# Magic-free fantasy? (1 Viewer)



## popsprocket (Apr 28, 2014)

I write a lot of magic-free fantasy.

There's no magic in the story because it's not required. In general we're talking about character stories that don't focus on literal action. That's not to say there is no literal action, it's just that it's pretty minimal. Adding magic to these stories wouldn't enhance anything and in some cases it might harm what's happening otherwise.

But I read a comment on goodreads the other day where a reviewer said that fantasy without magic 'didn't count' or something like that. And, I'll admit, it made me squirm a little.

I don't write specifically with an eye on the market, but I'd certainly prefer  to write stories with appeal rather than stories with none.

So, what say you: fantasy without magic,  yea or nay? Does it still count as fantasy (being set on a non-Earth world and all)?


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## Skodt (Apr 28, 2014)

Sounds maybe a little more Sci-Fi than fantasy.


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## Bishop (Apr 28, 2014)

popsprocket said:


> But I read a comment on goodreads the other day where a reviewer said that fantasy without magic 'didn't count'...






popsprocket said:


> But I read a comment on goodreads the other day...



*


popsprocket said:



			But I read a comment...
		
Click to expand...

*



popsprocket said:


> read a comment...




Comments are the handiwork of idiots.

Fantasy without magic is fantasy, counts just as much, and can be wholly awesome. That's just a quote from a guy who always plays a wizard when he plays DnD and believes that if he tries hard enough, he'll be able to fire magic missile, or run down Diagon Alley and wind up at Hogwarts. 

Pay no heed to these idle minds.


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## DondreKhan (Apr 28, 2014)

It can be done. It would also prevent silliness.


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## Kyle R (Apr 28, 2014)

popsprocket said:


> But I read a comment on goodreads the other day where a reviewer said that fantasy without magic 'didn't count' or something like that. And, I'll admit, it made me squirm a little.
> 
> I don't write specifically with an eye on the market, but I'd certainly prefer  to write stories with appeal rather than stories with none.
> 
> So, what say you: fantasy without magic,  yea or nay? Does it still count as fantasy (being set on a non-Earth world and all)?



I write shapeshifter fiction (think _were-cats_), as well as superhero fiction (think _X-Men_). Both are fantasy, as they contain _fantastical elements _(not grounded in reality), but neither involve magic.

The reviewer simply didn't know what he or she was talking about. There are many types and subsections of fantasy that run the whole gamut. Magic is definitely part of the fantasy spectrum, but by all means its not required.

:encouragement:


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## T.S.Bowman (Apr 28, 2014)

I'm pretty sure the person who made the comment is full of crap. LOL

There is such a wide range of "Fantasy" stories and writers out there that there are, almost by default, going to be stories out there that don't involve wizards and witchcraft.

My story does, but if yours doesn't...whatever floats your boat. 

The comment was made by someone who obviously has a very limited idea of what Fantasy is.


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## Potty (Apr 28, 2014)

Game of Thrones is pretty much magic free (except for the bits with magic in) and that's a fantasy. That focuses more on the characters than shooting fire balls out of various places.


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## Jeko (Apr 28, 2014)

It's fantasy, IMO, if it can't happen. I can lie about where I went last night and say I went to a nightclub: that's fiction (I never go clubbing). Or, I can lie about where I went last night and say I went to Jupiter. That's fantasy.


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## Gavrushka (Apr 28, 2014)

I'd never seen magic as a necessary element of the fantasy genre... I am not exactly sure how to define what would be magic, either. If it is casting spells, Harry Potter style, then I'd say that was a rarity in the maturing genre.

I write fantasy, and even have a Goddess of Magic, but anything 'magical' is more a subversion of natural laws than wands and fireballs.


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## Cran (Apr 28, 2014)

Stating that (Swords &) Sorcery is all there is to Fantasy, is like saying that Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia is all there is to Science Fiction, or Murder Mystery is all there is to Detective Fiction, and so on. It's a very limited view of a very broad landscape.


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## bazz cargo (Apr 28, 2014)

Fantasy Island? 

Popster, you have been hornswoggled.  Jane Austin does Zombies is a particular favourite of mine.  There are more flavours of fantasy than there are different types of curry.


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## Mistique (Apr 28, 2014)

I agree with all those who have said it before, yes its fantasy (with or without magic). Vampires are fantasy, and usually don't have magic.

I looked up fantasy in the oxford dictionary and that one actually does have magic as part of it. It goes like this:  'A genre of imaginative fiction involving magic and adventure, especially in a setting other than the real world.' But that is just a general definition.


