philosophy on urban fantasy and the masquerade

[marycatelli]

Was pondering it because of the con, and concluded that there was yet another reason to keep the masquerade going, beside the author's wanting to keep it plausible (well, semi-plausible) that it's our world.

It's the built-in plot.

If the world is secret, you can introduce your character to it, and have yourself an inherent plot.  With plentiful opportunities for info-dumping about what the secret world is.

Mind you, you could have a lot of that if it's just unknown, like the culture that raids recycling bins for bottles, but it's easier if it's utterly unknown.

You note this is an out of universe explanation.  It still doesn't justify why they are hiding.  Besides the one L. Jagi Lamplighter used in the Prospero's Daughter trilogy, i can only think, really, of two:

1. they're too dangerous and we really would exterminate them -- which requires as a corollary, that they are a manifest danger to human life.


2. once upon a time, some of them decides it was too dangerous or something, and magically compelled them all to hide.  Really powerful magic needed there.  But then, I think you could work something out if you had a really powerful being that was sulking.  Perhaps some beings that had been worshiped decided that when the worship stopped, the world was too dangerous, so there.

It's something that writers could stand to work out in more detail.

Comments

[earl wajenberg (from livejournal.com)]

A variation on 2 that I use for my pet fantasy setting is that, for different reasons, Heaven and Hell both want the supernatural to be conjectural, at least at this point in history. (Heaven wants people to have to use faith. Hell wants people to be able to be total materialists. C. S. Lewis wrote a Screwtape letter on each of these.) Between those two imperatives, all lesser supernatural beings tread warily and quietly.

[marycatelli]

Oooh, yes, that would be a motive.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Just this evening, I finally figured out why my "mentor" character's husband is in the masquerade-- because magical beings are a high value "nutrition" source, and the really big nasties that only survive because they stay hidden WILL organize to attack a yummy like that.

[marycatelli]

Err -- if they're so big and nasty, why can't they survive by fighting off their attackers?

And why are both group united in their secrecy?

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

Too many; the numbers of the "edible" are tiny, and while the power from consuming one would let the attacker survive the predictable standard-human onslaught, they couldn't survive otherwise.

They can warp culture so that normals don't defend the edibles, and have in the past. (Insert some hideous human sacrifice things.)

Additionally, since a lot of the darker things don't work around Christian or Jewish influences (arguing with myself about Islam, but definitely all Jewish and Christian blessings do great harm to the BigNasties.)

[marycatelli]

tehehehehehe -- always fun working around religious aspects.

I've thought of a vampire story where vampires are vulnerable to crucifixes, and only crucifixes. The vampires claim it's that the very notion of anyone dying voluntarily is repugnant, everyone would be a vampire and live forever if only they could.

(Oooofffff. I'm kinda glad the notion has progressed no further. You would have to end the story with some kind of heroic death.)

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

My husband's World of Darkness spin-off has crucifixes only work on evil vampires; repentant ones can use them to defend themselves. Of course, you can tempt a repentant vampire back to evil....
He's still considering my suggestion of some of the more extreme tattooing a crucifix on their chest as a last ditch effort to keep from hurting those they love, along with big nasty theological argument. (It will only work if they're in a state of sin; it may be suicide; or it may be the equivalent of letting go of the life raft that you're holding on to and overturning.)

[marycatelli]

You might find Astro City's Confession interesting.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

On order, I think. Yay, strange online library catalog... #firstworldproblems

[marycatelli]

Hey, thinking about firstworldproblems is a first world problem.

0:)

Or...

[johncwright.livejournal.com]

One other option is that the Immortals, the Vampires, the dethroned Olympian Gods, the Men in Black, and the glamor-hidden Elves are all hidden among human beings to hide not from men but from each other.

This can include something like the aliens living among us being in violation of their Prime Directive, and the Supreme Overmind (or whatever) will obliterate them if they go public; or something like a quarantine because the humans, for no fault of their own, are dangerous to the Hidden Folk, not because of our technology (or whatever) but because of something we carry that we are unaware of, such as, for example, our race and ours alone produces ghosts when we die, and ghosts (or guardian angels or Olympian gods or nice fairies or hungry vampires) are protecting the humans.

This protection could be nasty or nice, as you say, the vampires protecting their food supply, or the Superhuman (think of Larry Niven's Protectors) protecting their source of more Superhumans.

This also can include a worldwide amnesia spell (or technology) which will break if too many humans are confronted by too much or too obvious of a truth about the Hidden World.

And second option, which can be used in conjunction with the first, is that the Hidden People are somehow under the authority of human beings, so that our crosses can drive back vampires, and our sire Adam's ability to name all animals makes all earthly things subject to us -- but we ourselves do not know we have such powers, because they only are obvious when the Hidden People show themselves.

Re: Or...

[marycatelli]

The trick is that all of them have to have sufficient motive to keep up the concealment. All the time.

This is especially tricky if the group is hereditary. All it takes is a handful of sulky "you're not the boss of men" adolescents, and the evidence is everywhere.

A magical compulsion to keep it up works better in that it requires much fewer people to set the magic off than to do it all voluntarily.

Re: Or...

[marycatelli]

Philosophically, I note that the Chronicles of Chaos does much to evade that question since the limited subset of gods we see are united behind a purpose that would give them strong motives to act as they do.

And, of course, the characters are ignorant of it. Which always helps.