#fantasy genre tropes
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What Fantasy Writers Can Learn From Mr. Bungle
In the realm of fantasy literature, where worlds are bound only by the limits of imagination, finding unique sources of inspiration is crucial. For writers looking to inject a dose of the extraordinary into their narratives, the eclectic and often surreal music of Mr. Bungle offers a treasure trove of creative cues. Known for their genre-defying soundscapes and theatrical flair, Mr. BungleâŚ
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#complex characters#Creative writing#embracing absurdity#Fantasy Authors#fantasy genre tropes#fantasy literature#fantasy world-building#fantasy writing#Genre Blending#genre-defying music#Mr. Bungle#music in literature#Music Inspiration#musical cues in writing#Narrative complexity#narrative innovation#surreal influences#theatrical storytelling#writing inspiration
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"But if this other world has always operated according to video game logic, why is the isekai protagonist literally the first person to figure out all these basic mechanical exploints" well, largely because litRPG isekai is merely the latest flavour of I've Been Transported To Another World Where Everyone Is Stupid Except For Me, a venerable genre that's been a going concern at least since Mark Twain.
When I was a kid, it was American sci-fi authors writing stories about shitass engineering majors getting portal-fantasied to alien planets and single-handedly saving civilisation on the strength of being the only person in the world who knows what a flowchart is, and very little has changed â right down to the weirdly inverted character arcs where the loser protagonist discovers that they don't actually need to engage in any self-reflection at all because the very traits that rendered them odious in their native society are what make them God here.
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the curse of liking fantasy & being jewish
#name a genre with more antisemitic tropes i'll wait#ughhh it sucks i love fantasy but i can't enjoy most of it without feeling a little bit dirty. like i love goblins for fuck's sake.#jumblr#hila has spoken
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And remember kids, the next time someone tells you, "George R. R. Martin wouldn't make Jon Snow the typical fantasy hero because that's cliche".....
Oh yes he would!
One viewer wants to know what character would you play (on the show)? GRRM: If I could magically clap my hands and become a different person, it would be cool to play Jon Snow who's much more of the classic hero. Everybody wants to be the classic hero! ABC Interview, 2014
GRRM: And the character Iâd want to be? Well who wouldnât want to be Jon Snow â the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Meduza Interview, 2017
In fact he already has âşď¸
#asoiaf#jon snow#yes grrm has criticized neo-tolkein fantasy - a lot!#but like....dpmo#I need so many people in this godforsaken fandom to familiarize themselves with grrm's engagement with the genre#he isn't trying to say âchosen one boy protagonist badâ where tf did people get that???#he's directly trying to challenge the more unsatisfactory elements of lesser copies of tolkien's legendarium#the ones that lift lotr wholesale without actually understanding what makes tolkien's writing snap#at the same time he has admitted himself that he has borrowed from lotr albeit with his own twists#but people in this fandom need to know that ye old man LOVES sword-and-sorcery fantasy#he LOVES a good epic#he LOVES pulp fantasy and sci fi#and those inspirations are directly reflected in asoiaf#the way he's named arthuriana/lotr/MST and many pulp stories with brooding dark heroes as key inspirations#almost all of which have mcs who fall into the typical fantasy hero role#and they inspire elements that are reflected back onto jon more than anyone else in asoiaf#like seoman snowlock = jon (+bran)#frodo - who btw is the mc in lotr not aragorn!! = jon (and bran)#FUCKING KING ARTHUR IS JON SO MUCH SO THAT RLJ IS LITERALLY A 1:1 COPY OF ARTHUR'S BIRTH STORY LIKE??!!!!#anyone who's even a little bit familiar with le morte d'arthur will be like oh yeah jon is literally king arthur like đđ#same with anyone who's ready the once and future king - which grrm has directly identified as his fav take on arthurian lit#ntm that jon is based on some of the most prolific characters in arthuriana - percival/galahad/lancelot etc#did you know that there's an iconic sci-fi series whose main character is called Eric JOHN STARK?#well grrm has directly quoted that series and the mc as a foundational book in his life#funny that huh? đ#do people even know what tf they're talking about when they say stuff like this???? ajdhhjshsbvshja#grrm engages very heavily with traditional fantasy tropes but he of course provides his own spin on them#never has he said that he's trying to avoid stories with hidden princes or chosen ones as boy protagonists#like someone find me a direct quote of him saying that - but I bet you can't smh
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lotus. lotus. LOTUS.
youâve read throne of glass???????
/pos btw iâm not about to explode you for reading it bc i realize now that this ask could come off really negative đ
YES unfortunately i was forced into reading it by my bestie bc the deal was she read bsd and i read tog (we both ended up suffering bc now we're both obsessed with each other's series)
i'm on queen of shadows rn so it's supposed to start picking up from here...
