The "New" Fantasy

[mbrennan]

Well, it depends on what you mean by "realism" and "sophistication." Obviously if we all wanted full-bore realism, we wouldn't be reading fantasy. But what kind of unreality kicks you out of a story? It varies from person to person. One reader doesn't notice that a story treats horses like four-legged motorcycles for the characters to zip around on; another reader, herself a rider, is deeply annoyed by how the author clearly doesn't understand horses. Etc.

Which could be its own whole tangent, and one I'm happy to discuss, but I wanted to clarify that the reason I brought this up in the first place was Saladin's point: there's a broad tendency to declare that the gritty stuff is, by virtue of its grit, more realistic and more grown-up. But if people want to lay claim to those qualities for this not-so-new-fantasy, then it's worth discussing the ways in which the exemplars still fall short.

Especially since I do think there's a place in the world for both the really down-in-the-mud gritty fantasy and the up-in-the-clouds mythic kind. As far as I'm concerned, one is not inherently superior to the other. But I know not everyone agrees with me.

[Scott H. Andrews]

Originally Posted by Saladin

As fatr as wwi&ii go, though I think the 'crusade' mentality is probably more true of our recollection of those wars than the contemporary popular opinion of the wars themselves. wwi, especially .... On the other hand, I think Americans post-Vietnam are in fact often simple-mindedly patriotic about war. I think about desert storm I and what a pseudo-patrotic cluster**** of bloodthirsty jingoism that was and I still cringe...

I know less about WWI, but WWII was definitely a crusade--day that will live in infamy, tons of people from all walks of life enlisting, ladies working the factories and Boy Scouts recycling metals.

I don't think the post-Vietnam patriotism comes in until the 80s. There was a sort of popular re-evaluation then, not of the politics or the military morass but of the people who had served, viewing them as heroes rather than spitting on them. Rambo, etc. In the mid-80s, many fictional characters who were meant to be sympathetic badasses were given a background in Vietnam--even Sonny Crockett. The gulf wars were cast as crusades, back to that WWII style, so the popular patriotism that accompanies that was/is back in full force.

Although I never noticed in post-80s F much reflection of that vibe, the way I think the black-and-white older epic F reflects that crusade attitude. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's that the general populace now gets the majority of their entertainment from movies and video games, so fiction is no longer so representative or related to societal feelings like that.

[Scott H. Andrews]

Originally Posted by mbrennan

I don't mind grit, as long as it doesn't hit a point where it's just so bleak and depressing that it starts grinding my spirit down. But I'd love to see a recognition that mud and cynicism and anti-heroes are not contiguous with "sophistication;" they can be just as juvenile as unicorns and shallowly archetypal Dark Lords. Real sophistication, to me, is about nuance: nuanced subtlety of narrative, nuanced understanding of how things really work, nuanced exploration of ideas, etc.

I agree with all of this. Some of the brutality against the protagonists in a recent famous F novel was so omnipresent that it put me off.

I think a big reason for the recent trend of grit is that GRRM is selling so well. The possible philosophical and societal reasons are more interesting to talk about, but of course this is commercial fiction.

And all this grit is, in cases, starting to feel juvenile to me, especially when it's senselessly brutal or unaccompanied by nuance in the sort of aspects you mention.

And it does have to be not full "realism." Especially in F, readers do want some sense of escapism, more IMO than in other subgenres like SF or H. Maybe that's why the relentless brutality in that recent F novel I read was too much--it started to feel to senselessly real to me.

[DgB]

I am late to the party, but I will chime in.

Writers as a rule are also readers. I think we are seeing the result of a generation of readers that grew bored of reading fantasy where, regardless of whether the journey was fraught with danger, the end result was never REALLY in doubt. You know, happily ever after and all that. Too much of a good thing.

I think it will go back and forth, as it has for a long time. Readers will tire of dark and gritty and some of them will become writers and write what they want to read.

J.D. Salinger wrote in Seymour: An Introduction -- "If only you'd remember before ever you sit down to write that you've been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart's choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself."

That pretty much sums up my opinion of what we are seeing.

Tolkien, before WWI, was part of a tight writing group -- four people. Two died in the war. He himself was injured. If anything, I'd say LORT rejected what he'd faced in war and returned to the ancient epics like Beowulf he knows so well.

As to everything being good in the end, all the best old fantasies don't have that. LORT ends with victory, but at a price. The Shire, as the hobbits knew it, is gone forever. Elves and magic leave. Frodo's never better. Lots of old fantasy (Chronicles of Narnia, the Prydain Chronicles) have this motif: you can win, but you can't go home. The world has changed.

A lot of grit feels superficial. I'm especially tired of books where whichever female character is present is raped/assaulted to show how bad the world is and/or advance some romance plot. Even Twilight does that -- some group almost attacks the girl, the guy saves her, and instead of saying "That was really scary and I'm going to be shaken up about the world for a little bit and get some pepper spray for my keychain," it's purely a romance device, where she falls all over the dude because he saved her. Trite? I think so. Used similarly in "gritty" fantasies? All the time. To me, it feels like cheating in many books. Need an emotionally charged word? Situation? Abuse does that instantly, without any work or context. I've rarely read a book where the aftermath of abuse was a significant -- or realistic -- part of the plot.