The Discourse of Fantasy

[LordVreeg]

This is very true, but why dwarves and orcs and not other folkloric creatures?  Why not catoblepases, onocentaurs, hekatonkheires, scorpion men, or woodwoses?  Why are mermaids better known than kelpies or vodyanoi or shellycoats?  Gnomes more common than salamanders and undines?  Such creatures have mythological and historical pedigrees too, yet some monsters survive in the popular mindset and others fade.  Why do some monsters accrue the connotations and history they've attained while others don't?

The word "Orc," incidentally, had very little cultural/historical significance before Tolkien.  There are almost no other mentions of "Orcs" in Western literature - Beowulf's original Old English mentions "Orcs" as evil spirits condemned by god (or possibly sea-monsters), and there might be a few very scattered examples of "orke" as a term in folklore, but apart from Blake's totally different use of the term and perhaps a very vague association with the Roman Orcus, "Orc" had pretty much no resonance for the mid-twentieth-century reader.  Tolkien wasn't exploiting a cultural touchstone with Orcs, he was fashioning one.

Catoplepi.  That's the plural.  I'm sure of it.

And 2 points to add here...

1)Tolkien uses elves and dwarves as heroic protagonist races.  I think one of the reasons for their and gnomes popularity is that they are accessible as sort-of human, especially in how they are used in Lotr and even more so as they have been used in gaming.  This is why they became player races in the earlier, sunnier part of the industry.
Orcs were used pretty brilliantly, as they were shown to be pretty much irredeemably evil.  I have a lot more trouble with the 'Cruel Haradrim'....

2) Names do have meaning.  I found later on that having different names versions of things, even if they were very similar or slightly changed from those used in books.  And what do these things call themselves?  And why? 
I'll be honest, I sort of wince every time I see a new setting just plop in elves, dwarves, and orcs, without even thought as to what they are, where they come from, what they call themselves and why.

 

? Why is Fantasy the dominant medium for RPGs? Sci-Fi and horror are generally much more popular in mass media, so why do RPGs buck the trend?

This is actually part of a much larger cultural trend.  While SF has been much more popular in all mediums for well over a century (and perhaps longer), that trend has shifted over the last few decades.  Sci Fi and horror, which are certainly two separate things, are all sitting and watching the Fantasy Genre eclipse them not only in gaming, but in the literary world as well.

http://markcnewton.com/2009/12/03/why-sf-is-dying-fantasy-fiction-is-the-future/
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/41302-why-is-fantasy-so-much-more-popular-than-scifi
http://www.writersofthefuture.com/writingcontestnews/2012/01/15/on-the-growth-of-fantasy-and-the-waning-of-science-fiction-by-brad-torgersen/428

So once could look and call gaming part of the trend, perhaps we could say that part of the magic of D&D and RPGs is that they showed up at the right time to take advantage and then move in the direction that that they were actually part of pushing. Traveller and others certainly tried. 

[Steerpike]

Catoplepi.  That's the plural.  I'm sure of it.

Apologies  :P

Orcs were used pretty brilliantly, as they were shown to be pretty much irredeemably evil.  I have a lot more trouble with the 'Cruel Haradrim'....

This is interesting, as I have way less of a problem with the Haradrim.  Haradrim are basically just men who happen to have been subjugated/seduced by Sauron, not all that different from what happened in Numenor (Jackson's movie humanizes them even more).  They're not essentially evil, they've been recruited for the efforts of imperialism.  Yes, of course there's an Orientalist undertone to the Haradrim that does show its age, but I still don't get the feeling they're intrinsically evil, just raised in a cruel culture.  I don't think it's racist to see some cultural practices as cruel.  Ancient Sparta was cruel.  Rome could be monumentally cruel.  That doesn't mean Greeks and Italians are intrinsically cruel people.  The cruelty of those cultures arose out of particular historical contexts.  It's mentioned the Haradrim lived in poverty, and Sauron offered them wealth.  This is a pretty understandable motive, if an "ignoble" one in some sense, but hey, if my family were starving to death in the desert and some guy offered me enough money to feed them if I joined his army... well...

