Ultimate Fantasy Escapism: Choose Your Race, Choose Your Class.

You're starting a new game. It may be a table-top RPG, or the latest MMORPG. You create a character.

Your very first choice: Race. You can be a human, elf, dwarf, halfling, orc, lizardman, or cat-person. Some games even offer different kinds of elves (light vs. dark elves), and in still others you can be mixed-race -- say half-elf.

Your choice isn't just cosmetic. Your race will provide you with a starter personality and an ethnic background you can expand upon. Based on your race, your character will be given inborn advantages and disadvanges: differences in intelligence, strength, dexterity, charm, health, and ability to buy and sell at a discount.

Next you choose gender, which usually provides no difference in gameplay, other than how cute the ass is you will be staring at for the next eighty hours.

Then you choose your class. Do you want to be a fighter, or thief? Monk or mage? Archer or knight? Will you rule your foes with magic or might? Your birthright is yours for the choosing.

Of course we know fantasy is escapism. The real question is: What are we escaping from? The doldrums of life, certainly. Who wouldn't want the chance, through hard work and many hours of rolling dice and clicking mice, to eventually become a king? Or a powerful mage? (Alongside thousands of our peers.) It's the perfect blend of aristocracy and meritocracy: A world ruled by invincible hereditary dominance, with all the upward mobility of modern society.

But is there something deeper we're escaping from? It has bothered me somewhat, as David Brin has put it well, that fantasy glorifies a non-existent golden age. A medieval time when benevolent kings and mages (aka religious priests) kept the kingdom in a perpetual state of peace so the happy farmers could live out their simple pastoral lives, never having to worry about rush hour, corporate mergers, and Manager Rob.

That is, until Evil McOverlord comes along to stir up the joyous peasant's otherwise idyllic lives. This is the time when that one special peasant takes the chance every peasant has, to climb the serfdom ladder and, by luck of destiny and/or secret birthright, exercise his right to become a king or mage himself. Through his well-rewarded efforts, the countryside can go back to blissfully herding sheep.

If only...

So what is it that attracts us to that specific time? Why the middle ages? Why not the Enlightenment, when the class system began to change and people began to demand freedom and equality? What is it about the values of one of the lowest points of Western Civilization, sandwiched between the glory of the Roman Empire and the Enlightenment, that attracts millions of fans?

Could it be those worlds are acting as a surrogate for something we all crave? Could the clues to this craving be in the very words we use to describe our first choices in character creation -- "race" and "class"?

Violence is another nasty little element we idolize in our entertainment. When we look at history, we realize why the past wasn't so idyllic. Violence has been a part of regular human experience of nearly every individual on earth until very recently. Men were sent to war not once a generation, but once a year, with cattle raids and such happening more frequently. Even in peacetime, dinner came from the pasture or the forest and it was something you had to kill and dress with your own hands. No one had to wonder if blood had a smell, because it was more than just a smudge of red pixels on your computer screen -- blood was simply a part of life.

Violence is written in our genes. Now that we are more civilized, we have a historical privilege we all take for granted. We rarely commit or are victims of violence. Fiction is our outlet. We give life to imaginary phantoms, only so we can take it away with the slash of a sword. We can watch death, read about it, and even act it out, in a way that hurts no one.

Likewise, tribalism is writ in our genes. Racism, classism, religious hate. There was a time when the majority of our ancestors believed there were tangible physical, moral, and spiritual differences between peoples of other races, cultures, and castes. People outside the familiar group were not human, they were "other". And those groups were generally very small, limited to families, tribes, small kingdoms, or local religions. Killing someone outside your group came easily and without regret. Like violence itself, these were survival tools in a world where letting go of limited resources or undefended territories could mean your death.

Here in the United States in 2012, we have new values to live by. These values are luxuries we enjoy in a world with abundant resources, and in part, we have abundant resources because of these values.

