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NaNoWriMo pre-game: God is Wrong
In which I realize that world-building is about more than just the physical construction of a geographical place.
I know--the Avatarverse is a fantasy long-ago place, inspired by Asian cultures. It has airships and wheelchairs that fly and war balloons and sandwiches. Yet, my inner Sokka chafes. (Yes, I have one. A loud one. Why are you laughing?):
In a former life, I was a Classics major and did an independent study on mental illness in ancient Greek and Roman medicine and culture. I soon realized that there was no such thing as "mental illness" in Greco-Roman culture, because their medical systems organized illness in terms of the thing that went wrong, not by the organ it went wrong in. I got no sense that they considered "mental health" separate from any other kind of health, or that there were specific kinds of health at all.
This affected how doctors classified conditions, and what sorts of signs and symptoms they thought were important. And many of the things they described which the American Psychological Association would recognize as "mental illnesses" had lots and lots of signs that a medical system that separates out different kinds of health would think of as "physical" (nausea, pain, unusual coloring, etc) and, thus, not that relevant to classification.
I find diagnostic minutiae fascinating (especially the fact that experts create conditions as much as define them, because of their own histories and biases--if they base their observations of autism or ADHD on boys and men, for instance, they might miss autism and ADHD in girls and women. Which they frequently do.) But the relevance here is that perhaps Azula'a condition, being classified under a different medical system than the one I'm used to, is different than I think it is.
Like the ancient Greek theory of the four humors, traditional Chinese medicine focuses on the balance/imbalance of various elements in the body. From the little reading I've done, such a system seems particularly appropriate for the Avatarverse, because many of these elements (wind, heat, damp, dry) are similar to the elements in the bending arts. And I don't think Chinese medicine considers "mental health" a separate thing, either.
(The Internet is nice and all, but I am slow on the uptake and need an actual book to understand how Chinese medicine works: a book like the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon. Which means I need an academic library.)
"But, Tera," you say, "you are wrong! People in Avatar say that people are 'mad' or 'crazy.' They obviously believed in the concept of mental illness!"
The Greeks and Romans had words like that, too. "Maenads," a word for Dionysus's female followers, gets translated as "raving ones." The play in which the gods cause Hercules to hallucinate and kill his wife and children is sometimes called Herakles Mainomenos ("enraged," "mad") and Hercules Furens in Greek and Latin, respectively. "Mad" and "crazy" don't mean "mentally ill." They mean "You are behaving strangely--possibly in a way that frightens me and which I see as irrational or out of your control."
And if there is no such thing as mental illness, there is no need for a "mental health facility." I've been trying to find if there would be a place to put people with chronic illnesses and disabilities long-term at all, and cannot find any. Although I don't know a whole lot about the history of medicine, the earliest references to such places I can find are in Medieval Europe.
It's much more likely that Azula lives in the palace--not least of all because Zuko has no other choice. (Even Ozai is in the palace dungeon). And the palace already has physicians and servants. From a story standpoint, this is awesome: family caregiving weirdness! In THAT family! (Bonus: Mai LIVES THERE, TOO--gosh, I am mean). A member of Team Avatar as a threat: it's like the ridiculous B plot.
But there is still no overarching threat for Toph and Azula both--and now I have even less of an idea of what it could be. Perhaps I'm looking at the problem in the wrong way: maybe I should just let Azula and Toph interact for now, see what kinds of problems and conflicts they have, and then later I'll find a threat to complement those or bring them out.
ETA: Yes, this screws up what little plot I have, including the B plot. But I want to watch and see what happens. I have no idea if what I'm seeing with Zuko and Mai's wedding is a good or bad thing--you know, forme the story. If the story breaks completely, I can always fall back on Word of God. (Sokka, hush).
Speaking of the ridiculous B plot, I think I found a (very basic, as of yet) solution. All I had to do was remember that the main characters are, respectively, a Magnificent Bastard and a friend of members of Team Avatar for years who knows them all intimately. (Warning: Both links go to TV Tropes). Between the two of them, I'm sure they could come up with a cunning plan to manipulate Aang and company into staying out of their way and into dealing with the larger threat for them, somehow.
I know--the Avatarverse is a fantasy long-ago place, inspired by Asian cultures. It has airships and wheelchairs that fly and war balloons and sandwiches. Yet, my inner Sokka chafes. (Yes, I have one. A loud one. Why are you laughing?):
In a former life, I was a Classics major and did an independent study on mental illness in ancient Greek and Roman medicine and culture. I soon realized that there was no such thing as "mental illness" in Greco-Roman culture, because their medical systems organized illness in terms of the thing that went wrong, not by the organ it went wrong in. I got no sense that they considered "mental health" separate from any other kind of health, or that there were specific kinds of health at all.
