Tag Archives: Criticism

An initial intrusion becomes an accepted reality: Narrative slippage in Urban Fantasy series

Posted by RibaldRemark on

Harry-dresden

Urban Fantasy Series, such as Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles, and to some extent Charlene Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries, illustrate a weakness in current critical approaches to fantasy series.  Put simply, when a fantasy narrative is part of a series rather than a stand-alone, a trilogy or a closed narrative system, many of our critical approaches to fantastic narrative break down.  Urban fantasy series almost invariably begin with what Mendlesohn has termed ‘Intrusion’ fantasy, however, as each series progresses, the narrative shifts towards another of Mendlesohn’s taxonomic terms ‘Immersion fantasy’.[1]  The fantastic elements of the world building have a tendency to become more complex and feature more prominently leading to a distinct change in style of narrative, no longer does the fantastic intrude upon reality, the fantastic becomes the reality.

Early instalments in the series feature intrusions of fantastic elements into the relatively mimetic diegetic setting or story world.  These intrusions lead to the hero protagonist engaging with elements of the fantastic and resolving the problems created by the intrusion, Dresden defeating an evil wizard, Atticus fighting off faerie, and Sookie dealing with the repercussions of vampire Bill moving into the neighbourhood.  Later instalments in these series move further away from this structure of intrusion and rectification toward a more accepting or immersive stance toward the fantastic and a more active exploration of the fantasy elements.

Dresden routinely leaves the environs of Chicago to frequent exotic locales and other planes of existence, Atticus abandons Arizona in favour of visits to Tir Na nOg and Asgard, Sookie spends less time in the domestic settings of Bon Temps and begins to engage with the complicated politics and social structures of the supernatural world.  In each case, the base line diegetic reality becomes more fantastical and less mimetic.  Fewer mundane characters feature prominently, and a substantial portion of the dramatis personae are magical or fantastic in some way.

Framing this in structural narratological terms.  Rather than narrative tension being created through confrontation between the hero and an intrusive fantastical element, the narratives derive tension and impetus from interaction with and exploration of wider supernatural and magical realms.   The hero is no longer preoccupied with the defence of reality from a magical intrusion, but rather the hero is engaged with a broader reality, it is just that the reality in question has now become fantastic.

This then poses a question, if these series transition from intrusion fantasy to immersion fantasy whilst retaining a reader base and remaining ‘true’ to the series with no apparent or significant alteration of plot, story, character or type, what does the identification of intrusion or immersion really highlight and illustrate?  Or perhaps less aggressively we could ask, given that these fantasy series are a continuation of an existing narrative, how can this transition be explained?

What are the narrative structures being discussed?

A standard structural approach to analysing narrative is to locate the source of the driving force of the narrative, the narrative tension.  This can usually be found as existing between two opposing forces:   The protagonist’s goal or desire acting in one direction and driving the narrative toward that, and a counter force that exists to thwart or counteract this put in play by the antagonist’s goal or desire which places obstacles in the hero’s path, or vice versa.

The Heroes want to destroy the ring, Sauron wants to reclaim the ring.

The detective wants to solve the murder, the serial killer wants to go on killing.

The Martians want to invade Earth, the Heroes wish to repel the invasion.

It is a nice, straightforward, if slightly reductive way, to visualise narrative tension.  Of course there are other ways of framing this conflict that take into account broader concepts.   Vladimir Propp created an outline to a hero’s journey in his work Morphology of the Folktale.  Simplistically put, he suggests that a lack or wrongness initiates a call to adventure, the hero then journeys and passes trials before redressing this lack and concluding with a restoration and healing of the world order.  Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth[2], posits a similar narrative trajectory that moves from a diegetic story world that has been disrupted, the rising of a hero to counteract this disruption and the resolution of the adventure in which the disequilibrium is negated and the world order is restored.  John Clute, in The Enclyopedia of Fantasy suggests the concept of the ‘Full Fantasy’ which posits that the adventure begins with a wrongness of the land, which, following the successful hero’s journey, is redressed, and the land is healed and restored.  So despite the variants and intricacies of each of these approaches, there is apparently an underlying pattern here of the supposed structural narrative paradigm of a fantasy adventure.

How does this then relate to Mendlesohn’s concept of the intrusion fantasy?

The trajectory of the Intrusion Fantasy is straightforward: the world is ruptured by the intrusion, which disrupts normality and has to be negotiated with or defeated, sent back whence it came, or controlled.[3]

It seems that each of these approaches is highlighting much the same thing, and in terms of Urban fantasy we can view it as the following:

A mimetic reality is placed into disequilibrium/wrongness/lack by the intrusion of a fantastic element which does not belong.  So in effect, the mimetic, mundane world has been disrupted by a fantastic intrusion.

The hero then seeks to remove or resolve this by attempting to remove/defeat/contain the intrusion and return the world to the status quo, therefore returning the world to normalcy and mundanity.  So far so good.  It all seems straightforward.  All these models seem to agree. Rather suspiciously one might feel.

So is that what happens in Urban Fantasy Series?

Consider Book 1 of the Dresden Files – Storm Front

In the case of Storm Front, modern day Chicago is under magical attack, the police are out matched and don’t really understand what is happening, and the only wizard listed in the phone book is Harry Dresden.  Harry, who is perceived as a charlatan by a number of the characters, acts as a private investigator and consultant to the police.  He eventually tracks down the evil magic user and defeats him, thus saving the city, protecting the mundanes from knowledge of the supernatural world, and returning to his apartment to await the next case.

So the majority of the narrative focuses on Harry’s efforts to track a supernatural killer on the streets of modern day Chicago whilst hiding this information concerning the fantastic from the police.  In effect, Harry acts as a supernatural guardian protecting the mundanes from a fantastical world they are not ready to, nor capable of, accepting.

The narrative tension is created through Harry’s drive to protect the innocent civilians of the city, solve the case, prevent himself from being killed by the intrusion of an evil fantastic element that does not belong in his city and to bring the villain to justice.

A fantastic intrusion disrupts the mundane reality.

The Hero seeks to correct this wrong.

The Intrusion is contained, normality resumes and the narrative ‘resets’ ready for the next adventure.

So far Mendlesohn’s, as well as Campbell, Clute and Propp’s, narrative structures hold true.
The next example is Book one of Kevin Hearne’s The Iron Druid Chronicles – Hounded.

Attitcus, the 2000 year old or so last remaining Irish druid, is living peaceably in modern day Arizona.  Some faerie characters arrive having finally tracked him down, including some of the Sidhe, they cause havoc as Atticus attempts to counter them and protect the locals from being exposed to the supernatural elements, he defeats them and ultimately the world returns to normal at the end of the book.

So clearly the arrival of an unwanted fantastical element, the faerie and the Sidhe, create the narrative tension in the book, or to put it another way, the fantastic intrusion creates a disequilibrium which much be opposed and thwarted by the hero to resolve the problem and return the world to normalcy.

So in the case of Book Ones… or should that be books one… Mendlesohn’s taxonomy, like that of Campbell’s, Clute’s, and Propp’s, appears to be an accurate narrative template.   They each describe what is happening within the text in solid reasonable and identifiable terms.  A wrongness, lack or intrusion begins the tension.  The hero progresses through trials and adventures before ultimately repelling the intrusion and righting the wrong.  The world is returned to equilibrium.

But, what happens when we consider later books in these series?

