What makes fantasy generic

[Simon_Jester]

As for generic fantasy: quick, what do you think of when I tell you to picture "a fantasy setting"? Feudal lords employing wizards (for some reason, the people who can bend reality itself to their will haven't assumed power centuries ago) but mainly relying on unmagical knights?

I once saw an interesting take on that. We're used to the idea that 'oriental'-themed warrior-monks can use their devotions to give themselves supernatural powers: that focus and dedication to a personal code of living can make them resistant to magic, by sharpening the will.

What if western chivalrous orders could do the same thing? Allow them to deflect or resist magic by trained willpower, even if they lack any casting ability themselves, and suddenly it starts making more sense why you keep knights around. They're an equalizer, and without them you do get immediate magocratic tyranny.

As to Hp, I'm not sure how that even counts as generic. 'Popular fic, i like to think I'm cool for not liking' maybe but not generic.

Could be a generational thing, in that it got ripped off a lot and its hard not to see it in other works. By the same token, Tolkien isn't "generic" either, really. But you can still use it as an example.

Yeah. Tolkien wasn't the first author to have that problem of being ripped off so much his plots, scenery, characters, and so on start looking generic. It's not just novels either; early D&D editions were more or less explicitly designed for people who "want to play Legolas" as an elf, "want to play Frodo" as a halfling, or "want to play Aragorn" as the entire ranger class. Which is part of why they contain an illogical grab bag of class features and so on.

I think Formless is right to use Tolkien as an example; it's worth pointing out on the prototype what features of the prototype keep getting reproduced in inferior copies.

For thoroughness's sake, one would want to do the same with Howard's Conan and Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories, which take a very different approach toward heroics, magic, and so on. Roguish mercenaries, thieves' guilds, decadent palaces, sinister wizards, and valiant barbarians owe very little to Tolkien, but are still common trappings of the generic fantasy story.


Then when you look at modern fantasy, more and more the stories are being written in the "real world" or one more recognizably like it. There's some interesting speculation to be had about why,* but there it is. We would do well to look for the prototypes of this- and Harry Potter is definitely one of them. Especially since it's the series that made it obvious there was a huge adolescent market for fantasy which could be reached by all the subsequent avalanche of vampire novels. Most of those are aimed at Harry Potter readers who've now gone through puberty.

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*Perhaps in mid-century people were trying to escape from the world itself, from the world wars and the atom bomb, so they fantasize of entirely different imaginary worlds- worlds that an ICBM couldn't reach.

Today they're trying to escape from the trappings of modern culture, from the all-intrusive public spotlight, the constant flood of information and corporate/government control of all the levers of power. So they fantasize about magicians and monsters coexisting with our world and SOMEHOW managing to keep their presence a secret, something that isn't just casually bought and sold the way all other forms of talent and human ability are. The ability to keep a secret in 21st century America is one of the greatest markers of real power, after all, so it's a natural fit for an American reader who dreams of being left alone...

[someone_else]

HP was set in our own times just because that way teens could hope that they would receive the letter and escape their dumb boring life. If was set in a different time, this would not have worked as well as it did.

Vampire novels tend to follow the Twilight's trail, and have more traction on females. Which is basically just a twist on generic cheap romance stories about impossible loves and bs like that. The supernatural elements are only to spice up century-old crap.

Perhaps in mid-century people were trying to escape from the world itself, from the world wars and the atom bomb, so they fantasize of entirely different imaginary worlds- worlds that an ICBM couldn't reach.

It's more part of the human nature. Stories had always been used to escape in a world where all you needed was a Pure Heart (TM) to beat Teh Evulz (TM) in a Difficult but Ultimately Victorious Struggle (TM).

[SMJB]

To be fair, if you want to have magic in "our world" rather than something like Soulless' magical British Empire or Anita Blake's magical America, you do have to somehow explain the fact that wizard duels never make the news.

Easy. Man reveals psychic his powers to his girlfriend = not newsworthy. Elf lady moves into Las Angelis suburb = not newsworthy. Crazy man murders seven in school massacre with a lightning materia = the 11:00 news won't shut the fuck up about it. Man invents an elixer of cancer smiting = the nobel prize ceremony is the most watched in twenty years. First dwarf president elected to office in America = media field day.

