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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wild Gazebo" data-source="post: 2278667" data-attributes="member: 24413">Whoa.  Celebrim.  OK, I think there is some definite misunderstanding.  "The moral message has to be carried in the form of an abstract idea which has been embodied in some fashion in order to be easier discuss and describe through narrative""To meet my definition of a fantasy, the book needs to have elements which are the embodiments or existantiations of abstract moral principals. It's not enough for the book to just have something be a symbol for something else, or for that thing to be like something else. That thing has to be that abstract thing made tangible. Likewise, those abstract things can't be just any general idea, but something which would fall within the realm of things we would consider moral ideas or principals - whether humility, ambition, evil, good, hubris, love, prudence, or whatever."Those are hard line definitions that border on allegory.While...these..."But for the purposes of my arguement it doesn't really matter how strong our weak the particular allegory is, the fact is that you can recognize the similarity between say 'Satan' and 'The Emperor', or the deliberate (by the author's own admission) connection between Yoda and the Buddha.""Even if we where to argue that Robert Jordan had no higher aspirations than pulp fiction, which would be rather insulting IMO, this would be a really good example of why its impossible to write fantasy that doesn't end up getting tied into morality. And in particular, I'd argue that alot of the reasons the WoT series is so compelling despite its flaws as a story is that it is so deeply tied into all this mythic imagery about good and evil, ying and yang, ad infinitum."...have nothing more than symbolic, antecedent, and connotive messages.  Do you see my problem?  I'm still looking for your definition.  I'm afraid...since you admit authorial intent is irrelevant--and I must agree, though on different grounds--connotation or likeness really doesn't eliminate enough conventions to make a working hypothesis.  Even if the abstract ideals are portrayed as invariably human concerns about morality.  Far too many texts can be examined to contain symbolic moral links--that could more accurately be described as 'sympathetic conflict' (sorry, an invented expression) rather than "existantiations of abstract moral principals."  Which, as I said before, really more accurately describes Modern fiction as opposed to phantasy.I think you are far more interested in the obvious parallels that exist between Epic prose and phantasy...rather than a pure definition of a genre.  Admittedly, the mind wanders to the absolutes of Epic allegory far more often when reading phantasy...but I see that as more of an evolution than a definition.Could you be more specific?  Or, I'm I more on the ball now?</blockquote>

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