Middle-Earth Orcs, on the other hand, are essentially evil - it's literally in their blood and bones.  This is somehow more excusable in something like a powerful, supernatural Demon (say a Balrog), but when it's a race of creatures with a society and kingdoms and tribes and everything, it strays into problematic territory, because underlying Orcs there's a defamiliarized racist logic at work - members of certain peoples are "born bad," are intrinsically bad at a biological level, and thus can be killed without any moral hangups.  Orcs are subhuman, atavistic, degenerate - they're irredeemably "fallen" and corrupted in a fundamental way.  This is exactly the logic of real-world racism, and it's a bit disturbing to see it at play.

Interesting aside for Tolkien experts: does anyone know where Orcs go when they die?  Elves go to the Halls of Mandos and are bound to the world for all of time, while Men (and, we can assume, Hobbits?) go to a "more mysterious fate" beyond Arda.  Where do Orc fëar go?  The Void?

[LordVreeg]

As the true origin or the Orcs was never fully determined, but was a moving point in Tolkien's cosmology, it is hard to determine their fate, to pass out of the Circles of the World and into commune with Eru or to end in the halls of a particular Valar.  It is made pretty clear that Melkor, or evil, cannot create, but only pervert.


See, the Haradrim bothered me from a much more typical, reactionary level.  "Why are the only ones fallowing the lord of evil (and someone that was obviously that lord of evil) perverted creatures, undead, and black people?"  I mean, really....I am a Tolkien lover, but this always drove me nuts, as aware as I am about the when and where Tolkien had lived through.


Now, to be perfectly dissembling, I enjoyed 'solving', or at least working with these issues in my own works.  Both of them, and more.  

[Lmns Crn]

2) Names do have meaning.  I found later on that having different names versions of things, even if they were very similar or slightly changed from those used in books.  And what do these things call themselves?  And why?  
I'll be honest, I sort of wince every time I see a new setting just plop in elves, dwarves, and orcs, without even thought as to what they are, where they come from, what they call themselves and why.

This is a bit of a conversational backtrack (and for that, I apologize), but I think this right here is probably not so much of a common thing in fantasy literature as it is in nonprofessional fantasy gamewriting, and it's because of system.

Our market's still dominated by Dungeons and Dragons (and its various spinoffs: Pathfinder, etc.). It's how most new gamers are introduced to the hobby-- or at least, that was certainly true when I started up, even if there are broader options now. (It's certainly still true if we're talking specifically about fantasy gaming.) Many people who get started writing nonprofessional game settings for private use and internet postings do so because their group is playing D&D/Pathfinder/etc., and they want to put a custom spin on that.

Doing so carries with it a lot of assumptions. If I'm looking at a set of D&D books and thinking "I'm going to make up a world for this game to take place in", there's a lot of things that world, by default, needs to include because the game includes them. Everybody's first worldbuilding effort, assuming D&D as their starting point, probably includes many of the staples: elves and dwarves, +1 swords, an arcane/divine magic dichotomy, polytheism, and a bunch of other things. It's easy to make minor alterations (e.g., "I don't like bards so I am omitting them, and I'm not a fan of elves but one of my players is, so I'm stuck with them but I'm going to change them around to make them more interesting," etc.) but it's hard to make numerous or significantly impactful changes without making huge, sweeping changes to the base game, which makes an already complicated and intimidating project much more so. And many of us, when we are novices, don't understand the scope of our decision-making power to do so. (Speaking for myself, I had no clue.)

Vreeg, I know you're firmly on the record as to where you stand with this (as I may paraphrase from memory: "make the system fit the setting, or else the setting will perforce fit the system"), so I want to be clear that I'm not trying to debate you, as I don't think we disagree. I'm just extrapolating based on something you mentioned in a prior post.

I take appropriate pride in my work, and while I don't always think it is as interesting as some others occasionally make it out to be, the Jade Stage became much more interesting as a setting when I gave up on trying to use D&D mechanics with it. There are still the hallmarks present that let you know it was originally a D&D reskin (elves and dwarves, polytheism, etc.), but ditching those detailed mechanics allowed me flexibility to really change a lot of things in much more complex ways (magic that's not based on classes or an arcane/divine divide, for instance), and totally avoid a lot of problems that D&D takes for granted (philosophical implications of revealed divinity, political effects of on-demand resurrection and prophecy, what to do with all those goddamned magic items that are assumed by default to exist, etc.)

I think a lot of these design elements are analogous to five paragraph essay form, or cake mix from a box, or automatic transmission, etc.-- they're an easy and common way to get started with a new activity because they provide structure, and some people keep using when they are established and experienced, and others ditch them in favor of having more control over more variables.

