The Volokh Conspiracy

Big-name literary scholar Stanley Fish has an interesting column on The Hunger Games, the popular series of science fiction novels by Suzanne Collins which has recently been made into a highly successful movie:

A couple of weeks ago my daughter visited from California. She brought with her the first volume of Suzanne Collins’s “The Hunger Games.” She read it in short order and drove to the local Barnes & Noble to get the other two. She finished them in a day, and then passed all three on to me. I devoured them and passed them on to my wife, who also read them in record time.

What accounts for three overeducated adults being so caught up in the story of a teenage girl — Katniss Everdeen — who lives in a dystopian future ruled and controlled by the decadent and cruel denizens of “The Capitol”?

Many have commented on the excellence of the pacing (you’re always on the hook) and on the inventiveness with which Collins devises the obstacles — both animate and inanimate, and a few things in between — that challenge Katniss and her fellow contestants as they play a gladiatorial, televised game whose point is to defeat one’s opponents by killing them and so be the last person standing.

But the technical skills Collins displays are only a part of the explanation of the novels’ power. The other part is the thematic obsession hinted at by the title: just what is it that the characters, and by extension the readers, hunger for? On the literal level the answer is obvious. Kept at a near-starvation level by their rulers, the inhabitants of the nation of Panem (bread) hunger for food, and one of Katniss’s virtues is that as an expert archer she can provide it.

Food, however, is a metaphor in the trilogy for another kind of sustenance, the sustenance provided by an inner conviction of one’s own worth and integrity….

One of the tributes names that as the goal he desires more than survival. Peeta Mellark, in love with Katniss since the moment he laid eyes on her (the moment when he gave her bread), says to her, “I want to die as myself … I don’t want them to change me in there.”

Fish’s emphasis on the characters’ inner struggle for “authenticity” contrasts with the more politically oriented interpretations of the series developed by other commentators. I previously blogged about political and moral themes in The Hunger Games here, here, and here. I also discussed the subject in a recent podcast for the Institute for Humane Studies.

The Institute for Humane Studies has put up a podcast I recently did for them on the politics of The Hunger Games, the popular science fiction book series by Suzanne Collins, which has been recently made into a hit movie.

I previously blogged about political issues in The Hunger Games here, here, and here. Many have suggested that the series has a libertarian anti-government message, though I think it is much more ambiguous than that.

For those interested, I have also done IHS podcasts on political themes in Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.

CNN has recently posted two articles about fans who are angry that black actors have been cast in three important roles in The Hunger Games movie: Cinna, Rue, and Thresh (see here and here). On the merits of this dispute, I think it’s clear that the objecting fans are in the wrong. As CNN points out, Rue and Thresh are described as having “dark” skin in the original book by Suzanne Collins, on which movie is based. A person with “dark” skin isn’t necessarily black, but being black is certainly compatible with that description. Cinna’s race was never mentioned in the books at all. So the filmmakers were well within their rights to cast an actor of any race in the role (even assuming that they had some moral obligation not to contradict the book). FWIW, I thought that Lenny Kravitz did a very good job in the role. The actress playing Rue was less effective, but that may have been because the movie cut many of the character’s lines from the book.

At the same time, I can’t help but think that these articles are making a mountain out of a molehill. The Hunger Games book series has millions of fans. In such a large group, it is inevitable that there will be some people who have foolish views about the movie, including some with misguided racial objections to the casting.

Despite the fact that at least two of these three black actors were clearly evident in the movie’s trailer and their selection was otherwise publicized in advance, the Hunger Games movie had the highest first-weekend box office receipts of any non-sequel in history. And the film is still No. 1 at the box office. So I strongly suspect that those fans who objected to the casting on racial grounds were a small minority.

For my review of the movie, see here.

My wife and I saw the Hunger Games last night. I described the core plot of the Suzanne Collins book series on which the movie is based here:

In the far future, what’s left of a post-apocalyptic United States is ruled by a tyrannical central government (the “Capitol”) that oppresses and exploits twelve subordinate districts. Every year, each of the districts must send two teenagers (a boy and a girl) to participate in the Hunger Games, a nationally televised game show where they fight each other to the death until only one survives. The government uses the Games to entertain the public and divert their attention away from its oppressive nature, while also reminding the districts that any attempt at rebellion is doomed to failure. Main character Katniss Everdeen ends up in the Games after she volunteers to take the place of her younger sister, who was chosen in the selection lottery.

Overall, I thought the movie was extremely impressive. The first half – which covers the time before the contestants enter the Games arena – was almost letter-perfect. It effectively developed the characters, the tyranny of the Capitol, and Collins’ critique of “reality TV,” of which The Hunger Games is an effective parody.

There were, I thought, a few problems in the second half, which portrays the actual combat in the arena. The filmmakers cut key conversations between characters without which certain plot developments don’t make as much sense as they do in the book. But these flaws are relatively minor in scale.

They certainly don’t outweigh the film’s many strengths. Perhaps the most significant is the way the filmmakers managed to translate the story onto the screen without being able to rely on Katniss’ internal monologues, which convey many of the most important elements of the story in the book. Also, Jennifer Lawrence is very good in the lead role of Katniss, and I thought the other actors were effective, as well.

As for the much-debated political message of the series, it is just as ambiguous in the movie as in the books. However, this movie only covers the first of the three volumes, and the later ones get into political issues more.

This movie did benefit from the fact that The Hunger Games is easily the strongest of the three novels in the series. The producers face a more difficult challenge when it comes time to make the two sequels, where the series’ shortcomings are more evident. Still, this is an excellent beginning.

