It seems that the recent surge in popularity of fantasy (over...say...the past ten years or so) has lead to a certain amount of "experts" explaining the 'real' reasons why so many people enjoy it.
Among the more common reasons given-
1. It's not just mere escapism, it's a denial of reality. Freaks.
2. People are naive, and desire noble kings and heroic magicians to really exist. Poor, naive souls. We must set them straight and explain that such things are only pretend. (This was the one given by David Brin on why he thought the LotR films were such big hits.)
3. It's just the Flavor of the Month! Year! Years! Decade! I swear, this'll end...now! Wait...NOW! ...one moment...
4. It's all manga/anime/video games/soap carving's fault!
None of these match my own reasons for enjoying fantasy. While any popular trend has its backlash, I sometimes wonder why this seems to focus so much on the alleged "real" intentions of the fantasy fans.
Can't one just like it because one finds it imaginative and interesting? Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Experts. Feh. I just like good stories. I don't care what genre they are. Horror makes me unhappy, but if it's a good story, if it's welldone, then it's worth reading or seeing.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I like ripping stories and well-done characters. Fantasy writers seem to feel free to tap into stories that have long moved us in a way that "literary" do not, with the exception of perhaps Donna Tartt, who has been accused of writing Gothic stories.
If the Iliad were written today it would be classified as a fantasy story.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
You are seriously misrepresenting David Brin, there.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
"Who is against escapism? The prison guards." Tolkien.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
I'm referring to his column on The Return of the King a few years back, where he expounded at length on the reasons why he felt the LotR films were popular: He felt it boiled down to much of the audience wanting a real heroic king, and a real world of easily identified and solved moral problems...because the real world is so depressing right now, and they want easy answers.
But this is wrong, because myths are myths, not reality...and they need wisers heads to explain this.
The only thing I really left out was his attempt to figure out how Sauron and the Orcs could be portrayed as persecuted good guys. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Yes, I remember the column; but as I recall, what he objected to wasn't so much wanting real heroism, as identifying such heroism with noble blood.
Posted by Libbie (Member # 9529) on :
I like fantasy because that's what my family read to me as a kid, and what I read out loud to them. Typically, it was "fantasy" as in "talking animals" - Watership Down, The Wind in the Willows, Charlotte's Web, etc. - but it really got me hooked on "unreal" worlds. I like my fiction to be unreal more than real. Guess it's just how I grew up!
Plus, all those Disney and other feature-length animated movies that, as a child of the 80s, I couldn't possibly escape.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Yes, I remember the column; but as I recall, what he objected to wasn't so much wanting real heroism, as identifying such heroism with noble blood.
You mean like the gardener who saves the guy who saves the world?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
...and then goes back to being a gardener, 'cos he knows his place, him, and wouldn't like to be getting out of it? Yeah, like him. But that aside, I don't necessarily agree with Brin, I'm just saying PT misrepresented what he was actually saying.
Posted by Samarkand (Member # 8379) on :
Well . . . I've always thought one of the great things about Fantasy/SciFi as a genre is that it give authors the freedom to create characters, situations, powers, beyond what typically happens in the real world and then they can ask some serious questions. So what would happen if you could kill anyone you wanted to without consequences? Or read minds? What does that mean about you in particular and humanity in general?
Eg. SPOILER WARNING FOR ANY MISGUIDED SOUL WHO HAS NOT YET READ ENDER'S GAME/ SPEAKER
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What would it mean if a child had the capacity to destroy the only other known intelligent race in the galaxy? What if he did it without knowing he was doing it? If another race commits acts of murder or torture, does that mean that they are evil? Or are they just different? Are we evil?
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Anyway, these sorts of things are at the heart of understanding ourselves, and the best books of any genre do this. I'm also a huge fan of Patricia McKillip's The Forgotten Beast of Eld for this reason. Or Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, which is about as real as it gets.
And - not to be a poo - but Tolkien's Middle Earth (in terms of Right and Wrong and politics, NOT level of detail) is oversimplified, as are his characters, and that is definitely part of the appeal for many people. But MOST books, movies, etc. are oversimplified; people like neat endings, makes the world safe.
Anyway, I think you can get at certain moral issues and ideas in Fantast/ SciFi that are harder to reach in other genres. And sometimes it's just fun! So creative.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:...and then goes back to being a gardener, 'cos he knows his place
Well, no, he inherits Bag End and becomes Mayor.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Dagonee:
And people who want to come up with one reason why people like something and put everyone in their little boxes need to... read more fantasy and science fiction!
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
That's not how I recall the ending of the books.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:That's not how I recall the ending of the books.
Check out the last three pages of the chapter "The Grey Havens." It's all there.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Oh well, I sit corrected. You should note, nonetheless, that Tolkien is definitely of the 'biology is destiny' school; at least in the main trilogy, there's not an evil elf, hobbit, or Numenorean, nor a good orc or troll, to be found.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
First, Tolkien's tendency to have his made-up races determine destiny does not mean that's what he thinks of the actual world.