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## popsprocket (Apr 28, 2014)

Well, I guess that guy's comment has been outvoted.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't immediately run home and delete all my magic-free projects then go cry in a dark corner or anything  I just thought I'd check and see if that opinion was shared.

It doesn't matter greatly I don't suppose, it's still a story regardless of where it falls on the genre-chart.


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## A_Jones (Apr 28, 2014)

I just read a book I found in the fantasy section.... There was not an ounce of magic in it....


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## Morkonan (Apr 29, 2014)

popsprocket said:


> I write a lot of magic-free fantasy.
> 
> There's no magic in the story because it's not required. In general we're talking about character stories that don't focus on literal action. That's not to say there is no literal action, it's just that it's pretty minimal. Adding magic to these stories wouldn't enhance anything and in some cases it might harm what's happening otherwise.
> 
> ...



You read my mind - I wanted to write an inquiring post like this, yesterday. 

Fantasy stories typically focus on "Magic" being just as motive a force in their Setting as "technology" is for Science Fiction. It isn't, however, that "magic" is the primary explanation for all events or significant goings-on in the story - Just that it is present qualifies it as being some sort of "fantasy."

But, there are forms of fantasy in which magic is not evident. Take "Game of Thrones" for instance. Where's the "magic?" Sure, some things are given "magical-like" qualities and there are some isolated instances, here and there. (I haven't read all the books, going primarily on the television series atm..) But, magic is not very pronounced in the series, so far, and even those things that may be claimed to be "magic" could have alternative mundane explanations. "Dragons" don't have to be magical, ya know... They could just be regular living things that either haven't been discovered yet or live on another world. For that matter, "Game of Thrones" could be Science-Fiction! It could all be intended to be taking place on another world, one which has some peculiar orbital anomalies... 



> ...But I read a comment on goodreads the other day where a reviewer said  that fantasy without magic 'didn't count' or something like that. And,  I'll admit, it made me squirm a little...



Well, there is _that_. But, I think we need to revisit that sort of thinking. We need to accept that some "magic" may not be "magic", at all. Instead, what we may actually be referring to as "magical" is a set of conditions that have, as their result or origins, something that is a much broader set of possibilities than what we would imagine would exist in our own world. It's not that these possibilities are somewhat less limited due to "magic" than they would be in our world, it's just that the possibility that they could exist is much more likely in the fictional one.

In our Universe, that which is not forbidden is compulsory. Well, in an infinite one and given an infinite amount of time. What that means is that anything that "could" occur, no matter how unlikely, "will" occur, given sufficient time. It is possible, just not very likely, that you, the Reader of this post, will cease to exist at the end of this sentence. Each particle in your body just simply winks out of existence, all at the same time, leading to the ultimate deconstruction of atoms and molecules that make up your more macro-oriented self... That is possible. It is, however, unlikely. It's much less likely that the possibility that you hand will pass through the desk on which it currently rests or that you will walk through a wall completely unscathed, later on today. It's also possible that you will spontaneously transport all of your constituent components to some other place on Earth, without the need for Star Trek's "Transporter" system. In fact, Star Trek's "Transporter" system may be something that is less likely, less possible, than your body transporting itself, instantaneously.... Anyone here an Actuary and can do the maths for us? I may need some insurance... 

In a "fantasy" setting, however, these "possibilities" are much more likely. There are some fantasy settings in which even things which we have no knowledge of how they would occur are more possible. This is somewhat similar to low Science Fiction, but with the caveat that they are purposefully constructed to be dependent on "magical" means instead of purely "physical/scientific" ones. But, the more we learn about science and our universe, the more magical it becomes in my opinion. Certain forms of physics border on magic, after all, and Clarke was right - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Maybe all of our fantasy stories will be eclipsed by the reality of future technology? At that point, defining either as a separate genre is a futile exercise. 

BUT, there are other qualities that I think we find in traditional fantasy that we don't always find in other genres. While magic often plays an important or very pronounced role in the Setting, it's usually the clearly defined moral borders that we notice even more. Like in the Romances, there are often clearly defined moral boundaries. In Fantasy, it is possible to have "pure evil" and "pure good." You can't have either in Science Fiction or any other sort of Fiction - They do not allow for the necessary foundations for such a thing. But, in a Fantasy story, you can have forces that exhibit such pure natures. Perhaps we need to move away from "magic" as being the primary requirement and examine the possibility that Fantasy not only acts as a medium for certain sorts of stories, but has specific qualities across its entire genre, whether or not the author chooses to take advantage of those qualities.