While initially these series appear to begin as intrusion fantasises with mundane mimetic realities which have been invaded by fantastical elements, the later books have embraced the fantastic reality and there is a more active exploration in the narrative of the magical or supernatural potential in these story worlds.  Or more accurately, the fantastic has become normalised and magical or supernatural has become matter of course.

In Changes (book 12) of the Dresden Files as the title suggests marks a radical change to the main series and signals how the series will transition.  Harry’s points of connection to Chicago, his car, his apartment and his office are destroyed.  Harry’s hitherto unknown daughter has been kidnapped by Red Court vampires, and even with the resolution of the narrative Harry cannot become a father to her and thus fully embraces a magical existence.

The narrative culminates in a journey with his faerie godmother (faerie with an ‘ae’), his apprentice Molly, his brother the White Court succubus Thomas, a magical dog, two half-vampire vampire hunters, and another group of wizards as well as mercanaries strongly linked to Norse Mythology, to Chichen Itza via the Never Never, to battle hundreds of vampires, their familiars, servants and vampire masters.  It is a full blown epic battle, in an exotic location with only a passing resemblance to the real world locale, populated by hundreds of magical and fantastic characters.

Many of the major aspects of the novel focus on the politics of the supernatural realms such as the vampire courts, the council of wizards (The White Council), the Faerie courts and the holy knights of the church.

Few of these aspects are directly explained to the narratee, as there is an assumption that with the 12th book in the series readers will already be familiar with each of the concepts.  The tone and style are clearly immersive given this assumption of knowledge.  And there is a shifting of the tension from a passive counter-action in response to an intrusive element to an active journey and quest adventure to battle fantastic elements in a magical locale.

This is a quest to find and rescue Harry’s daughter, not to stop the intrusion of Red Court vampires into Chicago.  The destruction of the Red Court vampires does not reset the world ready for the next adventure.

So what has changed and how do we explain this?

So firstly let’s examine the function of the mimetic setting.

The mimetic setting, be it Chicago, Illinois or Tempe, Arizona establishes a base line diegetic universe or setting for the reader.  It suggests a diegetic reality that is easily understood and negotiated given its cultural verisimilitude and implied ‘rules’.  It is an easy to understand reality about which the reader can make a series of assumptions and educated guesses.  Gravity will function, police and fire trucks will respond to emergencies, characters have to pay taxes.  In effect, it eases the reader into a state of assumed security and comfort which can then be intruded upon by a fantastic element to unsettle, entertain, or entrance the reader, depending on the author’s intention.

By establishing this base mundane norm, any fantastic element will seem ‘more fantastical’ by contrast.  But it will also create certain expectations about how the fantasy elements will be explained within the setting.  There must be a rationalisation of the fantasy.  For instance, if dragons exist and are flying around, why have they never been seen (an issue with the Harry Potter universe).  If vampires exist, why have they never been caught, and so on and so forth.  There must be a reason to explain their existence in ‘our’ reality.

The author must find various ways and means to allow the reader’s perception of reality to coincide with the diegetic reality created but make the inclusion of potential fantastical elements both believable and credible.

This is a clear distinction to secondary world fantasy in which entirely fantastical worlds can be created that function perfectly rationally according to entirely different rules and versimilitudinous norms.

The reader’s understanding of reality can then be subverted or played with by the author in order to create the desired effect.  In horror, sinister, frightening or disturbing elements may be emphasised.  In urban fantasy it tends toward the more wondrous end of the spectrum.  To put it in the vernacular, Excitement, adventure and all things that a Jedi does not crave.

In essence then, a mimetic setting provides the initial cultural, geographical context for the narrative, as well as implying a number of base norms about the diegetic reality that function as a shorthand notation to explain the rules of the diegetic universe, leaving the author to explore and explain only those aspects that do not conform to our base reality.

Therefore the appearance of an initial mundane reality circumvents the need to establish a base norm as it is already implied. It avoids the necessity of explaining how the world functions.  It also provides a mundane contrast to potential fantastical effects to heighten the impact of the intrusion and create wonder.  And lastly, it provides a continuous and re-usable setting for fantastic stories.  Our world keeps on spinning and so too does the diegetic reality of a series.

We then have the altered structure of ‘series’ to consider.  Series are part of an extended narrative – There is no ‘conclusion’ to the narrative or story world that results in true resolution, but there must be a meaningful end to the episode to provide closure and to resolve aspects of the story.

But series are ongoing adventures.  Each building on the last.  So we commonly have an Escalation in each subsequent instalment and a desire for the new, be it adversaries, locations, concepts or effects.  As each episode ends there is a desire to level up characters, give them new powers, to ratchet up peril, tension and goals for the next story.  To use an example from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  In the first episode a single vampire can be a challenging foe, by the end of season 3 ‘normal’ vampires are now incidental villains that can be easily dispatched.  Heroes grow more powerful and adept as they grow and therefore their challenges need to escalate to match that, which is very much a concept borrowed from RPGs and the idea of character levelling.

Practical matters of the author reader relationship also need to be addressed.  Unlike with a book one or a standalone narrative, there is an established readership who are already well versed in the reality as the series progresses, therefore there is no need to re-explain the base-line reality each and every time.  Thus the style of the narrative can become much more immersive as there is an assumption of narratee knowledge and understanding.

A reusable setting or diegetic world, is a necessary part of a serial narrative.  Should the world be healed and resolved then there are only a certain number of times and ways it can be re-imperilled without sounding contrived or trite.  An example of this problem can be found in David Eddings’ Belgariad and Malloreon quintets, in which the world ending narrative of the first five books is essentially repeated in the subsequent five book series.  He then repeats this pattern with the Elenium trilogy and its sequel, the Tamuli trilogy.  In each case he simply repeats the narrative pattern and structure of the first story in the sequel with minor variations in setting and character.

Linked to the concept of escalation is the need to cover new territory, visit new locales, introduce new and more exciting characters, abilities, magical creatures.  The fantastic reality that intruded in the first book, now must be explored, mapped, codified and tabulated in an effort for the fan to understand all there is to know about that world.  The author in a series often adds new storyworld material as a way to create

Fundamentally then, the series has transitioned from a closed narrative system to one that is open-ended and that must continue to evolve and grow, adding new elements and greater threats.  The hero must become more active and seek out adventure rather than passively wait for an intrusion to disrupt normality.  In fact, as the series progress, they become more and more like portal quests conducted over many instalments.  This results in many of these series becoming immersive, portal quest fantasies that alternate between passive and active reactions to Intrusion in a cycle of escalating power dynamics.

An interesting aspect of the move toward immersive fantasy is that heroes gradually accumulate several magical helpers and allies, resulting in the construction of a balanced party of individuals which is of course a trope of the portal-quest or the quest adventure.  They end up touring various new lands and finding more acquisitive plots rather than the defence of an established territory.  Therefore, series are fundamentally different to assumed closed narratives and the existing critical paradigms we use.

Given the recurring use of setting, the continuing development of characters over the course of a series, the need for new adventure after new adventure. In effect, the need for new interesting developments, growths, settings, locations and adventures, there can be no closing of the narrative to allow for the traditional ending and resolution of the story.

The fantastic intrusion is too passive a structure for the acceleration of growth of character and development and exploration of the diegetic reality.

[1] Rhetorics of Fantasy

[2] Joseph Campbell The Hero with a Thousand Faces

[3] Mendlesohn Rhetorics p.115

(Originally presented as a paper at ICFA 34)

Do Chainmail Chicks Suffer From A Glass Ceiling? Just Desserts or Just Desserts for the heroines of fantasy?

