Moving Towards a Fantasy of Non-Violence

Is it possible in the fantasy genre and in my own art?

Jan 20, 2022

For Christmas this year, we got our three kids each their own set of polyhedral dice, complete with dice bag and dice tower. I wanted to introduce my two younger boys to the family past-time: table-top role-playing games. (My eldest, age seven, has already played with us a few time. More on this later.)

With dice nestled snugly in their stockings, I got to work drawing a map and crafting some story-hooks and adventures for their player characters. My plan was to use Amazing Tales as the game system, and it was a deliberate choice. We have another kid-friendly RPG called Hero Kids which we have played twice with our daughter. It’s a great system, and she has really enjoyed it both times we’ve played.

So then why did I choose Amazing Tales for the boys’ first role-playing experience? The answer lies with one word.

Dinosaurs.

My sons — ages four and five — are dinosaur-obsessed. They both have been “dino kids” for as long as I can remember. But in their love for dinosaurs, they’ve also developed a love for the violence that rules the dinosaurs’ world. Many of their make-believe games involve meat-eaters attacking and eating plant-eaters. I’m not strictly a pacifist, and I’m not at all against imaginative play that might involve pretend violence (I’m the girl who slew dragons and ogres every chance she got when she played pretend), but the sheer volume and intensity of my sons’ violent play upsets me at times. It’s the way they seem to relish it.

And for my youngest, this kind of play seems to spill over into aggression in his interactions with his siblings and caregivers. Maybe the dinosaur stuff is incidental to my youngest child’s violent behavior, but we’re really struggling right now with helping him understand that violence is not a good solution to his problems or an appropriate way to channel his anger.

So, when I decided to introduce the boys to RPGs, I thought a game like Hero Kids might not be the best approach. I worried it might communicate a confusing idea about violence to a couple of little guys who already had trouble understanding it. The mechanics of the game mostly revolve around combat (it’s a bit like Dungeons and Dragons but heavily modified for kids). I enjoy these kinds of games myself — I play D&D and Dungeon Crawl Classics with my adult friends — and for my more mild-mannered daughter, Hero Kids was a fun, positive experience.

But for my boys? I wasn’t ready to bring them into a game that involved swinging swords and killing monsters. I wanted a game where problems could be solved without violence, where other powers and skills took precedence.

Amazing Tales allows players to choose or make up any four skills for their characters, so I encouraged my kids to think of skills like running or flying or being brave or being friendly — skills that would lend themselves to non-violent solutions to problems. They couldn’t wait to make their characters (and draw pictures of them), and we ended up with some fun (and funny) characters like “Mimi Sillypants,” a flying T-Rex who uses his fuzzy tail (don’t ask me to explain) to make others feel better. (This is my four-year-old’s character, by the way.)

Now, instead of facing hostile NPCs with violence, my kids’ characters could use their skills to help calm hostilities, resolve problems with positive magic, and use athletic skills to escape or avoid danger. (Yes, I know this all sounds very didactic, but I don’t make a big deal out of the “non-violence” stuff with my kids. I just encourage them to find creative solutions to problems, and they’ve been having a lot of fun flying around, being brave, and exploring the world. In fact, they beg me every night to play another session of the game.)

My kids took to the non-violent aspects of the game without hesitation, but it turns out I was the one who struggled. As I brainstormed situations for them to deal with, my mind kept drifting into violent scenarios. There are only so many floods, fires, wind storms, puzzles, riddles, and other non-personal conflicts that a story can handle. At a certain point, there are going to be other people, other creatures to interact with — opponents who want to stop you from reaching your goals. At a certain point, we need to and want to interact with others. That’s how it is in stories and in life. And one of the choices we have when interacting with others is the choice to use violence.

