High Fantasy/Low Fantasy/Power Fantasy

[Hussar]

For me, genre definitions work better being defined by the center, rather than the edges. There's lots of concepts out there like this. Take a forest, for example. When does a group of trees become a forest? Who knows? Who really cares. It's not like we define forests as number of trees per square meter or anything like that.

However, most people can recognize that when they're standing somewhere and all they see is trees, they're likely in a forest.

Speculative Fiction definitions work a lot like this. There's all sorts of bleed over between stories. Genre is very porous, particularly in genres as broad as SF and Fantasy.

To me, its better to try to say that High Fantasy is stories with grand scope and Low Fantasy is stories with limited scope than try to define secondary settings or level of magic. Either is pretty nebulous and hard to agree on. But, I think, most people can look at Tolkien and say, yup, that's high fantasy - grand scope. Whereas Conan is Low Fantasy - limited scope.

Because, as far as magic level, both come out pretty close. Both have demons, magic swords, powerful beings, flying monsters, etc. And, Hyboria is not meant to be earth, it's definitely a secondary world. ((Yeah, yeah, I know, alternative history and all that, come on, it's a different world - easily as different as the Harry Potter world)). So, going by the magic level and secondary world parts of the definition, both Middle Earth and Hyboria come out as High fantasy.

I'm not really keen on a definition that puts Conan and LotR in the same basket.

 

[Neonchameleon]

This is what I find frustrating whenever I speak to people trained in areas where obfuscation is the standard MO. They frequently get angry at me when I keep on repeatedly asking them to clarify what they mean, and/or I ask them why they use a particular piece of jargon.

"To make a name for learning
When other ways are barred
Take something very easy
And make it very hard."

 

[Desdichado]

I looked at the Wikipedia definitions of High Fantasy and Low Fantasy and found that they differ significantly from the meaning these words have in gaming circles.



By this definition, almost all role-playing games are high fantasy.

Being unfamiliar with the Wikipedia usage, I wonder if these terms are well established in fantasy (literature) fandom?

It is quite confusing to see the terms used so differently in different circumstances. Perhaps a more unified usage is to be preferred? A better term for what gamers call high fantasy would be Power Fantasy. What gamers now call low fantasy would be low-power fantasy.

Or you could argue that Wikipedia, as a dictionary, should refer reality and real-world use of language, not shape it. if you agree with this, the Wikipedia articles on high and low fantasy should be amended.

No. You've taken just one aspect of the definitions, and an aspect that's a trend, not a defining trait, and used it out of context. There isn't really any conflict in definition at all.

 

[Desdichado]

There are no clear, objective definitions of these terms. As others noted above, these are expressions used in literary circles for the sake of discussion and comparisons only. Without any particular context, their use as quantifiable, clear-cut categories of genres within the realm of Fantasy is erroneous, misleading and ultimately, pointless.

That's true for low fantasy, but not for high fantasy. It just so happens that the "opposite" of high fantasy is sword & sorcery, not low fantasy, which is a poorly defined and sloppily used subgenre tag.

 

[Starfox]

My original issue was really "should we as a gaming community try to redefine the dictionary definitions of high and low fantasy". So far, there really is no consensus.

Maybe we gamers should claim the terms High Magic and Low Magic (as opposed to high and low Fantasy) and make them ours instead, leaving Fantasy to the literary folks? Less sharing of terms, tough the terms are still bound to get confused with each other.

 

[arscott]

The Wikipedia articles properly describe the genres of high and low fantasy as used by literary criticism, with proper citations. The article's descriptions match up with my Lit classes in college.

The responses here are uninformed.

Krensky, the sources for the high fantasy=fantastic world definition aimed at elementary-school teachers who assign fantasy books as classroom reading. When it comes to literary criticism, that's just about as valuable as the opinions of posters on an RPG messageboard.

Compare to the literary critics and fantasy authors who are used to source the later part of the article--which focuses on character, plot, and theme, rather than setting.

 

[Starfox]

That's true for low fantasy, but not for high fantasy. It just so happens that the "opposite" of high fantasy is sword & sorcery, not low fantasy, which is a poorly defined and sloppily used subgenre tag.

How can Sword and Sorcery be the opposite of high fantasy, if (most) Sword and Sorcery also IS high fantasy by virtue of being set in a world entirely of the author's invention?

 

[Hussar]

I was under the assumption that low fantasy=sword and sorcery fantasy. Aren't the terms interchangeable?

Starfox - that only applies if you assume that the defining element is the existence of a secondary world. If you instead see the primary/secondary world elements as just a single, possible dividing line, in addition to many others, then there's no problem.

In other words, just because a world is either a primary or secondary world doesn't automatically make it Low/high fantasy. It's just a possible indication.