Posted by RibaldRemark on

Leelee Sobieski as Joan of Arc

Unfortunately the title is much catchier than the paper itself, but I am playing on the preconceived notions about women in fantasy.  We are all too aware of the so called women’s roles in fantasy; the love interest, the witch, the femme fatale or temptress, the lonely warrior maiden, the ice queen etc. etc.  We are also aware of the usual female versions of the traditional male fantasy roles; huntress instead of hunter, princess instead of prince, sorceress instead of sorcerer, enchantress instead of enchanter, warrior maiden instead of warrior, assassiness instead of assassin… well the last two don’t actually fit, but it is interesting to note that it appears you can’t be a female warrior if you are married and have kids.  Apparently there are a few gendered roles and then some non-specific genderless ones that can be performed by either sex equally well.  Assassin, thief, spy are all exceptions to the male/female dichotomy and yet all are morally ambiguous characters who may or may not be heroes and all prize stealth and agility over physical strength.

Even the term ‘heroine’ is problematic in this sense as it appears as inferior or lesser than the assumed male ‘hero’.  It conjures up images of damsels in distress, princesses needing rescuing by the big strapping young farm boy who is also secretly a long lost king.  So perhaps I should instead be speaking about female heroes rather than heroines.  Certainly my intention is to discuss female protagonists and female characters that are central or integral to the plot and additionally are on the side of good rather than evil which is a whole other paper entirely.

As I said earlier this is part of my on going research about the representations of gender in genre fantasy and in part I owe a great deal of the paper to Sylvia Kelso’s article in the New York Review of Science Fiction entitled The King and the Enchanter.[1]  In this she addresses the problem of the powerful magic users of fantasy who seem to go out of their way to find the missing progeny of Kings and train them to assume the throne, and asks the question why don’t the mages do it themselves?

Part of her discussion deals with the role of the king and of kingship in fantasy and links it to the idea of hegemonic masculinity which she suggests is the norm in genre fantasy.

To quote her here “[…] this norm emerges most clearly through the numerous stories of male protagonists who learn to become king […] a fantasy king must learn to restrain heroic, individual violence, accept counsel, and avoid tyranny […] once crowned, the good king marries and sires an heir.” P.1

But during her article she also mentions a few characters as examples of this argument and the short shrift they receive in terms of fantasy rewards for their actions.  In particular her discussion of the female enchantress characters stood out for me and started me thinking about the rewards of all female heroes in fantasy, not just the enchantresses.

To begin with I want to lay out very briefly a sort of reductionist hero template for you.  Let us take the standard fantasy hero.  When constructing a hero is there a physical template that we adhere to when we think of how they appear? It seems that the ‘standard hero’ at least until the last few years, has been a blonde, blue eyed, white, Anglo Germanic male.  We even presume that the hero is a male.

When we think of the trials of the hero the most obvious adventures are those of monster slaying, a quest to find a magical object and fighting some great big evil.

In terms of the rewards that a hero receives at the end of the tale we expect him to be rewarded with a throne or position of nobility of some kind, a bride (usually a princess) and a magical item, which in most cases is a sword.

Now I realise that there are more than a few genre fantasy texts that do not conform to this template.  As I said it is a reductionist point of view and as such not entirely accurate.  However, there are enough fantasy books out there that conform to this set to hopefully make it recognisable.  I think most people here can see this as roughly representative of a stereotypical heroic format.

Now taking this as a model lets see if we can apply it equally well to the female characters and female heroes of fantasy.

Physical description:  What do female heroes look like? Well in terms of actual physicality there isn’t a lot of consensus, certainly we have Wynne Jones’ Tough Guide to Fantasyland which highlights many of the stereotypes being used, but there isn’t really a physical template for a female hero unless we take into account slightly non-specific or aesthetic attributes like beauty, athleticism, ravishing eyes, fiery temper, and porcelain skin.  But at this juncture we could easily list far more texts that do not conform to this than we could do with the male template.  It just seems to be that there is a stereotypical physicality to the male hero that isn’t present in female heroes, they tend toward stereotypical emotional and aesthetic traits rather than physical.

Trials of the heroine: If we have a female hero does she undergo the same trials as the male hero?  In my opinion you don’t have the same degree of standard trials, there doesn’t appear to be a template for the trials that a female hero goes through.

Now on this point I think you have to make a distinction between the structural narratological perspective provided by a Proppian analysis, which could quite easily point out various connections between donor functions, complicity, violation and interdiction and so on.  I am not arguing that the trials of the female hero provide different narratological meanings, simply that in terms of plot they are different trials.

For a start one of the major differences is that female heroes, certainly in recent genre fantasy, seem to undergo some form of sexual abuse which is rare in cases of a male hero.  In Hobb’s Liveship series, two of the central female characters suffer various levels of sexual abuse, including rape, in Feist and Wurts’ Empire Trilogy Mara of the Acoma is physically and sexually abused by her husband and threatened with rape repeatedly by various villains, and even in Eddings’ Belgariad, a favourite of young readers, we encounter the character of Taiba, who suffered rape, sexual abuse and violent attacks in the slave pits.

And in terms of monster slaying it is rare that the a female hero is sent out to do this, so my basic point is that yes there just as many trials to test the female hero, but in terms of event, they generally appear as distinct and specific to the heroine, rather than the generic male events.

Quest Rewards: So finally we get to the area that I really want to discuss.

Again, the standard quest rewards for male heroes does not seem to translate directly to female heroes.  When we think of the male quest rewards it was fairly easy to think of the standard responses, the bride, the throne, the sword.  But it is much more difficult to think of similar rewards for female heroes.

But there is a curious recurrence of fantasy rewards for these female protagonists.

At the end of the quest or adventure the female hero can expect one of or a combination of the following:

  1. Love
  2. Marriage
  3. Domestic Harmony
  4. Children
  5. Retirement from adventuring.

Ultimately these are usually combined into one overwhelming principle:

  1. A good man to look after her and treat her right.

Am I overstating the case here?  To illustrate this point I am going to relay some examples but as I do so I want you to consider two questions.  The first “Are the following rewards for the female hero appropriate?” and the second “Should the rewards for a female hero be the same as those of the male?”.

Ok then, the case studies or more accurately some examples.

Polgara the Sorceress

Polgara is one of the main characters of several of David (and Leigh) Eddings’ books.  She appears in the Belgariad series, the Mallorean, Belgarath the Sorcerer and of course her own title, Polgara the Sorceress.

So a little about her then.  In terms of physicality she is beautiful, although her beauty is often termed as regal or proud, so we know she is not drop dead gorgeous but has a stately grace.  She has dark hair, so dark it is almost black and a near luminous white lock at the front.  She is over three thousand years old and is also a twin.  Her twin sister, Beldaran, is described as effortlessly beautiful, blonde, blue eyed, gentle, caring and loving, and who was given as a bride to a young noble who had completed an epic quest.  Polgara wasn’t.

Of her sister the character of Polgara says, “She was to be the vessel of love; I was to be the vessel of power!”

During the course of the Belgariad Polgara is an enormously important character, she has acted as surrogate mother to the hero, she has protected him and his ancestors for much of her greatly extended life (although her exploits read as a litany of failures) and on the quest she wields great magical power and deals with the semi-evil priestess Salmissra so that the men don’t have to fight a woman.

