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escapedaudios · 1 month ago

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The new series about Clay and Sky you mentioned in an ask yesterday... is it inspired by "The Third Wave" experiment from 1967? Because there's a book "The Wave" and a German Movie based on (or inspired by) that. We read the book and watched the movie in school. It was very interesting.

I've never heard of The Third Wave, but it sounds interesting. The base concept has been brewing in my head for a long time. I was thinking about how common fascist (mostly nazi) inspired imagery and plot themes are among fictional villains, but they're always depicted in a way that I feel never really captures just how they get into the heads of normal everyday people.

All the goose stepping and intimidating military uniforms and other nazi-esque imagery in the world falls a little flat as social commentary when you don't depict the psychology of it all. How brainwashing works, how evil things can be made to feel ordinary or even heroic, how tens of millions of people can completely buy into systems that dissolve their individual identities and destroy everything around them. Usually, the depiction is as simplistic as a powerful and extremely evil force just appearing without explanation or existing in its powerful and evil state all along, like some kind of force of nature with no connection to the real history that inspired it other than aesthetic similarity and their role as the antagonist.

Right now, in real life, there are people getting drawn into fascistic beliefs. Despite being warned on a surface level, there's still a dark, almost seductive appeal to it that persists. I think it's because all the warnings in fiction ignore how and why the first seeds manage to germinate in people's minds. Fascist-inspired antagonists usually appear as flatly evil forces of nature. Nameless, faceless, and commanded by an outrageously diabolical leader who just inexplicably holds the unquestioning faith of millions.

That's why I want the antagonist who represents real-life, politically-empowered to start out with a very different relationship to the heroes. He starts out as a close friend, an admirable hero, an ambitious man exuding extraordinary charisma. He gives lost people a sense of purpose and destiny, he gets in people's heads and finds their grievances to exploit them. He makes people feel empowered, special, and exceptionally valued. He masterfully employs aesthetics, music, and inspirational speech to make people feel like they're part of a great destiny.

As the story progresses, he chips away at any ability to doubt him. Anyone not aligned with him is the enemy. Even thinking that he might be wrong is taboo, and saying it aloud marks you as a traitor and a threat. Atrocities become necessary sacrifices for the righteous destiny he painted in people's minds. Overcoming doubt and apprehension at committing violent and oppressive acts become signs of heroism and true devotion to the cause. People's own lives and individual identity become less valued than his vision. And the worst part? People like it. The protagonists like it. He fulfilled psychological needs that they didn't even know they had, and he slowly erased any other way to feel purpose, empowerment, or belonging until there was nothing left.

By the time the protagonists break out of his spell, he's in control of nearly everything. They gain the courage to doubt, and the courage to find purpose on their own, which empowers them to fight against him and stop a war that would surely lead all the world to ruin.

There's more to how it plays out, a lot of it is tied to the lore of the story. There's a lot of fantasy and light sci-fi elements in it that take inspiration from Avatar: The Last Airbender and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. I'll save those for a surprise.

Anyway, TL;DR, I don't believe that you can meaningfully immunize people against the allure of fascism if you refuse to acknowledge that the allure even exists at all. It's very real and very powerfully exploits psychological and societial vulnerabilities, and it's reduction to esthetics and fairytale-esque forces of evil has always left me dissatisfied, so I'm just going to do it myself.

#escaped audios #Clay and Sky #antifascism #antifascist fiction

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naowominutella · 1 month ago

Text

Made a lil somthing (again)