Fantasy Stories That Don’t Romanticise the Past

[Paul Farquhar]

What do you see as the line from, since he keeps coming up, Tolkien and K-Pop Demon Hunters?

There is no line, that's the point. Yet it is clearly fantasy, full of heroes, magic and demons. Fantasy can exist with no connection to Tolkien whatsoever.

 

[Parmandur]

Agreed

Okay but consider

If it takes multiple books for anyone to not be either terrible, doomed to failure because the book seems very much in the first story to take the stance that good people are weaker than bad people, or both, it doesn’t matter what the eventual pay off is. Effectively while reading, only the later books have that theme, the earlier ones do not.

To clarify, the first law story doesn’t communicate that theme, imo.

I couldn't finish The Blade Itself, stopped reading after an incident of major domestic abuse in the text that was just uncomfortable. Because I had trouble stomaching it, however, I did look up spoilers for the whole series (I'm an English major, I don't care about spoilers as a rule)...and what I learned was interesting enough to make me keep it on my list of to-reads when I'm in the headspace for something dark. The overwhelming apparent power of darkness in the world and within the self is hard to take, but honestly I believe Abercrombie when he says he feels he is writing something very Tolkienian. Juat, one of the tragic episodes from the Appendices of Return of the King (the Gpmdorian kings were pretty screwy) or Turin Turambar.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I couldn't finish The Blade Itself, stopped reading after an incident of major domestic abuse in the text that was just uncomfortable. Because I had trouble stomachijg it, however, I did look up spoilers for the whole series (I'm an English major, I don't care about spoilers as a rule)...and what I learned was interesting enough to make me keep it on my list of tonreads when I'm in the headspace for something dark. The overwhelming apparent power of darkness in the world and within the self is hard to take, but honestly I believe Abercrombie when her says he feels he is writing something very Tolkienian. Juat, one of the tragic episodes from the Appendices of Return of the King (the Gpmdorian kings were pretty screwy) or Turin Turambar.

See, but Tolkien wrote from a place of hope in darkness, and a world worth saving. From the standpoint that people are good but can be corrupted, rather than that people are corrupt but can rise to the moment in rare cases and do soemthing good.

So I don’t really know that I believe JA on that.

I do recall liking (as far as I read) Vitari. It was kinda funny because around the same time I read Best Served Cold, I also read the Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks (which I found…less well written but more enjoyable) which also had a character I loved who was a ginger woman with a bladed chain weapon, whose name was shortened to Vi. Such an edgelord story, though. A fun read overall but the whole “wetboys not assassins” thing was just hilariously tryhard edgelord silliness.

 

[Parmandur]

See, but Tolkien wrote from a place of hope in darkness, and a world worth saving. From the standpoint that people are good but can be corrupted, rather than that people are corrupt but can rise to the moment in rare cases and do soemthing good.

So I don’t really know that I believe JA on that.

I do recall liking (as far as I read) Vitari. It was kinda funny because around the same time I read Best Served Cold, I also read the Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks (which I found…less well written but more enjoyable) which also had a character I loved who was a ginger woman with a bladed chain weapon, whose name was shortened to Vi. Such an edgelord story, though. A fun read overall but the whole “wetboys not assassins” thing was just hilariously tryhard edgelord silliness.

Yes, I think they do have very different viewpoints on the world, and I don't think Abercrombie shares Tolkien's beliefs about the underlying reality...but they are wrestling with the same phenomenon.

 

[el-remmen]

I only quickly skimmed through other people’s suggestions so I may have missed it, but I am surprised no one has mentioned China Mieville’s Bas-Lag novels. None of the three - Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and the Iron Council - romanticize anything and they are amazing and grim.

 

[jian]

The genre that really romanticises the past isn’t fantasy at all, it’s historical crime fiction.

And even that (and some romance fiction) these days is leaning more into “do you know how many servants a Golden Age mystery country house had and how awful their lives were? Shall we talk about colonialism and why great white hunters aren’t a great archetype?” these days. Which is all to the good.

 

[jian]

I think it’s broadly accurate to say that a lot of English-language fantasy media created since 1930 or so has some elements of built-in romantic nostalgia. I think Tolkien’s main bits there are the clear nostalgia for the pre-WW1 England of his youth (the Shire) and maybe the whole “the true king will make everything right again” narrative (Aragorn). But the latter isn’t really nostalgic for anything, it’s more of a specific trope.

Equally, there’s a certain amount of nostalgia in non-English fantasy I know about. Some Korean fantasy media is nostalgic for the pre-Japanese Joseon era as a matter of national identity (though others are quick to point out how unequal and corrupt it was) and wuxia fiction by Jin Yong etc are basically nostalgic for a medieval China that never was, from a sort of exile in Hong Kong in the 1950s, although they are also clear about how corrupt and turbulent it was.

I guess fantasy by its very nature is using old stones to build and you must have some affection for the stones if not the temples they were once part of, so it’s easy for nostalgia and romantic assumptions to creep in. This may be easier at one remove, if you don’t live where your ancestors used to live.