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Reply Subj: Re: On the lower shelves. Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2010 at 10:25:48 am EDT (Viewed 1 times) | |||||||
Quote: I can see the parallels with the Greek myths, which likewise saw the underworld as fierce and menacing. The more Northern pantheons like the Norse and Celts saw the sea as equally dangerous.The Greeks were also plagued by earthquakes and volcanoes. There may be a pattern at work here. Quote: I think there may be something in the connection you suggest, or it may be even more direct. Shaver was writing just after the great American scare of Japanese invasion, at a time when the Japanese were caricatured in the US as small, cruel, devious, and degenerate, just like Shaver's Deros.In politically hot climates like that, more works tend to be published that are somewhat racist, or look down on another political faction - especially if they're different. Take the James Bond books/films made during the Cold War for example. It's hard to see, but there are two sides to every political story. The Chinese believe their system has been sustained for thousands of years while the U.S. one is collapsing after a couple hundred. The Nazi Germans decided to take over Europe because they were terrified of the British, French, and Russians, and figured the only way to stay alive was to control everything. The Russians spent the entire cold war thinking the Americans were terrifying and insane because they were talking about first-strike capability and space-based weapons, and had missiles parked right on their back porch (via NATO). | |||||||