Today is the premier of the Hunger Games movie, and debate continues over the political message of the book series by Suzanne Collins on which the movie is based. Last week, I commented on conservative blogger James Delingpole’s claim that the the series promotes a pro-Tea Party, antigovernment ideology. In my view, there are multiple plausible interpretations of the series’ politics, including left-wing ones. I think Delingpole may have been reading his own views into the book, just as more left-wing readers could plausibly do the same with theirs.

However, it’s worth noting that Delingpole is not the only one who thinks that The Hunger Games promotes a Tea Party-like ideology. Liberal Slate commentators Emily Bazelon and David Plotz advanced the same interpretation back in 2010. So does Bernie Quigley at The Hill. This Tea Party-aligned site describes both left-wing and conservative interpretations of the series.

For now, I’m sticking to the view I outlined in my last post on the subject:

Collins does indeed convey a very skeptical view of government. Not only the Capitol but even the government promoted by its opponents turns out to be tyrannical, which suggests that the flaws of government are institutional and not merely the result of the wrong leaders being in power. However, it is far from clear that Collins promotes libertarianism or Tea Party-like conservatism as the solution to this problem.

Moreover, a left-wing interpretation of the series’ politics is at least as plausible as Delingpole’s is. The “sybarite class” of the Capitol and their oppression of the twelve districts can be seen as a classic leftist parable of the oppression of the poor by the rich. The game show-like nature of the Hunger Games can be interpreted as an indictment of commercialism. And perhaps the true way forward for Panem is a government that cracks down on commercialism, redistributes wealth to the poor, and gives everyone free food and health care.

The series is subject to such widely disparate interpretations in part because Collins’ world-building is relatively weak. We don’t learn very much about the political and economic system of Panem, and some of what we do learn is internally inconsistent. We don’t even know whether Panem’s economy is primarily capitalist or socialist.

However, it’s interesting that commentators on different sides of the political spectrum have all discerned an anti-government and anti-centralization message in The Hunger Games. As a libertarian decentralizer myself, part of me hopes that the series’ millions of young fans came away with the same impression, even if it is not the most accurate possible interpretation of the text.

Obviously, politics is not the only or even the most important interesting element of The Hunger Games. In my view, the series’ real strength is in its drama and characterization. But it’s still interesting to consider the political themes of such a popular series, one that may have at least some effect on the worldviews of millions of readers.

All of the above analyses of the politics of The Hunger Games are based on the books. Perhaps the movie has a different – or at least clearer – political message. If time permits, I hope to write a review sometime in the next few days, after I see it.

UPDATE: I am well aware, as some readers have pointed out, that Suzanne Collins has made various public statements about what inspired her to write the series. The most thorough is probably this April 2011 interview with the New York Times. But Collins is very vague about the book’s political message, and in any event a work of literature often has a meaning that goes beyond the specific intentions of the author. Even if you endorse the original intent approach to constitutional interpretation, you don’t necessarily have to apply the same theory to literary interpretation. The two enterprises have very different purposes.

The Hunger Games, a hugely popular series of science fiction novels by Suzanne Collins, is coming out as a major movie next week. At Ricochet, James Delingpole argues that the series has a strong Tea Party-esque antigovernment message.

I summarized the plot here:

In the far future, what’s left of a post-apocalyptic United States is ruled by a tyrannical central government (the “Capitol”) that oppresses and exploits twelve subordinate districts. Every year, each of the districts must send two teenagers (a boy and a girl) to participate in the Hunger Games, a nationally televised game show where they fight each other to the death until only one survives. The government uses the Games to entertain the public and divert their attention away from its oppressive nature, while also reminding the districts that any attempt at rebellion is doomed to failure. Main character Katniss Everdeen ends up in the Games after she volunteers to take the place of her younger sister, who was chosen in the selection lottery.

Here is Delingpole’s interpretation of the series’ message:

America, the near future. So vast and controlling and all-powerful has grown the DC political machine that the country at large is now just a collection of vassal states whose cowed, servile populations exist solely to provide goods and services to the grotesque sybarite class in the Capitol. In this future, the free market has been all but abolished – which is why, of course, starvation is rife and shortages are endemic. Only on the black market does free trade still survive. It’s illegal but it’s the only place where you can haggle for sufficient food – mostly game poached at great personal risk – to keep your family alive….

The Hunger Games is probably the best education any child can get into the horrors of Big Government and the tyranny and injustice of statism. It’s impossible to read this book and not come away thinking like a Tea Partier.

Actually, the series seems to be set much later than the near future, probably at least a century or two from now (the books are not very clear on this, but all the clues we get point to a large amount of time passing, to the point where the old America has been almost completely forgotten).

More importantly, I am not sure that Delingpole’s interpretation of the series’ politics is correct. Collins does indeed convey a very skeptical view of government. Not only the Capitol but even the government promoted by its opponents turns out to be tyrannical, which suggests that the flaws of government are institutional and not merely the result of the wrong leaders being in power. However, it is far from clear that Collins promotes libertarianism or Tea Party-like conservatism as the solution to this problem.

Moreover, a left-wing interpretation of the series’ politics is at least as plausible as Delingpole’s is. The “sybarite class” of the Capitol and their oppression of the twelve districts can be seen as a classic leftist parable of the oppression of the poor by the rich. The game show-like nature of the Hunger Games can be interpreted as an indictment of commercialism. And perhaps the true way forward for Panem is a government that cracks down on commercialism, redistributes wealth to the poor, and gives everyone free food and health care.

The series is subject to such widely disparate interpretations in part because Collins’ world-building is relatively weak. We don’t learn very much about the political and economic system of Panem, and some of what we do learn is internally inconsistent. We don’t even know whether Panem’s economy is primarily capitalist or socialist. Are the coal mines mines where most of District 12′s population works owned by the government or by private firms? We are never told.

