I saw Appaloosa recently. Two adventurers wander into town and get hired to defeat the bad guys. They are grim, confident, more-than-men, and yet vulnerable. That's modern fantasy.
I liked that film. The book was better. Just finished
Resolution, and now I'm on
Brimstone. I'm not sure they're fantasy, but they sure are about the best Westerns I've read in a long, long time.
Pay more attention to the humanities.
I was employing verbal irony.
The problem isn't with having definitions or boundaries. Its with mistaking debates over the exact location of those boundaries with debates over the quality of material on either side.
The usual "boundary policing that totally misses the point" argument in the realm of speculative fiction is when someone tries to precisely define science fiction, defines it as inherently involving social criticism and analysis in an imaginary environment, and tries to claim that a significant portion of what we call science fiction really is really fantasy, and a significant portion of what we call fantasy really is science fiction, all the while insinuating that science fiction is somehow better.
On either side of what? I said bad fantasy was science fiction? Alright, I'm gonna re-read what I wrote and take all those parts out.
Has it occurred to you that this tactic might be viewed as dishonest and manipulative? Or to put it another way, had I responded using the same tactic, perhaps by broadsiding you with a tirade about how fantasy is really the voyage into new realms of the imaginary, and someone like yourself simply isn't psychologically prepared or capable of understanding newer fantasy because your voyage has long since sailed? You might find that offensive. And if I defended it by saying that I didn't really mean it, I was just throwing it out there to start a discussion, do you think that would satisfy you or just sound like a smarmy attempt at justifying blatant instigation?
Reckon it could be. If my intent had been to say, "there, I got you, you lose." But I ain't said that cause that's not my game. I keep saying this, and it seems kinda self-evident to me, but the game is for people to say what they think is fantasy. Like PP did. I'm not sure I agree, though Paw does have a point in a way. I just wish PP had elaborated on it a bit. Gave reasons. I guess the vulnerable line might have made it seem more or less self-explanatory. But I'd like to hear it fleshed out. Maybe even hear if PP, or others, think modern fantasy is different in some significant way than older fantasy.
Anyways you keep approaching this as if it is a game of I win/you lose.
I like experimenting around with the way people (including me) think and process information. And I like to develop and create new forms of analyzing information. It's one of my professions.
I also like trying to sidestep standard analytical methods by experimenting with the way information, data, intelligence (Intel), ideas, and opinions are expressed and handled.
I've been experimenting in that way for awhile now regarding subject matter not discussed here (more objective usually, like cell analysis), and subject matter like myth, gaming, communications, etc. (that are highly subjective and that I discuss here) but til Umbran mentioned it I hadn't really crystallized the parameters of the method I was using into any kind of technique, though I assume I was doing that unconsciously anyway.
Anyways I also not sure a technique is what I, and others, will find most useful, as opposed to a method when talking about subjective issues. That is I don't intend to calcify this down to a technique if the technique interferes with the intention of the exercise. So I may just leave it open as a sort of informal method. Like a koan. A koan is a technique, but you don't want it to be so rigid that the emphasis turns to the koan itself instead of what it is meant to point to. But in any case you can't always know what you're inventing til you make a prototype and even then you've got a lot of work til it's done. That's the way inventing and experimentation happen. If it didn't you wouldn't need to experiment and you wouldn't ever need but your first effort to produce a working and workable product.
It was though a definite tactic, I'll give ya that.
Then again most things are when people communicate.
If you really analyze what anyone says then most folks have a tactic when they say something. They just either don't usually think about it, or won't admit it, as if thoughts and opinions arise from Polyhymnia and not by personal effort.
What I think some don't like about it, what I did, and I suspect this is probably most
Geeks in the audience (see the link before you assume I'm insulting somebody), is it doesn't have a definite "I win" point. Where somebody can go, "see there, I won." And it's hard to formulate into standard assumptions about, "well, he's writing an essay. That's not the way you write an essay." And yeah, I didn't exactly explain what I was writing. Then again til Umbran said what he did, I didn't really know either. I knew what I wanted to do, but not exactly how to define it.
Now I sorta do.
Then again I could have used the tactic of saying, "I'd like you folks to say 'What do you think Modern Fantasy is?'"
To which I suspect, if prior observation is any indication, I would have received either a list of 1. Modern Fantasy is this, and 2. It is this. Without any explanation or discussion of why 1 and 2 are true, or not true. Or I would have likely received an argument about when does modern start (which ain't a bad discussion in and of itself) and then the fantasy part would have been left completely or mostly out of the equation. Because you'd have had about a thousand side comments about when, what, who, and how do you mean by modern?
Which I guess that's inevitable to some degree. But neither one of those was what I was shooting at either.
Anyways it seems to me that there ought to be a way to sidestep things like that and get people to answer the question not be arguing the details of the semantics and instead to go after the meat of the matter by examining why they think this, or that, is fantasy.
