Writing 202: Savior Stories
Greetings and surculation! Yes, we will be pruning here! And by pruning, I mean dealing with a generally bad trope that will most definitely have Lady Verbosa canceled, I will be taking cover behind this giant mountain, bye!
(Anne:) It is indeed my turn to get canceled, because Savior stories, and the Savior complex behind them, can be a touchy subject for some. For those of us who aren’t in a marginalized group (definitions to come), like me, we sometimes want to help those who are. But how best to help? A lot of ways that people point to as helping others actually don’t help at all! So many aid organizations help marginalized people, but not always in the way those people actually need help. A few organizations are notorious for this, actually. The marginalized people often aren’t even asked what they want! Aid organizations just come in with a predetermined, standardized set of aid they give everyone. And if I just offended anyone who works for or donates to an aid organization… Well, this is why I’m getting canceled this week!
Whether it’s our friends and family or a marginalized group, we all want to help–and aid organizations genuinely do help, don’t get me wrong!–but when we help, we often forget to ask the people we’re helping what they want. Similarly, the stories we tell about marginalized people also center the unoppressed people giving the aid even when they’re meant to “help.”
(Vivian: this is a recurring theme in a lot of actions taken all over the world and not just limited to things that might be considered negative. People use their own expectations of what they would want over looking into what the people themselves want). Right! So, well, let’s get started!
Disclaimer: This blog post discusses commonly used attributes to certain specific tropes and how they may relate to historically oppressed minorities. These continue to have effects into the present day. As someone who does not belong to one of these groups, neither Vivian nor I are speaking on behalf of these people but only from our own observations and understanding. Please correct any errors or add your own perspective in the comments below, and the blogpost will be updated accordingly as more research is done.
Terminology
(Vivian: We will be coining a few terms that we feel are adequate to address these kinds of subjects. They are by no means universal or accepted. If you find them problematic, feel free to comment below, and we will address it, but understand them in the spirit that they are meant, including the humorous narrative of the blogpost itself and being utilitarian.)
We define these terms as follows:
Oppressic: from the eyes of the oppressor
Victimic: an oppressic term for when something is told from the eyes of a marginalized group
Homic: from the point of view of a person, marginalized and more, as an individual person with their own story and culture. Based on Homo (Latin: Person/Human) combined with a classic -ic ending
Unoppressed: a state of being from a group possessing the majority of the power within the society
Marginalized: a state of being from a historically, currently, or soon-to-be oppressed group
Although other terminologies are often used, this blog is adopting different ones to remain as factual and neutral as we can while acknowledging the social issues involved. The choice of wording is not a reflection on my or Vivian’s political position or meant to imply that we consider things equal from “all sides,” but, as we consider all people equal and deserving of rights and choices, we wish to retain a certain atmosphere on the blog.
What is a Savior Story?
Vivian and I brainstormed about a good definition for this, and together, we agreed that it can be defined as follows (but feel free to disagree in the comments):
A story generally centered around a protagonist who comes from an unoppressed culture that holds a belief, nearly always discriminatory, about a culture that is likely historically, currently, or soon to be marginalized, where the protagonist comes to enlighten or save the “primitive” culture with little to no regard for that culture’s own cultural context because they, the protagonist’s own culture, are more technologically advanced or, due to historical and systemic inequality, have greater control of political power.
As you can see, this covers a wide variety of stories, and you can probably already think of some that fall under this definition. This is a common trope in all sorts of writing, and it’s important to be able to recognize it in order to either completely avoid it or else keep the essence and avoid the problematic areas of this trope.
Common Attributes of the Trope
Like all tropes, this one contains common elements that show up in almost every iteration, thus making it a recognizable trope. Tropes aren’t bad, per se. A lot of genres require certain tropes to be present! However, not all tropes are created equally, and some have a lot more potential for creativity than others. While Savior stories offer a lot of versatility, all possess the following plots, protagonists, and themes.