Contra Delingpole, District 12 does seem to have some private small businesses that operate legally (e.g. – Peeta Mellark’s father owns a bakery), as does the Capitol (we see a few of them in the third book). Therefore, private enterprise has not been completely relegated to the black market. But there certainly is a substantial black market sector, and it is not clear whether there are any large privately owned enterprises, either in the districts or in the Capitol.

Equally striking, we don’t see any evidence of an official ideology propagated by the government, other than the idea that resistance to the rule of the Capitol is futile. Virtually all real world dictatorships do in fact rely on ideology to stay in power as well as the threat of force. Indoctrination doesn’t persuade everyone, but it is often at least partially effective in helping an oppressive regime stay in power. In addition to being unrealistic, the absence of an official ideology makes it difficult for readers to figure out what kind of political and economic system the Capitol has established. The Capitol’s opponents also lack a clear ideology (though Collins gives us a few more hints here than on the side of the Capitol).

The Hunger Games would have been better if it had greater depth and realism in its political setting. On the other hand, the series does have some great characters and psychological development, and is mesmerizing despite its flaws. And, as Delingpole’s interpretation demonstrates, the thinness of Collins’ world-building allows both right and left-wing readers to read their own ideas into the story. This may contribute to its popularity.

UPDATE: I have restructured this post somewhat to make it more clear.

Forbes writer Alex Knapp has an interesting article pointing out five supposed leadership mistakes made by Star Wars’ Galactic Empire. I think many of these supposed mistakes turn out to be quite reasonable once you realize what the Emperor’s real purposes were. Hint: Ruthless dictators don’t pursue the same goals as management consultants.

Here are the five supposed errors along with my comments:

Mistake #1: Building an organization around particular people, rather than institutions.

Perhaps the biggest mistake of the Galactic Empire made is its singular focus on the preservation of power for the Emperor and a few of his chosen lackeys….

Your organization needs to be structured so that talent is being developed on all levels of the organization, in order to ensure smooth functioning and ensure that it’s easy for people to rise in the organization in the event that key individuals leave.

This strikes me as a feature of the Empire rather than a bug. The whole reason why Palpatine established the Empire in the first place is precisely “the preservation of power for the Emperor and a few of his chosen lackeys.” Complaining that the Empire failed to ensure that “talent is being developed on all levels of the organization” is kind of like saying that the Soviet Union would have worked better if Lenin and Stalin had established a market economy instead of communism. It ignores the whole reason why the institution was established in the first place.

Mistake #2: Depriving people of the chance to have a stake in the organization.

By consolidating his power, the Emperor didn’t just ensure that his organization wouldn’t survive his death. He also deprived a key motivation for both his employees and the public-at-large: a feeling of having a stake in the success of the organization. The Emperor disbanded the Galactic Senate, removing the idea of any democratic stake in the government….

The Emperor or Vader gave orders and that was it. No further discussion…

[T]his is the worst possible way to get the best work out of your employees. Fear, combined with a sense of powerlessness, only inspires the bare minimum amount of work…

Again, feature rather than bug. “Fear, combined with a sense of powerlessness” may not “get the best work out of your employees.” But it’s a great way to keep the ruler in power, which was the Emperor’s real goal. It’s a formula that has worked for numerous dictators throughout history. See Lenin and Stalin again. The trouble only begins when weak-minded fool successors like Gorbachev start listening to their management consultants and ease up on the repression. As Machiavelli put it, “it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to make way.”

Mistake #3: Having no tolerance for failure.

In an early part of the Empire Strikes Back, the Empire attempted to wipe out the Rebel Alliance once and for all in the Battle of Hoth. However, because Admiral Ozzel took the Imperial Fleet out of lightspeed too close to the Hoth system, the Rebel Alliance was able to detect the Imperial approach and quickly begin its defense. Enraged by this error, Darth Vader used the Force to choke Admiral Ozzel to death. Captain Piett, Ozzel’s second-in-command, was then promoted to Admiral and given command of the Imperial Fleet.

This swift, decisive punishment of failure is a huge error of management….

Even beyond this one mistake, by adopting a management style of “failure leads to Force choking,” Vader developed an organizational culture that was destined to be weak. People would be afraid to offer feedback or suggestions, choosing instead to follow orders to the letter. This ensures that decisions are made at a very high level, and anyone under those levels will lack initiative or the ability to act on their local knowledge.

Once again, this misses the point. If Vader’s minions “lack initiative or the ability to act on their local knowledge,” they are unlikely to try to overthrow him and the Emperor. Moreover, it’s far from clear that the Imperial Fleet functioned any worse under Piett than Ozzel. The new admiral certainly had a strong incentive to succeed once he saw what the price of failure was! If he failed anyway, it was only because the plot demanded that the Rebels get away. If Vader and Piett had wiped them out in Episode V, the audience (including then-seven year old Ilya) would not have been as forgiving as Knapp seems to be.

Mistake #4: Focusing all of the organization’s efforts into a single goal and failing to consider alternatives.

When it came to the success of the Galactic Empire, the Emperor had one single idea that he was absolutely obsessed with: building the Death Star. The completion of the Death Star, with its ability to destroy entire planets, was the singleminded obsession of the Emperor. At no point do we ever see any alternatives broached…

It’s vital to be flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances. You should always consider alternatives to your course of action and develop multiple plans for achieving particular goals in case one or more plans don’t pan out.