Point is, magic in its own right is only newsworthy if everyday people have no experience with it. Once that hurdle has been jumped, with the exception of innovations its what people are doing with it that is important. Ever heard of the pen and paper RPG called Shadowrun? It works something like that.

Which leads to the aforementioned worlds of Anita Blake and Soulless, which are a lot like our world, but not. If you want a fantasy story in the "real world", you have to somehow handwave the fact that everyday people aren't familiar with the magic going on all around them.

[SMJB]

As for generic fantasy: quick, what do you think of when I tell you to picture "a fantasy setting"? Feudal lords employing wizards (for some reason, the people who can bend reality itself to their will haven't assumed power centuries ago) but mainly relying on unmagical knights?

I once saw an interesting take on that. We're used to the idea that 'oriental'-themed warrior-monks can use their devotions to give themselves supernatural powers: that focus and dedication to a personal code of living can make them resistant to magic, by sharpening the will.

What if western chivalrous orders could do the same thing? Allow them to deflect or resist magic by trained willpower, even if they lack any casting ability themselves, and suddenly it starts making more sense why you keep knights around. They're an equalizer, and without them you do get immediate magocratic tyranny.

That reminds me of another universe I'm kicking around--based largely on feudal Europe, but the magic system is based on the Maori concept of mana.

I have another universe in which Navajo mythical monsters are in Europe during the Black Death.

And a culture based (primarily) on China right before Qin the Conqueror united it but with a location more akin to north Africa during a Wet Sahara epoch, the people of which have a great deal of racial diversity.

And another universe in which magic is manipulation of entropy and follows gypsy rules while the setting itself is basically Barsoom ruled by a spacefaring steampunk Victorian empire where orcs are an oppressed minority.

And another where bronze-age barbarians hop around the galaxy at FTL speeds with magic without even thinking twice about it, which is so dark that the Altatharans--who are based on one part Rome, one part Imperial Japan, and one part Nazi Germany--are the good guys.

And an old West-style world where necromancers are the good guys. Which was originally going to be in the far future of the aforementioned China-world, but has grown divergent.

And two separate universes of magocracies (not counting the mana example above--in that world, you get magic because you're a ruler, not vice versa).

There's also a couple of superhero universes, in one of which we follow a hero named Mercy and learn why you should be very, very afraid of D&D-style healers.

Basically, I've got a lot of ideas.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Hey! I'm not dead!

Anyway...

I don't really have a problem, per se, with "generic" anything--I have a problem with bad writing, but the thing is people conflate the two when they're not really the same thing, in fact they're quite different. Funny Games, for example, is not "generic" but it's a horrible shit hill of a movie filled with so many plot holes, logical leaps and pretenteous lectures it may as well be South Park.

Conversely, yeah, HP is "generic" as hell but it's FAR FAR better writen. Granted, I could beat my dick against a keyboard for an hour and write a scrip that looks like The Illiad compared to Funny Games but the fact remains HP is better writen. At the vey least I found it less easy to literally point out SIX different logical chasims in a single scene, the way I was able to with Funny Games.

Now, Funny Games isn't fantasy (magical remote controls notwithstanding) but my point is using the word "generic" as a cuss word is illogical. Just because something is like everything else is not a problem--if it tries to do what everyone else is doing but does it POORLY or worse tries to do something new and does it incompetently, then we have a problem.

I guess I would say I hate inconsistancy more than sameness. I'm willing to put aside illusions of "novelty" if the product is functional. But then again, in general I believe that form follows function...way, way behind function. If a story WORKS from a narrative standpoint and doesn't bore me to tears with the pacing, I honestly could care less and have no interest in counting cliches.

Now, with all that being said, I can totally understand how people find "generic" fantasy boring--but if a story works from a character and narrative perspective, I would think that novelty is less important. Well writen stories, in my opinion, matter more than novelty for novelty's sake, for some that opinion sounds stupid or stagnant and I get it but, I dunno, I guess I just don't care if the writing is good.

IF THE WRITING IS GOOD! I want to emphasize that in case someone tries to say I meant that "genetic" fantasy is in and of itself a good thing.

