All language subtitles for Masterclass N. K. Jemisin Teaches Fantasy and Science Fiction Writing - 10.Forget The Rugged Individual Archetype

LECTURER: What we end up with
is a restriction of the kinds

of stories that we tell as a
society, the kinds of stories

that we value, the
kinds of stories

that readers get to read.

And there's a whole
slew of people out there

who would love to read
stories about people

just like themselves
overcoming adversity.

Let's talk about a really
common archetype that we

see in American literature--

the rugged individualist
protagonist.

This is the lone
character, usually male--

always male, actually.

The lone character who doesn't
need help, who solves problems

with his fists or his gun.

We see this character everywhere
in American literature,

and we love this character.

This is John McClane
from "Die Hard."

This is John Wayne in pretty
much everything he did.

This is all the old
westerns, and so on.

And these are great stories.

We tend to enjoy
them because they're

the story of a person
overcoming adversity

just by being super tough and
super interesting and super

powerful and amazing.

And you know, this is not a
bad archetype in and of itself.

The problem is that rugged
individualism so permeates

our media and so
permeates the stories

that we have been
told over the years

that it's almost started to
become the only way that one

can safely or
lucratively tell a story.

To the point that stories of
people overcoming adversity

in different ways--

with willpower versus
with a gun or their fists,

with endurance rather than
just shooting something--

these kinds of
stories are less told

and are actually considered
less valuable or important

in our society.

And what this ultimately ends
up sort of turning into is,

you know, because the
rugged individualist tends

to be a very
masculine-centered archetype,

what it means is that the
stories of women, when women

are overcoming adversity, either
tend to frame them in a very

masculine way or tend to
ignore the ways in which women

actually do overcome adversity.

Because those aren't-- you know,
she's not punching something,

so it's not important.

And so what we end up
with is a restriction

of the kinds of
stories that we tell

as a society, the
kinds of stories

that we value, the
kinds of stories

that readers get to read.

And there's a whole
slew of people out there

who would love to read
stories about people

just like themselves
overcoming adversity.

Wouldn't a wheelchair
user like to read

a story in which they
overcome adversity,

but it's not just about them
getting up from the wheelchair

or suddenly developing
a miraculous cure.

It's about them also
shooting something.

You know, or overcoming
problems with their fists.

We don't usually see
those kinds of people

treated as rugged
individualists, either.

Rugged individualists
are always able-bodied,

middle-aged cishet men.

So it's a little
bit restricting.

And what it means
is that you are

trapped by this constriction.

You don't have as many stories.

You don't have as good stories
out there available to read.

A protagonist
that's antithetical

to the rugged individualist
is going to be probably not

a cishet white guy.

Probably not able-bodied.

Can be cishet white guy,
but not the kind of person

who can shoot anything,
whose solutions to problems

are not physical.

Or maybe cerebral or emotional.

Could be characters whose
ways of solving problems

involve gathering a large group
of people around themselves

who are all individually able
to solve pieces of that problem.

And then all together
as a team, they're

able to get things done.

So there's a number of different
ways that you can do this.

Let's look, for example,
at the latest "Mad Max"

movie, "Mad Max--

Fury Road."

The story of "Mad Max--

Fury Road" centers
around Max, who

is the title character of
a series of films so far.

But a lot of the people
who saw "Fury Road"

didn't see any of
those previous films,

so they don't know
who the heck Max is.

He's just some guy that
the movie is named after.

And we're introduced
to him over the course

of the film as a survivor.

Almost feral.

He barely speaks.

When he does speak,
it's in a lot of grunts.

He's great at punching and
hitting things and shooting

things, but that's kind of
all we really know about him.

But he's actually not the
protagonist of the film.

And this is one of the
kind of baits and switches

that "Fury Road"
throws at us that's

one of the things that makes
this such a great film.

The actual protagonist
of the film

is Furiosa, who is
a woman character

living in a society that is
highly patriarchal to the point

that they enslave women
as literal chattel.

And she has decided,
as one of the few women

in the society who is not
treated just as literal food

or breeding stock--

she has decided that she's
going to help other women reach

a place where they, too, can
live a freer and more complex

life.

And you know, a
lot of people who

saw this film were unhappy
with the amount of focus that

was given to Furiosa.

But when you really
break it down,

Mad Max is not anywhere
near as interesting

a character as Furiosa.

