FANTASY

FANTASY

1. Fantasy Precedents (example ofprototypical, pre-genre precedents for fantasy)

-Biblical Apocalyptic Literature (genre of biblical literature focusing on the triumph of good over evil, often in the form of fantastical, terrifying beasts slain by a divine hero)

-Medieval Romances (stories focused on knights errant sent on fantastic quests)

-Fairy Tales (local stories like fables, folklore, and folktales except they often take place in a fantastical, magical world rather than some known or recognizable location in the ordinary world)

1. The Centers of Gravity for Fantasy

-A genre is a galaxy of family resemblances, diverse elements orbiting common centers

-Thesecenters are central tropes and themes that allfantasy stories share in and touch upon (in their own way and to their own degree)

1. Mythopoesis (ancient Greek: mythos + poiema)

-often translated as “storytelling,” but also as world-building

-the ‘world’ of the individual story takes place in a larger world (ex: the Shire exists withinthe legendary history of Middle-Earth, which exists within the legendary history of Arda)

-this gives the ‘world’ of the individual story a rich backdrop of history, myth, and/or lore

-this larger world can be heavily detailed and explicated (known as ‘hard world-building,’ like in high fantasy) or it can be implied or assumed (known as ‘soft world-building’) but either way the larger world is there and its presence is felt in some way (depending on the story)

2. The Marvelous

-a world of wonders that create wonder (both in the characters and in the readers/audience)

-includes (but is not limited to) the spiritual or supernatural dimensions of the story’s world

3. Consolation

-the ‘happy ending’

-the eucatastrophe = the ‘good catastrophe,’ the sudden turn towards joy

-achieved via great sacrifice on the part of the hero

-less like ‘everything’s okay now,’ and more likeredemption

1. what was sad becomes untrue
2. what was broken is restored/repaired
3. what was lost is found/returned
4. what waswrong is made right

-These centers of gravity all relate to each other: stories set in a larger world where the reality of particularvalues and/or truths are recovered and thushope is restored

-Fantasy asks the question: what have you forgotten?

III. Some Specific Tropes and Themes

-Escape and Recovery

1. Escape

-escape from reality (escapism)

-escape to reality (a restoration and recovery of reality)

2. Recovery (of a clearer vision of reality)

-recovery of values (of what really matters and why)

-recovery of truths (of the way things really are and why)

-recovery of wonder (especially of your own world)

3. Escape and Recovery work together in fantasy: escaping back to reality so that you may recover a clearer vision of reality(a vision that may have been clouded or lost due to boredom or even despair)

-The Quest

1. A purposeful, intentional journey towards a specific goal (as opposed to a simple ‘adventure,’ which is often more arbitrary and random)
2. A mythopoeic journey (connected to the larger world that the story is set in, and thus deeply meaningful within that world)

-The Hero

1. The one who is both willing to make the sacrifice and actually does make the sacrifice necessary to bring about the happy ending
2. Often a ‘bumpkin’[1] = someone unexpected, someone that no one thinks could possibly be a hero

-The Great Old Manor House

1. An image inherited from the Gothic

-European Gothic: manors and castles

-Southern Gothic: plantations

2. Old buildings that serve as doorways to other worlds
3. This is an image that Fantasy shares with Horror (and thus is often a setting for Dark Fantasy)

-The Forest / The Woods

1. Ancient binary

-the Greeks: civilization and barbarity (ex: The Odyssey)

-The Hebrews: the garden and the wilderness (ex: Creation story)

2. Primary place of adventures or quests

-wildness and enchantment

-dangers and wonders

3. Broceliande (bro-see-lee-ond)

-the great enchanted forest of Arthurian romances

-archetype for all enchanted forests

[1] Not necessarily a “country bumpkin,” but usually someone from a simple, humble background