"Game of Thrones" is a Fantasy story because it has "magical" creatures like dragons and "walkers" in it, which defy any sort of conventional, technological or natural explanation for their existence. But, that is where the Game of Thrones's association with Fantasy ends. It takes advantage of some of the qualities of the genre, as a whole, to take advantage of certain expectations of the Reader. The Reader is "prepared" to accept certain possibilities that, while it doesn't make direct use of, it certainly relies on to add certain interpretive qualities to the experience of Reading it. We are "prepared" to accept the existence of certain things, regardless of how the author finally explains their existence, and we are thus more intimately connected to the characters in the story, since we accept their own voiced interpretations as possible. Certain peoples in our own world have accepted magic, even though we discount it. If we didn't discount it, just thought it somewhat unlikely, then we would be that much more likely to empathize with those very same peoples. Some Fantasy takes advantage of the same principles without overtly using the magic implied in its genre.

Because our own knowledge of our physical world has increased greatly, it may be that "Fantasy" is now the genre of expanded probabilities, not just possibilities.


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## Ixarku (Apr 29, 2014)

There are a lot of good comments on this thread.  I think the real question is not, "Can you have magic-free fantasy?" but, rather, what is it that defines fantasy?  As life-long reader of the genre, I'll add my agreement that fiction need not contain or be focused on magic to be classified as fantasy.  I think, though, that one of the defining features of both fantasy and sci-fi is the presence of _something extraordinary_.  It could be an unusual setting or situation that could not exist given conventional physics, or it could be the presence of fantastic beings or creatures of species that don't exist in the real-world, or it could be some manifestation of the effects of technology or magic, or it could be simply the presence of some kind of technological or magical objects.  I think in the absence of _something extraordinary_, what you have is basically just drama in a fictionalized setting.  (In context, I consider a wholly imaginary setting as _extraordinary_ for the purposes of my definition.)  In my experience, I can't recall ever having read a sci-fi or fantasy story that didn't have this element in some fashion.  Magic, as we're accustomed to dealing with it in fantasy, is one of the most important things that defines the genre, but it's not the only thing.

I'll add lastly that I think one thing that separates sci-fi from fantasy is the presence of sophisticated technology instead of magic.  What follows is a simplistic example, but I think it's accurate in a very broad sense.  Take two settings:  one contemporary, another medieval, but both set on the real Earth.  Now add magic to one setting, and super technology to the other.  Then reverse which element is assigned to which setting.  In each case, which story would you say is probably fantasy, and which is sci-fi?  Now strip away the super technology, the magic, and everything else extraordinary.  Regardless of whether the theme of the story is romance, or intrigue, or adventure, it's just about guaranteed that we don't have a sci-fi story, and it would probably be pushing it to call the story in the medieval setting fantasy.  Maybe it's historical fiction or "historical fantasy" (if there is such a thing).  Or, more likely, the story's main theme becomes the dominant genre identifier:  historical romance, historical adventure (or just "adventure"), and so forth.


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## Morkonan (May 1, 2014)

Ixarku said:


> ...I'll add lastly that I think one thing that separates sci-fi from fantasy is the presence of sophisticated technology instead of magic....



^--- This.

Science-Fiction has always had a fairly firm definition as a genre. It is always about the effects of technology on society. Sometimes this is just about one item, especially in short stories. I remember a nice little short story that had a "Silent Gun" in it. Great, eh? The gun was completely silent and obliterated its targets without a trace! Wonderful, right! Then, a character crashes on Mars (or whatever) and is confronted with a pack of Martian wolf-dog-beasts. He shoots one... They come after him. He shoots another... They keep coming. He shoots a third just as they pounce on him and rip his face off! Why didn't they stop? Simple - They were too stupid to realize they were being shot at.  (No noise - no deterrence.) I loved that story as a kid. 

But, fantasy seems to be stuck on "magic" for a definition. Even some forms of obvious fantasy, without magic, are often touted as "Medieval Fiction", but with Settings nobody recognizes. What is the Conan saga without magic? It takes place on Earth, in some dark past, right? Conan is currently referred to as "Heroic Fantasy." Without any magic or magical reference in it, would it be "Heroic Fiction?" None of the Heroic Fiction aficionados would accept that, would they? Does that mean that Conan stories must always have magic in them? What if they don't? The movies didn't have much and they were fair representations of a typical Conan story.

