I apologize for a long post talking to many different people. But I was grabbing posts in 10 minute chunks of time over the last 8 hours trying to catch up, while dealing with other things. I didn't really feel like making a separate post for each.
Ok,
@Chaosmancer, you're not even trying to argue in good faith now. If you honestly want to claim that LotR has 20 characters? Lessee, who did you leave out? Off the top of my head - Faramir, all the hobbits in Hobbiton like Ruby and the ones that steal Bilbo's home and the farmer with the mushrooms, The Nine Ringwraiths, Gollum, the big spider thingie whose name I forget, Galadriel. And I'm not even a big Tolkien fan.
These are named characters with histories and whatnot.
Note, LotR is ONE book, not three. It was never meant to be published as a trilogy. So, comparing it to three books is a bit unfair as well.
Like I said, this sort of discussion gets REALLY tedious when half the discussion refuses to get any sort of education in the issue but insists that his or her opinions must be taken as valid. If you want to refute the points being brought up, LEARN about the texts first.
It was never meant to be published as a trilogy... but it is always published as a trilogy. You buy it most often as a trilogy, even the movies were made as a trilogy. It is nearly a thousand pages long. The three books I compared it to are closer to 750.
And every character has a history, sure, but not every character is important. You say Nine Ring Wraiths, but to my knowledge only one of them gets named, and they all share the same backstory. You want to count all of the hobbits in the Shire, characters who barely get any screentime and can be completely cut without changing the story at all?
In fact, since it is "the farmer with the mushrooms" or "The hobbits stealing Bilbo's home (which happens in the Hobbit, not the Lord of the Rings)
Sure, maybe I missed a character or two, but that isn't the point. The point isn't that there are exactly X named characters in the single story that has been broken into a trilogy.
The Point is the number of characters in a story does not determine the genre. Genre is not defined that way. And I don't understand why you want to accuse me with not being familiar enough with the texts to know that it is 34 named characters instead of 20, when that is never the point of the discussion.
You are jumping from discussing an epic tale to an aetiological one? Why? But yes, the characters in The Illiad and The Odyssey are being measured against an external morality, with some failing and achieving those moral expectations. But there is also moral codes of honor in regards to combat. Or how one treats the dead.
Sure, but that is still the case in any story. Just because Conan doesn't get smited by the gods doesn't mean there isn't a morality at play.
Heck, most "strong savage man" stories are about how society is corrupted an immoral compared to the simpler and therefore more moral framework presented by the character who challenges society.
Most people not knowing is missing the point. JRRT has a vision regarding the divine right of kings and divine providence at work here. There are a lot of expectations on Aragorn placed there by both Elrond and Gandalf that he will ascend to become king of Gondor. And once we get to the Council of Elrond, we are constantly hearing Aragorn being referred to as Isildur's heir. From the moment that he learns of his identity, Boromir begins judging Aragorn as heir.
JRRT having a vision does not equate to anything as far as I can remember.
If my few decades old memory is right, Aragorn doesn't want to be king because he feels he isn't worthy of the title.
Aragorn has a vision of the divinity of kings and he knows that he doesn't match that image, so he doesn't take up the crown. This is his own morality. The world doesn't force it upon him, he comes to accept that he is the best man for the job (and it isn't like the mad and weak kings he finds in power are doing much better than he would anyways)
This is what I don't get about the argument. It isn't that Aragorn gets a divine light from Heaven telling him when he is worthy to be King. There is no object of destiny that he frees like Excalibur (in fact, he has no power or way to fix his sword, and doesn't get it back for a while if memory serves). The decision to become the King of Gondor is entirely Aragorn's.
This likely demonstrates that you either fail to understand the point that is being made or going out of your way to misconstrue it. The moral code that Conan adheres to is his own. The moral code that Elric adheres to is his own. These are not external moral codes of society (or religion), but, rather, internal ones. Furthermore, even if one were to say that his code is that of a Cimmerian, Conan is not a Cimmerian in Cimmeria, but a Cimmerian who is constantly traveling the world and applying his own moral ethic to it rather than conform to society's.