Among them:

• All humans are created equal. 
• All humans have the same capacity for achievement, regardless of gender, race, or class. 
• The playing field should be level so that hard work can lead to success. 
• We all deserve equal reward for equal effort.
• Those at the top who do not contribute should fall to make room for those who do contribute.

Not everyone holds these values. (Just go read the comments section on news articles and YouTube.) But they are our cultural standard. It is what we strive for.

We take for granted that even mere decades ago, majorities held opposite values. During those medieval times, races were considered fundamentally superior and inferior. Members of the upper class were divinely chosen by birth. Knowledge was reserved for those privileged enough to join the clergy. Enslaving others, be it through ownership or serfdom, was considered noble. Forcibly robbing whole nations of their cultures was thought to be an act of moral goodness.

As our society slowly outgrows our base instincts, we have replaced real hate with playful outlets. We've built political groups, religious factions, sports teams, and subcultures, and most of the time, tribalism is harmless. More or less.

Racism and classism still very much exist, even in "civilized" America, just as violence still exists. People still die because of their race, and upper classes still believe themselves better and use power to maintain position. We are always poised on the brink of some terrible mob-mentality disaster.

At heart, we are still tribal. "Us vs. Them" is wired in the very nature of the human spirit. It is manipulated by politicians and religious leaders to keep us committing guilt-free acts of violence, large and small, real and metaphorical, against other human beings.

The important thing is that our society now strives to overcome it. Our fiction reflects this: The "underdog" movie is ever popular. The little guy works hard, and in spite of the odds, in spite of the intolerance and hate directed at him, he rises to the top. This is our culture's idea of a happy ending.

Yet our culture makes violent films as well. An outlet. A way to pretend.

Unlike violence, depictions of justified hate can actually reinforce real hate. How can we feel the satisfaction of superiority, without it being at another's expense? How can we foster a sense of equality while at the same time, satisfy our intolerant urges?

We log in, we choose our race, we choose our gender, and we choose our class.

Oh, we may not realize it. We don't set out to play at racism anymore than we set out to commit play-violence. All we know is that it's fun to fight goblins and orcs and lizardmen. Everyone knows goblins are ugly and genetically inferior. They aren't human. We can kill them with glee, secure in the knowledge that they don't deserve to live. Secure in our knowledge that no one in the real world is hurt by our hate.

It's taken for granted that elves hate dwarves, and everyone justifyably hates goblins, and there's nothing wrong with that; no harm done. Dwarves can go on cracking elf jokes and having a good time, at no one's expense. 

(That's not to say fantasy is entirely free from real-world parallels to existing cultures who are harmed by stereotypes. I frequently see culture appropriation that goes a little too far. Likewise, violence in media is not completely free from influencing violence in real life.)

We have the privilege to play at being underprivileged. If we decide we don't like life as an Asura Thief, because the Asura are too short and everyone thinks we look like children and we're big nerds, and we find out the life of a thief really stinks, we can start again, as a giant Norn guardian with a big sword, who doesn't have to take orders from anybody.

A new life and new destiny is just a re-roll away.

Most of the time, fantasy fiction is completely unaware of its own themes. Sometimes, much to my delight, a game or novel becomes aware, and uses uses fantasy intolerance to hold a mirror up to our society.

Dragon Age springs to mind. In this fantasy world, elves are considered inferior to all other races and have been segregated into "Alienages". The game explores themes of racism and segregation. Most non-elves accept this reality. Some don't think it's fair. The elves themselves react sometimes passively, sometimes actively, and some have formed into groups to change things, sometimes using violent means. Your own character gets to make choices, and those choices have real consequences.

We play this game through our own culture's eyes. Unlike the dehumanized goblins of other games, where the world is bettered by the hated-group's demise, the elves have personalities. They are humanized. We know the elves' suffering is unjust.

Even when we commit genocidal acts against the elves, we know they are the "evil" choices, and we make them with a sick kind of glee, (just like when the game gives us violent and sadistic choices), because we are not allowed to feel that way in real life. Unlike our ancestors, we know these choices are wrong. And you get to see exactly how those choices play out.