Actually, as I pointed out in my last Star Wars post, the Emperor’s real error was in not building enough Death Stars. He clearly had the resources to build many more. And if he had, he could have crushed the rebels even if he lost a few Death Stars to lucky shots in the process. Moreover, the Emperor did in fact build up a lot of other military forces with which to suppress the Rebellion. Remember the huge fleet commanded by Ozzel and Piett, which Knapp discussed in his previous point! If not for the demands of the plot (reinforced by numerous plot-holes), the powerful imperial military would never have been defeated by a bunch of ragtag rebels aided by primitive Ewoks.

Mistake #5: Failing to learn from mistakes.

The Galactic Empire devoted years, an enormous amount of money, and an enormous amount of manpower to building the Death Star. After it was built, the Death Star only successfully completed one mission before it was destroyed by the Rebels. And the Empire’s response? Build a bigger, newer Death Star to serve as a target for the Rebel Alliance. In the second case, the Death Star wasn’t even completed before the Rebels managed to destroy it again.

Despite the failure of Force choking Admiral Ozzel to improve performance by the Imperial Fleet, Vader Force choked Captain Needa after his failure to capture the Millenium Falcon shortly thereafter.

Both the Emperor and Vader were obsessed with turning Skywalker to the Dark Side of the Force, even after Skywalker made it clear that he’d rather die than abandon the Rebel Alliance or join the Dark Side….

While it’s admirable to not let setbacks hold you back from pursuing your goals, its vital to learn from every failure in order to correct your course of action. Failing to learn from your mistakes and repeating them will inevitably lead to the destruction of your organization.

Here, it’s possible that Knapp has pointed out a real flaw in the Empire’s strategy. But let’s remember that in each of these cases, they failed in their first attempt only because of random coincidences and plot holes (Han Solo just happened to arrive in the nick of time in Episode IV; the Death Star was destroyed by a lucky shot just before it would have wiped out the Rebels; and so on). A good leader doesn’t discard a sound strategy merely because low-probability events derail it the first time he tries it. How was Palpatine to know that the writers had it in for him to such an extent that his brilliant plan would fail the second time around because an “entire legion of [his] finest troops” was defeated by an army of stone age teddy bears? But for that ridiculous turn of events, the Death Star would – as the Emperor points out to Luke – have remained “quite operational.” And the Rebels would have been wiped out. Ultimately, the great Emperor Palpatine was done in not by his own mistakes, but by the even more powerful Emperor George Lucas.

Kevin Drum has a post challenging the conventional wisdom that the Death Star was an extremely expensive project. He concludes that “not only is the Death Star affordable, it’s not even a big deal”:

As background, some students at Lehigh University have estimated that it would be a very expensive project. The steel alone, assuming the Death Star’s mass/volume ratio is about the same as an aircraft carrier, comes to $852 quadrillion, or 13,000 times the world’s GDP. Is this affordable?

Let’s sharpen our pencils. For starters, this number is too low. Using the same aircraft carrier metric they did, I figure that the price tag on the latest and greatest Ford-class supercarrier is about 100 times the cost of the raw steel that goes into it. If the Death Star is similar, its final cost would be about 1.3 million times the world’s GDP….

But there’s more. Star Wars may have taken place “a long time ago,” but the technology of the Star Wars universe is well in our future. How far into our future? Well, Star Trek is about 300 years in our future, and the technology of Star Wars is obviously well beyond that. Let’s call it 500 years. What will the world’s GDP be in the year 2500? Answer: Assuming a modest 2 percent real growth rate, it will be about 20,000 times higher than today. So we can figure that the average world in the Star Wars universe is about 20,000 times richer than present-day Earth, which means the Death Star would cost about 65 times the average world’s GDP….

But how big is the Republic/Empire? There’s probably a canonical figure somewhere, but I don’t know where. So I’ll just pull a number out of my ass based on the apparent size of the Old Senate, and figure a bare minimum of 10,000 planets. That means the Death Star requires .03 percent of the GDP of each planet in the Republic/Empire annually. By comparison, this is the equivalent of about $5 billion per year in the current-day United States.

In other words, not only is the Death Star affordable, it’s not even a big deal. Palpatine could embezzle that kind of money without so much as waving his midichlorian-infused little pinkie.

If Drum’s figures are correct, why didn’t the Empire simply build an entire fleet of Death Stars? Then, they wouldn’t have to worry if one or two of them were destroyed by the rebels exploiting pesky little design flaws. Perhaps Drum has discovered yet another Star Wars plot hole that can only be covered up with a Chewbacca defense.

The trailer for Peter Jackson’s long-awaited Hobbit movie is now available:

No word yet whether the movie incorporates any of the recently discovered scientific evidence for the existence of prehistoric hobbits.

On a slightly more serious note, I like the look and feel of the movie, as depicted in the trailer, though the trailer itself could have been better designed.

Blogger Amber Taylor has a fascinating Institute for Humane Studies podcast on themes of liberty in George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones fantasy series (which has now also been turned into an HBO series). Amber previously wrote about Game of Thrones for a symposium in the Atlantic. I agree with most of Amber’s points, but I’m not entirely convinced that the Starks are more favorable to liberty than their enemies, the Lannisters. There doesn’t seem to be more than a modest difference in the way the two sides treat the common people who come under their control. By contrast, I think Amber is right to suggest that Daenerys Targaryen is a quasi-libertarian heroine, with her devotion to the abolition of slavery and the promotion of freedom more generally (which, however, as Amber notes, coexists with a devotion to the divine right of “legitimate” kings). I commented on the series here.

For those who may be interested, I have done two IHS podcasts on political themes in science fiction myself: one on Star Trek, and one on Battlestar Galactica (covering both the new series and the 1970s original).

The full-length trailer for the Hunger Games movie is now available here. In a post earlier this year, I wrote about why Suzanne Collins’ popular science fiction series might well make an even better movie than book.

