The dispossessed, taking possession
Nov. 5th, 2012 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12My brain sometimes takes weird turns. Last week, Matthias and I went to London to see Robyn in concert (which was amazing) and it got me thinking about her music. Its power lies, I think, in taking the words that are used against the powerless and dispossessed and using them as weapons or armour. Her lyrics are so sharp they could cut you, but you kind of don't notice it until some time later. Anyway, what with the Robyn lyrics and the fact that my PhD thesis is basically about dispossession and the creation of history and identity and the realisation that, like everyone, I have certain literary tropes that are like catnip to me (in my case, motley families that are made, not necessarily born, taking their power back) I have come to the conclusion that I am all about the dispossession.
With that in mind, I decided to compile a (provisional) list of texts (that I love) with this trope. That is, stories about the dispossessed finding strength in their dispossession and reclaiming the power that was always theirs. I emphatically do not mean 'dispossessed' people using the tools of their oppressors to save the world - Campbellian heroes have no place here. If you're the rightful king, and you defeat the evil, false king and replace him, you're not really dispossessed, even if you grew up on an isolated farm. A benign monarchy is still a monarchy.
John Marsden's Tomorrow series.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Firefly.
Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubinstein.
Pretty Little Liars (the TV series, not the books, which I haven't read).
The Crossroads series bykateelliott.
The Demon's Lexicon trilogy bysarahtales.
The music of Kate Bush and The Knife and Fever Ray and Florence + The Machine and all those other Persephone girls.
Marx Brothers films, if you look at them in a certain way.
Every Isobelle Carmody novel ever (although I find them too obvious and black and white about it, which is offputting).
The Sally Lockhart mysteries by Philip Pullman.
Avatar: The Last Airbender, forever and ever.
The Earthsea books, especially the later ones.
But the ultimate example of this issophiamcdougall's Romanitas trilogy. I'll admit, --------------SPOILER ALERT--------------------
that at the end of the final book, when the corrupt, oppressive emperor Drusus is confronted with an army of all the people he's wronged: escaped slaves, women he raped and abused, his (lesbian) cousin whose lover he threatened, people from all over the Empire who have been forced to
fight in his unjust war, and, above all, Sulien and Una, who he literally condemned to death in the Colosseum, I punched the air and did a joyful little dance. They are representatives of every kind of dispossession, using the tools they have at their disposal (adaptability, connections forged by oppression, and the ability to operate under the radar because their very dispossession means that the powers that be don't even consider them a threat) to confront a man who is the embodiment of just about every kind of privilege that exists. I have reread Savage City and I still find that scene breathtaking. I wish everyone would read that series.
----------------------END OF SPOILER--------------------------
What about you? Do you have texts that fit with this trope that you could recommend? Or do you have your own particular tropes which you want to read/watch again and again and again? Inquiring minds want to know.
With that in mind, I decided to compile a (provisional) list of texts (that I love) with this trope. That is, stories about the dispossessed finding strength in their dispossession and reclaiming the power that was always theirs. I emphatically do not mean 'dispossessed' people using the tools of their oppressors to save the world - Campbellian heroes have no place here. If you're the rightful king, and you defeat the evil, false king and replace him, you're not really dispossessed, even if you grew up on an isolated farm. A benign monarchy is still a monarchy.
John Marsden's Tomorrow series.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Firefly.
Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubinstein.
Pretty Little Liars (the TV series, not the books, which I haven't read).
The Crossroads series by
kateelliott.The Demon's Lexicon trilogy by
sarahtales.The music of Kate Bush and The Knife and Fever Ray and Florence + The Machine and all those other Persephone girls.
Marx Brothers films, if you look at them in a certain way.
Every Isobelle Carmody novel ever (although I find them too obvious and black and white about it, which is offputting).
The Sally Lockhart mysteries by Philip Pullman.
Avatar: The Last Airbender, forever and ever.
The Earthsea books, especially the later ones.
But the ultimate example of this is
sophiamcdougall's Romanitas trilogy. I'll admit, --------------SPOILER ALERT--------------------that at the end of the final book, when the corrupt, oppressive emperor Drusus is confronted with an army of all the people he's wronged: escaped slaves, women he raped and abused, his (lesbian) cousin whose lover he threatened, people from all over the Empire who have been forced to
fight in his unjust war, and, above all, Sulien and Una, who he literally condemned to death in the Colosseum, I punched the air and did a joyful little dance. They are representatives of every kind of dispossession, using the tools they have at their disposal (adaptability, connections forged by oppression, and the ability to operate under the radar because their very dispossession means that the powers that be don't even consider them a threat) to confront a man who is the embodiment of just about every kind of privilege that exists. I have reread Savage City and I still find that scene breathtaking. I wish everyone would read that series.
----------------------END OF SPOILER--------------------------
What about you? Do you have texts that fit with this trope that you could recommend? Or do you have your own particular tropes which you want to read/watch again and again and again? Inquiring minds want to know.
