knew full well that it wasn't really "a book about animals," but I came across as a total airhead who could not allegory.

Not an allegory per se but The Velveteen Rabbit just made me want to hang on to all of my stuffed animals even more, when the whole point of the book was convincing children to let their toys go so they could become "real". I still have most of them.

I read 1984 in middle school. I liked science fiction and dystopic things, but I didn't really get the political messages.

Animal Farm. It was pretty horrifying when I read it as a little kid, but I didn't get all the political aspects until much older.

Trans* is inclusive of all types of Trans and...I'm not entirely sure why Tranny is offensive, beyond that it's been used as an insult for a fair amount of time.

I think you meant to reply to the thread above?

I had no idea The Neverending Story had anything to do with Buddhism when I read it at age twelve. I'm still not convinced, to be honest.

I didn't know this until someone mentioned it here recently.

Well you're ahead of me, because I've never heard that before.

I'll fess up to not getting Narnia thing until I was older. I think I was eight or so when the BBC movies started showing on PBS and started reading the books about that time - and well I really wasn't exposed to much about Christian religion until I was older. My bio-dad had no use for organized religion and my mom was a 'recovering' Catholic.

Yeah, same here. I just thought they were fun stories. It wasn't until I was older and read about how it was an allegory that I realized that, oh hey that would make sense.

It didn't help that normally my dad would have me read to him (or sometimes read together) at night, then we'd talk about what we'd read. With stuff like the Hobbit we'd talk about myths and other fairy tales and how that could have influenced Tolkien, but he never brought up the allegory thing with Narnia. Which he had to of known, the man was a English Professor focusing on British Literature.

Also not really an allegory, but I loved The Girl Who Owned A City as a child for the fun "what if all the adults died and we had to survive" worldbuilding imagination elements. Only recently did I find out it was supposed to be a way of indoctrinating kids into Ayn Rand's Objectivism. *facepalm*

Fuck Ayn Rand, but I love The Girl Who Owned A City. I've still got my paperback of it.

I... can't really think of any. Not because I was a super smart kid, but because I had an ultra-religious upbringing. I knew who Aslan/Tom Bombadil were immediately, what Gandalf's fall represented, etc.

I've also been particularly sensitive to heavy-handed symbolism or allegory my whole life. I still hate it. I hate it even when it's a message that I agree with. It ruins the art completely for me and I can't help but wonder why they didn't just write an essay or make a non-fiction documentary or opinion piece or something. I love those. Good non-fiction is wonderful, there's no need to bend good art over a barrel and ram your message up in it. Go subtle or go home. Case in point: I was deeply Christian when I read Narnia and I despised Aslan as a character. He's not a character! He's BibleGod! Just call him God and have done with it. If Dante managed it, so can CS Lewis. Just write something where God shows up. And now, as an atheist, Pullman's heavy-handedness bothers me too.

My high school English teacher taught me that the hierarchy of quality media went like this:

1) Art with a message done well

2) Art with a message done poorly

3) Art for art's sake done well

4) Art for art's sake done poorly

But I rather disagree - it looks like this:

1) Art for art's sake done well/Non-fiction done well

2) Art with a message done well

3) Art for art's sake done poorly/Non-fiction done poorly

9000101320382224200000) Art with a message done poorly

In other words, whatever your axe to grind or point to make, there's no need to shit all over poor art to make it. What did art ever do to you? I don't even care if your point is entirely noble like "racism is bad" or "we need to preserve the environment". It's true! It is! We do! So either pay art the respect it deserves and do it well or write goddamn non-fiction.

I would argue that Tolkien's figures aren't usually as symbolic as all that - certainly I think that Bombadil's not standing in for any figure in Christian mythology, and I don't think that Gandalf's fall is directly symbolic (although you could certainly argue that it has a figural role in regards to concepts of Christian theology).

He's not CS Lewis. He's way better than CS Lewis. In fact, I would argue that he gave a lot of thought to the religious underpinnings of Middle-earth, and that it's very specifically not Christian allegory, and that if it were Christian allegory, it would not serve the function that Tolkien intended it to serve. In other words, the ways in which the world is not Christian are super important, from the Christian, Catholic point of view which Tolkien held deeply and which certainly suffused the entirety of the world. In some ways, one might make the argument that it's the fact that the world of Middle-earth is not allegorical that allows the world of Middle-earth to be figural, although I don't know that I'd go that far. The relation between the religious sensibility and the world is pretty tricky and complicated, as befits a great work of literature. But I would definitely say that the Christianity in Tolkien's work is not symbolic or allegorical; at most it is figural.

Oh, I agree, that's why I used Aslan, rather than Tom Bombadil, as my example of it done poorly.

Re: Books you read as a kid, but didn't quite get the allegory

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-13 02:37 (UTC) - Expand

Well, I'm sure you know that I agree completely with you. And possibly love you.

Orson Scott Card, for all his toolery and the fact that he uses three names, said something about writing that really resonated with me. It was something about how you can write with themes in mind certainly, but when you write "empty-minded" the themes and messages that will inevitably rise to the surface are actually what you believe, and say much more about who you are. And I was like "duh" when I heard it but apparently some people think the message is the absolute tip of the story spear. You can tell who they are by reading their shit and I do mean shit.

/stumbles off soap box

The artist creates life through forms, and that alone is enough to connect him with the fundamental elements of life, that is, with a potency more actual and more enduring than markets or machines. The artist whom the sense of beauty inspires to create always creates more than 'mere beauty'.

- Ernst Robert Curitus

Re: Books you read as a kid, but didn't quite get the allegory

scrubber - 2013-04-13 22:13 (UTC) - Expand

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