A panel
consisting of fantasy authors Joe Abercrombie, Lev Grossman, Diana Gabaldon,
George R. R. Martin, and Patrick Rothfuss speak humorously about their writing styles and epic fantasy. This took place at this year’s San Diego
Comic Con on July 26. See video below…
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Monday, August 18, 2014
The Secondary World
The
secondary world is practically the ruling art of epic fantasy, holding within
it not only scenery, names and races that are different from our world, but
producing histories, laws and creatures that make it a world in and of itself. It
is not only other-worldly creatures that differentiates the fantasy world from
our own, but it is the law of magic and how it effects that world and its
inhabitants. In epic fantasy, the setting of the secondary world dwells in the
likeness of the medieval period, and seldom veers from it. We can probably
thank J.R.R. Tolkien, who was a medievalist, for such a permanent brand since
it was he who set the mold for (modern) epic fantasy. It makes me wonder if Tolkien
had not been a medievalists, and, instead, created his epic story within a more
modern setting or a setting that reflected the ancient worlds of 3000 years
B.C., would epic fantasy have taken a much different form?
Edward
James, former professor of Medieval History at the University College in Dublin, wrote: “After 1955 fantasy writers no
longer had to explain away their worlds by framing them as dreams, or
travellers’ tales, or by providing them with any fictional link to our own
world at all.” Here James was referring to the publishing of The Lord of the Rings, the original epic
fantasy which popularized the secondary world. Even though Tolkien had said
that Middle-earth was simply a pre-history of our world, we all know that
Middle-earth is a fictional world outside any realm we’ve ever known. Maybe
Tolkien was not ready to admit that he was severing his work from the standards
of previous fantasy literature which always had some ties to the “real” world.
Today, we cannot think of epic/high fantasy being any other way. As Edward
James had also written: “This has become
so standard in modern fantasy that it is not easy to realize how unusual it was
before Tolkien.”
For a
writer, building a secondary world can be a pleasure, almost like a hobby—fed
by many other interests that correspond into a cohesive system. In other ways
it could evolve into an obsession of knitting together histories, magic
systems, and order of societies down to the slightest detail. The latter can be
good, if skillfully used as the backdrop for good characters within a good
story; otherwise, it does no good and is simply just a made-up world. A writer
has to avoid being geeky about their world and concentrate on the story. The
secondary world, no matter how complex, is still only the setting for the
author’s characters and their story—not the story itself.
The
secondary world can be that neutral ground between the author and the reader
where ideas and issues are explored without making things too personal—as they
may be if written in a more contemporary fashion within our world. It can be a
means of helping us relate on some things that we experience in the real world.
The secondary world can be a way to undo the complexity or confusion of our own
world, simplifying things and bringing a kind of focus to the characters and
the story that may be lacking contrast within tales that take place in the
primary world. Yet, at the end of the day, the secondary worlds that we journey
through in fantasy fiction still consist of the same old trials and conflicts
that plague us in this world: life and death; war and peace; good and evil;
etc.
Tolkien
wrote about the secondary world in his 1947 essay, On Fairy Stories. He talks about the art of the “story-maker” to
become a “sub-creator” in order to present a world where the reader can step
into a state of belief of that world. He says of the story-maker: “He makes a Secondary World which your mind
can enter. Inside it, what he relates is “true”: it accords with the laws of
that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The
moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has
failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little
abortive Secondary World from outside.”
In his essay on fairy stories,
Tolkien speaks profoundly on the art of creating a secondary world. The skill
of the writer must be good enough to make their world credible. Tolkien says, “To make a Secondary World inside which the
green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require
labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish
craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any
degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed narrative
art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode.” He also mentions
the course in which writers draw from reality when creating their world,
saying: “Probably every writer making a
secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a
real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar
quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from
Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can
fairly be described by the dictionary definition: “inner consistency of reality,” it is difficult to conceive
how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality.”
