Genre Crossovers

This probably won't be posted for months, but I'm going to start this now...

I stumbled across an author named Melanie Dickerson, who has written mostly romance novels... many of which are medieval-themed. 

If you catch her page on Amazon, you'll notice that her longest series is a fairy tale/historical fiction/romance/Christian series. That combination of genres in and of itself made me highly nervous. Each reason could be a blog post on its own, but for the sake of clarity, here are a few of them:

• I do not like most modern-day Christian fiction. See this from the Babylon Bee to understand my reasons. 
• I get nervous about the combination of historical fiction and fairy tales, because the expectations, suspension of disbelief, and whole point of each genre is completely different (I would argue even opposite)
• I don't like modern romance books. (Give me Pride and Prejudice, where it honestly is a surprise who Elizabeth ends up with! Or at least, it legitimately might be, if not for the fact that everyone has known the story for the last 100 years...) 
• I'm not crazy about some of these adaptations of fairy tales. The last one I paid any attention to was a TV series, which... which started off just fine, but the story had nothing to do with the fairy tales, and... it wasn't what I was looking for in fairy tales. I liked Once Upon a Time all right at first, but it didn't stay up to the same quality, in my opinion. Then there are the live action Disney remakes, which... gag. 

But of course, moth to flame. The books had pretty covers, the openings were smoothly written, and I love fairy tales. (Which are not fantasy, by the way, but that's another issue altogether.) 

I haven't read all of her books, and I haven't even read all of the series I'm going to review. It's supposed to be chronological, but I get a very distinct feeling that it isn't entirely necessary to read them all to properly understand the stories, and in honor of my savings account I did not read all of them. I'm just going to review the ones I have read. 

Why these books? I do read a lot of fiction, so why don't I write reviews for all of them? There are a couple of reasons (to be discussed anon), but generally speaking, I think I had a lot to say about these.

So, without further ado...

Okay, as I was writing this, I realized I can't launch into these reviews without at least explaining myself as far as the genre crossovers are concerned, because that's going to come up a lot in my reviews of these books. 

What is Suspension of Disbelief? 

It all begins with suspension of disbelief. I think when people consider suspension of disbelief, people tend to think of breaking the laws of science (magic in fairy tales, etc.), or for how time gets warped (i.e., falling in love in one dance, a la Disney Cinderella). In short, it is when the reader is willing to accept something in the story, without too many questions, that would never happen, or be terrible, or end differently, in real life. You, the reader, are willing to accept magical wands in Harry Potter because of different rules for the book's universe; therefore, you suspend your disbelief about the magical wands. If, on the other hand, a bunch of magical wands suddenly showed up in Little House on the Prairie, you would roll your eyes and stop reading the books. 

The thing that I think some modern readers either don't realize or simply disagree with me on (probably just disagree with me on, but hear me out) is another category of suspension of disbelief--what qualifies as right and good. What are good goals, basically. What makes a good outcome. 

The best example of this that I can think of is the ending to Return of the King. In the end, Aragorn is of course crowned king because he is the last descendant of the kingly line of Gondor. His ancestry makes him the right person for the throne. In a fantasy story, this is perfectly acceptable, because of what it embodies--strengthening of the kingdom, renewal of an ancient ideal, things being put right. You can accept this from Lord of the Rings, because that's part of the rules of the world that's been created--part of all things being put right means putting a king from the right family in power. 

However, imagine hearing that in a story that is supposed to more closely mirror real life. Can you just hear the cringe? The idea that one person is "rightfully" the king, not because of anything they did, not even because of anything their father did, but because of somebody their long-distant ancestor was... that makes many of our modern sensibilities recoil and protest. After all, wouldn't Faramir have been an equally good king? Possibly even a better one, if you think about it? His followers were willing to die for him (and murder for him), he managed parts of Gondor during bleak times, and his people knew him. Why is Aragorn preferable? Aragorn is preferable because he comes from a line of kings, and Faramir does not. That means that Aragorn must be king in order for all to be put to rights. 

In our modern world, and in stories that are supposed to closely reflect our modern world, that is completely unacceptable. But in a fantasy story (heavily inspired by values and expectations from a completely different time in history), we can suspend our disbelief and suspend our expectations and accept it. 