However Polgara’s role in the ultimate confrontation between the evil god Torak and the young hero Garion is as follows.  She has to refuse to be the evil god’s bride.

The wisest, oldest, most powerful woman in the world aids in the fight against evil by refusing to marry.  She has been reduced to a prize to be fought over.

Not only that, the only reason she is able to find the strength to resist Torak is because Durnik, whom she has realised is her one true love, has just died and it is the anguish and pain caused by this loss that sustains her and she has to be reminded of this by the central hero Garion.

So what is her reward?

For refusing Torak’s proposal Polgara is given a husband and the chance to raise a family of her own.  She retires with her husband to a small cottage in the country where she looks after a young foundling and eventually gives birth to twins of her own.  In some respects this is a just reward, she has spent the greater part of her life guiding and protecting other people’s children and families and now has the chance to have her own now that her ‘job’ is done.  However, a duchess of immeasurable power and influence, regal beyond the ken of normal humans, has just been consigned to a small cottage in the middle of nowhere so she can raise rug rats.  Is this really the proper reward for thousands of years of service and sacrifice?

In comparison Durnik, Polgara’s husband, seems to do a little better out of the deal.  Not only is he resurrected gaining a new lease of life, pardon the pun, he has been given magical powers comparable to hers.  So his reward for participating in the quest is having his lifespan extended to match hers, magical powers that match hers that he learns to use in a matter of days rather than the centuries it took her to acquire them, a powerful beautiful wife and ultimately children.  He gets the traditional male quest rewards whilst she is left being his prize.

Ce’Nedra

Ce’Nedra is another example from Eddings’ fantasy world.  Throughout the first series she is a childish, spoiled foil to the young hero Garion.  Her contribution to the quest, in addition to being the love interest for the hero, is to raise an army to distract the forces of evil a la Tolkien.  However she raises the army in Garion’s name and it is his power that she is wielding rather than her own.  She does not command the army in so much as she is a figurehead for the army to rally around.  Her reward for the quest is to be Garion’s bride.  True she gains a kingdom and a marital partner much like the traditional male hero and he generously deigns to give her co-rulership over his domain, yet he retains the title of Overlord of the West whilst she remains his queen and so he is still politically her superior.  She also is promised the birth of a son to be the new heir to the restored throne, before she can have any female children.

So again the female reward is actually to be the reward for the male hero.  Garion in this case gains a bride, a son, a throne and a magical sword.

Mara

Mara of the Acoma is an interesting case.

In Feist and Wurts’ trilogy set during and after Feist’s Riftwar trilogy, we are introduced to a fascinating female character.  Mara of the Acoma.  She is a young girl about to take religious orders and effectively become a nun when she is rushed home to assume the mantle of rulership over her house/family. Although not a standard quest narrative Mara has to undergo several adventures and political machinations to strengthen her weakened political position.  Like many female heroes she is a woman fighting to survive in a male arena.

She uses sex, manipulation and astute planning in addition to a great deal of luck and sacrifice to win out over her rivals.

She sacrifices love, relationships and integrity to ultimately bring peace to the land, a stable  ruler to the throne, remove the absolute power wielded by the male cadre of magicians, frees women to study magic, and helps improve relations with the Kingdom across the rift.

Ultimately her sacrifice puts her son on the throne of the empire and she achieves power and respect.  She has protected her house, restored the honour of her ancestors and forgone individual advancement for the greater good.  A self sacrificing hero.  She becomes the ultimate power behind the throne.

However her true reward at the end of the third book is when the long lost barbarian love of her life returns to claim his place as her lover and father to their child.  She throws off the reserve of her people, defies tradition and is brought true happiness in this love match.

So lets look at these rewards, it is her son that becomes emperor not her.  And in terms of Kevin, the ex-slave, he has been given a male heir who is the ruler of the most powerful land on two planets, the love of a beautiful and powerful woman, a noble title and lands.  Once again the males seem to get everything whilst Mara gets to have domestic bliss.

My last example is that of Hobb’s Althea Vistrit.  One of the central characters of The Liveship Trilogy, and initially framed as the central protagonist.  Althea sets out at the beginning of the series to become a good sailor worthy of captaining the family Liveship, the Vivacia.  She disguises her gender in order to sign on as an anonymous sailor and receive the training and experience she needs, during the course of which she also becomes an expert at skinning animals.  This basic training in the general skills of a common sailor, combined with her navigational skills and command experience gathered whilst being on board as the Captain’s daughter make Althea an excellent all round sailor and a potentially great captain.

However by the end of the book, she forgoes control of the family liveship and ends up being promised marriage by the love of her life who is now the captain of his own liveship.  She ultimately sacrifices her own goals to be his wife and first mate aboard his ship.

At the same time her nephew, Wintrow, who throughout the books has disavowed a life on the sea, is granted control of the family liveship, is to be surrogate father to the future king of the pirate isles and ultimately marry the king’s mother.  He is rewarded in a slightly roundabout way with a throne, a child, a bride and a magical item in true heroic fashion.

So can we see female heroes as recipients of rewards or are they always the prize?  The fantasy genre seems to lean towards a patriarchal bias and the style of writing lends itself to male gendered stories and until this changes I fear that women will always suffer from a glass ceiling in fantasy land.

[1] The Kelso article is “The King and the Enchanter: gender, power and authority in Patricia McKillip’s fantasy Novel”.  Kelso, Sylvia The New York Review of Science Fiction No.210 (Feb 2006) p.1, 8-12

(Originally presented as a paper at ICFA28)

A Response to George R.R. Martin’s Interview

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George-RR-Martin-thumb

Earlier this year, in an article on Entertainment Weekly George R.R. Martin explains why there is violence against women in his series A Song of Ice and Fire.

From the outset I want to make it very, very clear that George R.R. Martin, as with any author, is perfectly entitled to do whatever he wants in his world, to and with his characters and has no need to justify those reasons to me.  I was a fan of the first few books in the series, and I am all for greater numbers of fantasy books and TV shows being created.  This discussion is about the article and the arguments he makes justifying the depiction of rape and sexual violence against women in his novels.

George R.R. Martin offers three interlinked explanations as to why there is so much rape and sexual violence against women in his novels.  Given the amount of ink spilled on the sexual violence in his novels and in the TV Show adaptation it is understandable that his explanations are more akin to defences to charges.  So what are his points?

Defence 1: Temporal Realism – The books are a reflection of Medieval society therefore the depiction of sexual violence against women is justified on the basis it happened in the Middle Ages.
“The books reflect a patriarchal society based on the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were not a time of sexual egalitarianism. It was very classist, dividing people into three classes. And they had strong ideas about the roles of women.” – Martin

Defence 2 : Balancing Realism and Fantasy – Although it is a fantasy you can’t change everything.
“If you’re going to do [a fantasy element], it’s best to only do one of them, or a few. I wanted my books to be strongly grounded in history and to show what medieval society was like, and I was also reacting to a lot of fantasy fiction. Most stories depict what I call the ‘Disneyland Middle Ages’—there are princes and princesses and knights in shining armor, but they didn’t want to show what those societies meant and how they functioned.” – Martin

Defence 3 : Realism of the Human Condition – Rape and sexual violence is the dark underbelly of the human condition and it would be dishonest to pretend it doesn’t exist.
“I’m writing about war, which what almost all epic fantasy is about. But if you’re going to write about war, and you just want to include all the cool battles and heroes killing a lot of orcs and things like that and you don’t portray [sexual violence], then there’s something fundamentally dishonest about that. Rape, unfortunately, is still a part of war today. It’s not a strong testament to the human race, but I don’t think we should pretend it doesn’t exist.” – Martin

With all due respect to Mr Martin I don’t think these are persuasive arguments and I am going to explain why.