At the moment, I'm exploring the idea that instead of being too specific and requiring something that qualifies as "magic" be present, I think that Fantasy is more accurately defined as stories which have events or settings within them that routinely allow for more expanded possibilities than our "real" Universe would allow. That doesn't have to be "magical." Conan's strength isn't magical, it's just far more possible in his realm than in ours... A masterwork sword crafted by a Dwarven smith doesn't have to be magical in order to cut through solid rock - Dwarfs are just good at hammering out things...


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## Greimour (May 1, 2014)

Wow so many long comments... I will just say this:

There exists books that do not contain magic that are "Fantasy"

One example, though The Golden Compass (Northern Lights) had strange creatures, strange worlds, strange rules etc... I wouldn't say that anything in the book/s would come under the classification of "magic"

Lost Horizon is considered a fantasy though some people may debate whether it is fantasy or not, the general consensus leans on "fantasy" ... from what I remember, no magic in that.

Watership down - talking animals, granted, but not in the sense of talking to humans... just animal society really
Fantastic Mr Fox
Animal Farm

Gullivers Travels? 


There are more, but I am not 100% convinced on being "magic free" and in some cases, I would question what you consider to be magic. Also, is it magic free completely - like LoTR without Gandalf... or is it with miniscule magic, like Helm of Invisibility is pretty much the full extent of 'magic' found within the story?


Land that doesn't exist, Swords, Medieval Times, Prophecy, Adventure, Slice of Life, Possibly containing strange creatures - not necessarily mythical ones like unicorns, dragons and centaurs - but over sized squids called a Kracken, maybe... and you suddenly have non-magical fantasy

I wouldn't say Pirates of The Caribbean had magic either - though with curses and a voodoo woman... I guess it is down to interpretation.


Markonan - I was going to mention Game of Thrones too... but:

Without magic, the "powers" of the red woman were limited, and; when the Dragons died out the white walkers went into some form of hibernation. Without Dragons, magic was leaking from the world and everyones 'powers'/abilities were fading.
I think the red woman and her order clearly fall in the realm of Magic - where the Wargs like the Starks don't... face changers on the other hand, that's debatable. A ritual to give them the faces of dead people can be considered a spell of a sort and a magical benfit outcome. Seems to be able to pass on to anyone though - not a mythrindian or person with the right magical qualities/abilities... again ... all comes down to interpretation.

My view is that the red woman uses magic and many creatures (Dragons and Whitewalkers) are part of the world of magic and can't live/survive without it.


Regarding Sci-Fi

"Science"-"Fiction"
Remove the Science and it's just fiction... Sure, fiction can have apothecaries which come under science - but really, that's hardly a fundamental basis to classify a genre. Science Fiction is Fiction based on Science - the advancement of technology etc... That's why "The Time Machine" despite being based in like the 1940s or something, during some world war maybe... was classed as Science Fiction and not Fantasy. The Utopia was pretty much technology free, there was little technology around for the majority of the story - but the existence of that one machine was the basis of the whole story and put its classification into sci-fi.


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## Elvenswordsman (May 2, 2014)

lol Whoever the comment was from was ignorant. Fantasy needs magic... lol!


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## Gavrushka (May 2, 2014)

Elvenswordsman said:


> lol Whoever the comment was from was ignorant. Fantasy needs magic... lol!



Can anyone define magic?

Can having a pantheon of rather powerful gods who can open portals to other realms be defined as magic (or can it be defined otherwise?)

Is magic nothing more than perception? - We dismiss anything that has not been defined in scientific terms in a book as magic?

Does a god's ability to take a soul from another entity count as magic, or does that fall under what some would call divine laws.

There are more awkward and directly challenging examples, but I think they are best left unsaid.


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## Greimour (May 2, 2014)

Gavrushka said:


> Can anyone define magic?
> 
> Can having a pantheon of rather powerful gods who can open portals to other realms be defined as magic (or can it be defined otherwise?)
> 
> ...



By definition, divine powers don't exactly count - but super natural do... hard to tell where lines are drawn.

I think Magic (in this case) is more determinable by "sentient or otherwise mortal or mythical beings/creatures that have powers which influence matter, elements or events."
- In other words: man, elf, druid, shaman, witch, wizard, dragon, unicorn, leprechaun, etc...

I wouldn't include (personally) Vampire, Werewolf, Zombie, Changeling, Psychic, Seer, Soothsayer, Spiritualist, Grim Reaper (or alter-ego's), and so on... 

