Fantasy Stories That Don’t Romanticise the Past

[zakael19]

Incandescent

And also has some fascinating ideas about magic and demons that I’m totally tearing off for my Tuesday urban fantasy game.

 

[Pale Violet Light]

Not sure I agree about Abercrombie - his books are graphic and dark, but he's still writing about kings and heroic warriors and so forth.

I couldn’t disagree more. Jabbercrombie may depict kings and warriors and whatnot, but he is profoundly cynical about all of them (and wizards, and mythic quests, and war, and revenge) and in fact actively undermines the myth of the “glorious past” almost constantly.

 

[zakael19]

As an aside, I think you might say that urban fantasy a la Peter Grant etc romanticizes the idea of a time when (western?) humanity believed more widely in mystical things. They’re literally about taking the rational everyday mundane modern life and injecting magic back into it.

 

[môrgondír]

An article concerning the influence of Arthurian cycle (whether specifically from Geoffrey of Monmouth, or Mallory, or Chrétien de Troyes) and its influences on and similarities to LotR.

https://journals.tolkiensociety.org/mallorn/article/download/118/112

By the modern day, there are many influences both Christian and pre-Christian, and romantic and pre-romantic on both Arthurian legend and also LotR.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Dude, this is the second time you've brought this up.

Yes, because it’s important to the question of what is modern fantasy? And the answer ain’t entirely Euro-centric.

But it really is a separate question from "what are the links from mediaeval sources to the likes of Tolkien."

The blindingly obvious isn’t really worth discussing, and the significance of Tolkien wildly exaggerated.

Looking at possible links between REH or E. Nesbit and medieval romance would be a more interesting endeavour.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As an aside, I think you might say that urban fantasy a la Peter Grant etc romanticizes the idea of a time when (western?) humanity believed more widely in mystical things. They’re literally about taking the rational everyday mundane modern life and injecting magic back into it.

Not really no - magical stuff is widely portrayed as a nuisance that Grant gets lumbered with because no one else wants to be bothered. The civil powers know very well that magic is real - a real menace- and always have done.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Proposal: primary edgelordocity is just the toxic mirror of Romantacism.

Agreed

It’s crucial to the overall development of. Abercrombie’s story, through the three trilogies, that a bunch of people do rise to the challenges of their times. Often they’re as surprised themselves as th reader is about who they turn out to be.

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.

 

[Clint_L]

It’s the progenitor of all modern European fiction. The events depicted were real to their audience, no more fantastical than a modern Action movie or Rom Com.

No. You just do not know the facts. I don’t think you understand what Medieval Romance is. A tale like Sir Gawain was completely understood to be fantastical and set in the legendary past by its contemporary audience. Gawain stories had been around for centuries. Nobody actually expected to meet a transforming Green Giant who wasn’t bothered by a little decapitation.

There’s a reason Chaucer set his Knights Tale in ancient Troy.

Which is not conducive to liking something. LotR was written specifically to try and counter the influence of “new fangled Norman nonsense” and return to Saxon mythology. Gawain and the Green Knight? 8th century Irish origin. Nothing to do with Arthur.

You’re trying to argue that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight isn’t an Arthurian romance? Obviously it calls back to legendary origins, as that was typical of Medieval Romance.

And how do you get from there to the K-Pop Demon Hunters? I think you might be the one out of your depth, by being out of touch with modern popular fiction. Modern fantasy has many influences, some of them not even remotely European.

Did I ever deny it? Who are you arguing against? Review my posts. I have no idea why you are carrying on about K-Pop Demon hunters as if that is relevant to anything I wrote.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Did I ever deny it? Who are you arguing against? Review my posts. I have no idea why you are carrying on about K-Pop Demon hunters as if that is relevant to anything I wrote.

The point is, you are refusing to accept that modern fantasy is based on anything but European Romance. When it has a great many influences KP DH is as modern a fantasy as you can get, and likely to have a huge influence down the line, and there is no way it can have any connection to European Medieval Romance whatsoever. And that's just an example of other influences coming in all through the history of literature. E. Nesbit was influenced by the Thousand and One Nights, which where part of her pop culture at the time of writing. And she probably influenced C.S. Lewis, and maybe Tolkien (compare prose style in The Hobbit). D&D has been a huge influence on modern fantasy, and that drew eclectically on a great many things in addition to European Medieval Romance.

Meanwhile, Medievil Romance was pretty much the invention of the novel as a form of entertainment, so influences a great many genres - all that Lancelot Guinevere stuff is a soap opera, is it not? Everyone has lots of great grandparents, and they have a great many descendants. Go back far enough and you find everyone is related to everyone else. The concept of a "direct line" is itself an element of Medievil Romance that is a load of stuff and nonsense. Lines are twisty, and have lots of branches in and out. Just look at Henry VII!

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Yes, because it’s important to the question of what is modern fantasy? And the answer ain’t entirely Euro-centric.

Okay. Fair enough if you want to discuss it. I'm down for it. I must admit to not knowing a great deal about non-English language fantasy. (I'm better on non_English language myth and legend.)

It's just that the way you've brought it up made it seem like you were using it as a counter argument to "there are links from mediaeval sources to the likes of Tolkien."

But as a separate conversation, it's very interesting. What do you see as the line from, since he keeps coming up, Tolkien and K-Pop Demon Hunters?