Lionus

If there is one thing that I have always had an issue with in the fantasy/science fiction genre, it is the way that many writers seem to gloss over the devastating psychological affects of killing. Characters in fantasy stories often seem to make the transition from the simple, every-day farmboy who couldn’t harm a fly to the Supreme General of the Resistance who has killed hundreds of thousands of men without any readily apparent affects on their psyche. While the fantasy genre is not at all the most realistic of genres, this is a gross problem and one that must be rectified immediately.

So let me say it bluntly: killing is a lot harder than most people think. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t talk from experience, but this is a well-documented fact. Take a look at statistics throughout the years. In World War II, only fifteen to twenty percent of American soldiers ever fired a shot at an enemy in front of them. Boiling it down, that means that one in five Americans actually shot at a Nazi when they saw one. Or consider the fact that in the Civil War the numbers were often times much smaller, between ten to fifteen percent of Civil War soldiers shot at a Yankee or a Confederate when they saw one.

It seems strange, doesn’t it? I mean, Americans in World War II had been conditioned since boot camp to believe that the Nazi soldiers were the epitome of evil that stood against truth, justice, and the American way. Why didn’t they fire? The reason is simple: in the animal kingdom, most animals will not kill another member of their species except in VERY rare circumstances, and humans are no exception.

“But wait!” I hear you say. “What about the fighter bomber who can indiscriminately bomb thousands of civilians without any great affects upon his emotional and psychological state?”

Here we come to the crux of the psychology of killing, the truth that so few fantasy writers seem to grasp: distance matters. A fighter bomber is able to kill thousands of people without any lasting affects because he cannot see their despair, cannot hear their screams, cannot smell their blood as it is shed. To the pilot of a fighter bomber the people that are being bombed are, for the most part, abstracts, concepts.

However, if we take a look at what a soldier on a field goes through, the situation changes dramatically. Now, not only is the enemy soldier visible, but you can see that he is just like you. You can see that he is sweating and shaking with fear, just like you. You can look into his eyes and see his agony and terror. You realize that he has a family, has hopes, has dreams, has a life just like you do. Now you tell me how hard it is to pull the trigger that will send him to eternity and take away all of that.

It must be said that there are ways around that. In World War II the problems that many soldiers faced was the fact that they had trained to kill paper targets, but met a flesh-and-blood human being on the field. This was rectified in the Vietnam War and all wars thereafter, the training targets were and are now more realistic, so that the act of killing on the battlefield becomes an instinct. Oftentimes a soldier in a modern-day war will pull the trigger before he can rationalize what he is doing. Of course, this can sometimes have a greater psychological affect on him: he did it despite his desire not to, despite the fact that all of his morals screamed to him, “No don’t do it!”

There are other methods to overcoming the desire not to kill, as well. Cultural indoctrination works wonders: Nazi soldiers were bred believing that Jews and blacks were subhuman animals that had to be exterminated, and because of this had an easier time on the battlefield. Idealogical morals also can overcome the fight or flight instinct, this is why Catholic soldiers in the Crusades and Muslim extremists today can kill the infidels who stand against their God.

So we can all clearly see that killing is a much more complex and devastating thing than most writers (especially those in Hollywood) make it out to be. The reality of this is a sharp contrast to the characters of writers such as Christopher Paolini and (setting all bias aside) even Tolkien. Perhaps this is because both authors wished to minimalize the faults in their characters; fear and self-doubt being things that would detract from the image of a nearly all-powerful mega-warrior. However, our generation is moving away from the trend of perfect characters. Gone are the Luke Skywalkers and the Frodo Bagginses, and quickly moving in are nittier, dirtier, darker characters who demand that they be taken seriously.

While I understand that fantasy as a whole is a genre in which writers can explore the depths of their creativity and create things that could not be in the real world, human nature cannot be ignored. War – whether it be on a battlefield in the Middle East or in the pages of a novel – is not about armies, guns, or battles; it is about people, and writing of any genre should reflect this.

Your thoughts are much appreciated, as is your time in reading this lengthy article.

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