All of us have at one time or another read something we would call Fantasy. Be it when reading The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings as a school assignment (or for the more enlightened of us, at our own whim), from wanting to read the stuff that made the world in which we Role-Play exist, or more commonly from general love of the genre. But what is fantasy? What makes us pick up a book, read it from cover to cover, sigh and say "This is a good (or bad) fantasy book."?
In this article I will attempt to answer this question, give a brief history of this wonderful genre, as well as go over some of the basic flavors of fantasy.
What is Fantasy, anyway? Fantasy, in my opinion, is one of the genres most difficult to define, if not the most difficult. Here some people would come and say that fantasy is very easy to define; it is everything that has to deal with dragons, magic and knights. I say that this approach, while popular, is flawed. While most fantasy stories deal with these themes, some don't even come close, like Frank Herbert's Dune for instance; a book which is vastly considered Science-Fiction, but lacks many of Sci-Fi's basic features, and has each and every one of High-Fantasy's characteristics (see below). In order to better understand Fantasy, and perhaps attempt to define it, one must look at the history of Fantasy writing.
The first story which is widely agreed to belong to the Fantasy genre dates back to the Greek era. The story is about a valiant warrior pursuing the Troll who had killed his father. This story is considered Fantasy and not Mythology because it deals with a moral perspective. For during the quest for revenge, the hero discovers things about himself, and after years when he finally captures Gilgamesh the Troll, he lets him go as he realizes that killing for revenge is wrong.
As opposed to Mythology, which while it may contain morals, deals with the gods and the ways they affect mankind, Fantasy deals with people and ideas (or ideas represented by people), morals and philosophy.
Over the years, Fantasy appeared mostly in folklore or children's stories. In the exception of the middle-ages, when Fantasy was often presented as the true accounting of errands and journeys. And because of the very low life expectancy (nobles hardly lived over the age of thirty, and peasants half that), people believed the stories, as many children do today.
In the nineteenth century, fantasy began gaining popularity with stories like Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies (1863). Both of these stories received great acknowledgement in the adult as well as child world to which they were intended.
In 1937, J.R.R Tolkien published his The Hobbit which gave fantasy a new scale. For though it was a rather short novel, it dealt with many aspects of a Fantasy world. Normal authors of the period would probably have sufficed with only the first few chapters. After The Hobbit, Tolkien published his The Lord of the Rings a work which brought Fantasy in to the 20th century. The Lord of the Rings is one of the first few books of Fantasy considered a book for adults.
From this brief outline of Fantasy up to the 20th century, we can see that Fantasy is a wide web of genres, each of which is in itself very hard to define. In this next section, I will attempt to define each genre of contemporary Fantasy.
Legendary (or Classical) Fantasy: This genre is (as its name implies) the most classic and basic form of Fantasy, often referred to plainly as 'Fantasy'. This genre deals mostly with the world and its peoples. In this genre the characters are as important as the story, and often here will be found the deepest, most built characters. Here the characters represent people, not ideas. Morality, if represented at all, is brought by the characters learning it along the way, discovering new things about themselves and the people around them. Books which clearly belong to this genre are The Lord of the Rings/J.R.R Tolkien and The Dragonlance Chronicles/Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
High Fantasy: This genre is a contemporary development of Fantasy, only seen in the last few decades. In this genre the emphasis is on the world and the story. Here, the development of the characters is secondary and often even the main characters represent only ideas and morality which they bring with them in to the story. Sometimes, the characters arrive with adamant ideas and the story is about them changing their view. Some would say that this is similar to the morals in Legendary Fantasy, but this approach in my opinion is wrong, because in Legendary Fantasy the ideas do not come with the character, and the story is not about changing them, the story is about learning something new. Books which clearly belong to this genre are The Wheel of Time/Robert Jordan, The Sword of Truth/Terry Goodkind, among many other contemporary examples.
Dark Fantasy: Most of the works in this genre deter considerably from other genres of Fantasy in a literary perspective, in that they are written not to relay a message or to teach the reader something about himself, but in order to frighten the reader and explore his fear. To this genre belong all the different Vampire and Ghost stories. Here, the world (and very often the characters) are not important at all. Here the thing most emphasized in the story is the unknown ahead and 'what lurks in the shadows'. The only example of great literary value I see fit to mention of this genre, are the writings of Lovecraft.
Comic Fantasy: Comic Fantasy is also a product of recent decades. To this genre, unlike the others, there aren't many set boundaries. The only boundaries are that the story (and very often the world) should be funny and/or silly. This genre mocks the other genres and makes the reader look upon the more childish and absurd aspects of the Fantasy world. A very known example of this genre is the Discworld series by Terry Prachett.
Fantasy is a genre of fiction which has existed since a very early stage in literature. For it is Human nature to look upon the magic in the world, and dream of what could have been. Fantasy is the art of magic and mystery, and will probably remain a part of literature forever.
Sidharam Drevekenin(c).
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