Before I get started, here is a great article (and this one) that breaks down the incidents of rape and sexual violence in the book series as well as the TV show so we know what we are talking about.

To summarise:

Rape acts in ASOIAF the book series (to date): 214

Rape victims in ASOIAF (to date): 117

With the exception of Maester Kerwin who was gang raped, and the victims of Septon Utt (young boys he raped and murdered), all the other rapes are performed on women. All of them.  That is over 200 acts of rape and sexual violence against women mentioned or depicted in the novels, and just over 10 are depicted or mentioned in regard to sexual violence and rape of men and boys.  Just let that sink in for a moment.  Less than 5% of the sexual violence of the world of A Song of Ice and Fire is perpetrated against men.

So how does this relate to Martin’s defences?  If Martin wants to make the argument that his world building is gritty and realistic and follows a more believable pattern of the medieval time period then he has some very skewed perceptions about rape and sexual violence.

A simple example that exposes this bias and skewed thinking can be found in the institution of the Night’s Watch.  He populates the Night’s Watch with murderers, rapists, thieves, and the cast-offs of society, sends them up to the middle of nowhere, prevents them from mixing with anyone else, denies them access to a civilian population with which to fraternise, and yet they never indulge in the rape or sexual assault of the newcomers to the Watch.

They might hate each other, want to kill each other, scheme against one another, but certainly not rape each other. Because we all know that rape never happened in the military, never happened in prisons, and certainly wouldn’t happen in a quasi-military force made up of criminals locked away from the rest of humanity.

Therefore Martin’s work suggests that it is more believable that an army of men, made up of the dregs of humanity, kept in close ranks and away from any other distractions, don’t indulge in rape, whereas the rape of noblewomen, protected female wards and commoners alike is commonplace.

So even if Martin’s aim is to have represented a brutal reality of a harsh and unforgiving medieval-esque world, there is a strong authorial bias toward sexual violence against women that far outweighs and overshadows any of the sexual violence against men.  Given that there is a substantial body of literature and scholarship on pederasty, sodomy, lechery, paedophilia and male rape in the Medieval time period and earlier, it is clear that Martin’s choice to focus on sexual violence against women is clearly that; an authorial choice.  Male rape did exist.  Male rape was common enough throughout history to have numerous mentions and strictures in religious texts, laws and customs throughout the world.  If Martin is going to use historical veracity as a defence he has chosen a strangely biased form of that veracity to depict in his novels.

By his own argument then, to depict a realistic version of Medieval society warts and all, Martin has failed in his worldbuilding.

But Martin then argues that this is only a Medieval-esque world, that one can only change so much.  So perhaps excluding male rape is one change too many for him.  This leads us to the discussion of his assertion that you can only change certain things.

I would fundamentally disagree with this premise, and also disagree with the argument that to include an element of gender equality would produce boring results.  Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen is just as epic, gritty, detailed, and hard hitting as Martin’s ASoIaF, yet it manages to be so despite the fact that there is gender and sexual equality.  Erikson has written a fantasy world with tension, drama, and tragedy without using rape as a quick plot device to provide flavour to the actions of male characters or making it a boring feminist utopia in the way that Martin assumes such writing must be.  Erikson has women serving openly in the military, leading countries, being generals, assassins, mages, heavy infantry and so on and so forth.  Yet no one has ever accused his writing of being a boring utopia without drama.

Martin is a professional and successful author, and he knows that there are innumerable ways to create drama and tension in fiction without resorting to sexual violence against women.  He is also well read enough to know of, if not to have read, several of the great Feminist Science fiction novels by authors such as Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ and Marge Piercy (to name but a few), who wrote about feminist societies and gender equal societies without creating ‘a pretty boring book’.  So it is more than a little disingenuous to claim that he needed sexual violence in order to create drama.

But his third defence is perhaps the most troubling of his reasoning here as not only does it damn him in his choice to depict so much female rape and so little male rape, but it also undercuts his argument that you can only change a few things in fantasy.  He claims that he is attempting to show the dark side of the human condition, that to deny that rape happens in war is ‘fundamentally dishonest’.  So is it fundamentally dishonest of him to not depict the horrors of male on male rape in war and in the medieval armed forces?  But even if that is not persuasive, we can also ask if you are going to depict rape to illustrate the darkness of the human condition, do you have to depict rape against women over 30 times on average per book?

By not depicting male rape should we view him as a dishonest writer refusing to acknowledge that dark side of human nature?  And let me remind you, those were his words, not mine.  If his work is about the human condition, even its darkside, then his fully realised characters are all any reader needs to engage with the story.  He could easily jettison a lot of the sexual politics and gender bias and still have written a compelling, dark and gritty fantasy world.  The world doesn’t need rape to make it realistic, his characters, their personalities and how they come alive on the page, make it realistic.  The world can be as fantastic and as strange as his imagination can stretch, and it will still be accessible to readers as long as there are characters in the novel whose experiences entertain or move us.

Don’t take this as me arguing for more male rape in the novels.  Personally I would like a lot less rape, of all kinds, in the novels.  But if Martin is going to make the argument that rape is necessary to depicting the world, then let’s be honest about this.  He has deliberately chosen to write a lot of rape into the books, but is clearly uncomfortable with writing male rape.  So there is authorial choice and authorial bias in what he has chosen to put on paper.  No claim of realism, historical fact or historical inspiration defends his choice to actively depict these violent assaults and rapes.  He is a smart man, a talented writer, and, I am sure, a very nice human being, so he knows there are other ways of working that aspect of the world into a story without it being a ‘go to’ tool for character development and drama.

Put simply, he is not writing a medieval historical novel, he is writing medieval inspired fantasy.  That means that every aspect of medievalism he chooses to bring into his world is a deliberate choice, a deliberate authorial act.  He is under no obligation to bring them all over, nor does he have any obligation to focus on those aspects explicitly in his novels.  He is not bound by the realities of the medieval world.  So his choice to portray a lot of female rape and violence is exactly that, a deliberate authorial choice.  His choice not to portray male rape is exactly that, a deliberate authorial choice.  The prevalence of either act in the Middle Ages has no bearing, whatsoever, on how often he decides to utilise them in his narrative about Westeros.  At no point does he have to include male or female rape.  If he simply acknowledged that instead of trying to defend his choice as historical realism I would have a great deal more sympathy for his position, and would be the first to defend his authorial choice.  But he is the one who is sidestepping ownership of these choices behind the flimsy excuse of historical realism.

The thing is I don’t, in any way, think that Martin is a dishonest writer.  I don’t think he is a bad writer.  I think he is genuine in his desire to explore the darkside of the human experience and to explore some of the darkness of the Middle Ages.  But my point is that he is being extremely selective about which aspects he explores, and therefore this has less to do with realism, historical accuracy, or even a comprehensive look at humanity’s inhumanity, and far more to do with authorial intent and specific narrative choices.

So perhaps a more honest answer from Martin would be, ‘Yup, you are right. I am sorry. When I started the series I began with a set of assumptions about medieval reality, sexual politics and violence, and I am now stuck with that world.  It was a mistake, and right now I don’t know how to step back from it.’  Unfortunately, Martin seems to be doubling down on his stance, and given his sales figures and the popularity of the television adaptation, maybe he thinks this is justified.