Even when we're playing at being evil, we see how the virtual elves are hurt.

This can't be said of real-world hatred. Those who wrap themselves up in racism or religious hatred or other forms of tribalism, do not see their enemies as human. They see them as "the other". They feel no more moral crisis at the deaths of black people, or Mulsims, than I feel getting an achievement for slaughtering my 1,000th green-skinned goblin.

Fantasy gives us pretend racism and classism, and when we're done, we can return to our privileged and moral lives. I choose to see it for what it is, and rest easy knowing that, just as I wouldn't wield a sword against a real human being, I also wouldn't really want to live in a world where inequality, injustice, intolerance, and genocide are glorified.

Games provide an acceptable outlet for make-believe hate. And the more people who redirect their hatred away from real human beings, towards virtual races, the better.

What's So Wrong with Being the Healer?

Today an interesting conversation came up in my Twitter feed.  It echoed a conversation I had with one of my daughters yesterday, about the role of gender and the celebration of fighting over more peaceful activities.  With my daughter, we discussed girl cartoons vs boy cartoons.

Specifically, Jem, who uses science and technology to create music, vs. the Transformers, who use science and technology to cause devastating explosions.  Even though my daughter is female, she thought the girl-shows were lame.  Shooting things was much, much better.

The Twitter conversation was about gaming, specifically related to today's release of Diablo III.

I'm kind of excited about playing D3 with the Boyfriend. Are there healers? Can I follow him around and heal all the things?
— Oestrus (@OriginalOestrus) May 15, 2012

Oestrus is a woman.  For those who might not automatically guess, this statement is potentially controversial in a gender-politics kind of way.  Why?  Because stereotypically, women are healers in games.  Moreover, this reflects real life, in which women are healers, nurturers, and in general, sissies.  (The word "sissy" was invented to describe what weak little girls women can be.  Men can be unflatteringly accused of being in this state.)

One could easily imagine a man mocking a female gamer by making the above statement in a highpiched voice.  "And then my girlfriend was all like, 'Are there healer thingies?  Can I follow you around and heal all the things?  PLEASE?' and I was all line, no ho, get back in the kitchen!" (Cue bass laughter.)

I didn't see the original post first.  I saw the reaction:

@OriginalOestrus Either you are trolling, or you just validated a bunch of stuff. =/
— Andrea Jen. Shubert (@andrea2s1) May 15, 2012

This is an understandable response.  i.e. stop acting the stereotype, because you're going to prove what men have been saying about us all along!

This kind of thinking makes a few assumptions that bother me.  It assumes that being a healer is undesirable.

There are simulations of living things flying around on the screen and the healer is not helping them to die.  You're just going around making injured people feel better, and that is not very respectable.

There is a kernel of fundamental sexism rooted in this assumption, so deeply, that most people, even women, miss it.  It is such a basic part of our mental reality that we take it for granted.  The male paradigm of what is important, and what is not, is so accepted as truth that we will not question it.

The question should be: What's so bad about healing?

We assume it's weak.  We assume it is not very hard.  We assume it requires no skill.  We assume it doesn't help anyone win the game.

Yet none of this is true.  In most serious MMORPGs, there are basically three roles (sometimes broken into sub-roles):

• Tank: Takes damage and keeps mobs (monsters) from attacking other players.
• DPS: Deals massive damage.  Can be ranged or melee.
• Healer.  Heals people and buffs them (makes them stronger).

Anyone who has seriously played an MMORPG actually knows, deep down inside, that healing is essential.  It is a difficult skill to master.  A poor healer will cause a party to wipe far more often than a poor damage class or tanking class.  The tank's primary job, actually, is to keep the healer alive.

A good healer can often make up for poor performance on the part of any other class.  Our team is not doing enough damage?  That's okay.  I will keep you alive long enough to kill it.  It just means the fight takes longer, but we will live through it.