Plot
The plot of a Savior story usually follows the same basic structure: the protagonist becomes aware of an injustice, they learn about the people suffering from that injustice, they join with the marginalized people against their own people, and either the protagonist succeeds and the marginalized people are saved, or else all of them meet a dark fate. That’s the structure that defines the trope, but this can turn into a super specific cliche really quickly. Want those specifics? You might be in luck later on…
Protagonist
The protagonist of a Savior story almost by definition comes from an unoppressed group. This can be any group, depending on culture and their norms. Interestingly, the protagonist almost always has some element of their life where they face discrimination, which often allows them to empathize with the marginalized group.
Theme
Common themes include learning to stand up for others, fighting for the underdog, and coming to understand oneself through understanding others. While stories will almost certainly include others on top of these three, these stand at the core of Savior stories.
Dangers of the Trope
This doesn’t seem too bad so far, right? Nothing out of the ordinary for a trope, at least. Well, think back to the aid organizations and how even well-intentioned help doesn’t always address the needs of the people they’re helping. For example, a lot of aid organizations like to build wells because a lot of places struggle to get clean water. That’s good, right? Well, maybe that particular village actually needs a chicken coop more. (Vivian: Give them a KFC, two chickens with one stone!) The people in that village know their needs and priorities, whether a chicken coop or a full-blown KFC, whereas aid organizations have a one-size-fits-all approach. And if an organization whose sole purpose is helping others can miss the mark, well, so can stories about helping others.
Problems with the lens
Savior stories are always told from an oppressic viewpoint, prioritizing the perspectives of one group oppressing another, which perpetuates the insinuated belief that the unoppressed group or culture is somehow “better” than the other, because those are the stories that are told. I’m sure everyone has heard that “history is written by the winners,” and that’s exactly what’s going on here. (Vivian: Side note, this saying is not entirely correct and is being drastically changed as time marches on, and even in history, it is not true. It is however sufficiently true to be valid for the point that Anne makes–you know what, read more about it here.) Vivian’s point here is absolutely true: we’ve got the saying, but I as an American am very aware of how wrong it can be, given how the South successfully changed the narrative of the US Civil War and managed to erase slavery as the cause. Usually, though, it’s the winners. But I mean, shouldn’t the winners get their voices heard? They won, after all. Doesn’t that prove their superiority? But does military superiority translate to superior humans (or aliens)? In terms of humanity, we’re all equal regardless of technological or social superiority.
Although Savior stories are sympathetic to the marginalized groups, just like aid organizations, they still center themselves. While an oppressic view of a peaceful village where people live in harmony with nature might be that they’re primitive and uneducated, a victimic view would show them to be just as complex and human as the oppressors, though perhaps with different values. Looking through an oppressic lens, it might seem reasonable for a technologically superior group to want to “enlighten” the other group, leading to marginalization and oppression. After all, doesn’t everyone want to be “civilized”?
Some people claim that Savior books actually do have a victimic lens, pointing to how the story includes those of marginalized groups. Often, we learn in great detail about one or more marginalized characters: their lives, their hardships, their joys. We come to know them as people. But the way that we come to know them is through the dominant, unoppressed protagonist. The marginalized people are voiceless until the kindly protagonist takes an interest in them. A truly victimic story would center the marginalized people without the filter of an unoppressed protagonist, thus removing that protagonist’s conscious and unconscious biases and prejudices and sharing their culture freely and in the correct cultural context.
Problems with historical influences
Savior stories have a long history and stretch back further than I can cover in a blogpost. Throughout history, societies have developed unequally. Groups that gained significant technological advantage usually conquered other groups in order to procure the native’s resources that they themselves may not have possessed or to increase their own stockpiles. We’ve seen it time and time again, across time and across the world. It’s humanity’s pattern, so to speak. Societies advance and feel that they have the right or duty to take over the “savages” who lack their technology, and many justify it by claiming that they’re “enlightening” (Vivian: where have I heard this before?) the other people. As societies progressed, religion often came to be a large part of the “enlightenment” process, as the unoppressed culture sought to bring the god(s) to the poor people desperately in need of salvation.
As more and more stories from the oppressic viewpoint are told, both Savior stories and others, that viewpoint becomes dominant in society or the world, and other voices go unheard. Historically, this erasure has impacted groups across the world and continues to be a major problem. The sympathy that Savior stories evoke doesn’t do anything to give a voice to marginalized people and actually increases their isolation and marginalization. Still, shouldn’t it be their responsibility to make their voices heard? Shouldn’t marginalized groups take charge instead of waiting for a chance to speak? Well, you can speak all you like, and many, many groups do, but if no one outside of your culture is willing to listen, it won’t go far.