Max doesn't have any
background that we

know of unless you saw
the previous films.

He's obviously traumatized,
but we don't know why.

And the film does not
center around his healing

or overcoming trauma.

Furiosa is equally traumatized.

We see that she's missing
an arm, among other things.

And that couldn't have been fun.

We see that she's
in a society where

particularly beautiful women
are literally taken and forced

into just an absolutely
horrible life.

She's a beautiful woman.

So something has happened
to set her free from this,

but it was also possibly
traumatic, as well.

But we don't see any of that.

And we don't need
to know any of that.

What we do know is that she has
seen a problem in her society,

and she has decided to
do something about it.

And just that gives
her a character

arc that is much more
engaging than Max's simple,

I've got to survive.

Max, at the beginning of the
film, is, I've got to survive.

In the middle of the film,
he's, I've got to survive.

At the end of the film
he's, I've got to survive.

Sorry.

That was meant to be flat.

That's not a character arc.

He's literally the same
person at the beginning

and the same person at the end.

Furiosa, on the other
hand, starts off

as this person who
appears to not really

care about her fellow women.

Turns out that she does.

Turns out that she's even
able to care about Max.

And then once she realizes that
she cannot take these women

away and create a better life,
she's got to fix the society

that she's in, she goes
back and becomes effectively

a revolutionary.

That's a hell of
a character arc.

One of the problems that I
have with rugged individualism

is that it's not even
so much a character

archetype as propaganda.

You know, a big part of
the basis of this idea

kind of comes from Herbert
Hoover's insistence

that people should
pull themselves up

by their bootstraps and
not seek handouts or not

seek any kind of government
aid in order to do well.

The problem with this
is that as Hoover

was telling some
groups of people

that they were going to
need to work really hard

and pull themselves up
by their bootstraps,

he was basically
shoveling government aid

at other groups of people.

He was giving farm subsidies.

He was giving-- you know,
kind of putting together

the GI Bill.

He was deporting massive
numbers of Mexican-Americans,

many of whom had been
born in this country.

He deported millions
just because he

decided that he didn't
like that group of people.

Say you know, for people
to pull themselves up

by their bootstraps, they
need to, at the very minimum,

not be messed with and
not be persecuted and not

have their homes taken from
them and all of their property

taken from them and so on.

They need to just
be able to survive

without anybody bothering them.

And Hoover was busy bothering
huge numbers of people.

And then meanwhile, he's
saying that these other groups

of people who he's busy helping
are somehow better people.

And this is the genesis of the
rugged individualist archetype.

So I mean, you've got characters
who appear again and again

in fiction who are
supposedly, you

know, these stand-alone,
rugged, independent people who

don't need help from anyone.

And it's bullshit.

They've asked for help
from other people.

They've gotten help all along
the way to get that far.

And in a lot of cases, the
ways that films and books

will make a person seem more
rugged or more individualistic

is to focus very narrowly
on the part of their lives

where they have
to fight somebody

and we don't see anything
else of their lives.

We don't see the communities
that they grew up

in where they learned how
to read and learn maybe

how to shoot.

We don't see the family farm
that they sold to get the guns.

Or the family farm
that was wealthy enough

to be worth something.

We don't see any of
the other things that

are part of every normal
human being's background.

We don't see the interrelation.

We don't see the socialness.

We are a social species.

We are people who don't
do anything by ourselves.

And the idea that you
can just pull yourself up

by your bootstraps
is propaganda.

So it's important that in a
lot of cases, as creators,

as writers, that you are aware
of the difference between how

people really are and
what people are framed as,

what people told to be, what
people are framed to be.

Very few of the archetypes
that our society

holds up as ideals actually
work as regular people.

So if you want to tell
a story about that,

then you're going to
have to maybe interrogate

that rugged individualist
a little bit.

Or interrogate those
other archetypes

and make sure that you're
not just replicating

Hoover's particular bugaboo.

A lot of writers will
ask the question of why

is it important for me to--

or why are you
emphasizing so much

that I should veer away from
these common, tried and true,

popular, lucrative
ways of storytelling

kinds of characters, and so on.

Because I want to make money.

I mean, you know, I totally
understand that as a writer.

Or I want to be popular.

There's any number
of reasons why

you might want to
pursue some of this more

common, well-traveled stuff.

I mean, there's no
reason why you shouldn't.