One Guardian writer exemplified this conflict by analyzing Lord of the Rings in the same way, with the same expectations, he he would a piece of nonfiction or a story that is meant to reflect on specific parts of our world rather than universal moral truths. The entire article is worth reading if only to understand how not to read Lord of the Rings, but to summarize, he observes that in all the stories, you only hear the point of view of the good guys. One quote that stands out:

Both books are one-sided recollections made the Baggins family... A balanced telling might well have shown Smaug to be much more of a reforming force in the valley of Dale.

 In other words, the author points out that a story is not reliable if you cannot hear both sides of the story. This is completely true--if you are studying a historical event or maybe a story about World War I. But it does not apply in a fantasy book--it's not part of the expectations the author has for the reader. It's not important to a fantasy story. (It can be included in a fantasy story, don't get me wrong, but it's not essential--at least, not in the same way that it is essential to a more real-world story. A fantasy story doesn't need this, but a historical or "realistic" story normally does.) 

Here is a quote that just sums up the problem beautifully:

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings aren’t fantasies because they feature dragons, elves and talking trees. They’re fantasies because they mythologise human history, ignoring the brutality and oppression that were part and parcel of a world ruled by men with swords.

But he's not mythologizing human history. He's writing a story that has nothing to do with the rules of human history (human behavior, yes, but that's not the same as human history). When you read Lord of the Rings, you aren't supposed to be looking for a blueprint or guidelines or theses on to how to study history, how to run a kingdom, or how to solve some kind of geopolitical issue of the day. (You're supposed to be looking for personal courage, a sense of hope amid darkness, and other personal advantages.) 

These different expectations lead to a different--a significantly different--suspension of disbelief. It would be self-defeating to approach a fantasy in the same way you'd approach a historical fiction because the different expectations and different rules lead to a significantly different disbelief that needs to be suspended. 

Suspensions of Disbelief in Fairy Tales

I know I spent the last section waffling on about fantasy and Lord of the Rings, but the genre is very closely connected to fairy tales. I remember reading one paper (I can't find it now--if I find it later, I'll link to it) that struggled to describe the difference between fairy tales and fantasy stories in any meaningful way. One thing that both of them have in common, to be sure, is that they do not have practical how-to's or realistic expectations of rulers--or even realistic depictions of the world. 

One absolutely classic example of a fairy tale with expectations so wholly and completely at odds with our world is The Goose Girl, which, in summary, is about a servant usurping her mistress's place as a princess. The princess, because she is a princess, is good and kind and gentle, while the servant, because she is a usurper, is bad. But again, in a fairy tale, this is part and parcel of the genre. The good people are rewarded for being good by becoming princesses or simply being born princes or princesses; the rest of the fairy tale world is in order when everyone else respects them for their goodness and follows them and is loyal to them accordingly. There is also an arranged marriage in this story, which still leads to everyone living happily ever after because it is what is supposed to be. 

These are concepts that us modern post-Enlightenment readers would never accept, if anyone ever suggested letting them become a reality. However, we aren't supposed to view those details as the real point--the real point, which we are supposed to take out of the story and share in our world, is that goodness and patience will be rewarded, while liars will be found out and discredited. 

Granted, Goose Girl came from a time period with different expectations of how countries were meant to be governed. (Wikipedia says the Brothers Grimm published their first anthology in 1812. That is certainly after the Enlightenment, and after serfdom's decline in England and France, so it's possible the people who told them that story didn't hold to those values; and even if they did, I cannot possibly imagine that people back then were stupid enough to think that all rightful princesses were also good princesses. Nonetheless, the story comes from Germany and not England or France, and it was told by people who weren't necessarily part of philosophical and political revolutions inspired by the Enlightenment as early as 1812, and Wikipedia is still Wikipedia, so...) Let's instead look at a modern fairy tale, and turn our attention to Disney. 

The easy option here is Cinderella. (The good one.) I know it gets a lot of flack for having the "love-at-first-sight" business, enhanced by a musical number, even, but in a way, that doesn't really matter. The prince has no character because he isn't a character--he is a reward. You're not supposed to watch it and think that it's a commentary on healthy relationships; you're supposed to watch it and recognize that the main character was good (even when people around her were bad), and kind, and pleasant, and she was rewarded for those things. Totally illogical and unwise for a modern young adult reader looking for a husband or wife, but that isn't what you watch the movie for. 

The remake ignored that, and tried to be more logical and realistic. And we all know how that turned out. Yuck. (And don't even get me started on the other remakes.)

The point is, part of the suspension of disbelief in a fairy tale is a suspension of some logic and a lot of cynicism about people in power. 

