Problems with Utopias: How to Get Out

Utopias are not automatically closed environments. However, leaving a utopia is almost always difficult. In Lost Horizon, despite continual warnings, Lo-Tsen (book)/Maria (movie) leaves Shangri-la, whereupon she immediately dies from old age--after a tremendous number of people are killed in an avalanche (movie).

The problem of leaving is partly connected to the politics of a utopia--a loss of citizens requires restructuring of the remaining social order. But I propose a still older reason. Utopias often bleed into the fairy realm, and leaving the fairy realm always requires a cost: 

Tam Lin transforms into various animals, Rip Van Winkle--and others--lose time. Eurydice can only leave the Underworld if her lover performs a task. 

Tasks often involve sacrifice. As Terry says in Chapter 18, "I was here in the tunnels to take risks."

I support this particular trope. A change in life requires costs. It requires that the protagonist delivers up something of the self. Alim from His in Herland not only accepts that he may never be able to return. He makes and owns a concrete decision. He "acts on the world," choosing to leave rather than simply follow Terry's lead (Terry sacrifices his reputation--such as it is--for the ability to leave).

Writing problems arise when writers don't want their protagonists to take this inner risk. 

The problem doesn't appear to be attached to suffering. Suffering delivers cache. The problem is a reluctance to force the protagonist to live with a choice. Perhaps writers fear having the protagonist make the wrong choice. Perhaps writers don't want their characters to have to choose. 

Nevertheless, it must happen. Keeping one's options open is hardly the point. The protagonist accepting responsibility is the point. 

I recently read a disappointing Christmas story. In the story, the protagonist--who went into a series of foster homes when his mother died--learns that his father is a substitute Father Christmas, an elf who filled in for Santa one night. 

Not a bad premise. (I'm not troubled by overdone premises.)

The problem: the writer wanted the foster situations that the protagonist suffered to be horrible. Look at all that suffering! 

Except then, the writer wanted to let the substitute Santa off the hook. The biological dad couldn't check in on his son because...ah...he was afraid he wouldn't be able to get back to Santa's world...except people can...so...he was afraid Santa would be mad...except Santa is a really swell guy...but it's nobody's fault and nobody's responsibility...because the substitute Santa lives in another world, after all...except the protagonist can visit...only the substitute Santa can't leave...except people do leave, all the time...and by the way, the protagonist is about thirty, so the substitute Santa had three decades to overcome all the waffling. 

And the telephone system blew too--

amazingly enough.

It reminded me of Tom Hanks' character in You've Got Mail trying to invent reasons for his supposed no-show. 

I was disgusted. The protagonist's father abandoned his son and had no good narrative reason not to check in on him for thirty years. 

If a protagonist is going to abandon responsibility, the reason had better be a good one ("God" or "my clique" or "the social order told me too" or "we must for the sake of our perfect future" is not an acceptable reason). Otherwise, the protagonist needs to step up. 

In a sense, I've come back to where I started with these posts: to keep people in, there has to be a reason--and it has to be believable. If people determine to leave, they must bargain with the world's rules or--in the case of Terry & Alim--the Fates. As my Greek god tells Terry, “Everyone’s story has to be checked.”

Terry arrived through the tunnel--Alim and Terry leave through the tunnel after paying a toll: Fantasy Writing 101. 

Chapter 18 & Chapter 19

His in Herland or Astyanax in Hiding