I've been having an ongoing conversation with my friend Seo Helrune about the interplay between fiction and the Good Folk, specifically the way that human stories seem to shape and influence Them. This is something that we can trace across history, as these beings seem to slowly adapt to human expectations and imagery - for example the way that the Good Folk have never had wings, gained them in fiction and art, and then eventually began to appear with them in anecdotal accounts. The same way that the Seelie and Unseelie court system is uniquely Scottish but has slowly been gaining popularity in fiction and now in widespread anecdotal accounts and stories. The way we see them with pointed ears now.
What humans believe about them seems to affect them - or just as possibly they play to our expectations. Either way the way our fiction and stories describe them eventually becomes what we get from them, at least to some degree. We've seen it in the way Shakespeare became belief and we've seen it with Tinkerbell becoming the template of fairies, and we see it now in people talking about Wyld Fae and the Unseelie as good guys in upg experiences. I don't personally believe we can entirely shift their nature away from what they are, at their core, and I know there are layers of older belief and also of experiences that line up with those beliefs. But there does seem to be a distinct and traceable correlation between human fiction and anecdotal accounts a generation or two later.
I went and asked my Folk about this, and the response I got was rather, shall we say brisk: "We are malleable as humans are malleable, shaped by the stories that influence culture."
I hadn't thought about it before but of course she was right - humans are influenced by stories and human culture is shaped by it, although perhaps more subtly than what we may be seeing with the Good Folk. Perhaps because they are closer to the source of what we might call imbas, or awen, or imagination. I don't know.
And the thing is, while we don't often stop and think about it, fiction does influence humans, sometimes profoundly. This is discussed in greater depth than I could hope to do in the articles 'How Stories Have Shaped the World', 'How Fiction Impacts Fact', and 'Human Culture and Science Fiction'. It can also be seen in the ways that Westernized stories and fiction have demonstrably effected non-Western cultures. Stories are carriers of cultures and of belief; when they are creating new beliefs those beliefs can become widespread, such as we see for example with Barrie's Tinkerbell who became the template of popculture fairies.
So then where does that leave us? I think that when it comes to stories of the Good Folk we need to remember that its never just fiction even when its supposed to be. It has power, and we need to be sure we are using that power carefully and consciously.
I suppose we can say the same things about our own fiction though, and I think we should be just as conscious of the stories we tell about ourselves with the understanding that they shape us.
I think we are also seeing an increased tension over the directions fiction is taking the Good Folk on different fronts as They strive to control the direction and the shaping and other forces, including humans without a vested interest in the Other, push in different directions. There is a stream of writing that is placing them back into places of power and respect, that emphasizes their Otherness - and there is another stream that is doing the opposite and shaping them further into the post-Victorian nature spirit/guide view - and yet a third stream that is shaping them into the fulfillment of a human fetish, the perfect bad fae boy (or girl) with a good heart just waiting for the right human to save them from themselves.
And we will have to wait and see where everything ends up.
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