Suspension of Disbelief in Historical Fiction

Historical fiction is supposed to represent and portray the particular struggles a certain group of people at a certain time faced. That means people need to behave in ways that are logical and influenced by their time, reflect common sense, and generally need to be explained in terms of how to navigate specific, real-world problems. 

Anyone who's ever studied history knows that history is a deeply cynical topic, for two reasons. First, there are a lot of scenarios where there really are no good guys. No horses in the race. Things don't change like we want them to (French and Mexican Revolutions come to mind), rightful kings are like John Softsword or Edward II of Caernarfon or (good grief!) Richard II, and honorable people frequently find themselves between two bad choices. Heroes have fatal (and often disgusting) flaws, and rulers who start off strong and good do not end that way. 

That story in fairy tales--about the "rightful king" being on his throne--is, in real life, often used as a justification and defense of awful tyranny, and rarely used in support of real justice and fairness. 

Not all of history is like that--Alfred the Great, the English barons and the Magna Carta, and the life of George Washington all stand out, and there must be others (that I can't think of just now because it's late at night)--but so often you hear about "heroes" and "the Great's" of history being horrific people who did brutal things to achieve their goals.

Part of what makes fairy tales fairy tales is the idea of all things lining up the way they are supposed to, but a study of history shows that that rarely happens. Suddenly, when you're forced to choose between one king or another king, one side or another in a war, you need to have as many facts as possible. You need to consider the logical outcome of either side. You need to know the policies, the actions, the belief in legality and individual rights. This information helped lead people to support Henry of Bolingbroke instead of Richard II, or Edward of York instead of Henry VI, or Henry Tudor instead of Richard III. And even then, was Richard III really a worse king than Henry Tudor? He probably murdered his nephews, but as far as his subjects were concerned, was he any worse than Henry Tudor? And after all, the Tudors gave additional power to the dreaded Star Courts. But even the story of the Star Courts is a convoluted story, because at the beginning, they were popular and were expedient ways to dispense justice, but over time became tools of oppression.

These are questions that just don't come up in fairy tales, but must come up when studying history. A historical fiction novel that doesn't address these moral dilemmas of how people in power behave (kings or whatever local power happens to be relevant to the story) is not believable.

So, what belief do you suspend when reading historical fiction?

Someone (I've no idea who said it first) once said that studying history is like visiting a foreign country. When you visit a foreign country, you leave your own cultural expectations behind (to the best of your ability) and expect to encounter the new country's customs. History--and, by extension, historical fiction--means recognizing that the characters will have different expectations, different mores, and different reactions to events because they are colored by their times and culture. 

To some extent, that is similar to a fairy tale, in that it doesn't follow your rules. However, it follows someone's rules, someone who was real and really there. In the case of the aforementioned kings, a proper historical fiction would portray the expectations of kings at that time, demonstrate why Richard III did not meet them, and why Henry Tudor did, bad royal lineage and all. A good king in a fairy tale, if his role as king is discussed at all, is just good and kind and not selfish; a good king in history is far more complex, and sometimes a person can be a good king but be a very bad man. 

Can you see why I'm nervous about combining these two genres?

A Word on Fantasy and Reality...

I can already hear my mom's chastisement, so I'm going to put this in here:

• Of course there are good people in history, and even good people in power. My only comment is that it is not common. Personally, I would like to see historical fiction focus on those good people (Alfred, Washington, etc.), or, at the very least, when you have a bad person in history, portray them as bad and as something to be avoided. But this is one of those concepts that deserves its own blog post. 
• Both fantasy and fairy tales reflect reality, which is why I used the phrase "real life" instead of "reality" in my paragraph (pedantic, but I'm tired and that's the best I can do just now). Fantasy and fairy tales reflect values, emotions, and (especially according to Tolkien), desires. However, the connection between fantasy and reality is extremely complex and runs too far afield for this blog post. If readers want, I'll expound on this concept too, but Tolkien already has, and I have nothing to add to the master. Just read Tolkien's essay, or a summary and analysis of it here. 

Oh, look at that. It didn't take me a couple of months. It only took me two weeks. 

The Secret of NIMH--I Finally Saw It, and Here Are My Thoughts

 I haven't seen many Don Bluth movies, despite my better sense telling me I need to, but today, I finally sat down and watched The Secret of NIMH.

I should preface this by saying that I started by reading the book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, on the bus to and from work the last week. It's a charming book, and the heroine is amazing. 