Long post, I know.

[Lmns Crn]

Middle-Earth Orcs, on the other hand, are essentially evil - it's literally in their blood and bones.  This is somehow more excusable in something like a powerful, supernatural Demon (say a Balrog), but when it's a race of creatures with a society and kingdoms and tribes and everything, it strays into problematic territory, because underlying Orcs there's a defamiliarized racist logic at work - members of certain peoples are "born bad," are intrinsically bad at a biological level, and thus can be killed without any moral hangups.  Orcs are subhuman, atavistic, degenerate - they're irredeemably "fallen" and corrupted in a fundamental way.  This is exactly the logic of real-world racism, and it's a bit disturbing to see it at play.

There was a segment on this topic on Ken Hite and Robin Laws' podcast some time back. This is a pretty good podcast if you haven't already heard of it, and this episode has a segment on iconic vs. dramatic characters that I found incredibly interesting also.

This ends my short digression, probably?

[Lmns Crn]

More catching up on the thread after a week of vacation! I don't even care about the triple post anymore!

Understanding a lot of the 'why' of what we do, or an industry and a movement,  often creates a better 'what' we end up producing.

This is why I love this kind of thread in particular, and this community in general. I love these conversations for their own sake, but also for the positive effect they produce on my own output-- the dedicated artisan examines their tools closely.

a gender-swapped, sexy Gandalf

Welp, that'll disturb me for a good, long while. Thanks, Steerpike!

[Steerpike]

I always aim to disturb!   :grin:

And thanks for the podcast recommendation.

[LordVreeg]

Vreeg, I know you're firmly on the record as to where you stand with this (as I may paraphrase from memory: "make the system fit the setting, or else the setting will perforce fit the system"), so I want to be clear that I'm not trying to debate you, as I don't think we disagree. I'm just extrapolating based on something you mentioned in a prior post.

I take appropriate pride in my work, and while I don't always think it is as interesting as some others occasionally make it out to be, the Jade Stage became much more interesting as a setting when I gave up on trying to use D&D mechanics with it. There are still the hallmarks present that let you know it was originally a D&D reskin (elves and dwarves, polytheism, etc.), but ditching those detailed mechanics allowed me flexibility to really change a lot of things in much more complex ways (magic that's not based on classes or an arcane/divine divide, for instance), and totally avoid a lot of problems that D&D takes for granted (philosophical implications of revealed divinity, political effects of on-demand resurrection and prophecy, what to do with all those goddamned magic items that are assumed by default to exist, etc.)

Lc, we rarely disagree.

And this is one of those places we are totally in agreement, and I think it goes with the whole post-posse.

D&D got their first.  And the rules have a number of implied setting pieces, some of those we have mentioned.  I went the same route, creating a ruleset to match up with the setting and game I wanted to play.  I would only disagree with the phrase, "ditching those detailed mechanics allowed me the freedom", since I don't thing the complexity is good or bad or relevant to the point.  I am firmly on record, it is true, and I feel that this back-door approach to the same problem just supports that muchly repeated Ideal.  

To really break away from those hoary tropes, it is best to do so with rules that underpin the setting you are creating.  

[Lmns Crn]

I did my best to write that post with language that avoids making value judgments. I may not have been entirely successful!

With complexity, as with any other aspect of a creative work, everybody has their own preference and it is difficult to talk about objective "good" and "bad". That's not what I mean to do.

I do think, though, that since we're a setting-writing community, we self-select for certain parameters when we join up. There's a recent renaissance of classic-style games that are well-made and quite enjoyable riffs on classic D&D ideas (Castles and Crusades, Dungeon World, etc.) but to my understanding, it's not their settings that make them interesting, but the gameplay, the wink-and-a-nod nostalgia, etc. A game with a very "classic-style" setting is not good or bad in and of itself, but I would not be surprised to find confirmed that most people who visit this site have preferences that run more exotic.

[LordVreeg]

I did my best to write that post with language that avoids making value judgments. I may not have been entirely successful!

With complexity, as with any other aspect of a creative work, everybody has their own preference and it is difficult to talk about objective "good" and "bad". That's not what I mean to do.

