The Grey Ethics of Fantasy Wars and Trauma
Portrayal of Select 21st Century Modern Fantasy Fiction
Keywords:
war, conflict, fantasy fiction, Ray Dalio, Jeff McMahan, war ethicsAbstract
Wars have plagued humanity since the beginning of time. Wars over territory, over asserting independence, and later the Great Wars (WWI & WWII), largely shaped the world as we know it today. The Great Wars were supposed to be the “war to end all wars,” and yet conflicts between nations have not yet ceased. In the last decade alone, many major world powers have waged wars on each other.
Major events have shaped world literature and art, for artists and thinkers are creators and creatures of the society to which they belong. Thus, this paper studies the portrayal of war in select 21st-century Fantasy Fiction to assess fresh developments in the ethics of war. The chosen fantasy fiction works include To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang (2024), Letters of Enchantment duology by Rebecca Ross (Divine Rivals, 2023; Ruthless Vows, 2023), The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka (2022), and Babel, or The Necessity of Violence by R. F. Kuang (2022)
Using Ray Dalio’s framework on the five major types of wars, and Jeff McMahan’s theory of war ethics (2005, 2006 & 2009) as the theoretical framework, the present study analyses the five primary texts of Fantasy fiction listed above. Additionally, the Fantasy fiction works are studied in the context of Judith Lewis Herman’s recovery model (1992) to analyse the psychological impact of war.
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