February 7, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Last year at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association conference what started out as a discussion on adventure novels turned into a discussion of why popular culture circles have stopped writing about war. This conference alone used to hold numerous War and Culture panels. These have dwindled in recent years. I find this astonishing considering that there are at least a dozen major conflicts in the world right now. I’m curious about why we don’t want to talk about war.
I really don’t have any answers. However, last year’s conversation got me thinking about the amount of literature that uses war as a resolution, particularly in the young adult genre. I decided to take a closer look at some of the series that my kids and I enjoy. For this year’s pop culture presentation, I settled on The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer. Truly, however, I could have gone any number of routes such as Red Rising by Pierce Brown, or Keepers of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger, or the obvious Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. What these books have in common is the overthrow of an unjust political system by a group of children (mostly teens). In fact, this is a very popular plot for fantasy and science fiction young adult novels. I have to ask the question: why is war a suitable, or even interesting, answer to these young protagonists? Do these novels carry lessons? Are the students who read these novels talking about war?
In all of the books mentioned, war is a simplistic answer. By that I mean that it’s a fairly straightforward resolution. Some of these books contain attempts at diplomacy, but overall, the arc toward war is everpresent and unavoidable. Some of these books incorporate mythology, which I always enjoy. The mention of mythology or any reference to classical Rome or Greece immediately lends itself to narratives of war, power, and domination.
I chose to focus on The Lunar Chronicles, however, because they fuse into fairy tales. This unique blend of war and fairy tale is uncommon. Very few fairy tales invoke the drama of global or full-scale war. Fairy tales often contain injustice, brutality, cruelty, and inhumane actions, but the resolution rarely involves war. In fact, fairy tale resolutions can consist of any possibility so long as the imagination can create it. So, in weaving various fairy tales together which conclude with a major war, Meyer has created something new within the fairy tale genre.
Cultures retell fairy tales in ways that mean something within that culture, so fairy tales often prompt important discussions. Additionally, fiction opens pathways to talk about uncomfortable or unapproachable subjects. Understanding that a fairy tale ending can be whatever the author desires, why does Meyer bind Cinder (Cinderella), Scarlet (Little Red Riding Hood), Cress (Rapunzel), and Winter (Snow White) together in the great buildup to war? Part of the answer assuredly rests in the ability to create strong female characters, characters who can compete with any contemporary male hero. In an interview, Meyer said:
“As much as I love, and have always loved, fairy tales, as a writer I was never interested in writing your typical damsel-in-distress protagonists. So it felt natural to me to give my ‘princesses’ useful skills and intelligence, courage, and goals that went beyond simply catching a prince and getting married. I love a happily ever after story as much as anyone, but I want to feel that the hero and heroine have both earned that happiness, not fallen into it, so it was important to me to write characters who brought their own strengths—and weaknesses—to the table, and who had to work together to bring about their happy endings. My decision to make Cinder a mechanic (a stereotypical male occupation), was less about subverting gender roles and more about giving her skills that would come in handy throughout the story, and also that Prince Kai would find admirable. He’s frequently impressed by her resourcefulness—as he, himself, has skills more suited for politics and diplomacy. It’s a fun relationship to play around with, and we get to see the two characters rescuing each other in different ways throughout the books.”
In addition to desiring strong females, part of the answer must also address the fact that we experience war in a different way than previous cultures. War is always ongoing, always in the media, always in our ear. Perhaps we don’t want to talk about war because its presence never leaves our periphery.
The dramatic war of the universe, Earth versus Luna ending is substantially different from previous iterations of these fairy tales (though Meyer does thread a lot of the originals in also). Fairy tales have often centered on resourceful female characters, but the incorporation of war narratives is fairly uncharted territory. Perhaps Meyer’s fictional perspective could only succeed post-World War II or post-social media.
Photo credit: Shutterstock AI
