What do you like and dislike about Fantasy?

[Paladin Dave]

I agree with Gnombient's first post. Reps to you!

But yeah... Elves are ok, when seriously toned down, but they are overdone, and the overly virtuous and haughty ones like in PJ's rendition of LOTR that are SOOO much better at everything make me SICK!!! The Tolkien Elves were superior at everything, but atleast in the Silmarillion, you also saw that they were the best at heartless kinslaying, biggotry, arrogance, and folly.:evil grin: I LOVED the scene where Feanor died...

I also hate borrowing EVERYTHING from other fantasy stories. I mean, yes, there is only so much you can do, and you HAVE to borrow, but atleast make variations. People need to stop making fantasy worlds where the main races are humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs, especially. But I gotta say, I like the variations some people pull off on these races. I don't see many, but the author of the Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire webcomic did an awesome job of tearing Orcs away from the standard. They're vegetarians, first off, and the huge teeth are for chewing up the roots and incredibly hard vegetables that grow in the planes they inhabit. Tribal, family/honor oriented society, almost more like native Americans and African tribesmen than what we think of as Orcs. They're also not short. Just green and with big teeth.

I have strange tastes, but along with including God in a story, I also enjoy including some evil that is not so blatantly evil... if you know what I mean. The seductive and seemingly "neutral" evil, like Necromancers who just hide out in ruins and play around with corpses all day, under the pretense that their magics are just "misunderstood". They make great temptations for a hero struggling down the path of righteousness.

 

[Nienor]

^ I love Dominic Deegan, i has a great new look on fantasy

And the Silmarillion is great as well, it really shows the elves at their worst (and some of the humans...) I just love getting teh background

 

[Paladin Dave]

YAY!!! Another Deegan fan! That adds up to... two that I know of on here.>.< And one of them is White Wings, whom I converted to the Deegan Side myself. ...You wouldn't happen to be a fan of Jacob and Siegfried, would you?

 

[NeoScribe]

Why do all fantasy races have a specific type of weapon. Why do humans have to use swords, why do elves have to use bows, why do dwarves have to use axes, why do orc/goblins/whatever cheap name the last guy has given them have to use some sort of club and not any real weapon?

Why do the bad guys always outnumber the goodguys 10 to 1, and yet have no fighting skills and get their butts handed to them time after time? Why does the badguy always appear out of nowhere with the super army?

 

[Utah Knight]

I like that fact that when reading fantasy you can compleatly imerse yourself in that orld and leave the world we live in behind for a short time. I also enjoy readin about things that we can only dream of doing.
I dislike that only certain races can use only certain weapons spells ect.

 

[Nienor]

I don't really like Siggy, but Jacob is cool. I"m more of a fan of Szark and Celesto (I want him to come back....) Stonewater is cool too, though I'm still not sure where I stand on the rape arc...

 

[Mr_Hursh]

Why do all fantasy races have a specific type of weapon. Why do humans have to use swords, why do elves have to use bows, why do dwarves have to use axes, why do orc/goblins/whatever cheap name the last guy has given them have to use some sort of club and not any real weapon?

Why do the bad guys always outnumber the goodguys 10 to 1, and yet have no fighting skills and get their butts handed to them time after time? Why does the badguy always appear out of nowhere with the super army?

In the fantasy I am working on the Good guys have an army that is 100k strong and in the "big battle" at the end, the enemy only bring 20k to the fight. Of course, not all of the Good guys' army is there.

I've never really mentioned my Elves using bows, that is, not any more than any other race. Elves usually just use a sword, a dagger, a spear, and a shield -- like the Roman infantry.
Dwarves use. just about every kind of polearm

 

[Paladin Dave]

Well Neoscribe, as for the "why swords" thing, swords really are the most versatile weapon on the battlefield. They can cut like an axe, pierce like a spear, and crush like a club. They can be as big, curved, pointy, etc as you want, depending on which opponent you often face. However, when I'm writing, I usually vary the arsenal for humans a bit, including plenty of hammers, maces, battle axes, you know, the fun stuff. I have not used elves, goblins, or dwarves yet, but I always saw Goblins as using primitive swords or spears. And to echo Mr. Hush, the one thing I have written was with the good guys having more men than the bad. But it was the villains who were the fighting forces unto themselves, and they NEEDED a good 50 men a piece to make the battle somewhat interesting. It was also human against human.

I have to admit, I liked Szark a lot too, and... well, Celesto dressed nicely... but thats all I really liked about him. And as much as I hate rape, Stonewater is a repentent sinner, and was forgiven by his victim. Good enough for me. Just remember that while he WAS a rapist, we both like Jacob, who enjoys killing people in painful manners and then using their bodies in his experiments.

 

[Nienor]

I have to admit, I liked Szark a lot too, and... well, Celesto dressed nicely... but thats all I really liked about him. And as much as I hate rape, Stonewater is a repentent sinner, and was forgiven by his victim. Good enough for me. Just remember that while he WAS a rapist, we both like Jacob, who enjoys killing people in painful manners and then using their bodies in his experiments.

I do think Mookie handled the whole thing rather well.
And Jacob is just cool

 

[NothingButTheBlood]

What do I dislike?

Naked women fantasy art.

What do I like?

It's as far from reality as you can get. And the good vs. evil is clear and plain.

 

[Paladin Dave]

I can't help but agree with you on your dislike. Makes us fantasy fans look like a bunch of 40 yr old virgins who sit at home playing D&D and surfing sites they shouldn't be surfing.

