What is "middle fantasy"?

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6677017]Sword of Spirit[/MENTION]
I definitely agree that D&D's common parlance has muddied the waters around the pure literary definitions of High Fantasy and Low Fantasy. And perhaps as [MENTION=50895]gamerprinter[/MENTION] points out, "middle fantasy" doesn't really exist or is a reflection of a misunderstanding of the pure literary definitions of High/Low Fantasy.

That's all true. I'm still curious about the middle ground between the literary definitions.

The term high fantasy (also epic fantasy) generally refers to fantasy that depicts an epic struggle between good and evil in a fantasy world, whether independent of or parallel to ours. The moral concepts in such tales take on objective status, and are not relative to the one making the judgement.

Low Fantasy is a sub-genre which stresses the grittier, grimmer, more unattractively realistic themes in a fantasy setting. It sometimes refers to stories that don't emphasise magic overtly, or stories that contain a cynical world view. If J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings exemplifies "High Fantasy,", then Low Fantasy is perhaps more easily viewed. This genre would perhaps deal more with drugs, prostitution, street crime, etc. Another view would be Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian series. These stories take place in a pseudo-historical setting and, while they contain powerful examples of magic, fantasy elements are rare and dangerous with no fantasy species, such as elves or dwarves, at all.

So if I set these two up as poles, what might be in the middle?

Good and Evil might still exist, but the struggle between the two bright be muddied by shifting alliances.

Or Good and Evil might not operate at a global level, but only at a local level as disparate forces, so there is no ultimate confrontation between Good and Evil.

A setting that is between total fantasy and pseudo-historicism.

Fantasy species might exist but be mistreated as in Dragon Age, or maybe elves once existed but retreated from the world.

I don't know, I'm spitballing. Even though they're not exact polar opposites, "epic" and "gritty" suggest a spectrum, as do "objective morality" and "realistic pragmatism."

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I think from this frame of reference "middle fantasy" is probably an appropriate terminology for some traditional D&D settings such as Greyhawk.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Middle fantasy to me only has limited elements of fantasy in them, not the whole fantasy mythos found in high. It focus on a couple of those elements and then places them in a background that is real.

Examples to me of low to middle fantasy; Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman, Underworld movies, The Walking Dead, etc. All these just deal with a small and focus part of fantasy, now IF you start adding them together you are moving into high fantasy, you might not be there but you are getting closer to it. i.e., the more elements of fantasy the more you move to high fantasy.

So, now you have to ask yourself what are the elements of fantasy? This can be a hard question when dealing with monsters. Why? Because, monsters can just be animals and are not that fantastic, it is only when they start to have those special powers (turn into bats and stuff).

Elements of Fantasy:

• Magic
• Magical Items
• Impossible Creatures
• Other Planes
• Impossible Landscapes
• Imaginary Worlds

 

[Yora]

If those examples are middle, then what do you say is Low Fantasy? I think these are all very good examples of the common use of Low Fantasy.

 

[Hand of Evil]

If those examples are middle, then what do you say is Low Fantasy? I think these are all very good examples of the common use of Low Fantasy.

low to middle - but this is what is making it hard to answer. Lord of the Rings is high fantasy but Buffy the Vampire Slayer is considered low fantasy. Why? Is it only because of the setting?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fantasy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasy

 

[Umbran]

low to middle - but this is what is making it hard to answer. Lord of the Rings is high fantasy but Buffy the Vampire Slayer is considered low fantasy. Why? Is it only because of the setting?

Look at the definition behind your links- it's the literary one. High fantasy takes place in a secondary world. Low fantasy takes place in our, primary, world.

The definition isn't, "this is a spectrum with high or low ends". It is more, "this is a switch, with settings of high, low, and off (not fantasy at all)."

 

[Hand of Evil]

Look at the definition behind your links- it's the literary one. High fantasy takes place in a secondary world. Low fantasy takes place in our, primary, world.

The definition isn't, "this is a spectrum with high or low ends". It is more, "this is a switch, with settings of high, low, and off (not fantasy at all)."

But some of the highs and low are strange, Harry Potter = high, Percy Jackson = high? Do not these take place in our world?

 

[Umbran]

But some of the highs and low are strange, Harry Potter = high, Percy Jackson = high? Do not these take place in our world?

I haven't read Percy Jackson, so I don't know.

Harry Potter, however, is pretty clear. Potter's world runs parallel to ours - aside from his family, he pretty much never interacts with the muggle world. He gets transported away from our world in a train (which is a stand-in for the traditional portal to a fantasy world) and has his adventures there, where normal people don't go. The people in the wizarding world (If I recall correctly, it is even explicitly referred to as such - a separate world - in the books) are so separated from the primary world they don't even understand regular British currency or extremely common machines (like cars).

So, he's high fantasy.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The higher the marks, the closer something is to "high" fantasy, and vice versa. Of course, this leads to odd places when some axes have a high mark and others a low one, but that's more of a problem with the terminology than with the scales.

Interesting. Where would you assess The Dresden Files on your scales? It seems to get both high and low marks.

 

[Evenglare]

I don't think there is a middle fantasy. I always thought of it as a digital 0,1 kind of thing. It's either high or low. No analogue here.