Is it still possible to write interesting high fantasy?

Tachyon

i know what i've read is a small sliver of the genre and hardly going to be representative, therefore

but sometimes, reading posts on the internet, i get the impression that all SF and fantasy is (regarded as) inherently garbage of varying degrees of bad, and that high fantasy in particular is associated with reactionaries and pretention

Tre

Admittedly I'm not the type that is traditionally engaged by HF as a genre, but I think practically any genre can be good/interesting as long as there are individual works within it that qualify as such, and that is absolutely the case with HF and sci-fi (case in point: I watched the film adaptations of the LOTR trilogy not expecting to like them but ended up being pleasantly surprised).

As for the Internet opinions on the matter, fuck 'em. The irony is real.

Tachyon

"internet opinions" in this context is really just opinions, not meant to imply the commenters are stupid people or anything like that

i dunno, increasingly i worry that the kinds of fantasy-kitchen-sink fictional worlds i like actually result in bland stories, and that the level of escapism inherent in the genre means it can't be actually *good*, at best it might be the kind of thing people say is fun but not worth taking seriously?

Tachyon

one thing that concerns me is that high fantasy worldbuilding can result in stories where the tone and themes of the story sit rather awkwardly with the fictional universe in which it takes place

this is probably forgivable when said universe is basically real life but with ghosts or wizards or whatever, but if it's entirely fictional i think there's an expectation that it ought to be built to suit the story

whereas what i want is a large, colourful setting that i can set stories in

Bee

I mean, I guess the relative cliche-ness of the genre is likely to result in a disproportionate number of bland stories, but the same could be said of sci-fi, mystery, or just about anything else that's been riddled with cliches over the years.

Good stories come from characters and interactions.  That can happen in any genre.

Tachyon

that does make a lot of sense

i've argued in the past that good stories don't *have* to be primarily character-driven, but i dunno

i guess i always find myself torn between admiration for really innovative literature, and enjoyment of genre stuff, and i don't want to settle for "genre stuff is fine but it will never be the best" which feels condescending as heck

Bee

They don't necessarily have to be character-driven, but cognitively speaking it's incredibly difficult to be invested in a story when you can't relate to anyone in it.  Like, it's one of those basic human needs.

Plus, the kinds of concepts that can make such a story work aren't mutually exclusive to having driving characters and there's not really any advantage to omitting them.

Tachyon

Bee said:

They don't necessarily have to be character-driven, but cognitively speaking it's incredibly difficult to be invested in a story when you can't relate to anyone in it.  Like, it's one of those basic human needs.

i do understand that

there was a short story that made a big impression on me as a kid, Flying Dutchman by Ward Moore, which had no characters whatsoever; it is possible

Bee

Okay, I'll accept Flying Dutchman as an exception, given the setting.  Honestly though I can't see it working as any more than a short story.

"shit's fucked and nobody's here"

"shit's still fucked and nobody's here"

"400 pages of lonely shit being fucked"

Tachyon

i guess i'd also say that it's entirely possible to care about something for aesthetic or thematic qualities, but that doesn't imply the absence of characters

probably you're entirely right and i am just a habitual nitpicker

Bee

I'll also add that Flying Dutchman worked precisely because it played off of the absence of characters to make a point about real people.  So even then it still relates back to you on a human level - just in a rather unorthodox way.

Tachyon

That's true.  Probably the whole idea is you began reading it with the expectation characters would appear shortly, but nobody came.

Tachyon

Also one thing that appeals to me about fantasy is the possibility of characters whose experiences and attitudes are entirely alien to all possible readers, and whether such characters can prove to be nevertheless sympathetic (in the hands of a skilled writer, i see no reason why not)

LOAD Cherry

It's kind of impossible to write a character that is totally alien from anyone's experience, because you're trying to write about experiences and view points that you don't understand. And even if you do come up with something, it's either not alien because you figured it out, which means it likely built off some level experience you had, or it's not alien but merely foreign to your frame of reference, so it might be new to your demographic, but cliched to another.

In the end, any character's experience can be boiled down to some combination of ethos, logos, or pathos, and any setting's appeal can be boiled down to one of those or pure aesthetics.

Tachyon

i *strongly* dislike absolute pronouncements about how fiction has to be, tbh

that's like my biggest pet peeve and probably my number one cause of thread-derailing arguments i'm in

though i would generally prefer the *author* to understand the character, yes, and the character to become less alien as the reader gradually grows to understand them

possibly "entirely alien to all possible readers" was too strong a statement

LOAD Cherry

Honestly I don't know why I stick my heads into things like this.

I never have anything new to say, so what's the point.

Tachyon

?

i'm sorry, i didn't mean any offence

you didn't need to strike that out, it wasn't a bad post

LOAD Cherry

I mostly made myself sad.

I have a poor tendency to get upset when I irritate people. Especially when I go giving them lectures nobody asked for.

