If you follow my Instagram, you’ll have seen a story where I asked for help with PTSD representation in book 2. Thank you to everyone who responded and let me pick your brain. It was incredibly helpful in writing both the character and the scene involving a PTSD episode. Writing the scene and taking notes about PTSD brought me to the delicate subject of “When does the pursuit of realism devolve into indulgence?”
I have seen the argument raised, always around the subject of rape, that medieval grimdark fantasy realism includes copious amounts of rape because rape was common in the medieval and ancient world (or insert another excuse justifying its usage). Then the act is used wholly as an excuse to create violence and violation against female characters—ignoring the fact that soldiers would often rape other soldiers (usually male), or any other sexual violence against men. I am not advocating for more sexual violence for the sake of sexual violence against both male and female characters. I bring this point up as it is the clearest example of indulgence in the medieval fantasy world hidden behind the veil of ‘realism’. As if realism is the reason we read fantasy.
“If we can’t write diversity into sci-fi, then what’s the point? You don’t create new worlds to give them all the same limits of the old ones.”
Of course, suspension of disbelief can only go so far. I do enjoy elements of realism within my fantasy novels. I like the gritty and the dark. And I love representation. It’s why my main character has aspects of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, and why PTSD is rife within characters who have suffered from abuse—not just war. It is why, unless explicitly stated otherwise, the reader is welcome to infer the sexuality of any character. These aspects of a person are interlocked with making the characters as human as possible. To allow the reader to find pieces of themselves within the characters and hold on to it. I want to give readers the same experience that I have found many times in reading my favourite books: a sense of coming home. A sense of holding a paper teddy bear in their hands.
Representation does not need a reason. Indulgence does.
-L.J.
P.S.
Thank you for reading. In two weeks I’ll be back to book reviews, but I needed a little more time to finish ‘The Priory of the Orange Tree’.
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