A trope which regularly crops up in speculative fiction is that of the hero or protagonist being forced to confront the temptation to use power which has been designated as 'bad'. Whether the author likes to test their main character to destruction or whether it's the reader enjoying watching a protagonist examine their own morality and how flexible or rigid their sense of ethics is, the trope appears in everything from children's fiction to sci-fi to horror to epic fantasy. This week the dragons delve into why it's so appealing to have the good guy flirt with bad magic. How does this enrich a story? Where can it go wrong? And can power ever be described as truly good or bad?
On the slab this week - Star Wars, The Whitby Witches by Robin Jarvis, The Untamed, The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner and many more.
Title Music: Ecstasy by Smiling Cynic
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 177: Of Good and Evil - Depictions of Morality in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 176: Fact vs Fiction - Blending the Real with the Fantastical in Historical Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 175: Winter is Here - End of Thrones
Dissecting Dragons:Episode 174: We All Deserve to Die - Killing Off Characters the Right Way in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 173: Endgame - The Legacy of the MCU
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 172: Crowning Glory - The Significance of Hair in Myth and Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 171: Inner Landscapes - The Transformative Character Arc in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 170: Maps, Footnotes and Dedications - When Authors go the Extra Mile
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 169: Sly, Cunning and Cuddly - Fantastic Foxes in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 168: Woke is My Brand - The Trouble with Toxic Twitter
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 167: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn - Anthropomorphic Animals in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 166: The Problem of Susan - Wayward Children in Fantasy Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 165: What We Really Want - The Tropes We Love in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 164: The Language of Flowers - Botanical Folklore in Myth and Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 163: Into the Woods - Mythical, Magical and Malicious Forests in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 162: Bring Out Your Dead - Sickness and Pandemics in Speculative Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 161: That's not Historically Accurate - the Fallacy of Fantasy Fiction
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 160: The Kids are Alright - Why do we need a NA Genre as well as YA?
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 159: I See Dead People - Psychics, Mediums and Communing with the Dead
Dissecting Dragons: Episode 158: Dominion, Mastery and Emancipation - Portrayals of Slavery in Speculative Fiction
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