So to use a
simple illustration, when watching the makings of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, we see all the
great detail that they went into in order to bring life to Middle-earth on the
screen. They took time to grow vegetation and gardens to make the Shire a
reality. Great detail was given to everything from the cooking ware to the
armory to the selection of the landscape. Now, when watching the films prior to
seeing the behind the scenes creation, the viewer has no care as to how much
work and meticulous designing it took to create the visuals that sucked them
into the film. No, the viewer is simply immersed into a story within an
enigmatic world where they are caught up into 3 hours of wonder, suspense,
humor and adventure. The camera does not zoom in on all the artistry and skill
used to bring life to Middle-earth; its focus is on the characters and the
incorporated scenes used to present an epic story.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
All-Powerful Dark Rulers
The fantasy
genre is full of stories where one (or a group, or race) of great power rules
over a kingdom or empire with malice and corruption. The subjects are forced to
live under the cruel, heavy hand of the dark rulers, and there’s always mention
of a group of brave souls who attempted to rise up against the powers-that-be
in hopes to overthrow the reigning darkness—but they failed. And so begins the
story of a chosen one, and those that follow, who rises and succeeds against the
evil power.
“The Lady”
from the Chronicles of the Black Company
betrayed her powerful, evil husband, the Dominator, to control and dominate the
Northern Empire herself. She is a cruel empress, destroying all who oppose her.
The Black Company, who were employed by the Lady, later change their course to
prepare to fight against the Lady.
My all-time
favorite, Emperor Palpatine, is the one Dark Lord of the Sith, who took the
ancient principles of the Sith, the rule of two (one to harness the power of
the darkside, and one to crave it), and patiently and skillfully took over the
galaxy—creating the first galactic empire. With his apprentice, Darth Vader,
Palpatine holds the galaxy in his powerful clutches, yet we see the Rebel
Alliance defy his rule as we read (or watch, in most cases) in what’s called
the original trilogy of the Star Wars
saga.
In the Halfblood Chronicles, the all-powerful
Elvenlords long ago entered the world through the Great Portal from another
dimension and enslaved humankind, making concubines of choice women and
gladiators of choice men, and oppressing all life forms to their will. Shana,
half elven and half human, leads a band of intelligent dragons, half-blood
wizards, and escaped human slaves to undo centuries of cruel elven reign.
Like the Halfblood Chronicles, the Annals of Drakis takes place in a world
ruled by cruel elves, yet they are not tall, fair, and good-looking like the
Elvenlords of the Halfblood Chronicles.
These are beings with (mostly) dark skin, elongated heads, and sharp teeth,
enslaving not just humans, but races of all kinds—controlling them with aether
magic to do their bidding.
In the
original Mistborn trilogy, the first
book, The Final Empire, gives us the
Lord Ruler, a seemingly all-powerful, god-like man who controls the known
empire. All who even attempt to oppose him meet their demise.
I could go
on with many examples in fantasy fiction of seemingly all-powerful dark rulers.
The genre is laded with them. It’s not too difficult to understand why authors
bring to life characters with great power who are nothing but ruthless and
dominating. It brings about conflict, and heightens the stakes for the “good”
characters that we will root for.
But why do
authors create ruling characters who possess great powers who are malevolent?
Why don’t they make ruling characters with great powers who are benevolent?
Stepping aside from the reasoning that evil characters with great powers makes
for a more climatic story, could it be that writers have rested on the fact that
no man/woman, or being, is able to be all-good if they were to possess great
powers? The writer may not see this consciously, but it’s just a rooted fact
within the human psyche. Anyone harnessing great powers will succumb to their
dark side, and force their will upon the weaker to advance their own cause.
So what can
be said of such characters? Do they reflect a reality that, in the words of
John Dalberg-Acton, “absolute power corrupts absolutely?” Putting Acton’s words more in context, he said: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power
corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they
exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency
or the certainty of corruption by authority.” An example of this in fantasy
fiction can be found in The Neverending Story. The main character,
Bastian, becomes corrupted after obtaining the talisman, AURYN, given to him by
the Childlike Empress. AURYN gave him the power to wish for whatever he wanted
in the land of Fantastica. Consumed by the world he created
with his wishes—creating havoc for the creatures of Fantastica—Bastian comes to
the brink of wanting to conquer the Childlike Empress so that he can become the
Childlike Emperor.
What would
a work of fantasy fiction be like if the tables had turned? What if the
all-powerful ruler was benevolent and good, ruling his people with peace,
kindness and justice, but evil characters attempt to rise up to subdue them?
Makes you wonder how such a story could work.
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