All You Ever Wanted to Know About the Fantasy Genre
The fantasy genre is uniquely separate from other genres in their content. They take often more creativity and imagination due to their unbelievable creatures and content and how they create a whole new world in which to contain their creations. Fantasy authors often have an extended creative licence – For authors of fantasy, if they can explain their bad grammar, misspellings and anything that could generally be considered unrealistic in their book in a manner that makes it believable to the reader, they can easily get away with it. Fantasy authors are then presented with a challenge; to use the typical characteristics of the fantasy genre and create a world that is unique and original. The fantasy genre can be identified by their main counterparts; common characteristics, their unique separation from other ‘realistic’ genres and the skill of the author to make an unbelievable concept believable.
A common characteristic of the fantasy genre is Anthropomorphism, or the giving of human characteristics to animals. Talking animals is not an uncommon occurrence in the Fantastic worlds. Being in the real world, one often wonders about what animals would do if given the same human abilities, such as walking; talking; attending dinner parties. A famous book, if not the most famous book to contain the humanization of animals would be Lewis Carroll’s’ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. There are doubtful to be many people who do not think of Alice when they hear the term ‘white rabbit.’ Famously, the white rabbit is depicted in Lewis Carroll’s book wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch, crying “I’m late, I’m late, I’m so very late!” In fact, Carroll’s book is filled with anthropomorphism, from the grinning Cheshire Cat to the cryptic, hookah smoking caterpillar. The characterisation of animals is a very popular one, often because when done well, the talking animal can be very believable. Another excellent example would be Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien. In this book, field mouse Mrs Frisby joins forces with escaped, super intelligent lab rats to stop the farmer from ploughing her home. The rats are astonished to learn that she can read; a trait which only some rats acquired from their experimentations.
There are some fantasy creatures that we see constantly working their way back onto the bookshelves; every reader will recognise the words ‘dragon,’ ‘witch,’ ‘goblin,’ and ‘vampire.’ These classic mythical creatures that imagination constantly connects with ‘fantasy.’ Some of these creatures come from folklore, but at some point along the way, Santa’s little helper became tall, handsome, bow and arrow toting princes and Shakespeare’s old, ugly Hecate became a teenaged saviour with a lightning bolt on his forehead. Bram Stokers gentlemanly blood sucker became a sparkling 17 year old, and dragons... luckily, dragons are still pretty intense beasts.
These characters are still popular to use, it would seem, because of their malleability. Fantasy is, and can almost be defined as being all about expanding your imagination to its furthers reaches.
If one was to try and place a bloodsucker into a regular book, the result is no more than a simple cannibal. Vampires were written with a sort of romance about them – seducing a victim in order to get close enough to sink their fangs into the necks and draw blood. At least that was the original concept. More recently, vampires seem to have other options. In Already Dead, Charlie Huston’s rebelliously cool vampire Joe Pitt is content to simply ‘jump hobos and junkies’ and fill some medical bags with some blood while they are unconscious. In Cirque du Freak and Twilight we are introduced to the concept of “vegetarian vampires;” Darren Shan and Stephanie Meyer have chosen to forgo human blood for their characters altogether, and go for the more humane option of animal blood. Thus; malleability.
On the other hand, some reoccurring characters change very little in their characterisation. A prime example of “sticking to the books,” so to speak, is the Wise Old Man character- Dumbledore, Gandalf, Merlin etc. The Wise Old Man is the character who has seen it all, has been everywhere, and knows everything there is to know about everything. More often than not in a fantasy book, the Wise Old Man is a wizard with a beard, piercing eyes and incredibly bushy eyebrows. The young, naive protagonist visits the Wise Old Man in his time of need for the sea of knowledge in his expansive mind. His answers are almost always cryptic, but somehow everyone manages to solve the riddles in the nick of time. Below, Dumbledore proves his awesome enigma in a quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows;
‘Tell me one last thing,’ said Harry. ‘Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?’
‘Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?’
Magic is without a doubt the most common characteristic of the fantasy genre. You would be hard pushed to find a fantasy book that has no mention of magic or enchanted items in it; save for perhaps in a vampire book.
Most magical items in fantasy are enchanted to do fantastic things. One of the most famous traits or abilities of these enchanted items is the power of invisibility. The Tolkien universe focuses around the One Ring of Power, which, as well as drawing the attention of the creator, Sauron, casts the wearer invisible. Harry Potters ‘Invisibility Cloak’ does the same. However, for enchanted items, there is no better book than Howls Moving Castle. The main character, Sophie, has the fantastic magical ability to ‘talk things to life.’ While she worked in the local hat shop, to cure her boredom, she would talk to the hats, and lend personalities to them, commenting things like “You will marry wealth” to a particular hat. The woman who bought this particular hat ran off with a Duke. Later, she found a scarecrow who she also talked to life, which the proceeded to chase her through the marshes, and finally, the Castle which lends itself to the title. This home of Wizard Howl moves through the marshes above the town, powered by the magic of a fire demon. Magic items are strongly favoured in the fantasy genre
When it comes to the creation of the fantasy world, the world itself exists in one of two things; the world within the normal world, or an entirely new alternate universe.
