Jo Walton (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} papersky) wrote,@ 2004-09-16 16:06:00 |
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Fantasy, again
misia was saying she didn't like fantasy and why do people like it, and I'm posting over here rather than replying.
There's a lot of extruded fantasy product I don't like, and don't pick up because it repels me.
There's a lot that I could say about good fantasy and what it can do.
There's a vast range of things called fantasy, some of them very different from each other, and what I'm talking about here is the kind of fantasy Misia says she doesn't like, the straight medievaloid high fantasy.
Why I read it is really very simple, and I only recently figured it out explicitly. I'd been reading lots of W.E.B. Griffin, and then Trollope and then the three David Lodge books, and I was wondering what to read next. I thought I want something... something... something full of passionate declarations.
I want Frodo saying he will take it though he does not know the way, and Eowyn saying she has leave to be burned in the house when the men won't want it any more. I want Laura talking to the unicorn and Patrick saying the second law of thermodynamics doesn't answer back. I want Paul on the Summer Tree. I want Harimad-sol riding across the desert.
I want that range, that possibility of things absolutely mattering, of the whole world in the balance, and the declaration -- at the beginning of Kay's The Wandering Fire, Kevin Laine says "To this I will make reply, though he be a god and this mean my death!" When I want fantasy, I want situations where people can say that, and mean it, and where it can feel real and supported. There's a bit of my soul that thrills to it.
There's an ancient computer game called "Lords of Midnight". I have a Spectrum emulator for DOS so I can play it. It has four colours, and it uses a whole 64k of memory, and you go around collecting people and armies and attacking the bad guy in his fortress of Ushgarak. The names are wonderful, in a certain way, and really, the names are all there is to create the atmosphere. Luxor the Moonprince. Farflame the Dragonlord. It's a strategy game. It's also like concentrated essence of high fantasy.
One day, years ago, I was playing it, and losing, and fighting out the long defeat. My remaining characters were gathered in the castle of Thimrath, vastly outnumbered. When Thimrath fell, there would be only scattered keeps between the enemy and my capital of Xajorkith and ultimate victory of Doomdark. The Utarg of Utarg began to address the other characters thus: "It is true we will die. But we shall not wholly die, though the world go down to darkness and even our names be forgotten. There are other worlds than this, and in those worlds we live again, and strive again, and perhaps one day we will yet strike victory from the jaws of defeat. But we who stand here, we will at nightfall fight, and die, my companions down this long road. The stakes are high. All our world rests on our defence. And if we die, we died doing what we knew best, and for the best reason there is. So I do not say we die for nothing or that our defeat is to no purpose..." Understand -- I was making this up, it wasn't on the screen, he was saying it in my head. And I realized I was crying, that there were tears on my cheeks, that I was crying over the doomed gallantry of this little band of heroes.
So, anyway, that's the essential nutrient I get from high fantasy that nothing else gives me.
misia was saying she didn't like fantasy and why do people like it, and I'm posting over here rather than replying.There's a lot of extruded fantasy product I don't like, and don't pick up because it repels me.
There's a lot that I could say about good fantasy and what it can do.
There's a vast range of things called fantasy, some of them very different from each other, and what I'm talking about here is the kind of fantasy Misia says she doesn't like, the straight medievaloid high fantasy.
Why I read it is really very simple, and I only recently figured it out explicitly. I'd been reading lots of W.E.B. Griffin, and then Trollope and then the three David Lodge books, and I was wondering what to read next. I thought I want something... something... something full of passionate declarations.
I want Frodo saying he will take it though he does not know the way, and Eowyn saying she has leave to be burned in the house when the men won't want it any more. I want Laura talking to the unicorn and Patrick saying the second law of thermodynamics doesn't answer back. I want Paul on the Summer Tree. I want Harimad-sol riding across the desert.
I want that range, that possibility of things absolutely mattering, of the whole world in the balance, and the declaration -- at the beginning of Kay's The Wandering Fire, Kevin Laine says "To this I will make reply, though he be a god and this mean my death!" When I want fantasy, I want situations where people can say that, and mean it, and where it can feel real and supported. There's a bit of my soul that thrills to it.
There's an ancient computer game called "Lords of Midnight". I have a Spectrum emulator for DOS so I can play it. It has four colours, and it uses a whole 64k of memory, and you go around collecting people and armies and attacking the bad guy in his fortress of Ushgarak. The names are wonderful, in a certain way, and really, the names are all there is to create the atmosphere. Luxor the Moonprince. Farflame the Dragonlord. It's a strategy game. It's also like concentrated essence of high fantasy.
One day, years ago, I was playing it, and losing, and fighting out the long defeat. My remaining characters were gathered in the castle of Thimrath, vastly outnumbered. When Thimrath fell, there would be only scattered keeps between the enemy and my capital of Xajorkith and ultimate victory of Doomdark. The Utarg of Utarg began to address the other characters thus: "It is true we will die. But we shall not wholly die, though the world go down to darkness and even our names be forgotten. There are other worlds than this, and in those worlds we live again, and strive again, and perhaps one day we will yet strike victory from the jaws of defeat. But we who stand here, we will at nightfall fight, and die, my companions down this long road. The stakes are high. All our world rests on our defence. And if we die, we died doing what we knew best, and for the best reason there is. So I do not say we die for nothing or that our defeat is to no purpose..." Understand -- I was making this up, it wasn't on the screen, he was saying it in my head. And I realized I was crying, that there were tears on my cheeks, that I was crying over the doomed gallantry of this little band of heroes.
So, anyway, that's the essential nutrient I get from high fantasy that nothing else gives me.