By the way I'm not saying that I don't believe the points I made in the first post. I do. I'm not saying I didn't really mean it. I did. I'm just not putting them all there out as necessarily the absolute boundary point, or psychological frontier of fantasy. I've got to draw a line somewhere or no line means no figure. And then a triangle is the same as a square. And I'm also not really interested in the genre of fantasy, though it's fine by me for people to talk about that. Genre is also part of the background. I did it hyperbolically, aside from the experimentation, because this isn't working covalence equations, it's subjective subject matter. People don't usually come to truth (if truth is the right word, if it ain't, it'll serve) on subjective opinion-heavy matters by technical and cold analysis. They do it by emotion,
they do it by blood. They blurt out the truth, or at least interesting and considerable things, by taking stands on this or that. Saying to themselves, "how dare they say that, why doesn't he know I think..." People rarely reason themselves into an opinion about matters of the blood, the conceits of modern man and his "universal reason" notwithstanding.. (And that's what i mean about
Fantasy being blood, it ain't science, it's
Blood-Fiction.) But if you can convince me I'm wrong in the details of my original post then I'll be the first to listen. It's a working definition I've drawn up. May be too small for some, too large to others. But I'm open to examining if it seems true, or if it needs adjustment.
So, I'm talking more about the idea of What is Fantasy as a way of perceiving and interpreting the world? How does it work and why and what does that mean, and to do that you gotta have some idea of both what it is, and what it ain't. And to know what it is and what it ain't you gotta debate the merits of what is, and what ain't, necessarily true.
But most all of this between us so far is just methodology. Shop talk. If all we do is nibble at the margins about communicative and linguistic technique and excursive distractions, etc. I don't reckon we'll really get close to the actual enquiry. We'll just argue to try and say who is the better arguer.
If that's the case then you win.
It's just not important to me who has the sharper forensic scalpel.
But to return to the beginning, in the original post I said what I thought fantasy was, and why. It's Blood, cause blood is what makes men individual, and mortal. And I don't think fantasy is twinkle swords and potion pots, cause that's just form, not substance. Now tell me why I'm wrong in saying that, and tell me what you think fantasy is, and why.
Assuming that's the game you wanna play.
We have urban legends. Conspiracy theories. Fringe religions. Ghost stories. Telephone psychics and pyramid power. Pop psychology. Celebrity worship. Alien abduction.
All of those things are about people figuring out where they stand in the world and where they want to go. One of the points Sagan made in The Demon-Haunted World is how much of it maps directly to the old legends.
Folks like Jordan and Brooks and King are part of the entertainment industry, where "fantasy" is defined as that portion of speculative fiction dealing with magic and the supernatural. Much of it, like all entertainment, is a retelling of the same tales with a slightly different filter. Much of it, like all entertainment, is targeted at the lowest common denominator. For every Oscar-worthy film, there are fifty slasher flick, teen sex comedy, derivative rom-com, and milking-it sequel films, and books aren't much different.
I'm not sure I'm following you entirely. But I suspect you're making some interesting points. Though I think you talking about fright versus real danger.
Now let me ask you something.
How do you think this translates into modern fantasy? Because I think assumed fear (of some harm which won't really kill you but will maybe scare you) is a lesser impetus to literary creation than actually being in danger of death (which most people in, what shall I say, comfortable societies, are pleasantly shielded from for most of their lives)? But I'm not dismissing the similarities between changeling stories and let's say, alien abductions stories. I was reading a story today by Tieck about an Elven abduction which resulted in lost time, etc.
Somebody made a point some time back about aliens looking like Elves, or at least one version of Elves. Personally I thought that a pretty clever observation.
How do you see that making it into modern fantasy and does it convey the same sense of "mortal blood" as death, or risk of death that being all alone in the woods in an area where you could easily be killed by either wild animals or enemies?
And let me ask this question of everyone generally speaking.
Have you ever been in a situation, and I have, where you thought another man was gonna kill you? Or in any situation where you thought it highly probable you would be killed. Maybe by accident, but especially on purpose?
Have you likewise been in a situation, say at a really good horror movie, where you were good and sacred? (And I have.)
Which made the more lasting psychological impression on you and which carried more weighty force and impact?
From a lot of modern fantasy I read today I don't see a lot of authors who understand the difference between those two situations and I don't see a lot of them who can impress upon me they understand the difference in their writings.
Now that's perfectly understandable.
I'll bet few authors have much experience with real threat and death.
But that makes their writings much more anemic.
But now Tolkien for instance did. And you could tell it by reading him.
He understood mortal threat. And that is one reason, among many, I think that he made such an impression on so many people. And I consider mortal threat a fundamental aspect of the nature of good Fantasy.
By the way at the bookstore before my squadron meeting I saw that Tolkien's son has released Tolkien's translation of
Sigurd and Gundrun. I didn't know he had made his own translation, but I'm looking forwards to getting that book and reading it.
I've been working on my own translation of the Aeneid for awhile and always like to see how others approach translation. But also I just like the Lay of the Volsungs.
