OptionalFiction

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.