LET'S DEBATE: Is Medieval Fantasy Lazy? More Fantasy Food?

Let us debate some fantasy genre things about culture my dudes!!

[TheRASDEL]

Daniel: "Main character of my book murders children..."
Anakin Skywalker: "Where can I pre order this Masterpiece?"

[mcubananthony]

I love how trolls have evolved over the years. They carried clubs and sticks before, now they use keyboards.

[bradstev]

So I'm a Medieval Historian and this always gets me. The quintessential idea of medieval always seems to be 13th century England and that is so reductive and infuriating. The medieval era spans from the 7th century through to the 15th in Europe, and the sheer expanse of what that means varies wildly from culture to culture. There are huge flashpoint crisis that could inspire swaths of great fantasy works if people were a little more willing to climb out of this limited perception of the medieval; this going with the assumption that you don't want to breakaway and into the ancient or the modern. What is feudalism? Religious conversion? Migration? Famine? Plague? Cultural identity crisis? Technological upsurge? Transference? Social reform? Sexual Identity? Dynastic struggle? Conquest? Conceptual reform? Fashion? Food? Racism? Gender? How are resources gained or lost? What are those resources, and are they unique? How are they used? Architecture? What are the stories that bind groups together and give them a sense of joint identity? Inspiration can come from anywhere and anytime, Eurocentric or not.

[TheNinjaDwarfBiker]

The commenter "I study ancient history like babylon"
Daniel "Puts cavemen in the background"

[mariapazgonzalezlesme]

Daniel wants a book about goblins? Then he wants a book about himself.

[minimumviableplayer]

Daniel: More food in your writing.

* GRRM has entered the chat *

[David-seph]

The Disheveled Goblin never seems to disappoint

[i.cs.z]

Unpopular oponion: We don't even have "proper" Medieval fantasy. Most what labelled as such is simply an early modern England/France setting with some Holywood dark age aesthetic and knights. Medieval Europe, especially the regions outside of England/ France/ West Germany, is nit a common setting.

[MeMySkirtandI]

I love the idea of pre-historic fantasy, and have even begun working on my own story. The problem I've come across is fantasy likes the deep lore, the Ancients who reigned then fell. What do you if the world you are writing is the ancients? They are discovering magic for the first time, they are talking to the gods, and their national history only goes back to their A groundbreaking author will overcome these questions, but for others who don't want to flex that muscle of world building, starting in a medieval or early modern world allows them to work on other worldbuilding points

[maddy]

Short stories are so underappreciated. I just finished Ken Liu's short story collection, The Paper Menagerie', and I was blown away. The amount of creativity that went into those stories blew me away. Read more short stories!

[sambakich]

I would like fewer snarky postmodern protagonists. People in the past had a different culture to our own, they believed things that we no longer do. I would like to see characters who reflect the beliefs of their culture. Another thing is that in many fantasy world things like fashion and technology are seemingly static for centuries. But if we look at history that is rarely if ever the case.

[jaspommoja]

I think that most of these posts just want more books with tolkien/robert jordan levels of worldbuilding

[fuyushitarisou]

Why I don't like food in books:
Imagine you are reading and then they talk about food and you go "I want food now, too" but then you realize your fridge is again empty because you have been a lazy ass

[tanishaarora]

Honestly, the biggest well of non-human fantasy is in middle grade. You get fantasy races too, but u also get animal perspectives, which can super interesting and really good 4 escapism. One of my fav mg books of all time is silverwing, it's about bats, and like two humans are mentioned in passing. It slaps.

[derpi]

About the goblin book: It's not quite a 'book', but there's a webcomic called Goblins about a group of goblins who decide to become adventurers. The setting is based on D&D btw.

[lordofdarkness]

Most of these aren’t hot takes dammit! They’ve just cool ideas that most people would agree with. The actual hot takes (I saw one where someone claimed Hard magic systems don’t exist or something along those line) get buried by these essentially comments on things to add while worldbuilding.

[jeffpotts]

I can clarify the whole "Medieval Fantasy is Lazy" thing. When you're submitting to publishers and agents, there are many specifically requesting stuff that is NOT "Medieval Fantasy, " (or saying they would like something other than Medieval Fantasy). This can be interpreted to mean that nobody wants it. I can easily see where "Duke of Denver" gets this notion.

And, frankly, I don't get how one distinguishes Medieval and non-Medieval and/or Western-based Fantasy. Every culture has defensive wall, walled cities, fortifications, warriors, sacred orders, kings, lords, queens, princesses, princes, merchants, farmers, cults, gods, swords, spears, dark lords, arrows, pointed sticks, and so on, and so on. Anything that isn't a throwback to the past is defined as "Urban Fantasy, " or "Magical Realism, " or some other definition du jour. So, unless it is a take on names or locations, I'm really not sure where the dividing line is.

Some of the stuff, especially as it revolves around magic, is antithetical to any culture that I know of. When it's placed in a physical world other than our own, it gets further and further from that definition.

I think the issue is that there is still a heavy reliance on Norse, Germanic, and Celtic mythos. But even in them, you have commonalities between them and far-eastern cultures. After all, it was the Vikings that pushed deep into Russia, integrating with many Eastern cultures. So there it a flow of culture and tradition, especially among the nomadic tribes of that area. Likewise, when you look deeply into, say, Roman and Greek gods, you'll find that many academics believe these evolved out of far distant Middle Eastern cultures.

I tend to write stuff that is inspired by from Norse, Greek, Middle Eastern, African, and even Aboriginal American cultures. But the way it is blended, you'd probably never know that. Nonetheless, it would be labeled as "Medieval" or "Western" Fantasy. People gotta slap a label on it, so they can define it. it is what it is.

[SnakeAndTurtleQigong]

The Malazan books covers so many of these! Makes me appreciate them even more. 🙃

[culturestudios]

Daniel: I don't like following Jorg Ancrath from Prince of Thorns. He's a bad person.
Also Daniel: My Protagonist kills kids.

[monkeymox]

Sorry to be pedantic (no I'm not, I love being pedantic) but those river civilisations aren't necessarily pre-historic. Pre-history is defined as the time before written language, and places like Egypt and Mesopotamia had written language.