This affected how doctors classified conditions, and what sorts of signs and symptoms they thought were important. And many of the things they described which the American Psychological Association would recognize as "mental illnesses" had lots and lots of signs that a medical system that separates out different kinds of health would think of as "physical" (nausea, pain, unusual coloring, etc) and, thus, not that relevant to classification.
I find diagnostic minutiae fascinating (especially the fact that experts create conditions as much as define them, because of their own histories and biases--if they base their observations of autism or ADHD on boys and men, for instance, they might miss autism and ADHD in girls and women. Which they frequently do.) But the relevance here is that perhaps Azula'a condition, being classified under a different medical system than the one I'm used to, is different than I think it is.
Like the ancient Greek theory of the four humors, traditional Chinese medicine focuses on the balance/imbalance of various elements in the body. From the little reading I've done, such a system seems particularly appropriate for the Avatarverse, because many of these elements (wind, heat, damp, dry) are similar to the elements in the bending arts. And I don't think Chinese medicine considers "mental health" a separate thing, either.
(The Internet is nice and all, but I am slow on the uptake and need an actual book to understand how Chinese medicine works: a book like the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon. Which means I need an academic library.)
"But, Tera," you say, "you are wrong! People in Avatar say that people are 'mad' or 'crazy.' They obviously believed in the concept of mental illness!"
The Greeks and Romans had words like that, too. "Maenads," a word for Dionysus's female followers, gets translated as "raving ones." The play in which the gods cause Hercules to hallucinate and kill his wife and children is sometimes called Herakles Mainomenos ("enraged," "mad") and Hercules Furens in Greek and Latin, respectively. "Mad" and "crazy" don't mean "mentally ill." They mean "You are behaving strangely--possibly in a way that frightens me and which I see as irrational or out of your control."
And if there is no such thing as mental illness, there is no need for a "mental health facility." I've been trying to find if there would be a place to put people with chronic illnesses and disabilities long-term at all, and cannot find any. Although I don't know a whole lot about the history of medicine, the earliest references to such places I can find are in Medieval Europe.
It's much more likely that Azula lives in the palace--not least of all because Zuko has no other choice. (Even Ozai is in the palace dungeon). And the palace already has physicians and servants. From a story standpoint, this is awesome: family caregiving weirdness! In THAT family! (Bonus: Mai LIVES THERE, TOO--gosh, I am mean). A member of Team Avatar as a threat: it's like the ridiculous B plot.
But there is still no overarching threat for Toph and Azula both--and now I have even less of an idea of what it could be. Perhaps I'm looking at the problem in the wrong way: maybe I should just let Azula and Toph interact for now, see what kinds of problems and conflicts they have, and then later I'll find a threat to complement those or bring them out.
ETA: Yes, this screws up what little plot I have, including the B plot. But I want to watch and see what happens. I have no idea if what I'm seeing with Zuko and Mai's wedding is a good or bad thing--you know, for
Speaking of the ridiculous B plot, I think I found a (very basic, as of yet) solution. All I had to do was remember that the main characters are, respectively, a Magnificent Bastard and a friend of members of Team Avatar for years who knows them all intimately. (Warning: Both links go to TV Tropes). Between the two of them, I'm sure they could come up with a cunning plan to manipulate Aang and company into staying out of their way and into dealing with the larger threat for them, somehow.
no subject
(And thank you so much for reccing me in your last post! Also, inset letters/documents and Toph-typewriter ftw!)
Mind you, I think the sent-off-to-an-island-hospital thing is word of god, though, well, it is sloppy word of god that does smack of pushing Azula offstage. But I guess I'd want to stand up for the side of the Fire Nation that seems to be steam-punk-war-machine as having some sort of facilities and categorisations to file people into, at least those with combat-induced ptsd?
I mean, I don't know much at all about the topic (almost nothing, in fact...), but I guess Western categorisations of mental illness changed fairly substantially after WWI, with 'shellshock' as an unignorable product of large-scale industrialised warfare?
Although, I guess bending would have made warfare much more readily destructive even without Fire Nation machinery, so it might not have been such a big leap.
But, really, this is a quibble and the idea of how Azula fits into a kind of vaguely Foucauldian (ahem, about the only person I've read on the subject) history of mental health institutions is fascinating. Also fascinating: The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon. I mean, I'm no classicist, but Galenic or pre-Galenic medicine seems a much better fit with traditional Chinese medicine than modern Western techniques, obviously. And Azula living in the palace - POTENTIAL of all kinds, as you say!