For Angels and Demons though, might be harder to draw the line between magic and divine powers 

Personally, in a book of fantasy, I would probably put the Angels, Demons and Gods in with magic - because it's  a work of fiction - not religion.


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## Gavrushka (May 2, 2014)

I know... it's damned awkward, especially when there's a mash-up of different elements...

As you said, divinity should be an exception, but then you've the issue of the Goddess of Magic, who's one big ambiguity.

Perhaps genre is more down to interpretation and readership than a set of precise rules...

In my example above, a portal opened by a guy with a pointy hat with stars on it would count as magic. - But what if I said it was a Morris-Thorne Wormhole encompassing a cosmic string and held open by exotic matter? Do you go with the guy in the pointy hat, or the science behind what he just did?

What's the phrase about any technology sufficiently advanced?

Perception... In this case, reader perception.

I write about demon(s) and I call it fantasy. Well, maybe that's because she's a seven foot tall leather clad demon... *snickers* ... Sounds like a fantasy to me.


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## Greimour (May 2, 2014)

Gavrushka said:


> In my example above, a portal opened by a guy with a pointy hat with stars on it would count as magic. - But what if I said it was a Morris-Thorne Wormhole encompassing a cosmic string and held open by exotic matter? Do you go with the guy in the pointy hat, or the science behind what he just did?
> 
> What's the phrase about any technology sufficiently advanced?




The latter explanation I would call Science Fiction 

Wormhole with scientific (even fictional science) basis or explanation is Sci-Fi but I think there is middle ground to be found if exceptionally skilled. Perhaps we'd just jot that one down to "fiction" - period. 

Hard to tell sometimes, like I said in a previous post - people debate what genre some books belong in and even the authors can't answer the question... so it all comes to definitions, interpretations and opinions. ^_^


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## Gavrushka (May 2, 2014)

The explanation, above, occurred midway through a fantasy book I'm rewriting... - So the reader would be forced to assume fantasy until that point? - I worry I'm overstating here, but I think you're right. - It doesn't matter; it's fiction and anything else is incidental to reader-enjoyment...

I need some new beta readers for my exceptionally skilled work of fiction! :topsy_turvy:


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## Greimour (May 2, 2014)

Gavrushka said:


> I need some new beta readers for my exceptionally skilled work of fiction! :topsy_turvy:



Was that a hint? Lol.


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## Gavrushka (May 2, 2014)

Greimour said:


> Was that a hint? Lol.



I've a pile of them, but the poor deluded fools think they're reading a fantasy... I just don't know how to break it to them. 

But yes, yes it was a hint!


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## Cran (May 2, 2014)

The term for stories which span the Science Fiction - Science Fantasy - S&S Fantasy spectrum is Speculative Fiction. Notice that all can be abbreviated to SF.


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## A_Jones (May 2, 2014)

I think I would have to dissagree with the idea that fantasy needs magic.  I wouldnt consider myself ignorate because I believe this.  I would just consider myself opinionated...


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## Bishop (May 2, 2014)

Let's look at it this way. 

When people make salad at a restaurant, a lot of times, they'll add tomato (they're wrong, but we'll get to that later). It's a sort of staple among salads; You use lettuce, dressing, cheese, maybe onion, often tomato. So, when I ask for a salad with no tomatoes, my father in law gives me a look of haughty derision. "That's no salad," he says, "That's lettuce and dressing."

He's in the same boat as this commenter about magic in fantasy. There's a lot of elements that make up a fantasy story, some are used by some authors, others are unused or reused by other authors. In a lot of ways, genre is indefinable. Certain elements can be shared between stories, but it's a very general and loose guideline that determines genre. Yes. There are things that are shared between most fantasy stories, swords and beards, and all that middle-age flavor. These might be the loose common elements that give the genre a name, in the same way that lettuce and dressing act as identifiers of a salad.

And before this metaphor derails, I'm stopping.


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## Kyle R (May 2, 2014)

Bishop said:


> There are things that are shared between most fantasy stories, swords and beards, and all that middle-age flavor.



I find it interesting that the medieval era has become such a staple in Fantasy. Me, I like to write modern Fantasies (also called "Urban Fantasy"), so it always catches me off guard when I mention I write in the Fantasy genre and people say things like, "Oh, like _Game of Thrones_? _Lord of the Rings?_"

I've always wondered what attracts so many Fantasy authors to that specific time period. Is it the castles? The sword and arrow weaponry? Why aren't more Fantasy writers inspired by the traits our own time?