I do think, though, that since we're a setting-writing community, we self-select for certain parameters when we join up. There's a recent renaissance of classic-style games that are well-made and quite enjoyable riffs on classic D&D ideas (Castles and Crusades, Dungeon World, etc.) but to my understanding, it's not their settings that make them interesting, but the gameplay, the wink-and-a-nod nostalgia, etc. A game with a very "classic-style" setting is not good or bad in and of itself, but I would not be surprised to find confirmed that most people who visit this site have preferences that run more exotic.

I agree.  I have both, I created a d20 retroclone to play my easy, quick bronze-age stuff.  Because it IS fun to do those things.  But that is not where my effort goes.

[SA]

...and while I don't always think it is as interesting as some others occasionally make it out to be...

I will defend Jade Stage with knives

[Elemental_Elf]

 

? Why is Fantasy the dominant medium for RPGs? Sci-Fi and horror are generally much more popular in mass media, so why do RPGs buck the trend?

This is actually part of a much larger cultural trend.  While SF has been much more popular in all mediums for well over a century (and perhaps longer), that trend has shifted over the last few decades.  Sci Fi and horror, which are certainly two separate things, are all sitting and watching the Fantasy Genre eclipse them not only in gaming, but in the literary world as well.

http://markcnewton.com/2009/12/03/why-sf-is-dying-fantasy-fiction-is-the-future/
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/41302-why-is-fantasy-so-much-more-popular-than-scifi
http://www.writersofthefuture.com/writingcontestnews/2012/01/15/on-the-growth-of-fantasy-and-the-waning-of-science-fiction-by-brad-torgersen/428

So once could look and call gaming part of the trend, perhaps we could say that part of the magic of D&D and RPGs is that they showed up at the right time to take advantage and then move in the direction that that they were actually part of pushing. Traveller and others certainly tried.  

Interesting links. They site many of the same ideas I was thinking about when I asked the question.

I think its sad that Sci-Fi is dying as a genre, or at the very least, stagnating but I understand why. The shift from men to women readers strikes me as a bit odd, what the heck are men doing these days? Is it just TV and Video games for them? Why are books becoming an increasingly less interesting entertainment medium for the male gender?

At any rate, I cannot name any big Sci-Fi systems other than the big two (40k and Star Wars). Sure there was Traveler, d20 Future, etc but none of them found the market penetration of the aforementioned two, or D&D. It also strikes me as a bit interesting that the two big Sci-Fi Worlds/Systems that dominate the RPG industry are, essentially, Fantasy settings wrapped up in the accouterments of Sci-Fi. Perhaps Fantasy is just the better vehicle for the RPG medium?

[Seraph]

I don't feel like I am really well read enough in the genre to make statements about this.  Even regarding Tolkien, I feel unqualified.  I've only read each of the LotR series and the Hobbit once, and don't feel I gleaned as deep an understanding of what was at work in his writing as Steerpike and Vreeg have.  I do want to say that I have found this discussion fascinating to read about, though.

[LD]

This is very true, but why dwarves and orcs and not other folkloric creatures?  Why not catoblepases, onocentaurs, hekatonkheires, scorpion men, or woodwoses?  Why are mermaids better known than kelpies or vodyanoi or shellycoats?  Gnomes more common than salamanders and undines?  Such creatures have mythological and historical pedigrees too, yet some monsters survive in the popular mindset and others fade.  Why do some monsters accrue the connotations and history they've attained while others don't?

They have connotations because they are used in the popular literature. You may as well ask why Socrates and Plato and why not Mencius, the Legalists, and Al-Ghazili. It's the same reason that America used to focus on "Western Civ", by giving the populace a cultural touchstone, you create a common culture, something to talk about and to relate to.
Perhaps Tolkien simply wrote a good story. That's all it takes to become ingrained in the psyche. Tolkien wrote, and people read and they thought about what they read and other people copied. Plato copied Socrates, Aristophanes spoofed him, Rome followed him, Caesar studied him, and the rest is history. So too, with the folkloric creatures that Tolkien used. He created a standard "western civ" grouping of characters that were then capitalized on by the likes of Brooks, et. al.

Regarding "hekatonkheires" at least, if you look at another culture you can see that they are indeed touchstones. I'm sure phoenix or sparkletwist can correct me or expand here, but they always reminded me of Vedic and Buddhist hell creatures.

