Aliens who can't figure out how to get off this planet after tens of millions of years don't deserve to be secret puppetmasters, at least. I think most reasonable people would agree on that.
I'd be okay with humans and Secret Whatsits who were different but roughly equal, and the conflict comes from the secrecy (what it takes to keep the secret, what drove them into secrecy, why they risk meddling, etc.), but that's so rarely handled well even when it is done. Usually you get stuff like this, where they're allegedly so superior that they're responsible for every important historical event ever, but turn out to be far worse than promised when we actually see them. (Usually whether they're supposed to be Good Secret Whatsits or Evil Secret Whatsits doesn't even matter much, because Way Eviller Than Humans is just another way of saying we're nonentities, not to mention is usually written so badly that it trivializes real historical atrocities. And the Good Secret Whatsits usually seem pretty evil anyway.)
Sometimes I love fiction that delves into all the awful things in the world and shows us how the awful systems work, and the human cost, and how people try to survive (e.g., Octavia Butler's science fiction, which is both brutal and full of compassion and amazing). When I read those kinds of books, though, I know to brace myself for what the characters are going to go through. Sometimes I want something lighter. What I really, really don't like is when an author is clearly trying to write something light and fluffy, but throws in horrible stuff like this as if it's nothing... because to them, it probably is nothing. Or maybe it's actually part of the wish-fulfillment for some people somehow? Either way, it adds a whole extra layer of awful to it.
I've been steadily trying to fill my shelves with a combination of books where stuff like this is recognized as a problem which causes the characters suffering, and books where the authors try to imagine realities where (some of) these problems don't exist. And it's complicated, because sometimes something that bothers me in one book is something I can gloss over in another, because that other book does something for me that the first one doesn't, or maybe I read it while in a different mood or at a different part of my life... But anyway, I am trying to support the authors who are doing things I like, and avoiding others I just can't stand. Not sure how much it helps, but at least I have a few good things to read.
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Date: 2016-06-04 11:05 pm (UTC)I'd be okay with humans and Secret Whatsits who were different but roughly equal, and the conflict comes from the secrecy (what it takes to keep the secret, what drove them into secrecy, why they risk meddling, etc.), but that's so rarely handled well even when it is done. Usually you get stuff like this, where they're allegedly so superior that they're responsible for every important historical event ever, but turn out to be far worse than promised when we actually see them. (Usually whether they're supposed to be Good Secret Whatsits or Evil Secret Whatsits doesn't even matter much, because Way Eviller Than Humans is just another way of saying we're nonentities, not to mention is usually written so badly that it trivializes real historical atrocities. And the Good Secret Whatsits usually seem pretty evil anyway.)
Sometimes I love fiction that delves into all the awful things in the world and shows us how the awful systems work, and the human cost, and how people try to survive (e.g., Octavia Butler's science fiction, which is both brutal and full of compassion and amazing). When I read those kinds of books, though, I know to brace myself for what the characters are going to go through. Sometimes I want something lighter. What I really, really don't like is when an author is clearly trying to write something light and fluffy, but throws in horrible stuff like this as if it's nothing... because to them, it probably is nothing. Or maybe it's actually part of the wish-fulfillment for some people somehow? Either way, it adds a whole extra layer of awful to it.
I've been steadily trying to fill my shelves with a combination of books where stuff like this is recognized as a problem which causes the characters suffering, and books where the authors try to imagine realities where (some of) these problems don't exist. And it's complicated, because sometimes something that bothers me in one book is something I can gloss over in another, because that other book does something for me that the first one doesn't, or maybe I read it while in a different mood or at a different part of my life... But anyway, I am trying to support the authors who are doing things I like, and avoiding others I just can't stand. Not sure how much it helps, but at least I have a few good things to read.