So I saw the movie today. 

I already knew about the gem, which was not in the book, but I'd had no opinion on it. I've heard that it's meant to symbolize the unknown and the supernatural, which I had no problem with (I mean, I'm me), but I didn't know what it actually did in the movie. 

Well, I watched the movie, and while I don't normally say things like this... the book was better than the movie. 

First off, Jeremy. The crow shows up twice in the book, and he's foolish and constantly after shiny things, but he isn't annoying. In the movie, he's in every other scene, and he is incredibly annoying. He spends half of his lines fussing about not having a girlfriend, which is just irritating. In my roommate's words, he's a bit like Jar Jar Binks. 

Now, I could deal with that, if they didn't cut out all the story about the rats to make time for Jeremy. The story of how the rats escaped and set up their home under the rosebush--just a few minutes. There's no explanation of how they have the tools, how they learned how to read, how they first came to NIMH, or any of that. Just, they got injections, they got smart, and they escaped. 

The big thing they left out from the story was Jenner and Nicodemus' friendship. In the book, they were best friends even before NIMH, and they made such an effort to stay together during and after NIMH. This made Jenner's betrayal so much more painful and poignant in the book. In the movie, he is always a bad guy, immediately. 

So instead of getting a complex, challenging story about a best friend's betrayal, we get entirely too much time dedicated to Jeremy whining about not having a girlfriend. Fabulous. To be clear, Jeremy gets more time than Jenner does in the movie. 

Then, there's the gem. Like I said, I knew about it going in and had no real opinion on it. Now that I've seen it... it kind of bothers me. It just felt so out of place with Mrs. Frisby's character. I thought the point of Mrs. Frisby was that there was nothing special about her except for her love for her family and her courage--that was what enabled her to be a hero, and not some kind of magical gift. The gem sort of took that away; she almost became another "Chosen One" heroine. They tried to say that it was really the courage in her heart that made the gem work, but the magical powers of the gem sort of defeated the purpose. At least for me. If they wanted to represent the power of the unknown and the supernatural, then they could have played it differently. 

The whole movie wasn't terrible--especially not the parts without Jeremy--and the animation was spectacular. I just think that the deviations from the novel weakened the main heroine. 

Bilbo Baggins and the Meme--and my 300th post!

300 posts! Hurrah!

So, to celebrate my 300th post, I decided to blog about something that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Spartans. Instead, it is about something that a) I've been thinking over for a long time, and b) discusses my all-time favorite Tolkien character, and one of my favorite book characters ever.

If you follow any of the Facebook pages I follow, you've probably seen this meme:

Can I just start off by saying that Martin Freeman was the best part of that trilogy, all hands down? As much as I despised those movies, I was actually happy every time he was on screen. 

Also, Bilbo is my favorite character from all of Tolkien's works. He is my favorite in all books and in the six movies. (Followed by Thingol, and then either Boromir or Sam as third. I haven't quite decided.) Anyway, I love Bilbo. Part of me relates to him on more than just the occasion expressed in the meme. 

Actually, my favorite was this exchange between Bilbo and Frodo:

"Keep your sticky paws off! It's not ready yet!"

"Ready for what?"

"Reading!"

Yes, Bilbo, yes... I understand that perfectly. 

But back to the meme at hand. 

When I first saw it, I laughed heartily. Bilbo is definitely a Hobbit who does not like to be interrupted, and oh how well I relate to that! I love sitting in my workroom, writing on my stories or playing Stronghold, and interruptions do not suit me well.

Let's analyze the meme though, shall we?

First of all, what does "this look" mean?

This, if you haven't seen the movie (and I honestly don't blame you), is the exact moment that Dwalin, the first dwarf, rings Bilbo's door. It is the exact moment that Bilbo's adventure, and personal journey, begins.

Prior to this moment (and even for a time after it), Bilbo was one type of person who this looks fits perfectly. He was very set in very comfortable ways, "never had any adventures or did anything unexpected". One writer at Tolkien Online explains, "But when we first meet Bilbo he possesses all the qualities of upstanding “hobbitness”…a love of comfort; a mistrust of strangers and the outside world; a particular dislike for the very word “adventure”; a rustic, easy life". TolkienGateway (I know it's a wiki, but still) describes Bilbo this way: "Before his adventures, Bilbo was considered a very prim and respectable Hobbit for his polite disposition and aversion to anything out of the ordinary".

