MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In science fiction and fantasy literature, fictional laws regularly follow the Kantian ideal of categorical imperatives: simple, direct commandments without exception. Examples include the prohibition against the three unforgivable curses in Harry Potter; the convention against atomics in Dune; the Prime Directive in Star Trek; and the requirement that all robots be three laws compliant in I, Robot. Despite the absolute nature of these laws they are broken by the stories’ protagonists. Harry Potter casts a torture curse in Order of the Phoenix; Paul Atreides uses nuclear weapons in an attack on Arrakeen in Dune; the first law of robotics is reworded in Little Lost Robot; Captain Picard violates the Prime Directive nine times in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Despite these violations, the protagonists in these stories suffer little or no repercussions. Both the audience and the characters’ worlds recognize the necessity of an exception.

This paper investigates the paradox these stories present. We regularly denounce legalese and loopholes and see them as a source of injustice, harming the masses while allowing the rich and well-connected to profit. Our fantasy literature presents us with what we believe is an idyllic legal form, something simple, in plain language, and free of exceptions and loopholes. Yet stories with such rules put their protagonists in situations where we realize that exceptions need to be made to avoid an injustice. The result is the creation of legal systems which are both idealized and initially unjust.