The thing is you do have to
keep in mind that when you're

writing these stories that cater
to one specific type of person,

that are centered on one
specific type of person--

and our whole society, yes, is
configured to steer everyone

towards those types of people--

but there's still a
huge portion of society

that is under-served,
that is not

getting the kinds of stories
that they want to see.

You know, we've all
learned to empathize

with cishet white males
because we read books

about them all the time.

We understand their fears.

We understand their backgrounds.

We've seen dozens and
dozens of examples

before we ever finish school.

And so, you know, we
kind of understand

that group of people, but we
don't get the same exposure

and empathy given to other
types of people, which

is why it's so easy
to find stories

that are effectively
just nothing

but collections of stereotypes.

And so it's important
that, you know,

you not just tell the best
story that you can just

to be the best kind of
artist that you can.

But also keep in mind that,
you know, if 50% of humanity

is under-served by the
literature that exists out

there and you write a book
that speaks to that other 50%,

you're still going
to make money.

You're still going
to be popular.

You're just going to be
popular and lucrative

in a different way.

Another thing to keep
in mind is that a lot

of these older archetypes,
these cliches, these propaganda

types, a lot of these are
out of style, out of fashion.

Literature is no different
from any other human endeavor.

Stuff comes and goes.

And these days one
of the most popular

and sort of cutting edge
ways to tell stories

is to tell the stories
of other people.

Tell the stories of
people that aren't

the rugged individualists.

Center the story on the
Furiosa rather than the Max.

Even if you cosmetically
give a nod to Max

by naming the film after
him, at the end of the day,

it's still a good
film if he's there,

but he's basically a sidekick to
the more interesting character.

In "The Fifth Season," you
are introduced to the story

through the viewpoints of
three different characters.

Damaya, a young girl
who has just been

determined to be an orogene.

Syenite, a young woman who
has grown up in the Fulcrum

and is kind of just now
coming into her career

as a professional
imperial orogene.

And Essun, a woman who is living
in a small village in basically

the hinterland who turns out
to be an orogene in hiding

and who is the mother of two
children who are also orogenes.

I decided to introduce
the story to the reader

through these three
POVs because I

was kind of messing with reader
expectations in some ways.

Damaya is the character
that I thought

readers would be most
likely to empathize with,

because we tend to
empathize with children.

We, as a species, tend to
want to protect children.

You know, when we
see them in peril,

we feel discomfort with that.

We want to help them.

We want them better.

And Syenite, as a young
woman, is a character

who kind of comes
from an age group

that we see a lot of in fiction.

There's a whole series of young
women protagonists in Y.A.

novels, for example,
and they sort of

dominate that particular
sub-genre of fiction.

But there are still certain
constraints that as a society

we tend to put on
young women characters.

We expect them to be
conventionally attractive.

We expect them to have a
love interest at some point.

You know, we sometimes are OK
with them changing the world

and starting
revolutions, but they

have to do it in
particular ways or we

get uncomfortable
with them as a society

because of our own history.

And in Syenite's case, she
is conventionally attractive.

She is a woman of color.

All three of these
are women of color.

And in our society,
that's not a thing

that we see in the
protagonist role very often.

But Syenite is young.

She's obviously sex-positive.

She enjoys having sex.

As part of the story,
she is introduced

to another orogene,
Alabaster, with whom

she's supposed to travel
and with whom she's also

supposed to produce a child.

She is required to do that by
the people who run the Fulcrum.

And I knew that the
reader expectation

would be that they would
kind of form a couple,

or that Alabaster
would effectively

be her love interest.

Well, Alabaster is twice her age
and completely not interested

in her, and she's not
interested in him.

And I wanted to show
that they can still

have a relationship, a
friendship, or even more

than that, but without
having any kind of attraction

to each other or any of that.

So I explored that a little
bit with her story line.

And Essun is in many ways a
completely atypical protagonist

character.

She is in her early 40s or so.

She's a mother.

She's heavyset at the
beginning of the story,

and then she starves
a lot, unfortunately.

She starts off the novel
out of shape, and you know,

she's the kind of
person who, in a lot

of post-apocalyptic novels,
would be immediately dismissed

as not survival material.

And the story
wouldn't follow her.

The story would just simply
assume that as a woman,

as an older person,
as someone who's

out of shape and heavyset, that
she's not going to make it.

And then we'd go back to
our young, fit white guy.

And I just wanted
to play with that.

I wanted to go somewhere else.