Re: Digest Number 960

From: theunspokenword <mark_at_...>
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 08:50:22 -0000

Hi Gian,

> In the mind of a writer or of a scenario creator, it's
> easy to conceive that a meta-villain can invent a
> language, force people to use it and by its use
> brainwash them. In RW the process is much more subtle,
> but fiction is fiction...

Jack Vance's 'The Languages of Pao' (entertaining but not one of his best) very much follows this theme. But in the RW, without the mythic reinforcement of heroquests, divine retribution, etc, people have a tendency to subvert such attempts to control them through imposed linguistic and cultural constraints. Thinking on the gay bid to reclaim and empower the word 'queer', I could see a dialogue that goes:

Lunar: 'You are just a barbarian.'
Orlanthi: 'And proud of it!'

All the best

Mark

Mark Galeotti