Heroic fantasy
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Heroic fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy literature which chronicles the tales of heroes and their conquests in imaginary lands. Stories tend to be intricate in plot, often involving many peoples, nations and lands. Grand battles and the fate of the world are common themes, and there is typically some emphasis on a universal Good versus Evil conflict. Frequently, the protagonist is reluctant to be a champion and is of low or humble origin. Through events, usually beyond his control, he is thrust into positions of great responsibility where his mettle is tested in a number of spiritual and physical challenges. Although it shares many of the basic themes of Sword and Sorcery the term 'Heroic' or 'Epic fantasy' is often used to avoid the garish overtones of the former, while emphasizing the grander nature of the latter.[citation needed]
Initially indistinguishable from the early fantasies of ER Eddison and CS Lewis and the pulp fiction of Robert E Howard, it began to assume its own identity following the enormous success of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the popularity of fantasy fiction in general. From the seventies onwards a number of authors, heavily influenced by Tolkien's works, began publising formulaic fantasy novels designed specifically to capitalize on this success. At the same time, the resurgence of the fantasy adventure short story (known as Sword & Sorcery) and the deliberate distancing many authors took to Tolkien's works, Michael Moorcock in particular, made it increasingly necessary for the creation of a separate genre.[citation needed]
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[edit] Heroic Fantasy in the Modern Age
Many new authors now shed, at least partly, the traditional concepts of heroes and even of good and evil. They tend, like Martin or Hobb, to use several viewpoints, of "heroes" or "villains", and to blur the distinction between those two categories. A recent rewriting of the Tolkienian myth by Jacqueline Carey that, while not located in the same world, also describes the struggle of a company against an evil god and his army, showing this evolution well. The main characters of the book are actually the "villains", shown not as inherently evil, but as the victims of betrayal and bad choices. On the other hand, the "heroes" are portrayed as arrogant, narrow-minded, and unforgiving. In other words, there is not much difference between the two sides. Even the "evil" god has been forced into the role, not by fate, but because of his brother's pride.
Perhaps an even better example of this evolution is the rise of irony and self-derision in heroic-fantasy. Authors like Martin like to break the clichés of the genre by featuring "usual" heroes -- such as the chivalric ideal of the knight -- as murderers, bullies and rapists, while kings and regents are devious and uncaring manipulators. The only decent people are powerless commoners, who struggle to survive during a civil war that does not concern them. There is little that is "heroic" about them, in the usual sense. Another type of irony is the use of the "anti-hero." Jacqueline Carey's Phèdre is essentially a clever, resourceful and caring young woman... who incidentally happens to be a masochistic prostitute. But by far the most acute example of self-parodying heroic-fantasy is provided by the British writer Terry Pratchett, whose parodies of the genre are widely acknowledged as a prime example of British humor.
In recent years, heroic fantasy has matured somewhat out of its staid image as sub-par 'fat fantasy', becoming a genre of its own, the best examples of which have received much praise[citation needed].
[edit] Selected authors
- Fletcher Pratt
- E R Eddison
- C.S. Lewis
- Robert E. Howard
- Jessica Amanda Salmonson
- Sir Henry Rider Haggard
- David Gemmell
- Charles R. Saunders
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Karl Edward Wagner
- Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany
- Michael Moorcock
- J. R. R. Tolkien
- Terry Pratchett
- Robert Jordan
- George R. R. Martin
- Jacqueline Carey
- Mercedes Lackey
[edit] Quotations
"Heroic fantasy" is the name I have given to a subgenre of fiction, otherwise called the "sword-and-sorcery" story. It is a story of action and adventure laid in a more or less imaginary world, where magic works and where modern science and technology have not yet been discovered. The setting may (as in the Conan stories) be this Earth as it is conceived to have been long ago, or as it will be in the remote future, or it may be another planet or another dimension.
Such a story conbines the color and dash of the historical costume romance with the atavistic supernatural thrills of the weird, occult, or ghost story. When well done, it provides the purest fun of fiction of any kind. It is escape fiction wherein one escapes clear out of the real world into one where all men are strong, all women beautiful, all life adventurous, and all problems simple, and nobody even mentions the income tax or the dropout problem or socialized medicine. — L. Sprague de Camp, introduction to the 1967 Ace edition of Conan.