If the trailer is any indication (perhaps a dangerous assumption), the movie will not disappoint my expectations. The producers have done a good job of capturing the look and feel of Collins’ dystopian fictional world. And Jennifer Lawrence seems believable in the key role of the main character, Katniss Everdeen. Unfortunately, the trailer also incorporates one of the weaknesses of Collins’ world-building (which I noted as a problem in my earlier post). As in the book, the population of District 12 seems far too small to mine all the coal needed to provide energy to a society as advanced as the oppressive Capitol seems to be (note that the District 12 miners are forced to use fairly primitive mining methods, even though the book is set in the distant future). That said, it looks to be a very good movie.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST WATCH: Actually, there isn’t any conflict of interest. Sadly, the studio isn’t paying us a cent for all the valuable publicity their movie is getting on the Volokh Conspiracy. However, we would welcome any contribution they might care to make to the blogger bailout fund.

UPDATE: The original version of this post mistakenly referred to actress Jennifer Lawrence as “Amy Lawrence.” I apologize for the mistake, which has now been corrected.

Like co-blogger Eugene Volokh, I read and liked Lev Grossman’s Magicians series. It has interesting ideas and strong characterization. Some have compared the series to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book, because part of it is set at a school for aspiring wizards. The real parallel, however, is with C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books. Much of the plot is taken up with the protagonists’ efforts to find a Narnia-like parallel world called Fillory. Grossman addresses the question of what would happen if some of the humans entering Narnia were more willing to abuse their power and refused to go home to Earth after completing their quests. Grossman weaves an interesting and fine line between building on Lewis’ vision and critiquing it. He is certainly superior to Lewis in terms of character development and style, though his work is necessarily less original because partly derivative of its predecessor. Overall, Grossman’s series is a fine addition to the new trend of darker, grittier fantasy novels which includes the work of George R.R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie, and others. On balance, I would actually say that Grossman is actually less pessimistic than some of these other writers.

I do have a few reservations about the series. The principal one is that Grossman, like Suzanne Collins, is often weak on world-building. Like the Harry Potter series, Grossman’s world features a hidden society of magicians who wield enormous power yet are unknown to normal humans, whose history they have little effect on. In the Potter series, however, there is a very powerful wizard government that prevents wizards from revealing their powers to Muggles and trying to dominate the world. The magical authorities in Grossman’s world are a lot weaker. It therefore strains credulity to believe that powerful sorcerers have been around for centuries, yet have never revealed themselves to normal humans, seized political power, or had any impact on history. Grossman’s Narnia analogue is also poorly developed and there is little sense of how this society functions and why we should care about it. World-building was also a relative weakness of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, and it’s possible that the thin development of Fillory is an intentional commentary on Lewis’ original (though Fillory is actually even less well developed than Narnia was).

Other reviewers have also commented negatively on the obnoxious and unsympathetic personalities of most of the protagonists. This bothers me less, as their stories are still interesting. Nonetheless, until late in the first book, the problems faced by the protagonists seem so trivial compared to the enormous privileges they derive from their status as magicians that it’s hard to enter into their concerns as much as the author intends us to do. This is much less of a problem in the last part of the first book and in the second, as the characters mature somewhat and start to face more serious issues.

Overall, I think it’s a very good fantasy series, but not quite a great one.

UPDATE: Sci Fi/Fantasy critic Abigail Nussbaum has a more negative take on the first book here. I agree with some of her points, but by no means all.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, I took issue with Victor Davis Hanson’s claim that John McCain is like Gandalf. Today, McCain is praising the Tea Party for their role in the budget debate. Nevertheless, the fact that he previously derided them as “Tea Party Hobbits” is telling. Gandalf would never think that “hobbit” is a term of abuse. After all, he chose hobbits as the people best able to destroy the Ring of Power and save Middle Earth.

The Institute for Humane Studies has posted a podcast I did for them on the politics of Battlestar Galactica. It is available here, and covers both the recent series and the original from the late 1970s. The podcast is a follow-up to my IHS podcast on political themes in Star Trek.

For previous blogging on political themes in Battlestar Galactica, see here and here.

The Institute for Humane Studies has produced a podcast in which I discuss the politics of Star Trek, especially it’s favorable portrayal of socialism, which I previously wrote about here and here. I single out Star Trek: The New Generation as the Trek series most committed to socialist ideology and most unwilling to give any credence to criticisms of the Federation’s ideology, while noting that Deep Space Nine is much better about presenting alternative points of view in an interesting way, and raising questions about the Federation.

As a bonus, there’s a discussion of Star Trek’s replicator technology, and why it is that some things can be replicated while others cannot!

For a contrasting perspective on the politics of Star Trek, see this recent series of posts by science fiction critic Abigail Nussbaum, which analyze The New Generation ((like me, she is more fond of Deep Space Nine). Nussbaum makes many good points, but I disagree with her bottom-line view that the Federation is a “cultural imperialist” projection of present American and Western values into the future. She reaches this conclusion in part because she simply ignores the Federation’s socialism, which is of course antithetical to much of present-day Western society. Thus, for example, she argues that series is based on a Cold War analogy with the Federation playing the role of the US and the villainous Romulans that of the Soviet Union. But once you take due account of the fact that the Federation is socialist, while the Romulans have a relatively capitalist economy and a political system based on that of ancient Rome (the precursor of the modern West), it is far from clear that her analogy works.