Second, there is at least one evil member of Numenorean dissent - see the Mouth of Sauron. Further, Denethor and Boromir both commit evil acts.
Third, there is an evil incarnated Maiar (Sarumen) and an evil unincarnated Maiar (Sauron).
Fourth, there are evil hobbits, at least a couple - reread the Scouring of the Shire.
You qualified your statement to the main trilogy, probably because there is an example of evil members of every single race.
You're right about Orc and Troll having no good examples, but, since both are actually twisted versions of other races (Elf and Ent), you've pretty much proved that Tolkien doesn't consider any race to be exempt from evil.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Tolkien did not believe that any race was exempt from evil. I see nothing to indicate, however, that he believed all races were capable of goodness.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
It's an interesting article, and I don't wholly disagree with Brin.
But I think there's a lot more to modern fantasy than anti-egalitarianism.
Posted by Palliard (Member # 8109) on :
I think it's because fantasy fills an important niche: light reading. This would be the same reason that romance novels and series tie-ins eat two-thirds of the fiction rack. Some of us read merely to be entertained.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
LOTR != light reading.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Bamboo.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I don't usually like fantasy, but when I do, it's because it takes me to another world I couldn't otherwise have experienced -- that is, I enrich my experience.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
King of Men,
You're speaking from ignorance here. Bear in mind that although LotR is what the majority of people who know anything of Tolkien know, that is only a fraction of the entire set of linked stories he wrote.
If you look at all the rest of the stuff he wrote pertaining to the LotR world-all (generally) equally valid in his own, the author's, eyes...biology does not equal greatness or virtue.
Sam was the biggest hero of the Fellowship, because he was willing to be so heroic and self-sacrificing in spite of his (by far the most of all) humble roots. Boromir was by blood a Numenorean, who succumbed quite spectacularly to evil. Sauron was originally one of the good guys. Sauron's boss, Melkor, was too.
Neither Sauron's nor Melkor's biggest successes in the efforts of e-vile would not have been possible without the collusion of and evil of Elves and and dwarves (and with Saruman, hobbits).
Tom's point is dead on, though. It's unclear what he (Tolkien) thought about all races being capable of goodness. It should be pointed out, though, that the Orcs were (probably, I don't know that Tolkien ever spelled it out specifically) Elves in ancestry who had been kidnapped, tortured, brainwashed, and interbred over thousands of years.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Tolkien did not believe that any race was exempt from evil. I see nothing to indicate, however, that he believed all races were capable of goodness.
Which race wasn't - taking into account that every evil "race" is actually part of a race that has good members.
quote:It should be pointed out, though, that the Orcs were (probably, I don't know that Tolkien ever spelled it out specifically) Elves in ancestry who had been kidnapped, tortured, brainwashed, and interbred over thousands of years.
Yes, it is spelled out explicitly, and is called Melkor's greatest sin.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Really? I don't recollect reading it ever put forward explicitly, and I've read a large majority of what's been published by Tolkien.
I do recall reading in the Silmarillion and elsewhere that shortly after the Elves appeared in Arda, Melkor was aware of them before the rest of his siblings...and soon after, for some length of time before the other Valar knew they were around, Elves began to disappear, never to be heard from again. Is that what you mean when you say 'explicit'? I guess it is pretty explicit, I just nitpick about Tolkien a lot:)
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I'm pretty sure it's more explicit than that.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressea, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor...by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the race of the orcs, in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Here is an interesting paper on the subject. According to it, Tolkien actually kept going back and forth between having orcs come from elves, men, or animals.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
It's in the chapter "Of the Coming of the Elves" in the Silmirillion:
It is "held true by the wise of Eressea" that the Orcs were bred from Elves twisted by Melkor. "This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Iluvatar."
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Very interesting paper, MPH.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I remember that passage. I didn't necessarily think "it is held true" was certain, though, otherwise it probably would've been said for certain.
It's definitely true that Tolkien was frequently revising many fundamental aspects of the legends of his set of worlds. Galadriel being a good example.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I interpreted that as a literary device to preserve the mystery for the good character perspective while stating it as definitive, but it certainly leaves room for doubt (about the origin of Orcs).
It's definitively stated that Melkor could not create life, though.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
He did create pseudo-life, though, in the form of Trolls which he created from stone.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
As Aule did with the Dwarfs.
No will, though.
How did he get the trolls to start acting independently?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I can't remember how Aule did it. Can you?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
He didnt'. Eru took pity on him, realizing that he had some good motives mixed in with his impatience, and did it for him.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Pecan.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
That's right. Aule repented and was about to destroy the seven original dwarves when Eru stopped his hand, said that his gift had been accepted, and put the dwarves to sleep until after the elves awoke.
I suppose that's also why Eru's spell/animation wasn't dispelled with contact with the sunlight like Melkor's was.
I've been doing some looking around, and I don't think it's ever explained how Melkor made the trolls. Treebeard does say that the trolls were made in mockery of the ents, though.
Sauron managed to breed the Olog-hai, trolls which could withstand the sun, much like Saruman's Uruk-hai.
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