Just some thoughts kicking around in that head of mine. :distant:


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## Bishop (May 2, 2014)

KyleColorado said:


> I find it interesting that the medieval era has become such a staple in Fantasy. Me, I like to write modern Fantasies (also called "Urban Fantasy"), so it always catches me off guard when I mention I write in the Fantasy genre and people say things like, "Oh, like _Game of Thrones_? _Lord of the Rings?_"
> 
> I've always wondered what attracts so many Fantasy authors to that specific time period. Is it the castles? The sword and arrow weaponry? Why aren't more Fantasy writers inspired by the traits our own time?
> 
> Just some thoughts kicking around in that head of mine. :distant:



See? You prefer potato salad. Still a salad!

And I think the appeal is due to a real romanticism of that era. We look at chivalrous knights and fair maidens and see a lost time. People were different then, and it fascinates us. It appears (though, in reality, it wasn't) more civilized, more respectful. It's a different world free of a lot of the failings of our current world, though often enough people substitute modern problems into those classic settings.

One such thing I did--back when I roleplayed in online RPGs--was to give a character a drug addiction in the medieval setting. Gave a modern problem to a setting normally perceived as an idyllic, lost culture. I think that's also why Game of Thrones is popular; it seems to have a very dark modern styling on the fantasy setting reserved in the past for the Tolkien styles of old.


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## A_Jones (May 2, 2014)

I think bishop has a point but I thimg the fantasy novel was first coined in that era and it hasnt really left it yet...


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## Ixarku (May 2, 2014)

KyleColorado said:


> I've always wondered what attracts so many Fantasy authors to that specific time period. Is it the castles? The sword and arrow weaponry? Why aren't more Fantasy writers inspired by the traits our own time?




I speculate that a lot of the attraction to the medieval setting comes from the well-established traditions of the stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood.  Those stories still resonate with people despite being retold and reinvented more times than you can count.  On top of that, we've got the whole romanticization of the Age of Chivalry, the allure of the Dark Ages, Shakespeare, Viking warriors and barbarian hordes, and the fall of Rome.  We've got, what, 1500 years or so of heroic conquest, drama, and bloodshed in our recent Western history.  The setting is so completely unlike our own time, yet still relatable.  I think it's understandable that so many people would find an attraction to the seemingly simpler, more brutal drama of those times.


I haven't really read anything in the Urban Fantasy genre.  Part of the reason is that I have a strong aversion to the surge of interest in vampires, werewolves, and fairy tales.  Those things are so overdone, they just hold no interest for me.  And so, not knowing if the genre extends much beyond these things, I've deliberately ignored it.  Maybe that's not fair.  I do like reading the occasional genre-bender -- Tim Powers being good for that, of course.  And Robin Hobb, of all people, wrote a fantasy series with more of a maybe Victorian era? feel to it.  It was a trilogy called Soldier-Son, which I enjoyed immensely.  It's not Urban Fantasy but she stepped outside of the usual settings to show a conflict between magic and technology.

One of the things I'd like to write is something set in a pseudo-modern time, probably in a fictional world, where magic exists but is integrated into society and is accepted and treated at the same level of technology.  I think it'd be interesting to take a Peter Hamilton-like approach and really extrapolate the impact of magic on a modern world.  I think it's a story way too ambitious for someone at my amateur level, though.


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## popsprocket (May 2, 2014)

One of the big problems with urban fantasy is that it's hard to work in what I'd consider 'traditional' fantasy themes. In a world with cheap air travel and guns and instant communication, you can eliminate a lot of problems that characters face in the more common medieval settings. I mean, if you set Lord of the Rings in the modern world, Frodo and Sam would get on a plane, drop the ring out the window and into the volcano and they would be done before the second chapter.


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## Cran (May 2, 2014)

The Middle Ages/Post-Roman era is not the only popular setting for traditional fantasy; another is the skirt&sandal set - Atlantean, Post-Atlantean and the Early Mediterranean Empires/Gods and Heroes tales. Kull, Conan, Olympus, and so on.


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## Ixarku (May 2, 2014)

popsprocket said:


> One of the big problems with urban fantasy is that it's hard to work in what I'd consider 'traditional' fantasy themes. In a world with cheap air travel and guns and instant communication, you can eliminate a lot of problems that characters face in the more common medieval settings. I mean, if you set Lord of the Rings in the modern world, Frodo and Sam would get on a plane, drop the ring out the window and into the volcano and they would be done before the second chapter.