Which is what people do when they travel? Like, he doesn't conform to the morals of societies that are not his own, but he does conform to the morals he was given from his father right? That's what that whole thing in the trailer about the sword is right?
I don't get the argument here that his Moral Code as a Cimmerian doesn't count because he isn't in his home country. I don't suddenly lose my moral code I grew up with if I cross an international border, that isn't how things work.
I agree with Hussar that it's hard to imagine that you are arguing in good faith anymore. You do not seem interested in coming to any understanding, only to distort arguments people are making about genre. You are trying to disprove particular points of the argument about a genre, but doing so horribly while completely missing or ignoring - hard to say with you - the point people are making. In your latest bout of bad faith arguments, you are trying here to counter Hussar by simply counting characters. But the point Hussar making about LotR is that there is a difference in SCALE. It is not just a rote function regarding the number of characters but also their histories and how they fit into the setting. And often these characters bring with them their host of unnamed characters: Entbeard brings the ents; Theoden brings the Rohirrim; Aragorn has his Dunedain; Denethor II has Gondor; Faramir has his rangers; Imrahil has his swan knights and the men from western Gondor, etc. There is a tremendous amount of chronological/historical SCALE that contextualize the action of the characters.
I agree with scale
I disagree that character's are how you measure that scale. Jim Butcher wrote the Dresden Files to take place in Chicago, and he references Chicagoan history quite often. That is a scale too, it brings with it the entire weight of American history. But that doesn't count.
Every character in the setting tends to fit into it, every character tends to have a history hinted at or even mentioned,, especially if they are important. This is just a function of writing in a fantasy world.
"This story has a lot of important characters, and those characters have a backstory" does not feel like it is enough to earn the genre of Epic Fantasy. There is more to it than that. Or maybe there is a lot more Epic Fantasy than I've ever given credit for, because that covers a
lot of Fantasy.
Ok. Apparently school needs to come into session. Fair enough.
Features of Epic Fantasy
Note, not every example of epic fantasy will have all of these features, but, all will exhibit at least one of these features and typically more than one.
1. Epic Numbers - Just like epics in any other genre, you will have epic numbers of characters. Cast of thousands. Everyone will have a name and everyone will have a story.
2. Epic Themes - By an large epic fantasy will be large in scope - clash of cultures type stories. There will typically be multiple sides and factions, shifting alliances, and a focus on big picture events.
3. Epic Geography - Epic fantasy will typically involve the entire setting. You won't be (generally) focused on a single city or location. The story will rove from hither to yon and back again. (which is why the examples of Lankmar and Urban Fantasy aren't examples of epic fantasy)
4. Epic Time scales. - Epic fantasy will generally cover a pretty lengthy period of time. Years, if not decades. Often generations are also involved - it's entirely possible that the children or grandchildren of the original protagonists are the ones to resolve the story.
Note, there are other elements as well, but, those four are probably enough to keep things in mind.
Is that clear enough?
Thus my entire point.
A large character cast
alone with no other aspect considered does not equal Epic Fantasy. You need
more than a large cast of named characters.
I don't know why simple points that everyone seems to agree on keep getting my raked over the coals.
I'm not really sure what to say to you here. You're rather continuing to prove my point that if you don't understand a thing, and try and argue about it, you may get confused.
It's not correct to say it's a transitional period, because that would suggest one thing turned into another. Rather it's a parallel kind of fantasy, that exists before Tolkienian fantasy, and after it, that influenced RPGs, computer games, and so on more than it did literary fantasy post-1990. S&S was massively influential on D&D and thus fantasy RPGs in general, Warhammer (and thus Warcraft), and via those sources massively influential on how fantasy computer games are.