So essentially, tolkien became the bible. People liked him and people knew what you were talking about when you said dwarf- "aahh, gruff guy"; "ent/treant" - "ahh, walking tree" and people had shared feelings related to those creatures, feelings that new authors could draw on without writing a 1000 page history of the creatures. They could then focus on building the plot and the characters instead of getting sucked into creating a 1000 page history that no one would read (belgarath the sorcerer and polgara the sorceress, I'm looking at you [by the way, I enjoyed those novels much better than the Belgariad itself, but I fear they were not popular at all-they actually reminded me more of some science fiction than fantasy in the loooong view of history that they took].

The key with fiction is character. Some people make due with plot-driven tales, but the real money is in character; and anything that allows writers to focus more on dialogue and character than backstory is generally good.

Some authors (Mieville), however, are adept at putting backstory and history in the background without alienating readers. He doesn't have the benefit of touchstones, he goes for the weird. This alienates people in a way that RA Salvatore talking about "dark elf this and that..." doesn't. People feel comfortable with his characterizations, they have a history that goes beyond the trilogy. The dwarf, the elf, they're like the doctor, the priest. They're 'types' like the 1800's chap-book penny-book literature had types, plug and play. And that's satisfying for readers.

[Steerpike]

You may as well ask why Socrates and Plato and why not Mencius, the Legalists, and Al-Ghazili.

These are also good and important questions!  All I'm saying is I think the reason some things become "cultural touchstones" in the first place and others don't isn't arbitrary, and is worth discussing.  Sometimes it might just be historical accident, but there are likely other factors at play.

Perhaps Tolkien simply wrote a good story. That's all it takes to become ingrained in the psyche.

I don't think it's that simple.  There are lots of good, sometimes brilliant authors whose ideas haven't been nearly as ingrained in the popular pysche as Tolkien.  My contention is basically that Tolkien's success isn't just on the merits of his story (which, while considerable, aren't leaps and bounds ahead of some other fantasy authors), its intertwined in the political and cultural context in which Tolkien's works were received.  Not to say that his works would have achieved the same degree of success if they weren't well written - I think they are.

So essentially, tolkien became the bible. People liked him and people knew what you were talking about when you said dwarf- "aahh, gruff guy"; "ent/treant" - "ahh, walking tree" and people had shared feelings related to those creatures, feelings that new authors could draw on without writing a 1000 page history of the creatures. They could then focus on building the plot and the characters instead of getting sucked into creating a 1000 page history that no one would read

I agree this is what happened, but the question is partly why this happened with Tolkien and not, say, with Vance or Leiber or Dunsany or even Lovecraft (increasingly Lovecraft has his own "Bible," of course, but that wasn't always the case).  I think it has a lot to do with the nature of Tolkien's world-building and the very specific nature of the story he wrote in conjunction with the particular moment in Western history that text was being received, though I'd certainly be open to other theories (psychoanalytic or whatever).  And I think it has a lot to do with his style.  I get that some of the tropes Tolkien employs were already cultural touchstones pre-Tolkien, but hey, Dunsany uses lots of the same cultural touchstones (like Elves/Fairies, Gods, Goblins) and his stuff is barely read anymore, despite being unspeakably beautifully written at times.

belgarath the sorcerer and polgara the sorceress, I'm looking at you [by the way, I enjoyed those novels much better than the Belgariad itself, but I fear they were not popular at all-they actually reminded me more of some science fiction than fantasy in the loooong view of history that they took].

I see them (along with the Riven Codex) kind of like the Silmarillion, rather than proper entries into the series in a certain sense - they're more like companion pieces.

Totally incidentally, Eddings' utter disdain for Tolkien is hilarious.  No one does snark quite like Eddings...

The key with fiction is character. Some people make due with plot-driven tales, but the real money is in character; and anything that allows writers to focus more on dialogue and character than backstory is generally good.

I don't disagree, though it's interesting to think about in conjunction with Tolkien, some of whose characters are brilliant and others which are pretty darn flat.  Also, of course, it depends on what you mean by "money."  If you mean, like, actual money, then Dan Brown (whose characters are uniformly awful) offers a good counterexample to this statement.  If you mean "quality," I'm more inclined to agree, though I wonder where this leaves us with people like Lovecraft or Ashton Smith, who write gorgeously atmospheric stories and novellas but whose characters are usually pretty weak.