That's always the trick -- inventing believable obstacles that nullify your heroes' advantages.  Wanna fly over the volcano in a plane?  Fine, Mordor's got surface-to-air missiles and jet fighters now!  Then LotR becomes a story of survival, after Frodo and Sam get shot down behind enemy lines.


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## Greimour (May 2, 2014)

KyleColorado said:


> I find it interesting that the medieval era  has become such a staple in Fantasy. Me, I like to write modern  Fantasies (also called "Urban Fantasy"), so it always catches me off  guard when I mention I write in the Fantasy genre and people say things  like, "Oh, like _Game of Thrones_? _Lord of the Rings?_"
> 
> I've always wondered what attracts so many Fantasy authors to that  specific time period. Is it the castles? The sword and arrow weaponry?  Why aren't more Fantasy writers inspired by the traits our own time?
> 
> Just some thoughts kicking around in that head of mine. :distant:




To me, its like Pops said, (Cran too)

The planes, guns, technology, camera's etc... the modern era is ... meh. 
Still, there was Harry Potter, Hellboy, (Constantine?) others... most are flakey and some are even more so. 

For me; guns, planes, bombs, cars and explosions are detractors for the fantasy genre - but there are some cases that successfully become exceptions to my opinion. (exceptions are cannons, occasionally TNT and explosions caused by potions in apothecaries or explosions due to magic etc...)

Again, it's all about opinions and appeals.

I don't think any genre is limited to be contained within itself and personally, I think genre's only exist to let people know which section of the book store to search in-order to find what they fancy. Be it dragons, cyborgs, pirates, zombies, killers, detectives or biographies (or anything else) book stores and libraries just lie to know where a book belongs - and so do publishers, so they know where and how to market the work.


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## coraelise (Jun 13, 2014)

Look at it this way: If Tolkien wrote a book solely about the culture of Man in LOTR, excluding all other races and focusing completely on, say, the people of Minas Tirith, it would still be fantasy. Man cannot use magic, yet I don't know a single person who would disagree that a book like that would be fantasy.

Fantasy entitles you to anything you want.


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## BeastlyBeast (Jun 13, 2014)

Lord of the Rings had very little magic in it. Sure, you could argue that the ring and maybe even Sauron's eye were magic, as well as a couple of Gandalf's staff powers. But, in the grand scheme of things, magic seems to account for very little, like less than 10%, of the LotR storyline. Most of it is just traveling and sword fighting.

EDIT: LOL someone else mentioned LotR... Guess thats what I get for not looking at the second page. But, still, both our thoughts count, I think. Magic is not very prevalent in Tolkien's works, and yet theyre regarded as fantasy classics. It can be done, maybe even easily.


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## T.S.Bowman (Jun 14, 2014)

But yet, Tolkein is pretty much the reason that Fantasy as a genre is what it is today. He was the one who, as far as I am concerned, set the standard for the entire genre. Middle Earth looks and feels a lot like the Medieval period of Earth's history. So why would it be a surprise that most writers of Fantasy want to emulate the acknowledged master of the genre?

I fel that there doesn't _have_ to be magic contained in a Fantasy story. Although, full disclosure would dictate that I have included it (in a big way) in my novel. But, that's just personal preference for this story. It's entirely possible that, once I reach the end of this novel and the nemesis has been defeated, I may write another that doesn't lean so heavily on the magic of my created world. I actually have an idea floating around for one that involves the same set of characters.


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## EmmaSohan (Jun 14, 2014)

My understanding is that in fantasy, you want to create a different world that the reader wants to read about. One way or another, something has to happen that does not happen in the real world.


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## T.S.Bowman (Jun 14, 2014)

Terry Brooks wrote a series of books that fell into what I believe is Urban Fantasy. The first was called Running With The Demon. It was set in the modern world, but still involved magic.


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## Morkonan (Jun 15, 2014)

Gavrushka said:


> Can anyone define magic?



In the literary sense? Then, yes, I think I can. The gist of my definition can be seen in this passage I wrote, above: _"...At the moment, I'm exploring the idea that instead of being too specific  and requiring something that qualifies as "magic" be present, I think  that Fantasy is more accurately defined as stories which have events or  settings within them that routinely allow for more expanded  possibilities than our "real" Universe would allow. That doesn't have to  be "magical." Conan's strength isn't magical, it's just far more  possible in his realm than in ours... A masterwork sword crafted by a  Dwarven smith doesn't have to be magical in order to cut through solid  rock - Dwarfs are just good at hammering out things....."_

"Magic" is something that exists far outside of our realm of possibilities. In Science Fiction, we usually don't encounter "Magic", since most of the possibilities are assumed to have evolved from mundane technological knowledge. BUT, there's a hard line that separates some very light Science Fiction elements from purely magical ones, as authors push the limits on the "Scientifically Possible" with no respect at all to the "Scientifically Plausible."