Mr Martin is perfectly entitled to write his world and characters anyway he chooses, but he can’t hide behind ‘the Middle Ages were like this’ as an excuse for what he is doing in his fantasy novels, particularly when he is the one controlling the narrative.  He is the one creating the scenes.  He is the one deciding what to focus on.  He is the one deciding how each scene will be narrated.  He is the one who creates the rules of the fictional fantasy world.   He is the one crafting each and every character and their arc.  He is the author.  He just needs to own up to that.

Here endeth the rant.

Calling a Sword a Sword

Posted by RibaldRemark on
Anomander Rake from the Sub Press Edition of Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon

Anomander Rake from the Sub Press Edition of Steven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon



In Rhetorics of Fantasy Farah Mendlesohn has said that ‘the debate over definition is now long-standing and a consensus has emerged, accepting as a viable “fuzzy-set” a range of critical definitions of fantasy’.[1]  In fact she argues that a combination of Brian Attebery’s formulation of the ‘fuzzy set’[2] with a choice of critical framework chosen from Christina Brooke-Rose[3], John Clute[4], Kathryn Hume[5], Rosemary Jackson[6], or Mendlesohn’s own Rhetorics is all the critical rigour necessary to analyse and understand Fantasy.  In many respects she is absolutely right, however, there is one major flaw: the debate never happened.


This might seem a grandiose claim, the cry of a young academic seeking to tear down the work of his predecessors to gain notoriety, or even an apparent misunderstanding of previous critics due to a lack of ability to parse the nuance of their arguments and intentions.  Let me take this one moment to say unequivocally that it is not.  This entire essay will illustrate this.  The point that I wish to make is one that is both obvious and yet unspoken.  We have never had the debate about ‘Fantasy’ and the evidence for this is as stark as it is obvious.


A stronger point to consider is that now is precisely the time to have the debate.  In previous years we have sought out small groups of texts, examples and fuzzy sets around key texts to help us define the nebulous construction of Fantasy.  Now the genre has consolidated, now we have a huge body of work which has cohered into something definite and discernible beyond literary antecedents, beyond outlying exceptions.  There is a core, a genre, which can be examined and investigated.  This genre has evolved beyond the early examples and taken on a life of its own.  It is vast, it is diverse but it exists and it is self-aware.  Now we must have the debate and move the discussion to examining Fantasy in its own right.


In the introduction of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy Clute states ‘You know it is a fantasy when you see it’[7]  in his discussion of the difficulty the editors encountered when trying to create a working definition of Fantasy for the encyclopaedia’s remit.  Given that this is one of the foundational critical approaches and definitions that Mendlesohn suggests has settled the debate and Clute has resorted to paraphrasing Damon Knight’s oft cited remark ‘science fiction is what we point to when we say it’[8], it is difficult to see how this is anything other than starting the debate.   Attebery has addressed the essential principal of my argument in the first chapter of Strategies of Fantasy.[9]  ‘Fantasy’, as a term, is used in three major ways; the mode, the genre and the formula.  This simple statement reveals a problem that has plagued Fantasy scholarship almost from its very inception.  When we as academics discuss Fantasy we are almost always arguing at cross purposes, not because we have never defined the limits of Fantasy, nor because our desire for taxonomy has obscured the discussion, but because we use the term Fantasy to mean multiple things.


When Todorov wrote The Fantastic, when Hume wrote about Fantasy and Mimesis, when Jackson wrote about Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion and even Mendlesohn’s own Rhetorics, each have, at times, used the term ‘Fantasy’ interchangeably with ‘Fantastic’ to refer to the supergenre of the Fantastic.  That is, the mode of the Fantastic, the grand overarching category of non-realist or non-mimetic literature.  This much is obvious when one considers the number of SF, Horror as well as Fantasy texts which are used in these critical works to illustrate the arguments.  This is not a problem in and of itself.  Arguments concerning the Fantastic, the arguments that allow us to explore, explain, investigate and analyse broad swathes of literature are necessary for the critical endeavour and to place our research in context.  If we did not have these frameworks or appreciation of larger structures we would only produce text specific, ad-hoc limited analyses.  However, as Attebery clearly articulates, Fantasy is not the same as the Fantastic.  Arguments about the Fantastic differ from arguments about Fantasy specifically.


In Gary Wolfe’s Evaporating Genres, he explains and articulates this very same point.  ‘This book consists of eleven essays on fantastic literature […] to re-examine these ideas in light of my current thinking and more recent developments in these genres’.[10]   The genres of the Fantastic are his area of investigation.  Genres.  Plural.  In fact, the IAFA, the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts contains within it three literary divisions; Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction.  The scholarly association dedicated to analysing and researching the literature of the Fantastic recognises that Fantasy is distinct to the Fantastic, just as it is distinct to SF and Horror.  This simple ideological or conceptual approach is key to understanding what I am trying to articulate.  Fantasy is not the overarching mode.  Fantasy is not the term to use for the discussion of the mode, the supergenre, the all-encompassing category.  Fantasy is a genre within the Fantastic.  Fantasy is a genre comparable to and as established as its siblings SF and Horror.   Fantasy is a distinct tradition, a distinct genre, a distinct entity, with all the complexity, paradoxes, exceptions and formulas that every other genre exhibits.  To argue that Fantasy is the Fantastic is both limiting and inaccurate.  It negatively impacts on our work on the Fantastic and on Fantasy itself if we continue to conflate the terms.


This insistence on terminology is not simply an academic quibble or a specious argument for argument’s sake, rather this goes to my initial assertion.  The debate never happened.  We have debated aspects of Fantasy.  We have debated key texts within Fantasy.  We have debated approaches to the Fantastic.  We have agreed a consensus of critical frameworks that can be applied to the Fantastic as well as to Fantasy.  But we have never had a debate about Fantasy.  The very shape, size and core of the genre remain areas that need meaningful and concerted debate, deconstruction and discussion.  Identifying innovation in the works of George R.R. Martin and Guy Gavriel Kay needs to be placed in the context of the sub-set of Fantasy in which they write; Historical Fantasy.  Like Paul Kearney, both Kay and Martin take historical inspiration for their fantasies and build on them. This is not necessarily as innovative as it may first appear but this is only apparent if we consider the whole of the genre of Fantasy.  Innovation, trends, tropes and formulas need to be discussed, but we need to discuss them in relation to the whole of the genre of Fantasy.


Scholarship tends to focus on distinct or original texts that attempt to deepen or widen the genre and define its outer boundaries.  However, in order to identify how texts subvert genre norms and push the boundaries of genre convention, we must have a clear conception of the stereotypes and clichés they subvert, as well as their origins.  As Amy Devitt has said in relation to the construction of genre, ‘Variation within literary texts is generally more highly valued than is similarity’.[11] She also notes:


Where rhetorical genre theorists often seek texts that typify a genre, examine writers’ conformity to generic conventions, and study readers’ roles in promoting  generic expectations, literary genre theorists are more likely to seek texts that break the rules of a genre, to value writers who violate conventions, and to act as readers promoting unconventional generic readings. Great authors have often been admired for their “breaking” of generic conventions, thereby expanding the literary universe.[12]


Innovative novels are interesting, engaging and often of a higher literary quality than their generic counterparts.  Yet, texts which exist on the periphery are, by definition, not representative of the genre as a whole; they are the exceptions and they are not the most illustrative of genre conventions.  In fact, non-conventional texts and the importance that academic scrutiny places on them create a distorted perception of the genre as a whole, skewing the focus towards ground-breaking works and the edges of the genre, rather than toward its centre.  In this respect, and with the exception of Diana Wynne Jones’ parody of perceived stereotype[13], it seems that literary genre theorists have overlooked an important point.  The core of the genre, the centre of the mass of popular Fantasy literature, is better suited to explain the fundamentals that non-typical texts exploit or subvert, while the unique or distinctive texts better illustrate the range of possibilities beyond them.  Literary merit is not necessarily an indicator of critical worth, and popularity should not always be anathema to critical value.