Problems with cliches
Imagine this, and see how many well-known stories you can fit into this template by filling in the generalized bracketed information with specifics from books, movies, games, and more:
A young, conventionally attractive protagonist is tasked with [interacting with a marginalized group]. The story begins by showing people from that marginalized group acting in stereotypical ways, usually playing up the negative stereotypes. The protagonist begins [their task], and the marginalized people push back. Then, a breakthrough happens, and the protagonist [realizes their connection to the people]. However, the people don’t accept them until the protagonist [helps someone from a stereotypical problem/situation, passes a traditional/stereotypical test, or endures a traditional/stereotypical trauma]. Now that the people are open to the protagonist’s presence, the protagonist sees the injustices inflicted on the people. When [a specific injustice] is about to occur, the protagonist [uses/shares their insider knowledge of technology or their ability to leverage political or societal power against the interests of their own people to help the marginalized people]. In a happy story, the protagonist lives at peace with the marginalized people, all of them at least temporarily spared from [an injustice]. In a tragedy, the unoppressed people [destroy the marginalized people in some way, often taking their lives, something important to their culture, or just their hopes and dreams] and the protagonist [shares their fate, whatever it may be, or else is spared because of their connection to the unoppressed people].
How many stories could you fit? Almost every example I can think of fits within this structure with a little wiggle room. We know this story. It’s gone from a trope to a cliche, and stories that follow this pattern can get incredibly predictable and dull. The characters, the plot, the various arcs, the themes, even a lot of the specifics.
Problems with agency
As you can see in the above plot structure, the marginalized people are helpless to protect themselves, and only the protagonist, with their knowledge of the “superior” culture, is able to help them. This mirrors the oppressic lens that says that the marginalized people are “less than” and “primitive” in some way, and therefore unable to speak for themselves or protect themselves. They have no agency whatsoever and are helpless without a guiding hand from a sympathetic, unoppressed protagonist. Without that protagonist’s knowledge and ability to access the “superior” culture, the marginalized group would fail.
Storytelling itself is often specifically used in Savior stories, with the marginalized people sharing their stories for the first time thanks to the unoppressed protagonist. They have no voice without this protagonist, and I hope you can see how that’s problematic. Even as the Savior story purports to be celebrating marginalized voices because it includes them, it does so in a way that diminishes the marginalized people’s agency and abilities.
Problems with stereotypes
Another problem involves the frequent stereotypes seen in Savior stories. As an American, I’m most familiar with the stereotypes and cliches associated with Western culture and, specifically, American culture. I’ll walk through a single example that crops up all the time in science fiction and fantasy Savior stories, but I’m sure you can think of other stereotypes that you’ve seen.
A common stereotype throughout Western literature and now used in science fiction and fantasy is that of the Noble Savage, a recurring stereotype for hundreds of years that adapts well to speculative fiction. Historically, people native to the lands that Europeans were conquering were considered primitive, but pure in a way that Europeans were not. They lived simple, noble lives where they were one with nature. As technology advanced and industrialization took root in the West, people viewed these Noble Savages as almost like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: innocent and pure, perfectly communing with nature. They harkened back to the way Europeans used to be, and there was some reminiscing at that. But there was that savagery to think of, the lack of education or religion, and the violent tendencies. It was a shame that those natives were so savage, because they really had a nobility to them! Or so the thinking went. Despite this false idealization (verging on fetisthization) of natives being more in tune with nature and purer in some ways, Europeans did their best to either indoctrinate them into Western culture or kill them, bringing Christianity and superior firepower as a way to break into other continents. In North America, of course, they also brought smallpox, which made the task of clearing the land for “civilization” to take root considerably easier.
