Pariah Elite

[marycatelli]

The poor (sob), suffering (sob), oppressed (sob) group of wizards or people with special powers --

Have I mentioned how I hate it yet? 

It's a specially nasty subtrope of the "only some people can do magic" trope, and it has its variations.  Like, say, mutants.  I read a lot of the X-men comics and enjoyed them, but they arne't really about persecution, they're about persecution complexes.  The one tenet of the Evil Priests in Red is that they persecute poor, innocent little us.

One Christmas, I put in a DVD present -- the X-men movie -- and my mother happened to be in the room, correcting papers.  She must have watched; she not only stayed until the end, she asked how her parents managed to change Rogue's diapers.  I explained that mutant abilities kick on in adolescence.    And her reaction was "oh!" And she has since used the X-men to explain things to a fellow teacher, because, really, the attitude of high school sophomores doesn't differ, it's just they don't get the powers.

Comments

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

I'm curious -- do you hate the I'm-special-pity-me angst of it, or the notion that a powerful minority might get squished by the terrified majority?

How about if the powerful minority is very far from innocent, and the majority have very good reasons to squish 'em? I'm thinking The Watchmen, since you mentioned superhero comics, and, well, there's a group of supers I wouldn't want to have flying around unchecked...

I guess I'm partly wondering if your main source of irritation is the special-magical-snowflake thing or the antagonists with no better motive than "They're mean an' nasty an' mean".

[marycatelli]

"I'm-special-pity-me angst of it," Bonus Badness Points if, in fact, the angst swamps any fear in the minority. If they were taking reasonable precautions like they were in real danger, they wouldn't have time to wallow like that.

Very true about the danger of the minority. Very few stories deal with mutant abilities being dangerous. Then, that would interfere with the mean and nasty and mean.

As for main source of irritation -- who can tell? You can annoy me with both of them.

Humm -- probably the special-magical-snowflake. I like a certain amount of good guys vs. bad guys, but you've got to earn it.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

If they were taking reasonable precautions, and they have a deal of power, I doubt they'd need to wallow. Not about being in danger, anyway.

Thanks for the thoughts! As always, this is neat and interesting :)

[marycatelli]

But-but-but- that would mean they couldn't wallow!

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

"...it's just they don't get the powers."

And a good thing, too.

I think you get a lot of persecuted protags (with and without special abilities) in any kind of fiction read by adolescents (YA, genre) because of this shared attribute.

[marycatelli]

The problem is when the writer clearly agrees with them that they are seeing it like it is.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And too many of them do.