But, I'm sill working on a "definition" that is valid across all instances of occurrence. That's not easy. There's a lot of "fantasy" out there. But, I think the general idea is credible - Magic is something that inhabits a realm of expanded possibilities. In our Universe and in most literary ones, gravity works one way only. There may be something akin to "anti-gravity", like Dark Energy or certain states of primordial matter in the very early universe, which led to the rapid expansion phase. However, outside of these very narrow regions or reason, there is no "anti-gravity" that is plausible or, for that matter, possible in a natural setting. So, if an apple fell up instead of falling down, that would be "magic." It is fairly "forbidden" by our understanding of Universal Law. An apple falling "up" would be more unlikely than the manifestation of a ghost or a demon... 

But, sci-fi writers play with such "fantasy" all the time, don't they?

Again, I'm still working on the concept of a "definition" for "magic" and its use in fantasy/lit. I'm pretty confident I can come up with one that is very robust, yet simple to apply and understand.


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## Morkonan (Jun 15, 2014)

BeastlyBeast said:


> Lord of the Rings had very little magic in it. Sure, you could argue that the ring and maybe even Sauron's eye were magic, as well as a couple of Gandalf's staff powers. But, in the grand scheme of things, magic seems to account for very little, like less than 10%, of the LotR storyline. Most of it is just traveling and sword fighting.
> 
> EDIT: LOL someone else mentioned LotR... Guess thats what I get for not looking at the second page. But, still, both our thoughts count, I think. Magic is not very prevalent in Tolkien's works, and yet theyre regarded as fantasy classics. It can be done, maybe even easily.



Just a note: In TLoTR, "magic" is generally an expression of "Will." All the uses of magic that we see exampled are direct extensions of the caster's "Will" and its strength is determined by that. Hobbits have a magic of their own, of sorts, because of that. This form of magic is inseparable from the caster, including the caster's personality and morals. Thus, a "tainted" person with a very strong will, which invokes magic all its own, corrupts those around them. Then, there's elemental and place magic, uniquely tied to Tolkien's setting. You can be assured that if Tolkien wrote about something that was "ancient", that "ancientness" had a sort of magical quality, all its own. Anything that was "ancient" in Tolkien's world was, almost by definition, "magical." In the most basic sense, all magic in Tolkien's world was tied to two things - Tolkien's historic setting or the will of characters and personalities. In Tolkien's "prehistory", we see what he may have regarded a more primitive form of "magic", the magic of the gods. Pretty close to some ancient Greek themes, too. Funny how that works out, isn't it?


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## Nickleby (Jun 15, 2014)

Cadence said:


> It's fantasy, IMO, if it can't happen. I can lie about where I went last night and say I went to a nightclub: that's fiction (I never go clubbing). Or, I can lie about where I went last night and say I went to Jupiter. That's fantasy.



Someone (possibly AC Clarke) tried to distinguish fantasy and science fiction. He said science fiction is about the possible, fantasy is about the impossible. I haven't heard a better definition since. It's a broad statement, but then it needs to be.



popsprocket said:


> One of the big problems with urban fantasy is that it's hard to work in what I'd consider 'traditional' fantasy themes. In a world with cheap air travel and guns and instant communication, you can eliminate a lot of problems that characters face in the more common medieval settings. I mean, if you set Lord of the Rings in the modern world, Frodo and Sam would get on a plane, drop the ring out the window and into the volcano and they would be done before the second chapter.



I take your point, but suppose the Nazgul are watching the airports? Even better, suppose Sauron controls the Department of Homeland Security? Does that make the problem any easier? I submit it might become even harder, because the bad guys have the advantages of high technology.


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## Paulbee (Jun 17, 2014)

Can I just chuck in this question. Who says what magic is? In the 10th century for example, anyone making light with electricity would be called a witch for using magic (and probably get burned at the stake as well.) I've started working on a novel where magical weapons have been banned because of the devastation they caused in war - magic will only be used for peaceful purposes. So, okay I would say that it's up to the writer of a fantasy piece to decide how little or how much magic features in the storyline, or not at all. Magic can also be used as a cop-out as well. A writer may create a situation that can't be resolved and use the excuse, 'oh well, that was the use of magical thingies'.


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