The world within the regular world is one where magic and mythical creatures are hidden from the “non-magic” folk. Often the “magic folk” have some knowledge of the muggle world – a term coined by JK Rowling in the Harry Potter series for the non-magic people of the world – however all muggles generally have no knowledge of the Fantastic world. Sometimes two parallel worlds are kept separate by a distinctive barrier – in Howls Moving Castle, the Fantastic world was separated from the normal world, and could only be accessed through the magic door in Howls castle. Howl, however, was the only one who knows of both realms existence. Another similar example would be in Harry Potter’s world. The magical areas in Harry Potter’s London are entered through secret doors and paths – Diagon Alley is through the wall behind the pub, by “tapping the third brick from the left above the dustbin,” while Platform 9¾ is accessed by running thought the barrier in the train station. The Ministry is in a telephone box that sinks into the ground. Etcetera, etcetera.
But them we have another kind of fantastic existence within the normal world – where it is simply the normal world with a few fantasy beings living in secret, without any kind of community separate from the regular world. Vampire stories are generally in this kind of world; Joe Pitt lives in a basement apartment in New York City, emerging at night to do dirty work for the Vampyre Clans, eating pizza and smoking Lucky Strike that he buys from regular people in Already Dead. Another fine example of this would be in Joanne Harris’ Chocolat. Vianne Rocher and her daughter have subtle magic powers that they use to learn their towns folks favourite chocolate and prepare better chocolates to sell in their small French town.
The second type of world, and possibly more difficult to create, is the Alternate Universe world, where such things as magic and such creatures as dragons are commonplace. Arguably the most famous of these worlds would be the Tolkien universe.
Tolkien created Middle Earth, a completely different universe in which lived wizards and dragons and elves with our conventional humans, along with his original Hobbits, and even going so far as create a mutilated version of his hobbits; Gollum. Tolkien’s world was excruciatingly developed – from modest Bag End, the home of Bilbo Baggins, the protagonist in Tolkien’s first tale of Middle Earth; The Hobbit, to Rivendale and Lothlorien, the homes of the elves, to Mordor, where Sauron, an evil creature that was no more than a giant fiery eye with magical powers that watched over Middle Earth.
In this alternate universe, everyone was aware of the Fantastic; in fact, most are the Fantastic. This kind of world is one entirely of the imagination.
Fantasy genre can be described as a departure from the unknown. Authors, generally, are given creative license over their writings – thins don’t have to be exact, as long as the reader can believe what he reads. However, if a writer was to throw in a grinning Chesire Cat into his steamy romance novel, under the claim of his ‘creative license,’ other than it being really weird, no one would believe its credibility. This is fantasy’s territory. Fantasy authors have an extended creative license – the rule of believability still applies, but for fantasy, the reader is generally more inclined to suspend his disbelief while reading a magic book, as opposed to simply coming across it in a regular book.
In reality, when an average Joe reads a book, he does not really believe in faeries or vampires, but he can read this book without a snort of discontent due to the author’s ability to explain why it could be. Harry Potter could exist because there are spells which prevent us from seeing the Leaky Cauldron in London. We don’t have magic, so we can’t fall through the barrier at Kings Cross station. Believability is 1 part author’s skill, and 1 part readers desire to believe what he is reading. It is entirely possible for someone to sit down with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and despite Lewis Carroll’s word skill, snort “Please, rabbits don’t carry pocket watches” or with Howls Moving Castle and laugh “Please, scarecrows can’t chase little old ladies.” If a reader is unwilling to believe and enjoy what he is reading, then there is no point in reading the book. With this in mind, most readers of fantasy know to appreciate what they are reading; this leaves it down to the author to create a believable circumstance.
The reader can easily see how the fantasy genre is uniquely separated from others by their key factors; common characteristics and characters, the writers skill to create a complete world that the reader can find believable despite it’s unbelievable content and characters. Fantasy authors have extended creative license and must use it wisely to create an enjoyable, unquie read that can separate itself from other books of its kind, even further than other works of the same genre. The world of the Fantastic is something excellent that takes great skill to write, and write well.
Citations
Arakawa, Hiromu, Fullmetal Alchemist, 2001
Bennett, Steve, Fantasy Fiction Genre
http://www.findmeanauthor.com/fantasy_fiction_genre.htm
Carroll, Lewis, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865
Finley, TK, How to Avoid Clichés in Fantasy Writing,
http://www.ehow.com/how_2193512_avoid-clichs-fantasy-writing.html
Harris, Joanne, Chocolat, 1999
Houston, Charlie, Already Dead, 2005
Jean, Currie, Characteristics of Fanty literature
http://www.helium.com/items/893839-characteristics-of-fantasy-literature
Jones, Diana Wynne, Howl’s Moving Castle, 1986
Meyer, Stephanie, Twilight, 2005
O’Brian, Robert C., Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, 1971
Rowling, JK, Harry Potter, 1997
Shan, Darren, Cirque Du Freak, 2000
Stoker, Bram, Dracula, 1897
Tolkien, JRR, The Hobbit, 1937
Tolkien, JRR, The Lord of the Rings; The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy
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