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.SMJB wrote: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?
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.
Crazedwraith wrote: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.
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.Formless wrote: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.
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.
*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...