The Noble Savage stereotype is seen in quite a few Savior stories, as the protagonist encounters people who are in tune with nature in a way that technologically superior people are not. In fact, anytime you have a science fiction or fantasy story involving a technologically advanced society engaged in colonization of some sort, you’re almost guaranteed to see this. Avatar is a perfect example of the Noble Savage stereotype at work in a science fiction Savior story. The Na’vi are a native people closely linked to the planet and to all life, and they’re idealized and shown as near-perfect in some respects. The fact that they don’t have technology is actually a good thing, because look at how destructive technology is! Being in tune with nature is far better, and once the protagonist learns to embrace this way of life and believe in it, he turns against his own people to prevent technology from destroying the Na’vi’s peaceful, harmonious way of life (see above plot cliche because Avatar fits perfectly). While there’s nothing innately wrong with showing a conflict between technology and nature, using Savior story framing and setting it up as an oppressor trying to take over land from natives draws heavily on stereotypes that have been used to marginalize, oppress, and often kill real people in the real world. You don’t want to do it lightly.
Problems with motivation
One final problem has to do with the reason that people write these stories to begin with. To some extent, Savior stories are a way that an unoppressed people can come to terms with their oppression. They can point to the story and say that because that protagonist stood up for the rights of the marginalized group, there are/were good people doing so, thus lessening the responsibility of each individual to stand up for those rights themselves. When reading or watching older stories from a time when marginalized groups were highly discriminated against, modern descendents of the oppressors can feel better about themselves because look! Plenty of people helped! And surely the modern unopposed person would have been on the right side of history. The problem? These stories are fiction, and glorify the often very rare cases of a person standing up for marginalized people. And as for whether you would be on the right side of history, well, everyone thinks they would. And if everyone was on the right side of history back when atrocities were happening, those atrocities never would have happened.
Because these stories can be used to avoid blame or guilt and make people feel like there are plenty of good people in the world (and so they themselves don’t need to do anything), Savior stories sometimes absolve the audience of blame without actually helping. Historically, these stories have salved the consciousnesses of peoples from around the world, and often writers will take up Savior stories in an attempt to heal themselves or promote change in those around them. Unfortunately, writing a story to make yourself feel better about a problem in the world and choosing to center yourself and your own experiences over the voices and experiences of the people you’re trying to help is counterproductive and sometimes actively harmful.
Why Do People Use This Trope?
As a teaching tool
Some writers are fully aware of the dangers and problematic aspects of the framing but think:
the only way to teach my unoppressed peers that these marginalized people are as human as we are is to show an unoppressed protagonist coming to that realization themselves, because my unoppressed peers won’t listen to a story written by someone from a marginalized group.
Sadly, this is true to some extent. Readers relate to characters that are like them, and the more unoppressed your group is, the less likely they are to relate to different characters. (Vivian: I find this kind of pathetic in my opinion. That people focus so much on external similarities rather than the internal similarity of being fellow feeling thinking people. But bah, humans!) Humans do have that weakness! There’s even a well-documented phenomenon called the Other-Race Effect (ORE) that shows that people are more likely to recognize and relate to characters who look like them. This doesn’t only apply to visual mediums, but also to writing. However, while marginalized people read stories about unoppressed characters all the time and learn to relate to them, unoppressed people rarely have their norms challenged and can push back hard.
Giving unoppressed readers an oppressic lens allows them to keep their familiar perspective and use it to learn about other people. They’re not being challenged to have a victimic lens, which might cause guilt or trigger prejudice. Instead, they’re being slowly fed a story of marginalized people through the same lens in which they view all of their reality. Like it or not, some people can only learn this way. Seeing the world through unfamiliar eyes is too much for some people, and they reject it at first sight. Or on first read. As I said, this is a well-known phenomenon in people around the world.
Basically, a Savior story, if done well, can reach readers who might otherwise ignore a marginalized group. It can reduce prejudice, increase tolerance, and create empathy. Even with those definite bonuses, it’s vital to remember that Savior stories aren't telling the story of who those marginalized people are. They’re telling the story of an unoppressed person becoming a better person by learning that other people are just as human as them. And keep in mind that while using a victimic lens is better than an oppressive lens, what we actually want to be doing is telling homic stories that give people their full humanity with the lens of oppression fully removed.