We need to discuss the distinction between Children’s Fantasy, core Genre Fantasy texts and modern innovations within the genre rather than assume that these examples are representative.  Comparably, if one is writing on the genre of SF and half the examples given are children’s SF novels, innumerable scholars would take issue with this construction as representative of the core of the genre.  Yet this same approach, using the works of J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis and Phillip Pullman in discussing the genre of Fantasy, passes without comment.  Yes the discussion of these authors is important, yes we should analyse their works, yes we should analyse Children’s Fantasy, but we should not do this on the understanding that these are representative of the genre.


There are numerous fantasy series, franchises, multi-volume epics, stand-alone Fantasy novels and anthologies of Fantasy stories.  There are a myriad of forms of Fantasy, and this list has not even included hybrid texts, cross-genre pollination, exceptional texts, and texts on the very periphery of Fantasy.  We need to debate these.  We need to analyse these.  We need to integrate our understanding of these texts within the broader genre of Fantasy.  This is already a Herculean and Sisyphean task without conflating Fantasy with the Fantastic.  These debates can only happen if we start by acknowledging that Fantasy is not the same as the Fantastic and being clear from the very beginning what we are discussing, debating and arguing.  If the term Fantasy is still contentious in this sense perhaps the term GF, Genre Fantasy, could be an easily used and understandable abbreviation for the genre texts.  This would make the concept of the genre of Fantasy as discernible as the term SF does for Science Fiction.


When we address Fantasy we should address it with the same rigour and the same specificity as we do SF.  We need to acknowledge the historical antecedents such as Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien.  We also need to acknowledge the dross, the hack writing, the poor examples as well as the key texts that subvert, innovate and push boundaries.  If we do not understand the formulas, if we are not familiar with what is happening at the core of the genre, we can never be sure when one of our more favoured or critically accepted authors has done something innovative.  We can never say with any certainty that an author or work is notable if we are blind to the structures and developments within the genre.  If we wish to analyse and debate the state of the genre as it now stands modern texts must be considered in conjunction with key historical texts.


Fantasy scholars have typically placed J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings at the heart of the genre, and argued that this text has greatly influenced the formal and generic composition of much Fantasy literature.[14]  As the construction of genre is obviously mutable and evolving we must be prepared to re-consider established positions and re-evaluate customary approaches and terminology.  Andy Sawyer has argued that Fantasy as a popular genre has evolved at least twice, the first iteration of ‘sword and sorcery’ or ‘heroic fantasy’ stemming from Howard’s Conan, and the second stemming from Tolkien’s LotR.[15]  Two key related and mutually supportive influences on the evolution of the modern Fantasy genre subsequent to Tolkien are the numerous franchises and RPGs that have developed in the last forty years.  Yet, due to our distaste for these books, dislike of RPGs, or our dismissal of their ‘hack’ writing, we do not consider their impact on a genre that by definition is ‘popular’ literature.  David Hartwell has written on SF in a similar vein,


Gernsback was the man who first saw science fiction as the ordinary pleasure reading of the new technological world. But his standards were not the standards of a literary man, of a modernist. They were the standards of a publisher of popular entertainment in pulp magazines, low-class, low-paying, low-priced popular entertainment serving the mass market.[16]


Clearly the work of Hugo Gernsback is not well written.  Ralph 124C41+ is an embarrassment in terms of literary techniques and the craft of writing.  Yet no serious SF scholar would dismiss the importance and the impact that Gernsback, his work and the writing of the pulps in general, had on shaping the modern genre of SF.  So it is a curiosity that we as Fantasy scholars routinely dismiss or ignore a large core constituent of the genre simply because it is not to our taste.  Franchises such as Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and now computer game tie-ins and novelisations continue to add to the field.  We ignore them at our peril as to ignore what is evolving at the core of the genre, or at its most formulaic if we are going to be elitist about it, is to ignore the very real innovations that are happening in front of our eyes.  The result of this academic myopia is that we are blind to the true shape of the genre and as a result our analysis is becoming skewed, un-relatable to and unrepresentative of what is actually taking place in Fantasy.  Considering RPGs and these related franchises is not a call to ignore Tolkien, far from it, but it is a plea to acknowledge that the genre continues to evolve and has assimilated, adapted and argued against more modern forms of Fantasy beyond the classic texts.


When we continually look back to Tolkien and to Lewis as formative influences on Fantasy as a genre, we do a disservice to how the genre has evolved and changed.  Donaldson’s essay ‘Epic Fantasy in the Modern World – A Few Observations’[17] clearly articulates his view and formulation of Fantasy; that of the internal externalised, the literalised metaphor, the psyche made manifest.  Like Clute, Donaldson works with a paradigm in which Fantasy connects character, story and landscape on a deeply thematic and often psychoanalytical level.  Yet the advent of RPGs forcibly moved Fantasy into a more SF-like construction.  Secondary worlds in Fantasy have become less an extension of the character’s internal psychology made manifest, or functionality of story, and closer to the paradigm of an alien world, inhabited and populated by monstrous and heroic alike.  The setting is no longer dependant on, or servant to, story, it is a world in which multiple stories can happen.  When trilogies stretch into series, when authors build a world to function as a setting for multiple stories, we have to move away from considering this an exception within Fantasy or as Clute puts it, Full Fantasy[18], and acknowledge that the paradigm has shifted.  If not acknowledge then at least be open to the debate.  The genre has evolved because the readership has evolved, the fans have changed, the authors have changed, and the world has changed.


It is a source of both amusement and frustration to SF people, writers and readers, that public consciousness of science fiction has almost never penetrated beyond the first decade of the field’s development.[19]


If we locate our scholarship of the Fantasy genre solely in the consideration of early fantasists such as Howard, Leiber, Tolkien and so forth, and we base our conception of the Fantasy paradigm predominantly on their work, we continue to perpetuate the myth that Fantasy has not evolved.   In essence we risk committing the self-same sin; not looking past the first few decades of the field’s development.  To not consider the impact of RPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) we deny their influence on the genre.  This would be despite the fact that current Fantasy authors such as Steven Erikson,[20] Ian C. Esslemont, Raymond E. Feist,[21] China Miéville[22] and newer authors such as Joe Abercrombie,[23] Scott Lynch,[24] and Adrian Tchaikovsky[25] have openly discussed their history with gaming.[26]   If we are to understand the approach and concepts that may have influenced these new Fantasy authors, whether they are reacting against them, or utilising them in their fictions, then it seems both inevitable and essential that we consider the role and impact of RPGs.  In fact, given that a number of authors have described the impact and influence of RPGs on their writing, it could be argued that the RPG has supplanted Tolkien as ‘the mental template’ for Fantasy and thus assumed a central position as key text within the GF fuzzy-set.[27]  Attebery has argued that:


Tolkien’s form of fantasy, for readers in English, is our mental template, and will be until someone else achieves equal recognition with an alternative conception.[28]


The RPG and its related literature, including franchise writing and ‘pulp’ Fantasy, have generated that ‘alternative conception’ and deserve ‘equal recognition’.  Attebery’s fuzzy-set rule is partially predicated upon knowledge of the wider genre and the ability to isolate important key texts, and this necessitates a broad understanding of the genre and a wide knowledge of those texts that are popular or inspirational.  If the identification of key texts is solely the province of the Fantasy academic who refuses to consider RPG related material, then the set constructed will not resemble the genre as whole but rather only its periphery.