A healer in PvP (Player vs. Player, considered some of the most hardcore gaming on MMOs) is golden.  A team with good healers will beat a team with no healers or bad healers any day.

I rarely play a healer.  I rarely feel up to muster.  I know that the tank (who usually leads parties) will chew my hide if I fail as a healer.  Healers get yelled at.  Healers hold the life of the party in their hands.

My lovely girlfriend?  She is happy to take on this enormous responsibility, and I respect her for that.  And she is good at it.  And every time there are open calls for raid parties or in PvP queues, she is first in line.  All healers are.  Because there aren't enough of them to go around.

Maybe there aren't enough of them because the role is downplayed.  Because it's sissy.  That's a character only girls play.  Or the larger picture: The role of healing in our entire society is downplayed.  Who cares about healing when we can build stuff, or better yet, kill things?

So a lot of men don't want to play healers.  And a lot of women trying very hard not to seem like women don't want to play healers.  (I didn't want to give this video airplay by linking, but it is appropriate.)  What we end up with is a shortage of healers.  It should be obvious to everyone how necessary they are, when a party can't even do a raid without them.

Another gaming analogy went around today.  John Scalzi wrote about how being a white male is like playing an MMO on easy, while everyone else has to play on hard.  Games simulate life, and so it only makes sense to bring the metaphors back to reality.  What can we learn about real life from looking at how healers are perceived?

Think about our healing classes in real life: Teachers, nurses, mothers, day care providers, HR managers, psychologists, massage therapists, social workers.

Unless you're lying to yourself, or an alien, your idea of these careers evokes a reaction in you: One Big Giant "Meh!"  Who wants to do any of these things?  Compared to rocket scientist or police officer or lawyer or airline pilot, no one does.  They are weak roles, anyone can do them.  They are boring, at best necessary evils - the kids must be taught, and someone has to clean up after sick people.  Only janitors show up lower on the totem pole, in terms of respected careers.

(Doctors are an exception, a respected healing class.  Perhaps that is because it is still not a female-dominated career.  Many of the above listed careers more respected back when they were male-dominated.)

Is the problem that women act in nurturing ways?  Take nurturing jobs?  Are we too eager to be healers?

Or is the problem that we accept the sexist undervaluing of these roles?

Rearing children is amazingly cool.  It is difficult.  It requires skill, and it helps society win the game.

Psychology is awesome.  It fixes people's brains.  It makes people happy.  It is difficult.  It takes a lot of skill, and helps society win.

Social workers help lift people up, keep people going through hard times.  It is difficult.  It helps society win.

Admin assistants (aka secretaries) are awesome.  Like healers in MMOs, they juggle a thousand different things, run all over the place, get it all done in time, and get yelled at if they let anyone fall down.  It is difficult.  They help a company win.

We could "stop acting the stereotype", but that won't lift the oppression.  If we are reacting against the gender roles by stepping into male shoes, we validate the existence of those roles.  We continue to perpetuate them and allow them to oppress us.

If women are avoiding acting the stereotype so we can be "free" of oppression, then we're no more free than we were barefoot and pregnant.  Sure, it will lift oppression for women who would rather work in male-dominated fields (as I once did in IT, and arguably, still do as a writer).  It will help women who want to be successful tanks and damage-dealers.  And that's great.

But it won't help those people, both women and men, who want to be healers.

What we need to do is not question the stereotype, but question the value placed on the stereotype.  What's so wrong with choosing to be a mother, if that choice is available to you?  What is so wrong with being a nurse or an HR manager?  What is wrong with being a healer?

Women should be able to play whatever character we want.

This goes past gender politics.  This goes to the bedrock of some of the ills of society.  This world is in need of good healers.  Humanity needs more people (men and women) competently doing very difficult and valuable jobs.  If we respected the results of good healing as much or more than we respect skillful damage-dealing, perhaps we'd have fewer lawsuits and wars, and more happy, healthy, functional people.

