“Fantastic universes allow a political education and to think about life in society”, explains Anne Besson

Ten years ago, millions of people landed on the imaginary continent of Westeros. Studied, cited or parodied around the world, the HBO seriesGame Of Thrones would become the most significant cultural phenomenon of the decade. Saturday evening, OCS, French broadcaster of the cult saga, thus devotes
a special evening titled GOT: Series of the Decade to analyze its success and its tremendous impact on our very real world. Starting with the political world. References to Tyrion the strategist or Daenerys the avenger have become very frequent to analyze political news, the famous “game of thrones” dear to Cersei …

But Game Of Thrones is not an isolated phenomenon nor the only work of fiction to have an influence on our lives. Demonstrators who take up the rallying sign of the rebels of Hunger Games or The Handmaid’s Tales, policies that cite Harry potter, police officers who believe themselves to be clever by parodying Star wars… References to fantastic worlds have become commonplace.

Anne Besson, professor of literature
at the University of Artois and author of The Powers of Enchantment – Political Uses of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Vendémiaire editions), enlightens us on the impact of imaginary works in our public lives.

Ten years ago, the general public discovered Game Of Thrones. Today everyone knows Daenerys and Jon Snow. Is it the symbol of a consecration for fantasy?

Science fiction, fantasy, imaginary literatures… All these niche cultures or marginal subcultures associated with very specific populations have widened and democratized. There is a broadening of the public of these cultures in number and mix. From the margin, they went to the center. The proofs of this are popular and commercial successes but also the valuation of geek culture by politicians. Macron’s team boasts of being a fan of Star wars. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, puts
Chewbacca socks. Pablo Iglesias, Spanish political leader, wrote
a book on Game Of Thrones and wore
a Daenerys t-shirt, a character who represented a social future according to him – we can’t blame him for being wrong… We are in a context where our cultural tastes define our social identities, it is a lot around that that we interact. This shared imagination has a force of cohesion. One cannot imagine a politician who does not know Harry Potter…

Can we imagine a future President of the French Republic who declares himself Hufflepuff?

I think the world, at least the general public, is not ready for Hufflepuff… But if a 2022 presidential candidate is interviewed on Twitch and a big influencer asks him where his house is Harry Potter, he will have to know how to answer.

Policies use Game Of Thrones or Star wars for their communication but we also see references to Hunger Games or The Handmaid’s Tales in demonstrations … Is the fantastic subversive?

The sign of Katniss, the three fingers raised, is the symbol of the danger of the revolt of a people against a tyranny, and of the endangering of oneself. When the demonstrators in Hong-Kong or Thailand make use of it, they call for recognition of their struggle by the rest of the world. There is a political use of the symbol.

Likewise, use the costume of the maids of The Handmaid’s Tales allows everyone to resume the role of slaves who free themselves. This costume allows
to feminist demonstrators to fade away as individuals and to be more than they would be without. With a uniform, one is both less and more than oneself, this is the very definition of the individual in an activist context: I form a common body, I erase myself and at the same time I am more than me, I embodies a struggle that is beyond me.

This definition is also somewhat reminiscent of that of fandom. Fans of Game Of Thrones imagined alternative endings, those of Harry potter turn away from JK Rowling’s stances… Does the creative engagement of fans and communities in rewriting or commenting on these works have a political role in your opinion?

The term “engagement” is very polysemous in this context. We do not necessarily perceive the committed dimension, that is to say in touch with the issues of reality, fantastic works. However, these fictions allow a political education which is not necessarily ensured elsewhere. Matrixor Game Of Thrones make it possible to think about society and common life.

In these fantastic universes, we often see children saving the world, or at least being invested with an exceptional destiny. What impact does this have on the generations of young readers?

We are indeed witnessing a empowerment adolescent audiences to whom these works are dedicated and who often feature heroines of their age. There is a business reason for this, to facilitate identification. But in these universes, we find the ambivalent status of today’s youth. We have young people who make their fortune on TikTok, who make technological discoveries… And at the same time, we see a profound impotence of young people to find future prospects.

Dystopian works like Hunger Games stage a youth rebellion against the fathers and mothers who have failed and are responsible for the bankruptcy of the world. Young people take it upon themselves to fix the world.

Hunger Games or Game Of Thrones are also very harsh fictions, which describe violent and disenchanted universes. How, then, can we see in it a source of hope?

The fictions of the imagination allow us to come out on top of what is presented to us as the field of the possible and the probable: tyranny, climatic catastrophes… It has been said a lot that the invasion of the White Walkers in Game Of Thrones was a metaphor for the ongoing ecological disaster. However, the work allows us to project ourselves into the post-disaster period. Fantastic fiction represents disaster in order to overcome resignation, the idea that there will be no later. This makes it possible to overcome the astonishment which is that of collapsology for example.

Major fantastic works are often long sagas. How to explain this?

It is the length that allows, and even obliges, the complexity. Star wars poses the good-evil duality, the villains are very well identified, even if the films also tell how a real hero becomes a real antagonist. But in the extended universe – novels, animated series, comics… – a fascinating narrative richness and complexity emerges.

The fantastic series use this pattern. Almost automatically the first seasons pose rather schematic narrative elements. But for them to last and for there to be stories to tell, series must become more complex. Buffy is a perfect example of this. We start with a bluette for adolescents in the first season, and it ends in an apotheosis of psychological and symbolic complexity.

But fantasy and science fiction are still sometimes perceived as light works, of escape …

But it’s great to want to get away from it all! Tolkien, in his essayOf fairy tale, revalorizes the escape in time of war for example. He wonders why people say bad things about escape when you are a prisoner: the escapee is not a deserter. Escape from prison, get out of the executives, find alternatives, make utopian or idealistic proposals… We need all of this. These fictions are also successful because of the accumulation of political disillusionment, the breathlessness of reformist solutions in Western democracies.