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I was trying to think of something to read (to combat my ongoing problem with empty-brain boredom) and started thinking about the Dream Park Larry Niven books, which I haven't read for ages. They're set in a futuristic LARP and there's a crime in the middle, iirc. And I realised a large part of what I like about them is how they have to negotiate several sets of rules. There's the fantasy world of the game they're in, there's the science fiction world of the machines that make the game possible, and there's the genre rules surrounding a detective mystery. The ways the rules collide and interact are where a lot of the fun lives.
This is also true in my favourite TV shows - Buffy and Torchwood. Or at least it can/should be.
A lot of what I read lately is a bit like Buffy - take the everyday world and add the supernatural behind the scenes. So on one level you have the mundane law enforcement community, and on the other you have the intricacies of vampire court politics. Or in Buffy's case you have school rules and Watcher rules, with a bit of prophecy on the side.
There's a lot of single-genre stuff around too, where you're just playing in Horror or Fantasy, one of those ghost hunts or medaeval kingdoms or something. But those don't so much hold my attention these days.
I think the thing is we're all negotiating different and often conflicting sets of rules, especially social rules, but also the difference between legal and moral, the common practice that may or may not be of the good. Like Buffy said when her mom turned up at school, she has two worlds already. And they've got conflicting demands that always seem life and death. Home, work, school, social, fandom, creative, living for others, living for self... different worlds.
Now Torchwood doesn't seem to do much with that. They set it up so Torchwood is above the law, so basically they ignore the mundane and get on with the horror/SF/fantasy plot they find themselves in. And to my mind they lose a lot of plot fodder in doing so. I mean PC Andy's little speech when confronted with an actual Roman soldier - about how can they deal with him within police rules - was all kinds of interesting. And not just in that it revealed so much about how his brain works. It's about how his *society* works. Torchwood, in dismissing the law, try and put themselves outside society. And they're making themselves into monsters in the process. Because how we treat the Other says a lot more about ourselves than it does about them.
About the only place where the different worlds collide is in Gwen's love life. And all she's doing is putting a wall down the middle and pushing it all as far apart as she can. Until it comes crashing down.
I just think it's a lot more interesting to have a story where the worlds have to negotiate with each other. Because that's what we do, every day, try and fit our different worlds together. Different rules, different things that feel right.
Torchwood only have to negotiate within the team, and whilst they do to some extent have different positions on stuff they don't come into play as often as they could. I mean Gwen objecting to Torchwood having all that CCTV and database access was a conflict, and we saw it resolved - Gwen started saying 'we' and decided it was alright now. Which is part of why it's hard to like Gwen, because that 'it's okay if it's us' isn't a nice attitude really, and she started out looking like she knew better. But if anyone outside Torchwood knew how they carried on there would be all sorts of lovely conflict generated while everyone went WTF and Grrr at them. But they don't know. Thanks to the handy retcon, it's would take quite a lot of work to change that. So Torchwood continue their own merry way and keep wandering off further from acceptable.
Same with the way knowledge about alien life keeps getting reset. Wouldn't it be interesting to have a bunch of alien cultures bump into each other? Or have one arrive here and try and fit in at the supermarket? Yeah, it was great watching the 1950s people play alien, but there's a whole other set of metaphor to play with too.
... Guess I could go watch Babylon 5. Or Alien Nation I think it is, with the cops. The diplomacy-contact stuff has been done a few times. I just kind of miss it when it ain't there.
This is also true in my favourite TV shows - Buffy and Torchwood. Or at least it can/should be.
A lot of what I read lately is a bit like Buffy - take the everyday world and add the supernatural behind the scenes. So on one level you have the mundane law enforcement community, and on the other you have the intricacies of vampire court politics. Or in Buffy's case you have school rules and Watcher rules, with a bit of prophecy on the side.
There's a lot of single-genre stuff around too, where you're just playing in Horror or Fantasy, one of those ghost hunts or medaeval kingdoms or something. But those don't so much hold my attention these days.
I think the thing is we're all negotiating different and often conflicting sets of rules, especially social rules, but also the difference between legal and moral, the common practice that may or may not be of the good. Like Buffy said when her mom turned up at school, she has two worlds already. And they've got conflicting demands that always seem life and death. Home, work, school, social, fandom, creative, living for others, living for self... different worlds.
Now Torchwood doesn't seem to do much with that. They set it up so Torchwood is above the law, so basically they ignore the mundane and get on with the horror/SF/fantasy plot they find themselves in. And to my mind they lose a lot of plot fodder in doing so. I mean PC Andy's little speech when confronted with an actual Roman soldier - about how can they deal with him within police rules - was all kinds of interesting. And not just in that it revealed so much about how his brain works. It's about how his *society* works. Torchwood, in dismissing the law, try and put themselves outside society. And they're making themselves into monsters in the process. Because how we treat the Other says a lot more about ourselves than it does about them.
About the only place where the different worlds collide is in Gwen's love life. And all she's doing is putting a wall down the middle and pushing it all as far apart as she can. Until it comes crashing down.
I just think it's a lot more interesting to have a story where the worlds have to negotiate with each other. Because that's what we do, every day, try and fit our different worlds together. Different rules, different things that feel right.
Torchwood only have to negotiate within the team, and whilst they do to some extent have different positions on stuff they don't come into play as often as they could. I mean Gwen objecting to Torchwood having all that CCTV and database access was a conflict, and we saw it resolved - Gwen started saying 'we' and decided it was alright now. Which is part of why it's hard to like Gwen, because that 'it's okay if it's us' isn't a nice attitude really, and she started out looking like she knew better. But if anyone outside Torchwood knew how they carried on there would be all sorts of lovely conflict generated while everyone went WTF and Grrr at them. But they don't know. Thanks to the handy retcon, it's would take quite a lot of work to change that. So Torchwood continue their own merry way and keep wandering off further from acceptable.
Same with the way knowledge about alien life keeps getting reset. Wouldn't it be interesting to have a bunch of alien cultures bump into each other? Or have one arrive here and try and fit in at the supermarket? Yeah, it was great watching the 1950s people play alien, but there's a whole other set of metaphor to play with too.
... Guess I could go watch Babylon 5. Or Alien Nation I think it is, with the cops. The diplomacy-contact stuff has been done a few times. I just kind of miss it when it ain't there.