Gaming shows us it's possible to heal and be competitive.  It is possible to heal and help everyone else win.  It is possible to cooperate and win in a competitive way.  Let's learn from that.

We've been programmed to dis peaceniks (hippies and sissies, the lot of them), just as we laugh at healers.  In the long run, shifting our values could make for a better society, one in which it is valuable to heal and be healed.

If you are a healer, you are awesome.

The Most Peaceful Christmas Songs of All Time

In my previous post, I explained my theme this year for Christmas, which is peace.  Here is a list of the Christmas songs which sing of peace, be they Christian of origin, or written by those silly fluffy hippies we're all supposed to hate.

UPDATE: 11/7/13. I have fixed some of the broken videos. I have also compiled most of these songs, though not always the same versions, in a Spotify playlist you can subscribe to. The Most Peaceful Christmas Songs of All Time.

Starting with the hippiest hippy of them all, John Lennon, in Happy Xmas.

Bing Crosby & David Bowie sing Little Drummer Boy with additional lyrics:

A spoof of the last video by Will Ferrel, which is for the most part a word-for-word remake.  Until the end, where we see a little irony. (Not embedded, click link.)

And because the Internet is just one big spoof of itself, here is Jack Black:

Handel used the Bible as the primary source of lyrics for the Messiah.  The message of this song is clear.  It tells the story of the angels who came down to the Shepard.  When they were afraid, the angel calmed them, promising them peace on earth, good will to men.  This is the refrain I've had going through my head this season, any time I notice my cognitive dissonance surrounding the concept of peace.

Handel's "Glory to God":

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day was one of my favorites to sing when I was a "sissy little girl".  There are a number of different melodies, so I've included several versions.  This song is all about peace, and how impossible the goal seems.  In despair I bowed my head, 'There is no peace on earth,' I said. 'For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth good will to men.'  It offers hope that right will prevail.

This first version is the one I grew up singing:

A rocked out version of the same melody done by a local church. I include it because its imagery ties it to modern events:

And a spiffy new version by Casting Crowns I'd not heard before:

Hark, here are those angels again. Peace on earth and mercy mild. As sung by Jewel.

I just discovered this song, this year.  Tim Minchin expresses some of my own conflicting feelings about this season, including the commercialism and mixed feelings about the Christian message.  What's important, to him and me, is the love of being with family.  White Wine in the Sun is one of my favorites on this list.

O Holy Night has a very peaceful melody. I almost did not include it because the first to verses speak of submission to God and hints at Christian superiority.  But the third verse encapsulates the message I espouse:

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His Gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
And in His Name all oppression shall cease.

In case you're in doubt that I wish to emphasize the peaceful elements of this song, I've included the John Denver version:

Still, Still, Still, performed by Manheim Steamroller:

While I was still Mormon, I loved Jars of Clay.  Here's a Christmas song of theirs I still have in my playlist. Love Came Down at Christmas:

An Atheist Christmas Carol by Vienna Teng:

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear brings us more peace on earth, by Sixpence None the Richer, who have done some of my favorite Christmas song performances:

Merry Christmas!

Peace on Earth, Good Will To Men

I've had a lot of mixed feelings about Christmas over the years.  As a kid, I felt alternately excited and guilty.  Excited: obvious.  Guilty because my parents went overboard when buying me gifts, and I never seemed to have enough money to buy them anything they really wanted, and I was bad at buying gifts anyway.

When I was a teen, the excitement gave way to guilt and fear.  Fear that I wouldn't be excited enough or grateful enough or happy enough that I'd forget to buy gifts, which I usually did.  I secretly hid a lot of depression and social anxiety as a teen, and Christmas really brought that out.  At holiday family gatherings I was often at the brunt of most of the teasing.  There were peaceful and loving moments during this time as well, but I tend to forget those since pain is much louder than joy.