Instead, it is the Federation that turns out to be a sort of kinder, gentler Soviet Union. Both are multicultural, federal, socialist states with an official ideology of egalitarianism. But the Federation lacks the Gulags, secret police, and mass murder (or at least we never see them on-screen!). Meanwhile, the Romulans represent several of the negative qualities that many leftists associate with the present-day West: elitism, arrogance, and intolerance for other cultures. The same can be said of many other Star Trek villains, such as the Ferengi, who represent the supposed evils of capitalism. At some level, of course, Star Trek is a projection of Western values. After all, egalitarian socialism is a Western ideology. However, Trek is far more hostile to the present-day West than Nussbaum and some other left of center critics recognize.

Despite these criticisms, I actually like several of the Star Trek series, and admire them for taking on some big issues. My beef with the producers’ approach to socialism is not so much that they take a more positive view of it than I do, but that they don’t even consider the possible problems with the system, despite its horrendous historical record.

NOTE: The transcript accompanying the podcast includes many small errors in transcription (e.g. – the Ferengi currency is “latinum,” not platinum).

The Atlantic has an online symposium on HBO’s adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. Here is an assessment by blogger and fantasy literature connoisseur Amber Taylor (the page that has Amber’s essay also includes links to the other reviews in the symposium):

HBO’s new adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s bestselling series of fantasy novels is yet more evidence that television, not motion pictures, is now where truly sweeping, complex stories are being told. Although I’ve been an evangelist of the books for years (even going so far as to have spare copies of Game of Thrones for ready lending and conversion), it’s heartening to see a fantasy narrative given a respectful and serious airing. Because magic is so peripheral in the early episodes of Game of Thrones, the fantasy trappings are not a long leap from these already familiar to viewers of shows like Rome, The Tudors, or The Borgias. And after they’ve been hooked by the characters and complex plot, even people normally allergic to swords and sorcery won’t be able to change the channel.

The other reviewers are also overwhelmingly positive. I can’t wait to watch the series myself!

For those who may not know, Martin’s still-unfinished series is a landmark in modern fantasy writing. As Amber points out, it takes a cynical and realistic view of medieval-like societies, and has lots of strong character development. I have a few reservations about it. For example, I think there are too many different viewpoint characters, and some of their stories tend to drag. Overall, however, it’s one of the greatest fantasy series of all time.

For constitutional law buffs, the series also makes some interesting points on constitutional political economy. Historically, one of the most important arguments for hereditary monarchy is that it is supposed to be efficient and that it reduces social conflict. Both points emphasized by Thomas Hobbes, among others. In more recent times, scholars such as Eric Posner have argued that monarchy was a more efficient form of government than a republican state in the ancient world.

Martin’s series explores what happens when the hereditary succession is disputed and people cannot agree on which pretender to the throne is the rightful ruler. He addresses the issue in a much more sophisticated way than any other epic fantasy. In the real world, succession crises have often dissipated the peace and efficiency that monarchy is supposed to provide. Conflicts over the throne were probably the most important cause of the fall of the Rome Empire, for example. Obviously, Martin is far from the first fiction writer to focus on the problem of monarchical succession. But his treatment of the issue may well be the best.

UPDATE: I have now watched the first episode, which was quite good. I think people who have not read the books should be able to follow it, despite the complex plot.

Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy is one of the most popular new science fiction series of the last several years. And now there is going to be a Hunger Games movie, with Jennifer Lawrence recently selected to play main character Katniss Everdeen. I had been hoping that Hailee Steinfeld (another finalist for the role)might get the nod because of her excellent work in True Grit. But perhaps Lawrence will turn out to be as good or better.

Hunger Games could well make an excellent movie. Its strengths and weaknesses are the opposite of those of the stereotypical science fiction novel, which is strong on world-building but weak on characterization and literary technique. By contrast, Collins’ series is strong on the latter and weak on the former.

The core plot of the series is unoriginal to the point of being cliche: In the far future, what’s left of a post-apocalyptic United States is ruled by a tyrannical central government (the “Capitol”) that oppresses and exploits twelve subordinate districts. Every year, each of the districts must send two teenagers (a boy and a girl) to participate in the Hunger Games, a nationally televised game show where they fight each other to the death until only one survives. The government uses the Games to entertain the public and divert their attention away from its oppressive nature, while also reminding the districts that any attempt at rebellion is doomed to failure. Main character Katniss Everdeen ends up in the Games after she volunteers to take the place of her younger sister, who was chosen in the selection lottery.

The idea of an oppressive regime that uses violent televised game shows or sports to quiesce the population has been done to death in science fiction. Running Man, Death Race 2000, and Rollerball are just a few of the better-known examples. Collins’ treatment of the concept doesn’t add much to these earlier works. In addition, there are lots of plot holes and implausibilities in the way the fictional world is developed, which I won’t describe in detail in deference to those who worry about “spoilers.”

As a commentator on the portrayal of federalism in science fiction, I should note that one of the few original features of the story is the use of asymmetrical federalism in an SF setting. But Collins’ use of the concept isn’t especially interesting or insightful.

What Hunger Games lacks in world-building it makes up for in outstanding characterization. Katniss is a fascinating character and Collins is the rare SF writer who knows how to make good use of first-person narration. Several of the other characters are also well-done. In addition, Collins does a great job with the details of the Hunger Games themselves; the parts of the story set in the “arena” are particularly riveting. Despite my critique of the world-building aspect, I still found the books to be mesmerizing and read all three in a short period of time.

Hopefully, the movie will showcase the strengths of the series, while minimizing the weaknesses.

It’s been awhile since we did any Monday bear-blogging. So it’s time to bear the bear-blogging burden once again.

Here’s an interesting discussion of English literary portrayals of bears vs. American ones by blogger Erica Grieder. After surveying several well-known examples of literary bears from both countries (Winnie the Pooh, Paddington, Yogi Bear, and others), she concludes that “American bears are, for the most part, more assertive and autonomous than English bears.”

