The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

[Forikroder]

I greatly enjoy science fiction and fantasy stories that try to examine interactions with other sapient beings whose moral values are extremely different from our own (such as Speaker for the Dead). But these are very far from not having relevance for out own world - they teach us to move outside of our own perspectives and understand worldviews that are far different. That's an intellectually healthy thing for anyone to be able to do.

If a person does want "shallow escapism" with the heroes killing monsters that are straightforwardly monstrous, then there's a fairly easy solution - make the monsters tough but non-sapient. It's having sapient monsters that the heroes define as universally evil, and that the heroes thus kill thoughtlessly, that creates damaging parallels with real life, and damaging thought patterns.

i imagine your one of those people who try to use violent video games as the catch all blame of anything bad happening

the problem isnt having sapient monsters that get blanketted as evil the problem is when people fail to draw the line between real life and fiction

nothing that happens in fiction can be a reflection of real life, just because something can/does happen in fiction doesnt mean it can/does happen in real life, thats the whole point of fiction to see/do things that are impossible