(Vivian: Challenge to the reader: do the story but have it start oppressic and halfway through, through natural means, turn homic and focus on shifts from the unoppressed person to a marginalized one.) I’ll second that challenge, especially since it’s most tempting to shift from oppressic, centering the unoppressed person, to victimic, centering the victim of the oppression. A truly homic story tells the story of people where oppression is part of it, yes, but their own culture and life is more important, and they can’t be flattened to their relationship with oppression. I’ll get into this more at the end!
As a plot device
The plot of most Savior stories follows the cliched pattern outlined above. Just fill in the brackets with your own unique ideas, and you’ve got a story! Easy as pie! It’s a great story structure because it follows traditional dramatic structures with a beginning, middle, and end: a call to action, rising tension, a climax, and resolution. You can even adapt it to a Hero’s Journey structure! By the way, go to my post on dramatic structure for what these are and how to use them.
In addition to a great structure, the plot is quite interesting and offers a lot of room for exploration. You can make it apply to almost any conflict between two forces or groups, one of which is “superior” in some way that gives it an advantage. You have the option of preferencing one group over the other, and you can also do a lot with other struggles, such as the conflict between technology and nature (though watch out for the Noble Savage stereotype!). With such a broad range of conflicts available, it’s easy to see why people adopt this structure.
Because of its ease of use and wide applications, often anyone talking about groups with a power imbalance uses a Savior story type. It’s just so ready-made for the topic. Now, there are good elements that can be taken from this, which you’ll find out about when I talk about how to take advantage of the good and reduce the bad! But in general, just be aware that using this structure comes at a sometimes high cost, and even if you’re showing that the marginalized people are “good” or “right” in some way, this isn’t a way to get their voices heard.
As character development
We all want our characters to grow and change over the course of a story. Well, except Vivian, who likes to insist that characters can stay the same. I agree for some character and story types, but that’s a discussion for another time! If you want your character to change, and if you want them to be sympathetic, it’s always good to show them improving in terms of their acceptance of other people. Many readers today think that empathizing with other people is important, so a protagonist that shares that understanding will help them connect to the story.
One interesting thing that I mentioned before is that almost all protagonists have some trait that makes them different in some way, and they face discrimination as a result. It could be something physical, as with Avatar, or it could be something psychological, or it could relate to cultural values, such as being a woman or being young. There’s usually something there, and it opens the protagonist up to the experience of being marginalized because they can relate to their own life. An important area of growth, then, is learning to accept that marginalized trait, because as they fight for the marginalized people, they come to understand and accept themselves.
A key thing to pay attention to in these stories is that in a Savior trope, the plight of the marginalized group is used to develop the character of the unoppressed character. Their situation is only relevant because it allows the unoppressed character to mature and, usually, grow from someone who didn’t fully understand the situation into someone who empathizes with these people deeply and is willing to stand up to others from the unoppressed group on their behalf. That element of self-realization and self-acceptance is key, and comes directly from interactions with the marginalized group. Without them, the character wouldn’t grow. Keep in mind, the marginalized group serves no other purpose. They’re only there to assist the unoppressed protagonist.
This character arc of maturation, empathy, and self-acceptance is attractive because it shows real, deep-rooted change for what most people consider to be the better. It also allows the reader to follow a similar arc. Because most readers of books by an unoppressed author will also be in the unoppressed group, they may have no experience of the marginalized group. If this group is alien or another non-human creature, they definitely don’t! So by putting the reader in the shoes of someone who views another group as less than human, then allowing them to learn about that group’s common humanity, you help the reader understand them better as well. If this is a book about real people, it might be the author’s attempt to help other people relate to them. If it’s about fictional people, it gives the reader insight into what the world thinks of these people, and how they’re more than what they first appear.
But Anne, isn’t this good? Helping the reader understand people different from them? Teaching people about our common humanity?
Well, yes, and that’s why a well-done Savior story can work! I’ll talk below about how to use the strengths without falling prey to some of the cliches and problematic elements. The main problem, though, again, is that the marginalized people ONLY exist to serve the unoppressed character’s development. The character may learn empathy, but the story itself doesn’t show any. It’s entirely oppressic.