Unfortunately, it’s not clear whether Grieder has adequately sampled the relevant populations of literary bears. On the British side, she omits Philip Pullman’s armored bears, as well as the Bulging Bears of Narnia. Both are as assertive and independent as any American bears. On the American side, she omits Gordon Dickson’s The Right to Arm Bears, which however probably supports her thesis.

The definitive study of Anglo-American literary bears remains to be written, even as its absence gets ever more unbearable.

Robert Heinlein is best known for being one of the founding fathers of modern science fiction and for his libertarian political views. William Patterson’s fascinating new biography of Heinlein shows that an encounter with political ignorance played a key role in Heinlein’s life, setting him on the path to becoming a writer rather than a politician.

In the 1930s, Patterson recounts, Heinlein wasn’t yet a libertarian and was in fact active in left-wing politics in California, working for Upton Sinclair’s EPIC movement. In 1938, he ran for the Democratic nomination for a state representative seat in the Los Angeles area. Unfortunately for Heinlein, around this same time pro-Nazi Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein was making headlines with his efforts in support of Adolf Hitler’s campaign to annex the Sudetenland. Heinlein’s district contained many Jewish voters, and some of them apparently confused Heinlein with Henlein. Heinlein and his political advisers thought that the confusion was a key factor responsible for his narrow defeat in the primary (he lost by about 500 votes). While the two names are indeed similar, it should not have been hard for voters to figure out that it was highly unlikely that Henlein or any close relative of his would be running for a Democratic state representative nomination in California.

Political ignorance also may have hurt Heinlein’s campaign in two other ways. First, Heinlein believed that he was harmed by the fact that the Communist Party had endorsed him. Although a leftist himself at the time, Heinlein was very hostile to the communists in the 1930s, denouncing them as “red fascists” no better than the “brown fascists” of the far right. On But most of the voters probably didn’t know about Heinlein’s record on communism, and the communist endorsement may have led some of them to think he was a communist or fellow traveler himself. Heinlein and his allies thought that this contributed to his defeat as well. In addition, Heinlein’s victorious opponent in the Democratic primary was in fact a very conservative Republican (California electoral rules allowed him to run in both the Democratic and Republican primaries and he ended up winning both). Although Patterson doesn’t consider the issue, I wonder if some of the Democratic primary voters who voted against Heinlein didn’t realize that they were voting for a Republican right-winger.

The experience of the 1938 campaign helped sour Heinlein on politics and eventually led him to become a science fiction writer. It probably also contributed to his later ideological evolution towards libertarianism. Heinlein was a far more talented science fiction writer than he was a politician. So in this case, rational political ignorance actually produced a beneficial result. In most other situations, unfortunately, it does a lot more harm than good.

In any event, I couldn’t pass up this rare opportunity to write a post that combines my interest in science fiction with my interest in political ignorance.

UPDATE: For the benefit of readers who may not know, it’s worth pointing out that Konrad Henlein was often in the news in 1938 because he was a central figure in the Munich crisis that arose from Hitler’s efforts force Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Germany. The resulting confrontation nearly caused World War II to break out one year early until Britain and France capitulated to Hitler’s demands that fall and forced the Czechs to give up without a battle.

For those readers who may be interested, I will be giving two talks this Saturday at the Students for Liberty International Conference.

I. “Democracy and Political Ignorance: What the Voters Don’t Know and Why it Hurts Them” – 2:15-3:15 PM

II. “Harry Potter and the Rings of Power: Liberty in Fantasy and Science Fiction” – 3:30-4:30 PM

Both will be held in Room 308 at the Marvin Center at George Washington University. VC readers very much welcome, and encouraged to stop by and say hello. Other conference speakers include a variety of prominent bloggers such as Tyler Cowen and Megan McArdle.

UPDATE: The conference organizers inform me that, unfortunately, attendance at the conference has hit capacity. Therefore, these events are closed to students who have not already registered for the conference. But you are welcome to if you have registered.

The Cracked.com website has an entertaining article on why alien invasions of Earth portrayed in Hollywood movies virtually always fail. It lists six typical alien invader “blind spots”:

Hollywood has fed us a steady stream of alien-invasion movies since the 1950s…. [T]his is a good time to ask ourselves why exactly the alien invasions we see on the silver screen always seem to end in disaster for the invaders, despite their ridiculously advanced technology.

With that in mind, we have some words of advice for any alien civilizations thinking of vaporizing us and stealing our brains….

#6 Wear Something

So you’re a wormhole-surfing, intergalactic warrior civilization with invisibility shields and lasers that evaporate people under their clothing? That doesn’t mean you can just skip over the basic stuff. It’s absurd to imagine a technologically advanced civilization that goes extinct because they all forgot to breathe, so why are alien invasions so consistently foiled by the invaders’ neglect to so much as slip on a jumpsuit before they expose themselves to our toxic environment?….

#5 Do Your Research

In the War of the Worlds remake, the aliens bury their tripods at the sites of major cities before the cities exist, and humans learn that they have been planning their attack “for a million years.” Let’s ignore the fact that humans did not exist a million years ago and simply note that this is a really, really long time to plan an invasion. It’s kind of a spectacular oversight not to notice that we have germs here….

Obviously, the real object of criticism here is not the alien invaders but Hollywood screenwriters. In their defense, I would point out that the writers face an almost insoluble problem. An alien civilization capable of sending an invasion force over interstellar distances would be so much more advanced than we are that they could not help but defeat us easily, barring truly extreme stupidity on their part. Their technological advantage would probably be much greater than that which Europeans enjoyed over stone age-level Australian aborigines (firearms and other 19th century tech vs. primitive stone tools) and certainly vastly greater than what Cortez had over the Aztecs (horses, early firearms, and steel weapons versus more primitive metals). The realistic outcome of that kind of alien invasion would be a swift victory for the aliens, or perhaps the humans wisely deciding to surrender. Obviously, that’s not the happy ending that most viewers want to see.

