How Profanity Ducks Up World Building
Every scribbler trying to imitate Terry Brooks imitating J.R.R. Tolkien can now relax. Don’t bother digging out your Dungeons & Dragons fan fiction. The prize of the laziest world builder goes to Richard K. Morgan’s The Dark Defiles. Morgan’s liberal use of “fuck you” kills all suspension of disbelief. Your not-elves and not-dwarves pale in comparison. Maybe your protagonist has a name more ridiculous than Ringil Eskiath, but are you reminding the reader that he’s gay with a homophobic slur every five pages? I bet not.
You have questions?
Should world building matter?
If a fantasy or science fiction story takes place in a second world, it requires world building, or at very least world conjuring. The world building doesn’t have to be comprehensive. No one is asking the writer to be J.R.R. Tolkien or Frank Herbert. Not every fantasy book needs appendices. Fritz Leiber based Lankhmar on Los Angeles and borrowed from Cthulu. Robert Howard stories barely pretended to take place anywhere besides 1930s Texas.
The reader at least needs to believe in the second world enough to enjoy the story. A writer can hint at histories, cultures and legal systems without explicitly describing them. Yet, one clumsy infodump or an anachronistic vegetable can throw the reader out of the story.
Isn’t all language in a fantasy novel just translated regardless?
Anyone who has ever tried to learn a second language knows just how much language is culturally based. German has two words for you — one formal and one informal. Germans can work together for decades and only use the formal address. Romantic languages gender their nouns. Even English has regional dialects and conventions. Scottish profanity like Bawbag (scrotum) and Boaby (penis) sound charming to American ears. Yet, Morgan simply uses the standard profanity like fuck, bullshit and f-ggot without thought. It’s as if he’s actively trying to remind the reader that they aren’t reading about barbarians, mad gods or lizard people.
Does profanity automatically kills world building?
Not when it’s used well. When Scott Lynch has Locke Lamora say “Nice bird, Asshole,” it works as a shock and underscores his protagonist’s suicidal depression. Deadwood thrived on a combination of modern profanity, invented insults and iambic pentameter.
An intelligent writer doesn’t have to create elvish in order to support world building, but language conveys culture. Taboo words are the most obvious examples. Even the terms “profanity” and “swearing” have origins in specific religious traditions.
For taboo words, our society uses short words usually with “k” and “t” sounds. The concepts are not as taboo as the terms. Fecal matter is polite. Shit is vulgar. Slurs have developed over time. F-ggot originally meant old women. Slurs like Wop or Mick have faded with the systemic oppression attached to Italian and Irish immigrants.
Do you want Morgan to be a linguist?
Maybe he could have watched George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” before writing his dialogue. At least he would appreciate how modern western profanity developed. Instead he creates a world where gods possess corpses, magic is scary and lizard people wage war against barbarians. Yet, everyone says “fuck” as if it’s the only word they know. An actual god shows up, and a character tells it to fuck off. He might start a chapter with the clumsy Victorian “once there was a high quest” but quickly follows it with “fucking waste of five months.”
By the fifteenth “fuck” the reader has to ask why this social order has the same sex taboos as 21st century America. Every time a character calls Ringil Eskiath a f-ggot, the reader has to ask why his society is homophobic in the exact same way as today’s society.
It doesn’t take much to make up culturally specific taboos either. In The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin uses “rusting” and “evil earth” whenever the characters express frustration or anger. These words quickly connect to the fears and values of her world.
Is it fair to compare Richard K. Morgan to N.K. Jemisin?
Probably not. N.K. Jemisin is a genius. Morgan is a guy whose characters quote the Bible in a polytheistic world without Christianity or Judaism.
The Bible?
At one point one character actually says “do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman.” This is a society full of pirates, slaves, steppe barbarians and gods who just show up out of the blue. There’s no reason why his established world should be homophobic. In fact, Morgan is stealing from warrior cultures that encouraged sexual acts between men in order to support military cohesion. By incorporating contemporary homophobia complete with a Bible that shouldn’t exist in his world, Morgan is practically daring the reader to throw the book away.
Even though this is an article about the language, we should talk about Ringil Eskiath’s homosexuality. For a character that everyone calls a F-ggot, this homosexuality feels like it’s in name only. As far as I remember, Ringil doesn’t have a boyfriend, a one night stand, any nostalgia for past lovers or even much in the way of same sex attraction. Yet, Morgan never misses an opportunity to tell us that Ringil is gay. I know that “show, don’t tell” is a cliché but if Morgan is going to tell us about Ringil being gay so often, he could at least give Ringil a crush.
Of course, I could be misremembering the book. If Ringil had a boyfriend beyond the character two books previous that he killed, I didn’t notice. I was too busy marveling at the fact that Morgan can imagine lizard people, living deities and magic but not a social order without homophobia. Logically, a polytheistic society full of manly men being all manly should be a world that encourages homosexuality. Or does Morgan think that Achilles and Patroclus were just really good friends?
How can profanity support world building?
In the same Bible, Philistines are called the “uncircumcised.” This is not an insult in today’s society. Yet, it perfectly illuminates the values of Ancient Israel. Even if you reject the thesis that we constructed sexuality in our language, you should know that f-ggot is not a universal insult. Neither is whore, asshole, chicken fucker, etc. These are insults that are based on 21st century western culture taboos. Maybe readers don’t usually notice anachronistic profanity. After all, second world fantasy often has familiar elements including monarchy, heteronormative families and swords. Yet, when the profanity is so overused, the second world stops being a second world and becomes a dull monologue with a language impaired author.
It’s not terribly difficult to work in new profanity. You can try slurs like Temple Smasher, Food Waster, Goat Thief, Goat, or Glyph Spitter and hint at an entire culture beyond the plot. The author can even make up words. Robert Heinlein convinced generations to use “grok” in common discourse.
What about Morgan’s science fiction?
I hear that Altered Carbon was good.
Anything else?
Watch Deadwood. That’s a show that knows how to use profanity, even anachronistic profanity. Of course, world building is never the most important part of a fantasy novel. Readers want characters and interesting plots. However, if you are going to set a fantasy novel in a second world, try to not destroy your world. Bilbo shouldn’t eat sushi. Paul Atreides should not tell jokes stolen from the borsht belt. Warriors in a polytheistic society with slavery and lizard people should have more world-specific swear words than “fucking” and “f-ggot.”