By combining this gaming perspective of Fantasy with more traditional sub-genres of Mythic or Epic Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery, we can construct a more meaningful fuzzy set or grouping that corresponds to core genre conventions.  It is this sub-grouping that the term GF describes, in effect a form of ‘typical’ Fantasy positioned at the centre of the genre.  Consequently magic realism, literary Fantasy, historical Fantasy et al are here viewed as wider extensions of the genre, located at a distance from this core ‘stereotypical’ adventure quest.  In this framework the ‘Fantastic’ is the broadest of categories, while other forms of Fantasy may contain aspects of GF’s conventions and clichés, they exist toward the periphery of the genre as they attempt to push the boundaries and create innovation.  The central GF texts are those most representative of genre norms and conventions.  By isolating and analysing the core concepts of genre Fantasy, we gain a clearer picture of it.  As David Fishelov has argued:


[…] even in those areas of modern literature where it seems that generic rules are absent, the innovative areas of canonic literature, generic rules are still a vital part of the literary communicative situation. These generic conventions might be viewed as a challenge, or a horizon, against which the writer and his reader have to define themselves. The writer may stretch the generic rules, he may produce some unpredictable ‘match’ between different existing conventions of existing literary genres (or even between literary conventions and conventions taken from other media), but in order to understand the overall significance of his text, we should be aware of the generic system against which he is working. A writer does not create in a textual vacuum, and a rebellious child is still part of the family.[29]


In order to accurately analyse innovative Fantasy texts, one must first be clear on the generic conventions.  When the Fantasy critic has defined and codified the core, it becomes easier to isolate those elements of the wider genre that subvert, invert or play with convention.  While it is commonly accepted that Fantasy contains clichés and conventions, as illustrated by Jones’ Tough Guide, RPGs and their related fictions identify these conventions, as well as provide rationales and a set of terms with which to explain and utilise them.  However, as Ralph Cohen has argued:


[Genres] are historical assumptions constructed by authors, audiences, and critics in order to serve communicative and aesthetic purposes… Groupings arise at particular historical moments, and as they include more and more members, they are subject to repeated redefinitions or abandonment.[30]


The RPG is illustrative of the historical rise of convention within the genre as Fantasy evolved from Tolkien through to the modern day.  Games, gamers and game designers have become part of the dialogue through which the genre is defined.  An inclusive definition of the genre of Fantasy should therefore also consider the perspectives of the consumer and fan, editor and author, in addition to that of the critic and academic.  Stableford has said that, ‘our first and most intimate experience with the fantastic is the substance of our dreams’,[31] yet while this is almost certainly true, one of the first experiences of the ‘genre of fantasy’ occurs upon our first entrance to a bookshop and seeing the section marked ‘Fantasy’.


This is part of the debate we need to have.  We each have specialisms, areas of interest, text specific knowledge and differing perspectives on the genre.  This goes to the heart of Fantasy criticism as the field, the genre, is simply too vast to know it all.  Yet we cannot have this debate if we argue at cross purposes, it we cannot agree on simple terminology, and even agree that Fantasy is a genre.  The Fantastic is the mode and Fantasy is not the Fantastic.  Fantasy is a genre and that genre is not SF.  Fantasy exists as a genre in its own right with a body of work that has become increasingly self-aware.  If the genre is aware of itself, then as Fantasy scholars the least we can do is engage with that awareness.  It is time to call a sword a sword and move on to the debate.


[1] Farah Mendlesohn Rhetorics of Fantasy (Middletown, CT. Wesleyan University Press, 2008)  Introduction p.xiii


[2] Brian Attebery Strategies of Fantasy (Indiana: Indiana University Press,1992) p.12 Chapter 1.


[3] Christina Brooke-Rose A Rhetoric of the Unreal : Studies in Narrative and Structure, Especially of the Fantastic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)


[4] John Clute and John Grant eds., Encyclopedia of Fantasy, (London: Orbit, 1997).


[5]Kathryn Hume Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature (New York: Methuen, 1984 )


[6] Rosemary Jackson, Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion, (London: Methuen, 1981)


[7] John Clute, ‘Introduction’ in Clute and Grant eds, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, p.viii


[8] Damon Knight, In Search of Wonder: Essays on Modern Science Fiction (Chicago: Advent Publishing,1967) p.xiii


[9] Brian Attebery Strategies of Fantasy (Indiana: Indiana University Press,1992) Chapter 1


[10] Gary Wolfe, Evaporating Genres (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan, 2011), p.vii


[11] Amy Devitt ‘Integrating Rhetorical and Literary Theories of Genre’ College English Vol. 62, No.6, July 2000 pp.696-718 p.706


[12] Ibid., pp.704-5


[13] Diana Wynne Jones The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (London: Gollancz, 2004)


[14] Where Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has been quoted citations have been given from the combined edition J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of the Rings (London: HarperCollins, 1991)


[15] Andy Sawyer ‘Who “Owns” Children’s Fantasy?’ Foundation Vol.32 No.88 (2003) pp.5-18, p.16.


[16] David G. Hartwell, The Science Fiction Century (New York: Tor, 1997), p.18


[17] http://www.stephenrdonaldson.com/EpicFantasy.pdf [last accessed 30/03/12]


[18] John Clute ‘Grail, Groundhog, and Godgame’ JFA Vol.10 No.4 (2000) pp.330-337


[19] David G. Hartwell, The Science Fiction Century (New York: Tor, 1997) p.19


[20] Interview with Steven Erikson www.bscreview.com/2008/06/on-the-spot-at-bscreview-interview-steven-erikson/ (last accessed 20/08/2010) acknowledges both his and Esslemont’s gaming background.


[21] Feist has acknowledged his gaming group in the majority of his novels, as well as on www.crydee.com.


[22] Interview with China Miéville www.believermag.com/issues/200504/?read=interview_mieville (last accessed 20/0/2010)


[23] Interview with Joe Abercrombie www.sffworld.com/interview/204p0.html (last accessed 20/08/2010)


[24] See his personal website www.scottlynch.us/author.html (last accessed 21/08-2010)


[25] See Tchaikovsky’s personal website www.shadowsoftheapt.com (last accessed 21/08/2010)


[26] Jim Butcher, the author of the urban Fantasy series ‘The Dresden Files’ advertises his LARP society on his author page www.jim-butcher.com


[27] Attebery Strategies of Fantasy p.14


[28] Attebery Strategies of Fantasy p.14


[29] David Fishelov Metaphors of Genre: The Role of Analogies in Genre Theory (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993) pp.82-83.


[30] Ralph Cohen ‘History and Genre’ New Literary History 17 (1986) pp.203-18, p.210


[31] Brian Stableford, ‘How Should a Science Fiction Story Begin’ JFA Vol.12 Issue 3 pp.322-337, p.323


(Originally published in the New York Review of Science Fiction)