Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Fiction
source: http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=53400
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- booksellergirl
- added this
"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back. There are some things that time can not mend. Some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold.”
– The Lord of the Rings, the movie
PTSD is a very serious condition. One that America will be dealing with, if not already, in great numbers. Our soldiers will be coming back from war, hopefully soon. And when they do come home they will need our support and understanding, and some may even need treatment.
SF&F sometimes has strange lessons to teach. Let us learn this one well. No war is completely won. There are always scars left behind. And some of them just don't heal.
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- groups:
- Movies, SF&F and Comics
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- tags:
- War, Science Fiction, Fantasy, PTSD
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scifiwritir
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A lot of fiction has it. For instance, Hamlet was suffering with PTSD. We keep hearing...he wasn't the way he was before. I know my Satha in Wind Follower and her entire family were all undergoing PTSD. In my novel, Wind Follower, Satha couldn't even sleep. That's the beginning of the book. I think the reason it's hard to do PTSD in a story is because the plot machine pushes relentlessly forward. It's hard to depict pain when pain slows everything to a halt. I remember looking at Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow and thinking, "Dang that little boy recovered quickly from his parents being killed." Then I realized well he had to. The plot needed him. The only time we see the emotional effects of trauma in fiction is when revenge or madness is necessary.
- 3 years ago
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scifiwritir