The Trope In Action
There are quite a few Savior types, and this trope exists in every type of media across the world and in pretty much every culture. I’ll talk about a few, but there’s no way to cover them all in a single post, so I’ll just point out the big ones.
Most Common Example: the White Savior Trope
I’m pretty sure this specific subsection was named by an American because of the emphasis on skin color, but it’s widely used all over. Vivian has informed me that the obsession with skin color is unique to America and other countries don’t value it as much, instead basing their discrimination on other factors such as nationality. So “White” in this case doesn’t necessarily mean the skin color. It refers to people of, generally, European descent, historically those that came to colonize what became known as “the New World,” but more recently colonizers in terms of culture, religion, or some sort of political or social power. In America it does literally refer to the skin color though. And in America, white Americans did and continue to do the old tradition from their ancient forefathers of colonization, sometimes even literally in terms of taking land from marginalized groups (see the history of why highways just happen to go through predominantly minority neighborhoods). Anyway, as I’m American, when I refer to white, just assume I’m talking about skin color but know it can be more. (Vivian: for American readers, in Europe, this distinction is generally considered rather foreign unless you are familiar with the USA narrative and history. People generally do not consider things in terms of white or other skin colors, other than the worst kinds of people, and you know who they are, but the former colonizing powers do recognise themselves as colonizers, with the possible exception of the French 😉 Europe is more focused on ethnicity, and we keep beating each other over the head with that… so not better… but different.)
Historical White Savior stories
One of the problems with historical White Savior stories (and those you might include in your speculative fiction!) is that they portray the marginalized people as innocent victims for the most part. This can veer into the Noble Savage trope but even when it doesn’t, the marginalized people are portrayed as helpless and without agency, and not really to blame for what happens. History tells far more complex tales. As Vivian would say, everyone is an asshole in history. Take African colonization. White people came in and took slaves, right? Purely evil. Now, many people are aware that there were some Black people who sold others into slavery as well, but they were evil outliers, right? Well, as I said, history is way more complicated. It’s not like white people just took slaves. They traded them for guns (and other things). And Africans weren’t just sitting around in Africa waiting for Europeans to arrive. They had their own history and wars and conflicts and vendettas, and if their people could gain a powerful weapon to use against their enemies, why not trade? And if your enemy now has guns, you’d better get on board fast! Now, I’m not saying that everyone was dealing in slavery, and I’m certainly not saying that Africans had any idea what kind of slavery people were being sold into. Read Vivian’s blog post on slavery to see all of the other kinds beside chattel slavery, and you’ll see that a wide variety existed. This does not absolve them of their own errors, but it does humanize them in their errors and horrors just like everyone.
Now, I want to be clear: just because everyone is terrible doesn’t give one group the right to take advantage of the situation and assert superior force to subjugate another group. The fact that many Africans participated in the slave trade doesn’t justify European colonization in any way, shape, or form, and doesn’t signify any approval of the slave trade on the part of Africans. But it’s false to say that natives are entirely victims, and the narrative reduces them to helpless beings unable to defend themselves. People had and have agency and the right to make terrible decisions, and that needs to be respected. When New World colonies of Europe and later America gained independence, they became great benefactors of these terrible horrors of human immediate selfishness, but make no mistake that in the grand scheme of everything, every party was a contributor to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. No one is absolved of their historical part in how it turned out, and no party should be treated as entirely innocent even if they in the end turned out to be the bigger loser. They sought the short term gain that was obvious, but the long term cost was not visible to them. And now, here today, the bill is due. In the modern Western world, it is of course the morally right thing to do to help with the bill as much as possible. For those of us in the unoppressed group, the right thing to do is to understand and help the people who have been marginalized for so long. Which brings us to modern White Savior stories!
Modern White Savior stories
The White Savior trope in modern times is closely linked to racism in the United States, or at least that’s my main exposure to it. Historically, as I said above, it applies to colonization, so you’ll get stories of the white man (because it’s always men, obviously 😉) learning the ways of the natives, wherever those natives are, and helping them even if it means turning against their own people. So historically there’s huge variety, but I’m going to narrow down to my experience with it, which is, as I said, American racism. (Vivian: Fun historical fact from 🇸🇪 Sweden, we were so terrible at the colonization game that we begged people to buy the rare few colonies we had–I think four at max?–to be bought up by anyone else.)
