Discussing Sword & Sorcery and RPGs

[reelo]

Put another way, if you start with the premise that S&S is only about unpuritan roleplaying (your words), it might seem that you're alienating a potentially large playing base.

Offense is taken, not given!
Death Metal music isn't "for everyone" either, but the people from that scene are some of the most fun, caring, and loving people I've met in my life.

 

[Aldarc]

How come it's always only Sword & Sorcery that is asked to justify itself?

I never see any such objections against Grimdark. Grimdark is always allowed to pass with "It's not really my kind of fantasy". Even Game of Thrones is worse than all Sword & Sorcery I've ever seen, and that one's everyone's darling. (Until they lost the plot in the last third.)

Is it? I'm not sure if that's the case. In many regards, S&S adventure fantasy forms the norm or backbone of our hobby, even if D&D has increasingly emphasized more heroic high fantasy.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Offense is taken, not given!

I've heard people say that recently (is that a thing?), and I think it's really stupid. No offense.

That's like saying comedy is taken, not given. Or compliments are taken, not given. Why bother saying anything at all if it's all meaningless, only depending on what the listener hears?

Really, though, it removes agency and intentionality from the speaker/artist. There are times when I want to offend. The ability to provoke, offend, and shock lies at core of artistic speech.

Death Metal music isn't "for everyone" either, but the people from that scene are some of the most fun, caring, and loving people I've met in my life.

Certainly true! But "death metal" is a sub-genre of "metal" and in turn has spawned numerous sub-genres. Moreover, it is not necessary that every single death metal band be, for example, Cannibal Corpse. Or, for that matter, burn down churches.

Which moves back to the point of the thread- going to my Lovecraft analogy, I really enjoy cosmic horror, and I grew up reading Lovecraft. But the point of Lovecraft, the defining characteristic of the cosmic horror genre, isn't the racism!

When I think of S&S, I don't think of it as being transgressive. Then again, I have a high bar for what constitutes transgressive- Conan and Fafhrd are not exactly Mapplethorpe in the '80s, or Burroughs in the '50s- instead, they reified the traditional societal roles of the time. Ahem.

Instead, I view them as being modern- as acting very much in a way that is contrary to the 'small-c' conservative Tolkien-esque (Alexender, Lewis) "high fantasy" that was so .... boring.

I love S&S because, unlike high fantasy, it doesn't suck.

 

[pemerton]

I love S&S because, unlike high fantasy, it doesn't suck.

I'm offended!

 

[pemerton]

When I think of S&S, I don't think of it as being transgressive. Then again, I have a high bar for what constitutes transgressive- Conan and Fafhrd are not exactly Mapplethorpe in the '80s, or Burroughs in the '50s- instead, they reified the traditional societal roles of the time. Ahem.

I tried to address this is in my post not far upthread, but no one seemed to pick up on it. Isn't transgressive being used to mean contains sex and nudity? That's the most obvious way I can make sense of the comparison to European arthouse films.

Which also explains the worry that it might be seen as juvenile, I think!

 

[Blue Orange]

I recently reread the collected Conan stories over the course of a few months, and what stuck out to me was the complete lack of any irony. Howard really digs his macho, wily protagonist, he really likes forgotten cities and decadent civilizations and evil snakes and wizards, and he doesn't feel the need to be arch or distanced the way, say, writers as early as Leiber occasionally do and modern writers, particularly of literary fiction, do quite often. Memes often include a series of spoofs of jokes about obscure references, but Conan--nah, he's just a dude in great shape with a sword. (Even Elric was supposed to be the anti-Conan.) He lives, he burns with life, he loves, he slays, and that is enough. I wonder if that's some of the appeal?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I tried to address this is in my post not far upthread, but no one seemed to pick up on it. Isn't transgressive being used to mean contains sex and nudity? That's the most obvious way I can make sense of the comparison to European arthouse films.

Which also explains the worry that it might be seen as juvenile, I think!

I think that it also explains the references to cheesecake and beefcake, which isn't ... you know, the actual genre text for all aspects of the genre.

Again, dancing around the issue, but yes.

Personally, I think sex and nudity in S&S is fine, but is also not a defining element to the genre.

 

[Dioltach]

I think part of the reason for the cheesecake and beefcake is that the societies commonly associated with S&S are decadent, and frequently bring to mind the orgies of the late Roman Empire, or popular conceptions/misconceptions of palaces and harems in the Tales of the Arabian Nights.

More modern S&S doesn't shy away from cheesy nudity, but definitely doesn't require it.

(It's also worth noting that Conan himself dressed appropriately for most occasions: chainmail instead of a loincloth, for example. Jirrel of Joiry, as I recall, also dressed sensibly and wore armour.)

 

[reelo]

I've heard people say that recently (is that a thing?), and I think it's really stupid. No offense.

That's like saying comedy is taken, not given. Or compliments are taken, not given. Why bother saying anything at all if it's all meaningless, only depending on what the listener hears?

Really, though, it removes agency and intentionality from the speaker/artist. There are times when I want to offend. The ability to provoke, offend, and shock lies at core of artistic speech.

Offense is special in that regard, in that some people take offense in things that are not intended to give it. But if we demand to sanitize everything to a point where nobody could possibly take offense at it, everything just becomes a hollow shell. Nobody has a "right to not be offended", as a famous philosopher once put it.

This doesn't exclude an artist's possible intention to offend, but I think in the case of S&S, that intention is not necessarily clear.

 

[Aldarc]

I tried to address this is in my post not far upthread, but no one seemed to pick up on it. Isn't transgressive being used to mean contains sex and nudity? That's the most obvious way I can make sense of the comparison to European arthouse films.

Which also explains the worry that it might be seen as juvenile, I think!

It's not as if people think of European arthouse films as juvenille just because they may contain sex and nudity. The juvenille reputation of Sword & Sorcery is likelier a by-product of the pulp medium and its target audience.

I think that it also explains the references to cheesecake and beefcake, which isn't ... you know, the actual genre text for all aspects of the genre.

Again, dancing around the issue, but yes.

Personally, I think sex and nudity in S&S is fine, but is also not a defining element to the genre.

I think it's more characteristic of pulp magazines like Weird Tales, but these magazines were not publishing S&S stories exclusively or even mostly.

As you say, sex and nudity in S&S is fine; however, I would add that I would like to see it expanded beyond the straight white male gaze. Diversify these elements in S&S. Make it racially, sexually, and gender diverse!