Thoughts of this, fanfic recs of that

[selenak]

I'm currently watching season 2 of Carnival Row - for non-watchers, a fantasy series set in a vaguely Victorian/Edwardian AU with fairies and other mythological beings as refugees/minorities in fantasy!America (or Fantasy!Britain), and incidentally, I do love how the wings of the fairies really feel like an expressive part of their bodies -, and in s2, it turns out that Fantasy!Russia is in the throws of revolution. Where apparantly they went directly from the October Revolution to the Stalinist purges. (Where you can become an Unperson who has never existed overnight.) Guys, thought I, even George Orwell gave it more time in Animal Farm.

(Just as not to give a false impression, the series doesn't glorify fantasy capitaliism, either, not least because the faries, being refugees, get exploited as cheap labor.)

Anyway, this reminded me again that the Anglosphere seems to divide between bad revolutions (the Russian one, and also in most cases of fictionalisation, both in straightforward historical fiction and in fantasy or sci fi analogues, the French Revolution) and good revolutions (aka the American once, and also in the majority of cases the English Civil War one). Except that in sci fi or fantasy analogues, the later is usually not called a revolution, it's called a rebellion. Prominently in Star Wars, but not just there. Whenever someone uses the term "comrade" or "citizen", and it's a narrative product of the Anglosphere, you can bet this revolution will not turn out to be a good one, but it will be called a revolution.

Now I seem to recall that even old Adams and old Jefferson in their letters to each other post reconciliation referred to the event they participated in as "our revolution" - at least they're quoted this way in John Adams -, so it's not like there has always been an abhorrence to the term among native English speakers. (Being not one but a German, I have somewhat different associations with the two terms anyway. "Rebellion" to me implies it didn't succeed in the end, whereas a "Revolution" did succeed.) And of course I noticed that the latest Star Wars tales, most prominently Andor, do make an effort to complicate the Rebellion and show it as something consisting of different factions and starting in different ways from different causes. But it's baked in the premise that you don't have to consider whether or not compromise with the Empire is possible because the Empire is evil, and of course there won't be executions because this is Star Wars (and now it's Disney, too). I still suspect that by and large, English language sci fi and fantasy will continue to signal that Good Revolutions happen against Evil Empires which are uniformly exploitative, that at no point terms like Citizen or Comrade will be used by the good revolutionaries, and that we won't get to see the good revolutionaries as the people in power having to govern thereafter except possibly in a quick epilogue. Notable and glorious exception: The Expanse, tv version (since I haven't read the books), while offering Earth and Mars as flawed systems doesn't code either as the Evil Empire and does show how the parts of the Belt that gain independence fare therafter are doing. (Doesn't mean there aren't revoltingly evil deeds going.) What I'm trying to get at: The Expanse strikes me as an exception because it shows struggle for independence as a messy continuous work in progress, and one where revolutionaries, even if successful, afterwards have to live with, negotiate with, compromise with the previously established powers. (Who also have to change.) And I find that both close to various rl examples and uncommon in English language fantasy and sci fi.


On another note, two fanfic links in different fandoms:

Babylon 5: Signa Ex Diris: which is a brief yet great AU take featuring a female Londo and Cartagia, and how Londo's fate would have played out then. andraste comes to an amazingly ic and logical solution.

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: So Wide A Sea: Galadriel at two very different and yet related points of her long life.

Comments

[rose_griffes]

And the SW sequel trilogy made things even messier by referring to a resistance, rather than a rebellion, if I'm remembering correctly. Not that the sequel trilogy had much of a plan for their resistance, or their evil empire for that matter. But still!

I liked but didn't love the first season of Carnival Row. At this point I'm guessing that I won't get to season two until April or May, just because of swapping streaming platforms. (I keep Amazon Prime all the time, but I'm temporarily subscribed to Netflix, mostly for season two of Shadow & Bone, which comes out later this month. And for the long list of other things on Netflix that I'm considering watching.)

