Home » Discussion Forums » Blog Post Discussion » Epic fantasy and a night off
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| Re: Epic fantasy and a night off [message #43438 is a reply to message #43434 ] |
Fri, 15 July 2011 00:36   |
EMoon
Messages: 664
Registered: March 2009 |
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Huh...and the room is empty...and I've read as much as I could stand (sorry...the truth) of the Clarkesworld thing on epic fantasy.
And being alone in here, on the empty stage in the empty theater, and no spotlights on unless some rat fries itself on the light board...I'll say it.
Yes, I write epic fantasy. Yes, I know what epic fantasy is, and I write it. Not ONLY epic fantasy, but yes, epic fantasy. And I'm not ashamed to claim it, and you can't argue me out of saying that's what I do, and of all my invented worlds, the one of the epic fantasy is closest to my heart.
Some of the people talking at the topic got it right. Some were...inadequate (not of course our Hellgoddess.)
It's not style--though a good epic fantasy will create the style it needs. You can't make an epic fantasy with fancy language (that's not how Tolkein did it, fancy languages though he invented.)
It's not about the kind of scope that means lots of people, lots of territory, lots of action: that's Cecil B. DeMille cinematic extravaganza. It IS the kind of scope that connects a human heart to its deepest depths to a great problem most cannot connect with. All the way down, all the way in, to all the way out, and all the way up.
It's not grand characters in extravagant costumers with armfuls of magic items and shiny weapons...though somewhere in there, someone may have any of those. It's one or more individuals who are ordinary in themselves--or apparently so--and must do the extraordinary with whatever resources they have or can find.
It's the inverse, in that sense, of classical tragedy as defined by Aristotle, where he said the appropriate protagonist was a king or queen...in epic fantasy, the appropriate character is a hobbit, a woodland elf not a high elf, an apparent vagabond ranger...or a sheepfarmer's stubborn daughter.
And yet the structure IS Aristotelian...in that although the problem is external to start with, the struggles the characters have are also, in the sense of "fatal or near-fatal flaws" internal. It's not enough to have superheroes who battle supervillains, pitting their superpowers against the supervillains' superpowers--that's not epic. No, the hero of an epic fantasy has daunted courage, fumbling intelligence, clouded judgment...must overcome his/her own traits and make them into something else, all while coming to grips with that grand outside problem. At the end, the once lumpy and awkward caterpillar in the confining chrysalis breaks out, and has that triumph...and only maybe, occasionally, lives to sit by the fire and bore the grandchildren.
It's not setting--or, as with language, a gorgeous setting, richly detailed, is not enough. A true epic fantasy will generate the setting it needs, from the bones of the earth up to the stars. Plenty of stories have richly-detailed gorgeous settings but lack the epic quality of the story itself.
Hellgoddess got it right: it's the story. An epic fantas
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| Re: Epic fantasy and a night off [message #43439 is a reply to message #43434 ] |
Fri, 15 July 2011 02:13 |
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 Diane in MN
Messages: 2729
Registered: October 2008
Location: Twin Cities, MN, USA |
Senior Member |
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Coming at this from the standpoint of a reader of epic fantasy in one form (Homer, the Gawain-poet, Malory . . .) or another (Tolkien, T.H. White, Le Guin . . .) for more than half a century, I think EMoon has hit the bull's-eye with her post. I often find "Epic Fantasy" to be a corner of the fantasy world populated primarily by People Who Really Need an Editor, but that wouldn't be the case if more of what gets that label met her definition.
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It IS the kind of scope that connects a human heart to its deepest depths to a great problem most cannot connect with. All the way down, all the way in, to all the way out, and all the way up.
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This is the heart of it. This is what, finally, makes the hair on the back of the neck come up. It's why the world outside the book can also be changed by the time the last page is turned. "All the way down, all the way in, to all the way out, and all the way up." "There and back again." YES.
"The point of books is to have way too many but to always feel you never have enough . . . " Louise Erdrich
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| Re: Epic fantasy and a night off [message #43440 is a reply to message #43439 ] |
Fri, 15 July 2011 06:44 |
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"All the way down, all the way in, to all the way out, and all the way up." "There and back again."
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"Further in, and further up!"
Marion
Keeper of the Knitronomicon
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| Re: Epic fantasy and a night off [message #43452 is a reply to message #43442 ] |
Sat, 16 July 2011 05:50 |
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*drops a blanket over BurgandyIce*
Shh. Whatever you do, don't startle the Hellgoddess with talk of trilogies. We may not make it out alive if you do that.
*slips a book and flashlight under the blanket*
Smooshes!
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| Re: Epic fantasy and a night off [message #43454 is a reply to message #43452 ] |
Sat, 16 July 2011 11:06 |
BurgandyIce
Messages: 73
Registered: May 2010
Location: Damascus |
Member |
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| jmeadows wrote on Sat, 16 July 2011 02:50 |
*drops a blanket over BurgandyIce*
Shh. Whatever you do, don't startle the Hellgoddess with talk of trilogies. We may not make it out alive if you do that.
*slips a book and flashlight under the blanket*
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*mumbles heart-felt apologies which quickly become squeals of delight followed by extended silence with intermittent chuckles*
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