Values Dissonance/Literature: Difference between revisions

** It may also be worth mentioning that, seeing how she spent much of her life in India, Bannerman's original target audience was composed of Indian children. The fact that British usage of the period made it reasonable to use the term "black" to refer to dark-skinned Indians is a whole different level of dissonance.

*** Although not as much as most of 15th and 16th century literature, where a "black girl" or a "nut brown maid" would always mean a young white woman with dark ''hair''.

** [[Ciaphas Cain]] almost subverts this, in that the title Commissar will tell anyone who asks that he refrains from shooting his own men because he knows that if they like him, he won't be the victim of "accidental" friendly fire like many, many Commissars tend to be. However, it's plainly obvious that, while he certainly believes in this logic, he also genuinely cares for them.

** [[Gaunt's Ghosts]] and [[Ciaphas Cain]] suggests that most effective Commissars are relatively judicious in how they perform their duties- which are maintaining morale, discipline, and field leadership when necessary. While field execution for cowardice or failure is indeed an option, it's one most successful commissars use sparingly. Since both heroic commissars are effective and inspiring leaders, and their soldiers are excellent units with high morale and valuable soldiers, field execution would be a bad idea and utterly unnecessary anyways. The stereotype of the excessively execution-happy commissar is linked to the older, more game-version theme of the Guard as a generally incompetent [[Redshirt Army]] instead of the modern, more story-version theme of them as a well-trained and well-equipped force that can battle most Orks, Chaos cultists, and Tyranids on an equal footing.

* In the Chinese folk tale ''[[Water Margin]]'', there's a section where some of the main characters (who are a part of the rebellion) are drugged at an inn. It turns out the inn is just a front for a black market for [[I'm a Humanitarian|human meat]]. Just as the owner is about to cut them up into meatbuns, his accomplice comes back in time to stop him and tell him the identity of his would-be victims. He spares them, and when they wake up, they're so thrilled that they're "all on the same side," they decide to become ''sworn blood brothers'' with him, and act like everything is completely rosy. Nothing like becoming best friends forever with a cannibalistic serial killer.

* [[Bulldog Drummond|Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond]] was one of the great 'Boy's Own' adventure heroes of British literature between the wars (1920s-1930s). You rarely see him or his adventures these days, mostly because the character was jingoistic to the point of naked racism, and was incredibly anti-semitic to boot.

* [[Jules Verne]]'s ''Les Aventures de Hector Servadac'' has a repulsive Jewish merchant, portrayed with an array of anti-Semitic clichés, who is consistently treated with contempt by the novel's French and Russian protagonists. It is implicit that the reader ought to share their view of him. In several post-1945 translations, all references to Judaism have been removed, making said merchant merely a repulsive and greedy individual.

** ''Robur the Conqueror'' from the same author may be an even bigger offender, since its black character Frycollin is the [[Butt Monkey]] and a sum of just about every flaw imaginable - he's gluttonous, cowardly, stupid - with the only "redeeming" quality of "not speaking like a nigger" (Verne also makes sure to [[Writer on Board|tell the reader]] how loathsome "Black English" is).

 

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