There is a concept in imaginative fiction that has been intriguing me ever since I learned of its existence: pariah elite.
I found the definition in the classic Encyclopedia of Fantasy by Clute & Grant:

A group which, though despised and rejected by society, remembers and preserves the secret knowledge necessary to keep the world from ultimate Thinning. In other words, members of PEs are despised and rejected precisely for that which they retain: their knowledge of the Secret History of the World, their Talents, their memory of the Elder Gods, their familiarity with the old True Names and the real Map of the territory (which allows them to escape the minions of the false king), their direct descent from the Elder Races, their memory of the way through the Labyrinth, their access through Portals to the Golden Age … But they sometimes do more than retain the past; it is always possible that the PE may be the Secret Masters of the world.

A lot of stories I enjoyed as a young man discovering fantasy and science-fiction hinged on the idea of a pariah elite: the Morgaine Books by C.J. Cherryh and the Birthgrave books by Tanith Lee, the old Foundation books by Ike Asimov, the Uplift books by David Brin in which the whole of humanity is sort of a pariah elite.

I sometimes toy with the idea of writing something based on this idea. Continue reading →