In my early twenties, as a single mom, I had a couple of really great Christmases.  I was on my own, in my own place, making my own choices.  I found a lot of spirituality and peace during this time.  I was still Mormon, and my boy really small.  Everything was very magical at this time in my life, and somehow I tapped into the "True Meaning of Christmas".  I remember listening to a lot of music, like Mannheim Steamroller and a Mormon production called The Forgotten Carols (both of which I would still recommend to this day).  A Fresh Aire Christmas had a lot of choir music that is really beautiful, like Veni Veni, Emmanuel.

When I lost religion, I became very cynical around Christmas.  Its blatant commercialism became clear to me, which rang chimes with my feelings of guilt and fear as a child.  I had mixed feelings about the idea that only a baby god child could bring peace to the earth... a peace which never seemed to come, in spite of the promises of angels on high.

My son had to suffer this attitude from me through most of his childhood.  I also saw Christmas as a burden: just one more thing to do in my busy life and more money that had to be spent when money was tight.  I still hate putting up Christmas decorations, and have left this task to him.

This year, I've had a recurring theme to my Christmas season, one I've chosen to embrace.  Peace.  One simple word with so many meanings.  Over the month, a refrain has gone through my mind: "Peace on earth good will to men" sung to the melody written by Handel.  Of all the messages one can get from the Bible, this is one we should embrace.

Yet this is not the central theme of American Christian culture.  Even though Christianity has permeated nearly everything we do, even those of us who are agnostic and atheist, we somehow cannot shake our desire for violence.  Strength is to be admired.  Gentleness is to be laughed at.  Stars and hearts and puppies are for "little girls" and people who play or fight poorly are like little girls. (Didn't Jesus say we should be like little children?)  Hippies are flippy-wristed weaklings who are just waiting to be victimized.  Pacifists and vegans are to be mocked.  Anyone who wishes to conserve the dwindling resources of this planet are idiots who just want to take away everyone's toys.  Those who raise protesting voices against third-world slavery are ignorant, and this is how it must be.

There's this fear that if we give peace an inch, it might take over, and we might end up loving people we'd really rather not love.

I know these feelings because I struggle with them myself.  I feel cognitive dissonance, because culture has programmed me to think these things.  To feel these things.

But why?  What's so wrong with peace?  Is it a lofty ideal?  Yes.  Is it unrealistic?  Maybe.  But why does it need to be vilified?  Why should adherents to peace be mocked?  What is so dangerous about a message of peace that it must be marginalized?

There isn't a major religion on earth that doesn't at least pay lip service to the concept of peace.  Any religion that can't claim to be peaceful is rejected by a majority of potential converts (even if those converts are being converted at the point of a sword).  Yet the prevailing meme, in the form of ideas and feelings, is toughness, strength, bullying, and war.  Concepts of compromise and diplomacy are "weak" and "fluffy" and "unrealistic".  But maybe these ideas are unrealistic because any who are espouse them are ridiculed.

In our readiness to "speak softly and carry a big stick", we forget the speak softly part.  Should we as individuals and a society be ready to defend ourselves?  Absolutely.  But instead of being a last resort, it tends to be the first.  If our culture embraced peace as much as we claim we do, if we really sought peace, we would have more of it.  We would challenge our leaders for every war they wished to fight.  We would make them offer the same level of proof we require of prosecutors in a court of law.  They would be required to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the war is absolutely necessary to defend our country.

Maybe instead of sending men off to die, we might have to go without a few resources.  Some prices might go up.  What price of oil or cheap goods is high enough that it pays for the lives of soldiers who may come back alive and unmaimed, but who will be scarred forever?  If we go to war, it should be for one reason: That another country has initiated force against us, or our military allies, first.

This season, I have looked within, and seen the side of me that rejects peace.  I have faced it, and found that in spite of its power, it is still silly.  Peace is more rational than violence.  Peace is smarter than war.  It is not touchy-feely to believe in peace: it is logical.

May we all have gentle hearts in this coming year.  God has been unable to bring us peace, so let's bring it to ourselves.

I have compiled a list of Christmas songs about peace, which I will link in the next post.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.