That, I think, explains (in part) the look that Bilbo gives when he hears that doorbell ring. This is Bilbo at the very beginning of his story, before he has gone on his adventure.

However, if you've read The Hobbit, you'd know that, although the story is partly about the 12 dwarves seeking to destroy the dragon Smaug and retrieve their treasure, it is called The Hobbit because the story is also about Bilbo's internal journey--how he goes from the comfort-loving, sedentary hobbit at the beginning to the adventurous, independent hobbit that he is at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring. I don't have Hobbit with me, but according to Quora, Tolkien summarizes Bilbo's life like this:

Indeed Bilbo found he had lost more than spoons - he had lost his reputation. It is true that for ever after he remained an elf-friend, and had the honour of dwarves, wizards, and all such folk as ever passed that way; but he was no longer quite respectable. He was in fact held by all the hobbits of the neighbourhood to be 'queer'-except by his nephews and nieces on the Took side, but even they were not encouraged in their friendship by their elders. I am sorry to say he did not mind. He was quite content; and the sound of the kettle on his hearth was ever after more musical than it had been even in the quiet days before the Unexpected Party.

Emphasis mine. 

For a lot of people, this is the real reason they identify with Bilbo. The writer at Tolkien Online described Bilbo's popularity this way:

In many ways, Bilbo Baggins reflects our own modern lives, and our often fond wishes for some “adventure” of our own. Most of us live in some degree of comfort, if not to the extreme of the hobbits, and go about our mundane lives with quiet efficiency. 

But Bilbo changes dramatically through the book. Bilbo's adventure both made him happier and noticeably changed who he was and how he interacted with and viewed the world. 

That look in that meme would have vanished. 

I think this is clearly illustrated in two scenes in An Unexpected Journey: the first scene being the scene from that meme, and the second scene being the scene where Bilbo has Frodo put up that "No Admittance Except on Party Business" sign. In the first one, Bilbo is irritated by being interrupted from his daily dinner; in the other, Bilbo is trying to avoid being interrupted while writing the story for Frodo, and while planning his exit from the Shire.

So, I realized to myself, this is an important part of Bilbo's character, but it is only the beginning of Bilbo's character. While it is one thing to relate to Bilbo's expression here, it is exciting and thrilling to realize that this exact moment is the moment that Bilbo's extraordinary journey of personal change began. 

If I take this interpretation a little too far, I could say something to the effect of, "The whole point of Bilbo was to get rid of this look", which is what I had been thinking at first (which would make this meme antithetical and destructive to the main idea of The Hobbit). Then I realized he never much liked being interrupted, even after the grand adventure--hence this sign:

But the significant change was what Bilbo was interrupted from--he was interrupted from writing about his grand and--dare I even say--very profound adventure, in a book that he passed on to his dear Frodo. How different from the hobbit who said, “Sorry! I don't want any adventures, thank you. Not Today. Good morning! But please come to tea -any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Good bye!”

So while this meme is funny, it is also the beginning of a truly wonderful story about how one little hobbit became something altered from--and much better than--he had been. 

If this is the moment that Bilbo became your favorite character, maybe that's a sign that your own story of personal transformation is about to happen, too. 

Memoirs of WWII

One of the best defenses of YouTube's continued existence is this channel: Memoirs of WWII. The channel is run by a guy who finds and interviews WWII veterans, asking for their stories and filling in the backstory with research.

For all of you who are stuck in quarantine, now is a great time to check out this channel.

Here is one example of a great video:

94 yr old WWII Veteran Shares His Story

Here is an interview with one of the Tuskegee Airmen:

Memories of a Tuskegee Pilot

And then, here's one of my favorites:

WW2 Veteran Leads a Platoon In Africa and Across Europe

So if you need something to do, check out these videos.

If you are one of my readers with a credit card or a PayPal, you might consider making a donation to the channel on Patreon to help them reach as many WWII veterans as possible to collect their stories.

The Coronavirus Has NOT Killed More Americans Than Six Wars Combined

Let me start this off by saying that, in this post, I'm not making any comment on the goodness or badness of quarantining. At least, not in this post. No, this is related more to the once-glorious profession of Edward R. Murrow: journalism.

I saw a headline from USA Today on Facebook a few days ago:

If you're like me, you read that headline and immediately thought, Which wars, exactly? Nearly 3,000 people died in 9/11. More than 2,000 Americans died at Pearl Harbor in ninety minutes. More than 2,000 American soldiers died at Omaha Beach--one of only five beaches in the D-Day landings--in one single day. That's only two wars and already 7,000 Americans. Exactly which wars are you talking about?

