Are these the weapons you would use?

"Is it? Death falling from the sky, blind, random, anywhere, anytime. No one is safe, no one is innocent? Machines of death, Morgaine, are screaming from above, of light brighter than the sun. Not a war between armies nor a war between nations, but just death, death gone mad. The child looks up in the sky, his eyes turn to cinders. No more tears, only ashes. Is this honour? Is this war? Are these the weapons you would use? Tell me!"

The Doctor, Battlefield




The wonderful thing about fantasy is that it allows us to escape.  It allows us to enter a world where the only borders are the imagination of that world's creator, be they artist, writer, film maker.  It allows us to understand that creator more closely through their choices of setting, population, flora and fauna, et cetera.  We see all of their influences, subtle and otherwise.

It frees us.

For however long we are in that fantasy world...be it short trips each night, or a long vacation on the weekend when you have no obligations, it frees you.  You can be the hero, or the princess who doesn't need saving because she's a deft hand with a sword herself.  You can imagine how it would be to be the dragon, or the evil wizard.  You can experience a world where magic and technology work together, where flying machines are as ubiquitous as flying lizards.

And it can teach us about us.  It allows the writer/artist/film maker to tell us stories about ourselves and our world in such a way that insulates us from the real world, yet brings in themes that matter.  Right now I'm specifically thinking of The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion, with its themes of immigration, radicalisation, intolerance, war, and so on.  I think of the Doctor's speech to Zygonella, and it's obvious parallels to the Doctor's speech to Morgaine in Battlefield, with it's roots in the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980's, and seeing someone say "Evil does not care about the sanctity of life therefore the speech (regardless of how wonderful) means nothing to them."

That's exactly what the speech was trying to disavow.

That's the kind of one directional thinking that has us in the mess we're in.

Black and white.

Good and evil.

You can tell the difference between them by the colour of their hats.

By the colour of their skin.

By the god they worship.

It's always one or the other.

Never grey.

Never a mix.

Black.

Or white.

Which one are you?

Of course you're the good guy.  The 'other' is bad, evil, irredeemable.  Isn't that how it always is?

To many many people, I'm an Other.  I surround myself with Others, not just because of safety in numbers, but because they understand that the world is not black and white, that there are no easy answers, and bombing the hell out of the Middle East (as an example) until the sand turns to glass solves nothing.  That love, and understanding, and communication solve more problems than neanderthal thinking.

We're better than this.

And fantasy can show us that.  Fantasy can show us the best of humanity, and allow us to aspire to it, change our thinking, bring those lessons into the real world where we can effect change.

~~~//\\~~~

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

...

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Bob Dylan