We all feel it — we’ve all felt it — the anger and frustration (both righteous and unrighteous) that can tempt us to violence. And I’m not even saying violence is never the answer… but maybe I am saying that in real life, violence is almost never the answer. Violence begets more violence. It only “solves” problems by creating new ones. Violence may be justified, but it’s never the best solution to any problem. The older I get, the more and more I believe this to be true. Maybe my pacifist leanings are stronger than I thought…

The trouble is, I love to read and write in a genre that is often centered on violence as a means to defeating evil. Don’t get me wrong: evil needs to be defeated on the page just as it needs to be in real life. But how do we defeat it? Do we do it through violence? Through blades and bullets and fists and fights? Do we cut off the head of the wicked troll or do we simply put him in prison? And how do we get him to prison if not through a fight, a battle? We must subdue him through violence in order to end his own violence against us.

Of course, fantasy is often steeped in metaphor; it is rife with symbols. We cut off the head of the troll or dragon because they symbolize evil and our violence symbolizes the defeat of evil. It’s not meant as a literal apology for violence or war. But why does the instrument of defeating evil have to be a sword or a lance or even a magic fireball? Why can’t it be a rose or a gift or a sacrifice? Can we have fantasy stories that embrace a non-violent ethos?

I never really thought about these questions much until I had children. But now, having had children and thinking about the world they will inherit, I’m more and more concerned with what I’m adding to the world, particularly with my art. What kind of stories am I telling? What kind of truths am I imparting? Because it certainly is true that evil can be defeated by violence. But it is also true that these kinds of defeats can and will breed other evils, “solving” one problem and multiplying a host of others. Violence begets violence.

Fantasy as a genre offers a choice, and often the best fantasy stories utilize this choice: they show us a way to eschew violence and find healing. After all, Aragorn’s prowess on the battlefield doesn’t defeat Sauron. Using the Ring’s power isn’t the way to real, lasting peace. Instead, the Ring must be unmade. The victory comes from Frodo and Sam’s sacrifice, not Aragorn’s violence.

(But then, of course, the real victory comes from a certain kind of violence — Gollum’s biting of Frodo’s finger, his seizing of the Ring, his slipping into the fires of Mount Doom — but it is an ironic violence, a violence that turns itself upon the perpetrator and causes him to suffer instead of his victim.)

Can we tell fantasy stories that entirely avoid the use of violence on the part of the protagonists? Would we want to read such stories? The villains, of course, may be violent. I’m not against showing the evils of violent acts: in fact, it’s often necessary to do so to impart the truth about evil. But can our heroes avoid it? Can the vicious troll be persuaded, subdued through non-violent means, or made to undergo a conversion of heart?

I don’t know. I don’t know if every fantasy story can be anchored by this ethos of non-violence. I’m not even sure that every story should.

But I do know when I look at my own stories, I’m not sure I want the climax to hinge on an act of violence as the necessary means towards victory. I want my heroes to have a choice, to have an alternative, to find other ways. Perhaps violence can’t be avoided, but it should always be accompanied by sorrow. Something is lost whenever we have to use it. It comes with a heavy cost.

I keep thinking about my sons and their violent dinosaur escapades, and the stories I choose to tell and how those stories add to or diminish the world. Can I tell stories that are centered around non-violence? More importantly, how can I tell such stories? Because so far, I’m not doing a great job. Thirteen Treasures ends with the slaying of the Cath Palug. “The Wind Masters” ends with the destruction of the Masters. Some of my favorite stories and games and cinema hinge on the use of violence as the means to defeating evil.

I’m not arguing for a bloodless fantasy either. That wouldn’t be a true or authentic story. But can we — can I — tell stories with a non-violent spirit? I’d like to think I can; I’d like to think it’s possible. I’m thinking of the protagonist of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi (a book I cannot recommend highly enough): his reluctance to do violence is an important part of his character, perhaps one of his defining qualities, and it’s one of the reasons why we as readers love him. His reverence for the dead — for even those who once hurt him — is a vision of non-violence that works: it is true and real and ultimately triumphant. I hope I can write a story some day that rejects violence and embraces life with as much profundity and humanity as Clarke’s novel. I don’t know if I can, but I hope.

For now, I’ll content myself with playing Amazing Tales with my children, rolling dice and laughing and letting Mimi Sillypants’s fuzzy tail heal all wounds and save the day.

Jennifer M. Baldwin

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