There are two things you should
know. 1) I love fantasy. It’s the
genre I write and read. 2) I’m really sick of most ‘traditional’ ‘epic’ and
‘sword and sorcery’ fantasy.
It’s hard to explain and I’m not
sure if I can put my finger on exactly why my beloved genre puts me in such a
foul mood. If I had to sit down and think about it (as I am attempting to do
right now) then I imagine that in reality, I simply find the genre is often handled
badly. Traditional tropes and clichés seem all too prevalent. I’m not saying
that every single story follows these pet peeves, but a whole lot of those I’m
reading do.
You can put good money on it
being a medieval world, where food is basic and boring, decoration is basic and
boring, and people are basic and boring. Guess what all the characters do in
their spare time? Go hunting and / or train to be a warrior. I get that these
worlds, based upon medieval life, are supposed to be harsh and requiring of
brave, noble people. But there’s just something about that, which I find so
very, very dull.
Then out come the stock fantasy
races. Why hello, elf! Let me guess, you’re a pointy-eared quiet and reflective
type very in touch with nature and / or magic, or alternatively a massively
arrogant jerk? Hello to you too, dwarf! I bet you’re short and abrasive, with a
love of weapons, fighting, and gold. Races beyond that are a little better, but
there’s something about dwarves and elves that really gets under my skin. I
think I simply consider them lazy. One is just a short person. The other is a
model with pointy ears. Vampires do come very close to joining this group of
annoyances, but despite their torrent of popularity and representation in this
current age, they’re not such a problem. In reality, they’re just pale, fanged
models. I think the thing which keeps them a cut above, is that you can (based
purely on available classical mythology) do so much more with vampires. They
have such a rich weave of powers and weakness, differently attributed across
the globe.
But I digress.
What else bothers me about
‘typical’ fantasy? Well there’s the journey and training parts. Our characters
need to go somewhere. You can be fairly sure they’ll have to trek through
either a forest or some meadow-land. I can just about bear it, if we’re going
through a desert or some snowy climate, but even then, there’s something very
tiresome about journeying. The scenery is all a bit too samey. Somewhere on the
way (if the hero isn’t already a shining paragon of goodness, with muscles and
expert swordsmanship / magical powers) we’ll have an obligatory training
montage. Again, perhaps because I’ve seen the same thing so many times, having
to read as someone learns how to fight and / or use a sword is extremely
boring.
Looking all these factors over, I
have to round back to my point right back at the start of this little rant. I
dislike a lot of fantasy, because there’s no imagination there. I mean, come
on, this is fantasy! By definition,
that encompasses literally anything you can imagine! So why, why, why, why, why do people insist on taking the easy
route and reusing such tired clichés? I’m not saying ‘elf’ should become a
swear-word. I just mean that if you’re going to give me an elf, for goodness’
sake, do something different with
them.
This is fantasy, where the potential should be
limitless, rather than stuck to the same tropes J.R.R Tolkien invented nearly a
hundred years ago.