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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 8346805" data-attributes="member: 6670763">Sword & Sorcery is fun because it's sincere. It's a style of adventure fiction that is done with apologizing for anything and defending itself against detractors. When people create works as Sword & Sorcery, they don't care if it may be seen as dorky, juvenile, unrefined, or sloppy. Even at it's dumbest and cheapest, I never got an impression that the creators don't believe that this is really the coolest and funniest naughty word.The appeal of Sword & Sorcery is in having fun with stuff you're not supposed to, because it is considered improper.You want beefcakes strangling giant gorillas with their bare hands? Do it!Evil sorcerers with huge pointy collars on their capes and goatees? Do it!Tiddies? Do it!Fighting dragons on the spire of a burning castle during a thunderstorm? Do it!Sword & Sorcery refuses to participate in the circus of trying to get accepted by critics and popular with the masses. If only a small group of people enjoy this stuff, then so be it. Make awesome fun stuff for those people, instead of making something for the masses that you no longer enjoy yourself.Like punk and aspects of queer culture, Sword & Sorcery is crass and vulgar, because it's done with pleasing others and celebrating what it considers fun.One of the most striking things about Sword & Sorcery to me is that it's radically egalitarian. The societies in which the characters live tend to be particularly cruel and oppressive compared to other fantasy worlds, but that's for providing a backdrop that highlights their acts of defiance to comply. A Sword & Sorcery hero can be anyone and anything, come from any background, and be of any appearance. Because just by virtue of being a protagonist in this kind of stories in this kind of worlds, their very existence is considered offensive to society.Maybe they could change to fit in, but because they have power, they don't have to. And they chose to let the unfair world come at them rather than submit to it. Haters gonna hate. And if they don't get out of the hero's face, someone's gonna get <s>slapped</s> stabbed!</blockquote>

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