Just like having robots and laser guns doesn't automatically make a story science fiction. It could be horror for example. It could be fantasy as well, although that's a bit harder usually - but Terry Brook's Shannara series often features robots and lasers - see his Voyage of Jerle Shanara series. Robert Adams' Horseclans series also had lasers and robots, but is pretty strongly sword and sorcery (or in this case axe and fantasy).

Some genres are easy to define by trope. A western is most likely going to be set in the American old West, feature horses and guns and gunfighters (although none of those is guaranteed). A mystery is going to have ... well... a mystery. Speculative Fiction is such a grab bag of stories that trying to define it by genre is very, very difficult.

I mean, when Star Wars and Dune and The Empire of Ice Cream are considered in the same genre, it's a pretty wide open genre.

 

[Primal]

For me, genre definitions work better being defined by the center, rather than the edges. There's lots of concepts out there like this. Take a forest, for example. When does a group of trees become a forest? Who knows? Who really cares. It's not like we define forests as number of trees per square meter or anything like that.

However, most people can recognize that when they're standing somewhere and all they see is trees, they're likely in a forest.

Speculative Fiction definitions work a lot like this. There's all sorts of bleed over between stories. Genre is very porous, particularly in genres as broad as SF and Fantasy.

To me, its better to try to say that High Fantasy is stories with grand scope and Low Fantasy is stories with limited scope than try to define secondary settings or level of magic. Either is pretty nebulous and hard to agree on. But, I think, most people can look at Tolkien and say, yup, that's high fantasy - grand scope. Whereas Conan is Low Fantasy - limited scope.

Because, as far as magic level, both come out pretty close. Both have demons, magic swords, powerful beings, flying monsters, etc. And, Hyboria is not meant to be earth, it's definitely a secondary world. ((Yeah, yeah, I know, alternative history and all that, come on, it's a different world - easily as different as the Harry Potter world)). So, going by the magic level and secondary world parts of the definition, both Middle Earth and Hyboria come out as High fantasy.

I'm not really keen on a definition that puts Conan and LotR in the same basket.

That's the trouble, I think, with all theoretical analysis, and not just on literature. When it comes to lit genres, there's a good reason -- as you noted -- why science fiction, fantasy and horror are commonly categorized as 'speculative fiction'. I mentioned the "level of magic" as one possible definition, and I do think it's a bit better as a defining trait for Low and High Fantasy than Primary/Secondary world. Also, if we analyze Conan or, say, Leiber's stories, by identifying the scope of stories ("epic struggle between Good and Evil vs. less grand themes"), certain short stories would belong in High Fantasy ('Hour of the Dragon', for example, or when Fafrd and Mouser travel into Death's domain).

I have done some research on lit genres and how they reflect on RPGs. If you ask me, I think none of the so-called 'identifying traits' or 'attributes' for genres and subgenres are explicit or all-encompassing; certain works can clearly be identified as 'Dark Fantasy' or 'Steampunk' or 'Hard Sci-Fi', but as I already said, many contemporary works have elements from several subgenres. And not just contemporary works, but stories like the Chronicles of Amber are really hard to categorize explicitly into either fantasy or science fiction, if you're not intimately familiar with the nuances of said genres and also the books (CoA starts in the Primary World, and yet also has science fiction elements).

However porous or nebolous the genres are, they work as a point of reference (in RPGs and in reading literature) -- we may have slightly varying images and opinions of fantasy and its cliches/conventions, but it works as a "mental storage" for imagination (something may be lost in translation; I cannot express or translate it better, as English is not my native language). We use our imagination and our understanding of the cliches/conventions to supplement storytelling and "filling in the gaps" (for example, when a GM gives only rudimentary descriptions). Cultural traditions also play an important part in this; for example, Chinese people don't understand the conventions of Western Fantasy all that well.

Anyway, good points there -- I hope my ramblings make at least *some* sense.

 

[Desdichado]

How can Sword and Sorcery be the opposite of high fantasy, if (most) Sword and Sorcery also IS high fantasy by virtue of being set in a world entirely of the author's invention?

As I said in my other post; it's possible because you're using the defintion of high fantasy incorrectly. You're focusing in on one aspect of it which is a trend at best, not a defining trait, and trying to imply that it is the sum total of the definition.

There isn't any conflict, you're just wrong.

The sources for that quote are hardly authoritative, by the way. Lin Carter, and three books for teaching literature to children?

Move past the poorly written "overview" section of the Wikipedia article, and read the entire article. Also, read the Sword & sorcery article for contrast.

And while it's not a peer-reviewed academic paper, read this link, which is one of the best essays I've ever seen on the differences between High Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery as two "opposite" points on the spectrum of fantasy.