American media is rife with White Savior stories. When I wrote the cliche story structure above, there was one in particular that I had in mind: Freedom Writers. Freedom Writers is a 2007 film about a white woman teaching Black students writing and helping them find their voices. It is highly cliched, and every single shot in it enforces some of the worst aspects of the White Savior trope. If you liked the movie, that’s totally fine. It’s not a bad movie. It just plays into cliches, and doesn’t do a good job avoiding the pitfalls. Take just the opening: the film alternates between a young white woman getting ready for her first day of teaching by following middle-upper class beauty standards and white cultural norms, and Black teenagers with ankle monitors, doing sketchy things not quite in view, and otherwise portraying every negative stereotype you might have about Black Americans. This opening is, frankly, racist. While the story goes on to give an explanation of all of these actions that shows that the teens are actually good people in unfortunate circumstances, it starts hard with an oppressic perspective. The movie eventually continues as the teacher–whose gender, age, and inexperience create discrimination in the unoppressed world–learns to understand the teens, and even gives them the ability to write about their experiences. And of course this changes everyone’s lives and the white woman is transformed, and ideally the white audience has also moved from their stereotypes into a new understanding of a marginalized group.
If you can already see problems with that… yeah. Another problematic White Savior story is the book (also movie) The Help, which many white people seem to genuinely think helps them understand racism, and it very much doesn’t. In The Help, another inexperienced young white woman befriends some Black servants and then writes their stories. Notice the trend? Obviously Black people would never think to write their own stories unless a white woman told them they had a voice! Or we could get into less problematic stories like Hidden Figures, ostensibly about the Black women behind the space program, but largely about the white man who made sure they were included. Why, he even tore down a “Colored Ladies Only” sign above the bathroom! Character growth!
Other Examples
There are of course many other examples of Savior stories. One example that often gets brought up as a subversion of the White Savior trope is Black Panther, but it’s actually doing something quite different. First of all, I love the movie, and Vivian is not a fan (Vivian: I am okay with it, but the worldbuilding pisses me off by how much it violates basic civilization stuff!). See? Pure hatred! 😜 But who cares what zhi thinks! People will point this out as a subversion because it, well, subverts the trope! Instead of white people having advanced technology, Black people do! But unlike the white people who quickly set out to dominate and colonize the world, Wakanda remained isolated. Does this make them better? Maybe, maybe not. That’s actually sort of the crux of the film: should Wakanda share its technology with the world? (Vivian: The big issue here is that it ignores the whole thing of “people being assholes through time.” Yes, there have been various levels of enlightenment in civilizations through time, but no matter what, a certain degree of assholeness has been prevalent no matter how nice a culture has tried to be. And now, Wakanda is the epitome of morals and never once, despite their technological advancement, went out conquering? Pull the other one! It again robs native cultures of their own history which was not good. A cultural history of being bad is just as important as one of being good.)
As Vivian points out, that “good” history becomes a problem. Now, this is also addressed in the film, as T’challa challenges his father as to why they didn’t help people, and specifically why they left his nephew alone in the United States rather than reveal their technology and bring him home. But the problem is that this is only an issue for T’Challa and Wakanda now, in the present, and hasn’t been an issue at any other point in their history. It seems like they, as a people, just passively existed until the story takes place, which, as I explained above in White Savior stories, robs people of their agency.
So is this actually a subversion? Well, it does reverse the roles in some ways, but it’s more accurate to call it a different application of the Savior trope than an actual subversion. It’s important to remember that not everything is about white people being dominant, and just because a story shows other people with superior technology doesn’t automatically mean it’s a subversion.
When thinking about other Savior stories, please look beyond race. Or at the very least beyond black and white. There are so many of these, and especially if you’re writing science fiction or fantasy and making up peoples and relationships between them, you want to watch out for the Savior trope.