Even if you didn't think that, if 10,000 Americans died over six wars, that would mean an average of 1,667 Americans per war. If we have that many wars with fewer than 2,000 deaths in the entire war, how lucky are we! (And how realistic is that?)

This headline reads to me like scare-mongering. When you think of a war, you probably think immediately of WWI, WWII, and other high-fatality wars. War is bad--mass destruction, lots of death, horror, and many other images. You are clearly meant to think that when you read this headline. It's meant to be sensationalist.

But it's nonsense.

The Washington Examiner did a solid job skewering the logic of this article, but they didn't actually check the data. So I'm going to deal with the data today.

The source they use is from the VA (Veterans Affairs), which, for some reason, didn't include the Philippine-American War. I will use the same source for this post, but there are other sources that have different numbers for war fatalities. Furthermore, the VA only counts the deaths of actual servicemen and servicewomen, but anyone who has ever read about wars knows that civilians are killed in wars, too. If USA Today's point is that war is less deadly than a disease, they're skewering the data to prove their point.

Now, on to these wars: the six wars they mention are the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, the Indian Wars, and Operation Desert Storm.

Here are the fatalities of those six wars (of American soldiers only):
American Revolution: 4,435
The War of 1812: 2,260
The Mexican-American War: 13,283
The Indian Wars (1817-1898) 1,000
The Spanish-American War: 2,446
Desert Storm: 383

First off, according to the VA data, those are the six least costly wars in US history, in terms of loss of soldiers' lives. So a more honest heading would be, "Coronavirus more deadly than the four least costly wars in American history." The Washington Examiner touched on it, but I'm going to expand on this point: America has had a few comparatively low-cost wars in our history. After the Mexican-American War, the costliest war on that list, our next least-costly war was the Korean War, which had more than 36,000 deaths. That is a gap of 23,000 deaths in between our sixth and our seventh least costly wars (according to VA data, which is missing data on two wars less costly than the M-A War; so the actual distinction is between our eight and ninth least costly wars).

The Indian Wars accumulated only about 1,000 deaths over eighty-one years; the Spanish-American war had the Battle of Manila, in which only one American sailor died--from heatstroke, not from battle; and Desert Storm has such astonishingly low US combat deaths that I can't help but imagine it might actually be the lowest-casualty war in history (feel free to prove me wrong, though).

Secondly, many of you read my honest heading and said, "Wait a minute, it's six least costly wars, not four." Others of you probably read the list of casualties and thought, "Hang on--the Mexican-American war alone had more deaths than the coronavirus heading. Something's wrong."

Here's the problem:

"The data does not include other deaths related to the wars".

In other words, they're only counting the deaths of people who died in the middle of a battle, or of wounds sustained in battle. However, there are many other ways for soldiers to die in war than fighting in battle.

The Mexican-American War is the best example of this: of those 13,283 deaths, only 1,733 deaths were in battle. The extra 11,550 deaths were all due to other circumstances related to the war. The Spanish-American War numbers were also conflated: there were 2,061 non-battle deaths and only 385 battle deaths. They even did the same thing to Desert Storm: it was only 148 battle deaths. Add up all the numbers of only battle deaths, and you will definitely get a number lower than 10,000, but you'll be cutting the number of war fatalities, and the severity of war, in half.

But wait--there's more!

What did cause those 11,550 deaths in the Mexican-American War? And those 2,061 deaths in the Spanish-American War?

Diseases.

In the Mexican-American War, the diseases in question were measles and dysentery. William Osler, a doctor in the late 19th century, described dysentery as "more fatal than powder and shot", and approximately 1/8 of the US military in the Mexican-American War died from dysentery.

For the Spanish-American War, in addition to dysentery, there was also malaria and yellow fever. I remember in fifth or sixth grade reading one of those reading-comprehension stories about how one military doctor, Walter Reed, ran a test on volunteer soldiers, who were in Cuba because of the Spanish-American War, to see if yellow fever was spread by mosquitoes, and he proved conclusively that mosquitoes did spread yellow fever (and the comprehension questions were along the lines of, "Was it ethical for him to test on humans, even when they volunteered?").

The VA doesn't break up the numbers for the American Revolution, but the Revolution also had a major disease: smallpox. At one point, George Washington was concerned that smallpox would be a greater threat "than... the Sword of the Enemy".