Tachyon

well now i feel like sort of a dick

the part about ethos, logos and pathos, in particular, was an interesting theoretical assertion, and one that could stand some elaboration

but i didn't have anything intelligent to add to that, so i just went with my usual rant about absolute statements concerning fiction because it's a pet peeve of mine

even though i started this thread to specifically ask about an absolute statement concerning fiction, and an entirely less interesting one

Tachyon

but i mean it doesn't sound like you never have anything new to say, that post has some theoretical/analytical statements that certainly wouldn't occur to everyone

LOAD Cherry

I mean, don't? It is 100% me who made myself upset. I can be childish that way.

As for why I think that ethos, logos and pathos are the only ways people resonate with characters, it's just kind of how human minds work. We appreciate things because they evoke emotion, provoke thought, or affirm or challenge our ideals. The specific ways come down to how the individual character philosophy is constructed, and the experiences of the reader.

Gojira/Godzilla is a big awesome monster that blows stuff up to Americans (Pathos), but in the original film, he was a condemnation of nuclear warfare and a warning against rampant modernization at the expense of the world's health. (Ethos)

Different audiences pick up on different aspects of characters, and while it is possible to say, create a philosophy that is grounded in the most bizarre logic possible, which a character holds to steadfastly, if the audience finds the philosophy compelling, it is because it engaged them on some personal level involving one of the three modes of persuasion.

LOAD Cherry

It's like the Star Trek: TNG episode "Darmok," if you haven't seen it, watch it. It's about a first contact scenario that depends entirely upon the cross-cultural resonance of stories.

Tachyon

Thanks for elaborating.  That view is based on Aristotle, i guess?  Who i really should know more about.

While i will confess that claims like that are *exactly* the kinds of claim i like to see challenged by a writer - i like to think of fiction as being a space of unlimited possibility - i really didn't mean anything quite so radical as a character who can't evoke any emotion, provoke any thought or be related to the reader's ideals in any way.  i'm not sure i'd even consider an entity who was capable of none of those things to be a proper character.

i know roughly what happens in "Darmok", but i haven't seen it.  i guess that would be more the kind of thing i had in mind when i said "entirely alien to all possible readers, but becomes sympathetic", though.  Not that there's nothing about them that's comprehensible, but that their perspective and behaviour is so *weird* to just about everyone that understanding them is a gradual process.

Tachyon

contrast e.g. Kyubey, whose true motivations are perfectly comprehensible but so devoid of human feeling that the character is outright repulsive, or Lovecraft's creations, which certainly provoke emotions but whose own perspectives are entirely outside human comprehension, and deliberately so

LOAD Cherry

Right, now we're on the same page

Yarrun XIX

http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/on-thud-and-blunder/

https://curiosityquills.com/limyaael/

Recommended reading

One-Winged Eagle

There are not only loads of really good high fantasy novels that we haven't read or even heard about, there are also loads of really good high fantasy novels yet to be written. Like I'm sure there's a high fantasy novel about brahmans and kshatriya, or one about teachers, and I've definitely heard about one that's about mosaics.

It's just that the ones that we hear about are the ones that already have large followings, or were written to accommodate an existing following.

Also, to me, "high fantasy" is usually synonymous with "European fantasy," and that's probably part of the problem. Like, lots of people (*cough* GoofyGoober *cough* Sadpuppies) like to claim that diversity overtakes good stories, but with stuff like this, diversity in viewpoint, culture, and world makes good stories.

LOAD Cherry

The fact that MTG actually gives a flying fuck about diversity and has been since the 90s is part of what makes the setting so appealing to me.

Tachyon

i'd personally be kinda wary of borrowing too heavily from non-European mythology, as a European

i dunno, maybe it's fine if you do your research and get it right

but yes, it is European-influenced settings that are overplayed, and usually what people are referring to when the genre is accused of being cliched

LOAD Cherry

Sorry to be brining up MTG again, but in recent years, when it came to non-European cultures (and some European ones), they've put a lot of work into researching the source material, and I haven't seen many objections at all.

In fact, the major flaw with Kamigawa (a block based on the Shinto religion and feudal Japan) was that it was so well researched that it focused on the most obscure parts of the culture

Yarrun XIX

There are many, many problems with Kamigawa, but focusing on cultural minutinae isn't one that i really think of.

LOAD Cherry

Well, that is the reason that the world from a flavor perspective rated poorly in their consumer studies.

It's not the biggest issue, but it's a present one in the story.

Yarrun XIX

Fair. Never was that interested in the actual plot. 

Funny thing is, it's still one of my favorite blocks, even though its legendaries are virtually unplayable half the time in EDH

Sredni Vashtar

Strictly speaking, high fantasy is simply fantasy which exists in another world (as opposed to one resembling this one) with a deep historical/mythological background and almost always involves magic. China Miéville is technically a high fantasist, as are C.S. Lewis, Clark Ashton Smith, Ellen Kushner, George R.R. Martin, Michael Swanwick, and any number of other very different authors. Hell, Terry Pratchett is a great example in himself.

The problem is not the genre, but the baggage it tends to come with and the unimaginative approaches to its traditions we see all too often.