Interesting thoughts on the evil empire. One would think that this would push the French Revolution over into the "good" column, but I guess there was too much terror and too many nobles killed for that classification... hm.

[selenak]

Mind you: the French Revolution has a better image over here, despite the Terror. Or rather: it's seen as the event without which modern Europe would not exist. And there's a reason why July 14th, Bastille Day, is the French national holiday, a date that is explicitly tied to the Revolution and no other French historic event. But in the Anglosphere, what George Orwell once observed in his Dickens essay still applies: pop culture associates the Revolution with the guillotine first and foremost.

Re: Evil Empire, though, wellllll, the French monarchy was rotten, literally bankrupt, and had the problem of basically every district having its own laws - one of the many changes brought by the revolution in combination with the Napoleonic sequel was the Code Civil, aka the Code Napoleon, which was one universal law codex for all of France, finally ending all the law confusion for good - but it was no more or less an Empire than the first French Republic, and then of course the Consulate, and Napoleon's Empire was, well, it's in the title. Being an Empire and a Republic at the same time isn't mutually exclusive, with the US being another case in point. But that's another thing where the Expanse is the big exception, because Earth at the start IS both - it's a democracy (flawed, but there are genuine elections, not a dictatorship), and it's a colonial empire. Whereas most fantasy constructs have all Empires being evil dictatorships (be they monarchies or more modern variations), and all "good" states, if they show up at all instead of being the goal everyone is fighting for, as republics who presumably if they include more than one state will be a commonwealth/federation.

Carnival Row: oh, same here, i.e. like but not love.

And the SW sequel trilogy made things even messier by referring to a resistance, rather than a rebellion, if I'm remembering correctly. Not that the sequel trilogy had much of a plan for their resistance, or their evil empire for that matter. But still!

Actually, both terms are nonsense for the first sequel movie, which in as much as it bothers to with politics has one state, the New Republic, at war with the First Order, which comes across as an intergalactic terrorist state conglamorate. Except, of course, we never get to see the New Republic. (In the movies. We do get to see it in The Mandalorian.) But I very much doubt there was any plan beyond "we want the good guys to be the underdog again!" Sigh.

[sovay]

"Rebellion" to me implies it didn't succeed in the end, whereas a "Revolution" did succeed.

I think those connotations exist in English also, e.g. the Boxer Rebellion vs. the French Revolution, which has always made the Star Wars terminology a little weird.

[redfiona99]

>>(Being not one but a German, I have somewhat different associations with the two terms anyway. "Rebellion" to me implies it didn't succeed in the end, whereas a "Revolution" did succeed.) << That's how I tend to look at it, but that's also probably helped/not helped by being brought up on tales of the 1715 and 1745 rebellions which did not succeed.

[cahn]

Oh, that's interesting, because in general I do have that same connotation of revolution vs. rebellion that you note in SF/fantasy -- but the US Revolutionary War is always thought of in the US (at least as far as I can tell) as a revolution and not a rebellion, and there's definitely a connotation there of rebellions being against a larger system/government, but because we're now peers it was a revolution! (The UK might think of it as a rebellion? ;) )

I guess the exception I can think of offhand is Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (which has people call each other Comrade, even!), which casts itself as a revolution, not a rebellion. I suppose the difference is that, because they're not actually trying to overthrow a government but rather claim independence from one, it can take to itself the connotations of the American Revolution and not, say, the French Revolution...

Also, I loved that B5 story <3

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yeah, I also have the connotation that a revolution is successful and a rebellion is not. It's sort of like "Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason." If it prosper, none dare call it rebellion!

I'm sure there are exceptions, but that's the connotation I, as a native speaker of American English, have off the top of my head.

[bobbiewickham]

Your reflections on revolutions in fiction ring true and that's why, for all the flaws in the ending of the Expanse, I was quite pleased with it on the whole. Edited: "rebellion," to me, connotes not only defeat, but also smallness. "Revolution" suggests social transformation; "rebellion" might be an attempt to replace a king or governor with a new one but leave the system intact.