The concern that diseases are deadlier than enemy fire doesn't just extend to our low-casualty-by-combat wars, either. In the Civil War, the Union (according to the VA) lost 140,414 soldiers in war and 224,097 soldiers to non-battle causes (the Confederates did have more combat fatalities than non-combat fatalities). I'm not sure how many of those non-combat deaths are related to the treatment of combat-sustained wounds (Civil War doctors were notorious for treating wounds by amputation), but the National Library of Medicine says that roughly 2/3 of the deaths in the Civil War, presumably on both sides, were caused by infectious diseases. That means only 1/3 was caused by deaths in combat. (The VA numbers don't support that as a possibility, but I suspect the two different sources are differing over whether someone died after battle, but as a result of a wound sustained in battle, counts as a combat death or not. It is also possible that some soldiers had both battle wounds and diseases, and the dispute arises over whether these deaths are due to the battle wound or to their disease.)

This is all to say that if USA Today's point was that diseases are more deadly than combat, they aren't necessarily wrong. Diseases are often one of the deadliest killers in war (or they used to be--much of what we know about public sanitation and clean food comes from the lessons learned from those wars, which leads me to suspect that the non-combat deaths in WWII had more to do with Japanese POW camps than diseases). But why not just say that? Why not just say, "We should be careful about the Coronavirus because new diseases have historically been deadlier than war"?

To paraphrase one of my friends, "Why would you compare deaths from a disease to deaths from war except by disease?"

One possibility is that the writer of the USA Today piece didn't know about these diseases. However, I don't think that's the case. The article openly said, "The data does not include other deaths related to the wars" (second screenshot). He deliberately left out data to make his headline work. He openly said so. Why? Perhaps because six wars sounds scarier than four wars.

To be fair to USA Today, they did update their headline to be accurate (but still pointless):

But another one of their headlines (different article, different writer) did not get the same update:

That one's actually worse than the original headline.

Then--as if that's not enough--this headline has been spreading!

The Collins dictionary defines scaremongering as "deliberately spreading worrying stories to try and frighten people". This headline surely seems to fit that definition, presumably to get more clicks (hence my screenshots and not links). If nothing else, it's certainly ridiculous sensationalism. And it is spreading.

No, the Coronavirus has not been deadlier than six wars. It has been deadlier than four wars, and those four wars are unusually low-death wars. A typical war is still deadlier than this Coronavirus, by far.

Do not panic.

And whenever you read headlines like this, be skeptical until you know where the numbers come from.

The Spring of 2020

You would think that with all this lockdown happening, I would have extra time to blog and write, yes? No. Online school work takes a lot more prep time than in-person prep time. I've been online schooling since February, and while I do enjoy it somewhat (especially the part where I get to "teach" in my springbok jersey and my author's sweatshirt), it was a serious adjustment.

Oh well!

I have been writing as much as I can. Book 4 is well underway, although, to be honest, I'm not particularly happy with it. I think it's going to go through some major revisions this summer and fall.

Oh, and what about that series I was planning last spring? The one with the most views on my entire blog? The #WhatMakesaGoodStory series?

Okay, there is a story there.

The first one I decided to try to tackle is, "What makes a good 'strong, independent female character?'"

Yeah. I should've started smaller. I spent like six weeks researching that one, and came up with so much that it ended up being nothing at all.

Then I tried for, "What makes a good 'sympathetic villain?'" Same problem.

I don't know. I need to think about it a bit more.

Anyway, to wrap up, here are some pictures from basically January-last week. I'll try to remember what day they were on.

I wore this on the last day of work before Chinese New Year break. 

The next pictures were all taken during the Chinese New Year holidays. These holidays are basically the Chinese version of Christmas; they get two weeks off and everybody goes home to see family--or, if your family is in a city like Shenyang, get your family together and go somewhere warm. The rest of the pictures are all in date order, oldest to most recent.

I absolutely loved looking at the windows of all the apartments during Chinese New Year.

This actually wasn't pollution, for once. 

The snow's all gone!

And the snow's back!

This was taken February 29. As you can see, the businesses are reopening.

This is late at night, and I took this picture on the first day I noticed that we were allowed to dine-in at restaurants again!

Sitting in my favorite restaurant!

I spied this guy building a nest. :) 

Anyway--stay safe, everyone. Be careful around the people who are especially vulnerable. Also be careful around the "journalists" who prey on your concerns.