 

[Mr_Hursh]

Yeah. Sometimes their armor is hilarious looking though.

 

[stonetoflesh]

http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/nodwick/ffn/ffn166.htm

 

[Nienor]

http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/nodwick/ffn/ffn166.htm

Wheel of Time Syndrome - I like that

 

[Psalms34]

I am currently working on a fantasy world, and I was just wondering what people - Christians mostly - like or don't like about the Fantasy Genre. What would you change, remove, or add?
Personally, I would add more detail and decision - just to name a few.

What are your thoughts?

I'd remove magic. Magical is fine, as in the aweness and clairvoyance of creation and such, but most magic is often a portrait of things that are not associated with the great works of God the Creator and in many cases conflicts with God's holy power.

I too am designing a world as you are mentioning but this world is predominately void of "magic" except as recognized in use by the dark powers of the world that cannot be practiced in any form by those that walk in the light and do battle with the dark. I don't believe in gray or white magic either, or a magic that can be utilized by both sides, there is only the magic that is generated by the forces of evil and in contrast the God given power that is adorned upon those that follow the path of the Creator thus being granted access to such power. There is a little info on this in MyCF.

 

[Abbadon]

I like how stories like Conan and Cthulhu handled magic. Very rare, and pretty much guarenteed to be bad. Granted, the occasional good wiseman might pop up, it's not Gandalf.

If magic is not as totally uncommon, there's how it's handled in the the comic series Hellblazer. That's another take I like. It's similar to Conan and Cthulhu in that using magic is a bad idea. But the main character does it anyway, and spends the story not trying to save the world with his magic, but to survive the consequences years down the road.

If there's going to be plenty of magic, then there's stuff like the Stormbringer saga. The main character of that series, Elric, is pretty much "addicted" to his demonic sword. It's works great for tragedy where the main character is going to die (Elric commits suicide in the end, after the sword slays those he loves in addition to the bad guys).

What's also good is when there isn't an established "good/evil" dichotomy. Elric has to go out and achieve a balance between the sterile forces of order and the unstable forces of chaos to fight for what is good.

I can't help but agree with you on your dislike. Makes us fantasy fans look like a bunch of 40 yr old virgins who sit at home playing D&D and surfing sites they shouldn't be surfing.

That's right! Most of us are in our late teens.

What do I dislike?
Naked women fantasy art.

Yeah, I don't like fantasy art.

What do I like?
It's as far from reality as you can get. And the good vs. evil is clear and plain.

But it gets pretty interesting and inspirational when the main character has to forge out and find goodness in the world.

When you can recognize certain elements in the story, it helps suspend the disbelief.

 

[stonetoflesh]

I like how stories like Conan and Cthulhu handled magic. Very rare, and pretty much guarenteed to be bad. Granted, the occasional good wiseman might pop up, it's not Gandalf.

Good call on the pulps' eeeeevil magic; it seems like most powerful magic in the worlds of Howard, Lovecraft, C.A. Smith, Leiber, et al is an extension of stuff Man Was Not Meant To Know; the spellcasters didn't go to Magic School, they cribbed their knowledge from ancient scrolls and books and other, less pleasant sources of occult lore. For the most part the magic is very ritualistic, time-consuming, and extremely hazardous to the caster's physical and/or mental health-- especially if it backfires...

 

[Abbadon]

I once summed up Call of Cthulu to a buddy as this: those that adventure, or look into the unknown, especially if they use magic, will go insane and will be eaten. And not necessarily in that order...

 

[stonetoflesh]

those that adventure, or look into the unknown, especially if they use magic, will go insane and will be eaten.

That sounds like the fate I wish upon every single character in the Wheel of Time series...

 

[catzetier]

Fantasy's my favourite genre, but most of it is so derivative! I have a lot of trouble finding new authors I like - although my taste in fantasy has a lot to do with that. I like lyrical fantasy, which has more to do with the writing style than anything else. These are stories that can make you laugh and cry at the same time, stories that can make you cry just because they're so wonderfully told even though the story itself is happy...

I also do not appreciate happy-ever-after, our-lives-are-now-perfect endings. Not that I like the story going to rack and ruin either, but my favourite endings are bittersweet. The hero defeats the villain and completes the quest... by forever losing the woman he loves. The lovable old professor finds what he's been searching for all his life... at the moment of his death. That sort of thing - neither entirely happy nor entirely sad.

The fantasy authors who can pull either of these off are few and far between. The fantasy authors who can pull both off are even rarer. Does anyone here know a fantasy author who can manage it? The only one I've come across is Peter S. Beagle, but his style and originality makes it really difficult to find anybody similar - particularly when even the librarians in my hometown haven't heard of him!

---

I agree about Christian fantasy often being dull and predictable. In fact, the only Christian fantasies I've enjoyed have been from the pen of C.S. Lewis (Narnia, and the first book of his Space Trilogy) and Tolkien.

And apropos original takes on traditional creatures, try Patrick Rothfuss' series The Kingkiller Chronicle. It's got an interesting take on the Fae; a very original take on a dragon; a magic system based on physics, chemistry, and logic; a narrator who is quite potentially unreliable (another thing I really like); and the most evil thing encountered so far is... a tree. Just be warned. If, like me, detailed sex in a book makes you shudder, be prepared to wilfully ignore a lot of the second book.