I'd say it's extremely useful and important because it's a major influence on fantasy, particularly non-literary fantasy, that does not relate to Tolkien at all. There's a strong tendency in writing about fantasy to essentially attribute almost everything to Tolkien. I saw a very literal example of this in the NYT or some such paper not long ago, where it was being claimed "all fantasy" owed a debt to Tolkien. That would be true to say of epic fantasy - as a genre it barely exists, if at all, before Tolkien, and literally all the examples I can think of since have at least some influence in the terms of approach to world-building. But it's not true of all fantasy, and it's particularly less true of the kind of fantasy we find in RPGs, which typically picks up some of the world-building and aesthetic elements from Tolkien, but very much leans towards the spirit in actual play of S&S.
Epic fantasy is defined largely by being extremely long - literally epics. Maybe this is a difference that is more obvious? Virtually all S&S is short stories and novellas and the like. Even normal novel-length is rare. Giant fantasy novel length is unheard-of with S&S (I can't think of a single example), whereas it's routine/expected with epic fantasy.
Heroic fantasy is rarely-used term with far less of a consistent definition than S&S. S&S at least has a clear canon, a clear body of work - it's pretty clear what works are S&S (even if there's some debate, compared to other genres/subgenres, it's well-defined!). It's unclear what "heroic fantasy" is - it seems like it's a term people use when they think S&S is too "trashy", and seems to be a subset of S&S. I see L. Sprague de Camp literally said it was a synonym for S&S, and he's the originator of the term. His definition of S&S seems more purely escapist than a lot of S&S though, so perhaps you could say heroic fantasy is "particularly escapist S&S"?
I suppose the issue is how you go about defining things.
The idea that "Epic Fantasy" doesn't exist before Tolkien is something I find laughably absurd. How do we define The Journey to the West, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odessey, The Illiad, The Epic of Beowulf, Dante's Divine Comedy? All of these are works of Fiction, all of them are epic in scope, and feature fantastical elements.
In fact, Tolkien was trying to create a mythology. If we assume he mostly succeeded, then Mythology is very similiar to Epic Fantasy.
And, since S&S seems to have developed and run it's course in a mere decade or two, and it is mostly known today by what it inspired, being a transition of one thing to another seems completely logical. Writing changes all the time, aspects of genres shift and transition all the time. I don't see that as a bad thing, but it certainly helps explain the short life-cycle and oddly contradictory stuff you keep claiming about S&S
You seem to be talking here about the focus/centre of the story. I'm talking about what the story presents as the relationship between the characters and events. To speak a bit crudely, what does the story tell us about the nature of agency? REH's Conan is an agent par excellence. Whereas what characterises Frodo is that he so often refrains from agency. In the Earthsea trilogy, we see the perils of agency (in Book 1, Ged's agency brings trouble upon himself; in Book 3, Cob's agency brings trouble upon everyone).
Ah, okay, that is a much more clear way to phrase what you mean. I understand what you are saying now. And I find myself agreeing. Thank you for the clarification.
In any campaign setting you can build your own kingdom. If the players want to. If they don't, no matter in what setting are they playing, there will be no appeal to that idea.
So, why use this particular idea for publiciting a setting? There is no particular appeal to this kind of play, and is not an exclusive Greyhawk thing.
This is something we've addressed once or twice actually. In many of the other settings, the powers that be are incredibly entrenched. In Eberron, there is no real way to challenge the Dragonmarked houses, or even a lot of land to try and build your own kingdom on. Q'Barra is about it on the main continent.
In FR, most of the major city-states have immense power, especially if you take the results of them logically. You can't realistically challenge the rule of people wealthy enough to buy dragons.
In Greyhawk though, there are not a lot of major powers who are well known on the political scale. The majority of the nations are actually on the brink anyways, and an upstart kingdom has a chance to thrive and turn into an Empire. Making Greyhawk uniquely suited as a backdrop for the rule set, which yes, could be applied to other settings, but would require quite a bit more work to actually be effective in nation-building (unless you build with handwavium or go to one of the less focused on areas.)