And on the gripping hand I would advise keeping in mind that "generic" is an extremely board term (hence why, like "art", I put it in quotes) and I defy you to find a majority of people who agree what it even means. You won't by the way, because like "art", "generic" is also a term people like to use to mean I Personally Do Not Like This Trope or Prerequisite of the Genre.

[18-Till-I-Die]

An aside:

Back in the old days when I used to play RPGs with my friends, our stories completely derailed from Dragonlance so far we basically house-ruled our way to a completely new setting we created as we went along. I wrote some short stories set in the "world of Nightsun" and I find they're still filled with stuff I loved back then and now, and I can only describe it unironically (hate that word) as a combination of EVA, Youngblood, Deathstalker and Steamboy. And SMBJ is sharing so why not?

I remember describing Nightsun as a "distant, brutal, wartorn alien world" and it really is. It's not a general fantasy world, knights in armor and magic notwithstanding. It comporates things like magical WMDs, and steam-based technology and cybernetics, and somewhat widespread use of gunpowder (not as effective as it is here, due to magic being omnipresent--so warriors have regenerating shields and steam powered armor, like some kind of steampunk Halo). And because I was fifteen when I wrote it, it also has giant mechs and aliens and titles like "The Land of Doom" and "The Last Executioner" and "The Doomsday Warriors".

What--I would hope--differentiates it from traditional fantasy is I went all in when contemplating how things like guns, steampunk technology and very high magic would effect a world only slightly different than Europe around the Viking era. As I did so I realized it was less "fantasy" and more science-fiction set in on a planet where dragons, dwarfs, elves and nominally fantasy-like elements existed.

One aspect that MASSIVELY disconnects from normal fantasy is the widepsread use, among soldiers and mercenaries, of "steamborg" tech. So people have cybernetic parts powered by magic and steam-tech, including weapnized limbs (mostly this was an excuse to have a character who is literally Cable-Gandolf, with the mechalical arm and laser eye and such) and this means that basically only a few people are strong enough to be warriors without steamborg parts. The use of giant War Golems means that you get this situation where wizards are fighting steampunk cyborgs with swords and muskets in the shadow of GaoGaiGar's steam-powered cousins who are slugging it out with magical WMDs and crude Ancient China-style rockets.

Another big difference is gunpowder. It's a new technology, and the omnipresence of magic, power armor and "wards" (regenerating shields) means it's never going to be the be-all-end-all weapon it is on Earth. But when used with alchemic gunpowder and bullets it can basically do incredible things. One character--a Straw Golem, basically a living scarecrow, who is a sniper--uses a combination of "sophisticated" rifled guns and magical bullets and gunpowder to basically turn a musket into the raingun from Eraser...because I was fifteen and I thought Eraser was cool. Still do.

Magic is also based almost exclusively on alchemy and enchantment, so while individual magicians, as they're called, are not powerful they can create rings and amulets and doodads which basically turn you into the dude from Akira. You put on this magic ring and now you can crush a building with your mind, it turns you into an Alpha Plus psyker in an instant...but they have limited numbers of uses, so after five or six times being activated they wear out and break apart. Similarly alchemic potions give you magical tribal tattoos basically ("gridmarks") filled with magical energy and so you take one sip and you turn into fucking Goku: firing energy blasts and flying and teleporting and such. But, again, it wears off after being actively used for several minutes.

"Wizards" are different from magicians, using "real" magic based on their pantheon of gods, but it's very ritualistic and more akin to WMDs or a tomahawk missile strike than like a magic missile--still, if you know the right spell (they call it "speaking the Words", note the capitalization) then you can level a mountain, reshape the landscape or wipe out a small army of dudes in a second. Of course the number of wizards on planet Nightsun would fit in a single house so they're basically coveted like nuclear weapons.

Now take into acount that, other than the technological changes and the relatively high level of magic, it can fit the mold of something like Tolkein (elves are beautiful and dying, Dwarfs live in caves and crave gold, Orks are...the Orks from WHH40K, dragons are dragons from Dungeons and Dragons etc) but I would also say it fits more in the realm of science fiction than pure sword and sorcery-style fantasy.