Quartz' First Theory

Quartz Rockpolish was excited to see that he had received so many responses to the letters he had sent out. The middle-aged dwarf had used his free time to write up a "Theory Of The Effects Of Pressures Imposed By Societies Upon The Mind Of The Individuals Living Within Them: An Exploration Of Elven, Dwarven, And Orcish Stereotypes Through The Lens Of Environment, Upbringing, And Culture."

Quartz had, like most dwarfs, grown up in a mine. Here he had learned about mining, the different tools, the logistics of transport, the worth of minerals, how to find vines of gems, how to avoid cave ins, in short how to be a good dwarf.

But, he had never really found joy in it. He had done the work, he had sung the songs, he had even had some great finds, but in the end it didn't really make him happy. When he had brought it up to his parents they had laughed at him, told him that he would learn to love it eventually, and had forbidden him from bringing the topic up again.

Quartz had listened, he had swallowed down the feelings of unhappiness and tried to find joy and meaning in his work. Years passed, but the feelings just intensified until they one day overwhelmed him. He lost control and bashed in seven supporting pillars causing the vein to collapse. 27 dwarves were trapped and he was taken to the infirmary under suspicion of cave fever.

After a week off work Quartz felt an inner peace that he had never felt before. The news that the 27 colleagues had all been saved was a huge weight off his shoulder, but more importantly not having to journey so deep into the earth was freeing. He started making friends with the other people stationed at the infirmary. Many just had minor mining injuries and left the infirmary again quickly, but he found a good friend in Opal. They bonded over their shared appreciation of the different life at the infirmary and soon Quartz felt he could trust her enough to tell her about his feelings towards mining and his dreams of doing something else with his life.

"Duh," Opal responded and laughed, "welcome to my life!"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think that you're the only dwarf that hates mining and wants to do something else? Dwarves leave all the time. They want to build boats or write poetry or become bakers. I want to become a hunter."

Quartz's reality was dissolving around him.

"What do you mean 'dwarves leave all the time'. And why do you want to be a hunter? Isn't that what the narcissistic elves do?"

Opal laughed again, shaking her head.

"Do you really think that living, thinking creatures like us dwarves—creatures able to make free choices no less—that we would all be the same? That we would all love the same thing, digging down into the earth? And don't talk like that about the elves! They are the same as us. They might look and live differently, but they are just as different amongst their kind as we are amongst ours."

"But what about our build?"

"What about it?"

"Well, we have this short stature and strong arms. Our bodies are practically built to mine the earth."

"And the child born with one eye? Is it 'built' to use the telescope? Does the boy born with strong legs find joy in jumping? They might or they might not."

"But why do we do it then?"

"Maybe it's tradition? I haven't thought about that part much."

That day Quartz had decided to leave the mine and to explore this topic further. Three days later when he came to Opal to say his goodbyes she had instead joined him. They had found a spot near a river where they had built a small hut for themselves. It was a difficult start, learning how to survive alone, but Opal soon got a grip on hunting and Quartz managed things around the house.

When the day-to-day got easier he found some time to return to his idea of exploring why the dwarfs did what they did. He started writing down his theories and ideas. Then he would read them to Opal who would give feedback and he'd go on revising them.

When his theories finally took a more coherent form another suspicion also rose back up from the back of his mind: These ideas seemed to apply not only to the way the dwarves were living but also to the lives of the orcs and elves.

Quartz took another two months to expand on these areas and generalize his theory. He then wrote a neat ten-page article and sent it out to some elven colleges and orc camps, offering to come and give lectures laying out his theories in full. He did not send letters to any dwarven mines. He still remembered how sternly his parents had told him not to rock the boat and after years above ground he wasn't very fond of returning down into a mine, even if just for a lecture.

And now he was holding all these responses in his hands! It must be fifteen letters from elves and even one from an orc tribe! He opened the first one. It was from Aspen College, a medium-sized elven institution.

Dear Mr. Rockpolish,

we're sorry to inform you that we do not admit non-elven lecturers on our campus.
We nevertheless wish you good luck in your further endeavours.

Kind regards
Zaranina Carving
Director of Aspen College

Quartz' excitement took a hit. He hastily opened the letter of another elven college and found a similar rejection. He tore open the rest of them and found more of the same racist attitude.

Hesitantly he moved on to the only letter he'd received from an orc tribe. The return address simply read "The Bloodsplitters".

Quartz!

You use big words in this "theory" of yours. They do not hide your shoddy work. You talk of "initiation rituals." You talk of "fear-based social control". You talk of "socially constructed images of a proto-orc."
You talk of all this and more, but you do not give examples. And for anyone even remotely familiar with orc culture it would be easy to cite any number of rituals like "The Night of the Hunt", "The Dragon Ride", or "The Bloodbath."
Then again, you could not have supported your holistic theory if you had even the least bit of familiarity with orcish "Environment, Upbringing, And Culture" as you put it in the title of your work.

We are uninterested in you presenting your full theory as you laid it out now. We do see promise in you and your work though. That is why we want to invite you to immerse yourself in our culture, to live with our clan and to continue your work proper.

Gore and glory!
Headsmash Bloodsplitter

Quartz sat in stunned silence and went over the letter twice more.

"Whatcha readin'?" Opal had come back from her hunt and put down two rabbits on the table and began skinning them.

Quartz' mind took a moment to come back to return from the letter to the here and now.

"I think I want to live with the Bloodsplitters?"

On "Quartz' First Theory" | 2023-11-24

Another cheat day where the story is a day late.

(High) Fantasy was the biggest gap in this month's collection, but I'm very sceptical of the genre's tropes (as should have become obvious in the story). Much of it is based on speciesist metaphors for racist assumptions. I'm not condemning anyone reading or even writing such stories, but I simply can't enjoy them.

I know that the TTRPG space is addressing these problems. Of course, player groups have always done what they felt right, but even publishers and designers are doing away with "race bonuses" or "species constraints" in their games. I don't read any high fantasy to know whether similar changes are taking place there.

That all is to say that I could only write a high fantasy short story if I could simultaneously critique it. In the end I think that the overall story suffers less from that than I originally assumed.

My original idea just had the bracketing narrative of the theory and the rejection letters and I was surprised to find how much I had to say for the whole part in between. Also, the orcs were supposed to give a similar rejection to the elves, being stereotypically uninterested in science.

But I did want someone inside the story to point out how Quartz was just sitting at home describing cultures he'd never seen. Giving that part to the elves felt undeserved as it would have muddled the racism with intellectual honesty and the stereotype of elves really needs to be taken down a peg.

If it had been Opal to point it out to him at the end it would have elevated the two even more: Just two dwarves smarter than everyone else. Rational thinking and intellectualizing can get you only so far. It's fair if they want to be alone in their hut, but if they want to contribute to science and culture they have to live in it. That's also why there's no cultural shift at the end, no happy ending where all species come together. Change at such a scale requires time and the work of hundreds of people.

And because the elves and Opal were out, I chose the orcs to criticise Quartz. I still wanted the orcs at least in part to fit the stereotype of being violent, impulsive, and dirty, which makes their letter read a bit like a parody (and it is funny for "Headsmash Bloodsplitter" to critique Quartz' scientific methods!)

But in my head canon some of the tribes also recognize the problem with that and work towards accommodating other lifestyles within their tribe.

Opal becoming a hunter is ironic, I know. Baby steps.

Lastly, the title might imply a "second theory" which might be a second story? Probably not, but there's still a couple stories left this month.

Thoughts? Reach out via Mastodon @Optional@dice.camp or shoot me an email.