You can tell an interesting story focusing on humans forced to live under the rule of vastly superior aliens. Several science fiction writers have actually done so, notably Arthur C. Clarke. But it’s not easy to do, and the resulting story won’t have nearly as many exciting battles as Independence Day.

UPDATE: Various commenters point to books like Niven and Pournelle’s Footfall, where the alien invaders got their technology for interstellar flight from others, and therefore aren’t much more advanced than humans in other ways. I am aware of several science fiction works along these lines. This is a possible solution to the screenwriter dilemma I described above. But notice that it requires exploring the aliens and their society in some detail (including their relationships with other alien races), which most Hollywood alien invasion movie producers don’t want to spend screen time on.

Of the various radio and TV and internet items today related to MLK that I heard, the one that caught my attention most was an interview with Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura on Star Trek.  I heard it on NPR, but here is a transcript from the Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog.

It sounds like you put a lot of thought into the part. Why did you want to quit after the first season?

After the first year, Grace Lee Whitney was let go so it became Bill and Leonard. The rest of us became supporting characters. I decided to leave the show after the first season.

What convinced you to stay on?

I was at a fundraiser and the promoter of the event said there’s somebody that wants to meet you. He is your biggest fan. I stood up and turned to see the beatific face of Dr. Martin Luther King walking towards me with a sparkle in his eye. He took my hand and thanked me for meeting him. He then said I am your greatest fan. All I remember is my mouth opening and shutting.

What was that like?

I thanked him so much and told him how I’d miss it all. He asked what I was talking about, and told me that I can’t leave the show. We talked a long time about what it all meant and what images on television tell us about ourselves.

Did you know then how much of a role model you’d become?

Oh, god, no. I thought of it as a stepping stone to Broadway. I went back to Gene and told him what had happened, and that I was staying. He smiled up at me and said, thank god for Dr. Martin Luther King.

My feeling exactly.

The New York Times recently published an article on the Law and the Multiverse blog, which focuses on legal issues raised by superheroes and supervillains.

The article includes some commentary by yours truly. In conjunction with my analysis of the law of Dungeons and Dragons (see here and here), constitutional federalism in Star Trek and property law issues in the Lord of the Rings, I think I have carved out a niche as a pundit on legal issues in science fiction and fantasy worlds.

If any film producers are reading this, it’s not too late to hire me as a legal consultant on your next SF or fantasy film. Rest assured that I will keep my promise to work cheaper than the overpriced Hollywood lawyers who mucked up the important legal issues in Superman Returns.

Earlier this year, I wrote about a Seventh Circuit decision that denied inmates the right to play Dungeons and Dragons. In addition to being regulated by the law of the state, D&D also has an elaborate legal system of its own. For some thirty years, Dragon magazine ran a “Sage Advice” column where readers could write in with questions about the meaning of the rules and their application to various situations.

Sadly, the column recently shut down (superseded by the internet). But there is a searchable online archive of all the questions and responses. The Comics Alliance blog reprints a few of the most interesting ones, including some that are clearly relevant to constitutional law.

Like the US Supreme Court, the Sage was reluctant to give a definition of marriage:

Q: My male paladin wants to marry a chaotic-evil lady magic-user. Is this OK? [note by IS: the rules require paladins to be lawful good].

A: This question is actually very complex. To answer it, we would have to defined marriage itself. [which the Sage then conspiciously fails to do].

Evidently, the issue of interalignment marriage was such a divisive one in the D&D community that the Sage was unwilling to risk its political capital by addressing the issue. Similarly, the US Supreme Court ducked the question of interracial marriage bans for many years, and more recently has tried to duck the issue of same-sex marriage. And of course the Court has never yet defined marriage in any comprehensive way.

On the other hand, Sage did take a position on a question related to the Second Amendment right to bear arms:

Q: In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, how much damage do bows do?

A: None. Bows do not do damage, arrows do….

The full answer does explain that bows can do damage after all if the archer hits an opponent with the bow.

Sage’s position is nearly the opposite of the well-known NRA slogan “guns don’t kill people, people do,” though perhaps he would fault the bullets rather than the guns as such. A ban on missile weapons (or at least on their ammunition) would seem to be constitutional within the D&D legal system.

The Comics Alliance post also includes a variety of questions relevant to family law, especially regarding what to do if characters want to have children or become pregnant. Sage also emphasized the limits on the Dungeon Master’s power to address such matters, much as the Supreme Court has occasionally emphasized limits to the enumerated powers of Congress, including over family law:

Q: One of my players wants to have a baby; what should I do?

A: Your question had me momentarily confused. If one of your players wanted to have a baby, you, the Dungeon Master, should be the last person she should talk to.

The Sage archive contains answers to many other legal questions that have come up in the real world, such as whether or not good characters can use torture (paladins are categorically forbidden to use torture, but chaotic good characters may torture enemies “if the end result is good and it cannot be achieved any other way”), and how to get a divorce.

Senior Conspirator Eugene Volokh recently linked to a Law and the Multiverse post suggesting that Batman may be a state actor under current law. Back in 2006, I summarized a lot of evidence suggesting that Superman is a government agent as well. If so, the use of his x-ray vision and other powers to gather evidence against criminals might well run afoul of Fourth Amendment doctrine, such as Kyllo v. United States, which restricted the admissibility of evidence gathered by thermal imaging. Superman’s X-ray vision is surely a much greater intrusion on reasonable expectations of privacy.