Avoiding Cliche and Positive Usage
Okay, so you’re probably terrified of Savior stories, aren’t you? I’ve shown you a bunch of ways that they can be highly problematic and sometimes actively harmful. What you can see from all of my examples is that even when, for example, they do a really good job telling the stories of Black Americans like Hidden Figures did, there’s still the veneer of the White Savior whose white perspective dominates the piece, giving everything an oppressic lens that reinforces racial lines even as it claims to remove them. And stories like Avatar are about saving the Na’vi and their planet and way of life, but it’s entirely through the main character’s unoppressed perspective that creates the stereotype of the Noble Savage. In all Savior stories, the marginalized groups are robbed of identity and agency. They need the powerful unoppressed (wo)man to rescue them and give them a voice! Highly problematic.
But you can actually incorporate elements of this trope successfully! The key, as it is with many tropes, is to just take parts of it, not the whole thing. If you try to do a wholesale Savior story, you’ll end up looking like the cliche plot at the beginning. So really figure out what it is that you want and why.
Moving past the trope
When you want to take certain elements from this, it helps to know what kind of story you’re telling and what the dramatic question is. What themes do you have? What are you really trying to do with this story? I mentioned before that you might be using this as a teaching tool, or you might just be trying to tell a fun story. In either of those cases, you can use more elements. I would look at the cliche plot structure above and make sure your story adds variety and can’t be simplified like that, but you can otherwise take a lot. For character development, you can keep the arc, but really look at other ways to create it.
Now, can you have two opposing societies, one that’s more technologically advanced than the other and trying to take them over? Of course! That’s fine to take from this. But you want to avoid the oppressic lens in your story. Why not have characters from both sides? Or tell it from the other side? Can you show how both sides have good elements and bad elements instead of painting one as entirely evil and one as entirely good/helpless? How can you give every culture and character agency to make their own decisions?
Embracing the Homic view
This is where I’d like to discuss a homic view of people. Savior stories have a strong oppressic lens, but a lot of writers, when trying to counter that, go to the opposite extreme and write victimic stories showing the evils of the colonizers and how innocent and peaceful the marginalized people are. All of this puts the marginalized people in a close relationship with oppression. They’re victims no matter what, not people with their own stories and histories and sometimes bad choices. A homic story would be about the people themselves. Yes, the marginalization would be mentioned, but it wouldn’t be the focus.
At this point, I expect some pushback from people who would argue that for some marginalized groups, oppression colors every aspect of their lives, and it’s impossible to tell their story without telling the story of oppression. After all, how would I, a straight-passing white woman who presents as upper-middle class, understand what oppression is? And to that I would say, absolutely fair. Obviously as a woman I do face oppression, but it’s nothing like what other people face. You might also say that this post is my Savior story, since I’m centering myself. Again, that might be fair. But to say that a person is reduced to only their oppression isn’t a good way to look at people. It completely flattens them.
I know that my understanding of the world is radically different from others because I’m from an unoppressed group, but that doesn’t mean that other people stop being human just because they aren’t. So in your writing, try to figure out who your characters are in all of their dimensions. And if oppression really does shape everything, then find a way to create a culture within the oppression that isn’t dictated by the oppressors! Don’t let the oppressors win! Give your characters and societies life, whether you’re talking about real people, historical events, or a distant galaxy and an alien species. People always fight to be themselves and you don’t want to perpetuate the Savior myth that marginalized people are victims of oppression and nothing else.
(Vivian: As an alien Limax that doesn't understand your fixations and such I would say, write the story if you can! But be respectful and take history, culture, the present, and more into account. People are people, and hate is still a thing for you humans–do not facilitate hatred. The moment you lose focus on the person and their culture and care, you are going down a dangerous path.)
Summa Summarum
Overall, the trope has a lot of issues, but it’s up to you as the author to determine if and how you use it based on your motivation and story needs. It certainly isn’t always bad, but there are things to keep in mind anytime you use it. It’s easy to fall prey to certain problematic elements that silence marginalized voices and have at times caused actual harm and reinforced discrimination. It can be used for the opposite, but watch out for negative stereotypes, removing agency from marginalized groups, and flattening characters until they only exist in relation to their oppression. If you’re an unoppressed person, it’s sometimes hard to step outside your own experiences, but really try! And always, pay attention to your desired audience and what will appeal to them most. Have fun with your writing, and I challenge you to incorporate a homic lens into your stories!
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