Yarrun XIX

Basically

The two links I posted earlier are just 'okay, here are some tropes that are so dead horse that the skeleton's eroding; try to do something different'

LOAD Cherry

For most people, high fantasy involves elves and wizards.

As you say, fiction is a world of unlimited possibility, the fact that high fantasy tends to fall into Tolkienian molds is its only true weakness. If you want to get technical, Avatar the Last Airbender is a high fantasy. In fact, it has many of the plot elements endemic to such tales.

The last member of a lost race, an empire that seeks to conquer the world, and the heroes from humble beginnings that rise to face them and succeed in saving the world from their enemies' ambitions.

Sredni Vashtar

Precisely! It's a really broad template. I mean, there are what I would call subspecies: The sword-and-sorcery yarn, the dying earth story, the epic of moral struggle, and so forth. But the bigger blanket concept encompasses a lot of fantasy fiction.

It is also maybe worth considering that clichés get that way as much because of how they are used as how much.

One-Winged Eagle

To me, I like to narrow high fantasy a lot more. "High fantasy" exists in another world, has a deep and long background, involves magic, and is about a conflict that shakes that world. That's what makes it "high" to me, genre determined by viewpoint. If you follow the heroes as they try to stop the end of the world, that's high fantasy, but if you follow the common people who have to survive, that's low fantasy.

As such, Narnia is more of a fairy-tale, and Pratchett is more of a satirist. 

Sredni Vashtar

Well, that's the variety most of us seem to be talking about as too often relying on those dubious tropes and devices. But that also includes Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fullmetal Alchemist, as well as Tolkien and Martin and any number of others.

By the same token, Dunsany's The Gods of Pegana is a keystone of the genre-concept, and it's pretty far from that setup in many, many ways.

Klinotaxis

pegana is high fantasy? I mean, it's kind of a theogony. Sure, the simarallion is too, but lotr is like, there is a plot. like is pegana more like just the setting for what could be high fantasy stories. loop zoop.

One-Winged Eagle

Pegana is a Mythopoeia, and so is the Silmarilion, as well as William Blake's work.

Mythopoeia is distinguished from high fantasy in that the point of Mythopoeia is to make myths. Whereas high fantasy is genre fiction, with a beginning, middle, and end, expressed through the medium of novels.

But that's just me.

Sredni Vashtar

It has the scope and the setting; it just lacks the typical plot archetecture.

Sredni Vashtar

MachSpeed said:

Pegana is a Mythopoeia, and so is the Silmarilion, as well as William Blake's work.

Mythopoeia is distinguished from high fantasy in that the point of Mythopoeia is to make myths. Whereas high fantasy is genre fiction, with a beginning, middle, and end, expressed through the medium of novels.

But that's just me.

I think the two are far from exclusive. Mythopoeia is a key element of this school of fantasy, and the myths of such worlds are as much a part of the story as the characters living out these very epic stories.

I will, however, agree that day-to-day life in an otherworld setting is a different genre from high fantasy in itself, but I feel like the basic qualifiers of high fantasy do encompass such stories as those of Narnia and Discworld (depending on the book) because these tales have much broader implications and a certain mythic resonance.

One-Winged Eagle

It's also got to do with tone and writing style. Like, when you pick up Pegana, it reads like a book you might find in a library, poems and snippets about the Devas or something. Whereas if you pick up Way of Kings, it reads like a novel, with certain narrative rhythms of conventions.

A novel can contain mythopoeic elements in its background and foreground, but Mythopoeia also exists to me as a separate genre.

Klinotaxis

same

Salix Babylonika

To me it seems like anything that does not fit the negative stereotypes of high fantasy as a genre immediately has the rug yanked out from under it and is declared to not actually be high fantasy. Like I would consider Dark Souls and Adventure Time to be high fantasy, most people wouldn't.

Also the term "low fantasy" rankles my ankles.

What does that mean? That the setting is slightly dirty?

One-Winged Eagle

I take it pretty literally.

High fantasy has towers and palaces and mountains. You might get a bird's eye view of the whole conflict as it happens. Low fantasy has towns and villages, and you just stick to the one viewpoint.

Tachyon

"Low fantasy" seems to have several definitions depending on who you ask.

Technically i guess Adventure Time is postapocalyptic, but that feels pedantic when the setting is a lot closer to high fantasy than to other postapocalyptic settings

Tachyon

Yarrun, that's a lot of recommended reading material and i didn't get time to read all of it yet!  Thank you.

Salix Babylonika

Tachyon said:

"Low fantasy" seems to have several definitions depending on who you ask.

Technically i guess Adventure Time is postapocalyptic, but that feels pedantic when the setting is a lot closer to high fantasy than to other postapocalyptic settings

Some of AT's episodes are very post-apoc (most notably The Farmworld and the flashback episodes with Marceline and Simon) but the vast majority of it I'd argue is high fantasy with some sci-fi mixed in.

Tachyon

yeah, that's accurate