#i don't normally delve into the fantasy genre that much bc i hate all the generic storylines and cliche tropes#but tog is ok. like it's tolerable (i say this damn well knowing it took me months to get past the 1st book bc i couldn't stand the writing#lotusâs asks
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I swear at least half of all high fantasy is just "We have Tolkien at home."
#high fantasy#fantasy#fantasy high#jrr tolkien#middle earth#tolkien#tolkien tag#tolkien legendarium#Middle-earth#the lord of the rings#lotr#the hobbit#lord of the rings#the silmarillion#silmarillion#i swear#swear to god#half of it#fantasy writing#fantasy writers#at least#is just#inspiration#fantasy literature#fantasy medieval#creative writing#writing inspiration#writing tropes#fantasy genre#i swear to god
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Just putting this out here cause I had to explain it to my mom, but here are the types of fiction (sorry if I leave out any)
Urban fantasy aka âI live in a modern society but turns out the creatures of old live in the forestâ Ex: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Paranormal (Romance) aka âMy sexy neighbor is secretly a werewolf/vampire and Iâm a human teenage girlâ Ex: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Epic Fantasy aka âThis is a crazy quest isnât it my dear found familyâ Ex: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
High Fantasy aka âThis is a crazy quest of prophecy isnât it my dear found family oh look a dragonâ Ex: The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
Dystopian aka âThis future world is apocalyptic and quite obviously favors the richâ Ex: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Utopian aka âThis future world seems peaceful on the outside but that just covers all the absolutely insane problems only this 16-year-old can fixâ Ex: The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
#booklr#bookblr#booknerd#book blog#booklover#booksbooksbooks#bookish#bookworm#books#character tropes#book tropes#book genres#book geek#genre: fantasy#genre: young adult#genre: romance#explanation#just leaving this here#urban fantasy#epic fantasy#high fantasy#paranormal romance#paranormal#dystopia#utopia#the raven cycle#six of crows#lord of the rings#twilight#the lunar chronicles
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As a follow up to THIS pollâŚ
This time around I made sure the very popular Aragorns and Geralts of the world wouldn't count lmao whoops. For the alien question I mean "true" aliens also - not in the celestial deity sense but in the little green men sense. Everything else is open to interpretation though!
And hit me with recommendations if you think of books that have these!!!
#writeblr#fantasy#booklr#bookblr#poll#writing poll#book poll#fantasy poll#storytelling#fantasy novel#tropes#genre#themes#characterization
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The existence of "dark elves" implies the existence of "light orcs".
#elf#orc#dark elf#fantasy#fantasy trope#fantasy race#elves#orcs#dark elves#fantasy tropes#fantasy races#trope#tropes#fantasy genre
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I think Brennan perfectly captured the difference between writing sci-fi and fantasy* when he said that sci-fi needs to be 'crunchy'.
#*at least for me#lmao shut up haz#fantasy lets me use genre and tropes to explain why things exist. scifi often needs more in-universe explanation for things to feel right
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When I think of musical genres associated with standard fantasy species, it's probably elf rock and orc metal, but gnome music is definitely gnomecore. Gnomes just feel like they'd be about -core.
#gaming#tabletop roleplaying#tabletop rpgs#dungeons & dragons#d&d#fantasy#tropes#music#gnomes#the genre of music associated with goblins is also called 'goblin'#not goblin anything#just goblin
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This isnât really a fully formed thought or anything. But itâs interesting how Sansa, Jon, and Lyanna specifically factor into one of GRRMâs greater explorations on the merits of fantasy. More specifically, there is a common trope that connects these three characters: a princess locked in a tower transforming into a valiant knight/hero. Lyanna and Jon, for starters, are pretty obvious explorations of this. Lyanna is the reconstructed version of this classic trope especially as presented through Arthurian tradition; but the twist here is that the dragon/knight who âlocksâ her in the tower isnât actually evil and she isnât so much kidnapped but rather willingly chooses to go there with him. This princess in a tower directly results in the birth of the hidden prince trope, which is even older than Arthur. So one fantasy classic, Rhaegar and Lyanna, leads to another with Jon being Arthur (a hidden prince and destined king), Percival (a hero who grows up in obscurity but has a great destiny to save the land), and Galahad (a noble hero destined to be even greater than his father, Rhaegar/Lancelot, ever was) all at once.
This princess dies in the towerâŚbut her spirit/ghost lives on through her son, who grows up to look and act just like her, eventually becoming the valiant hero you read in the stories (but again, a de/reconstructed version). Part of how Jon does this is by repeating Lyannaâs actions as the valiant âknightâ protecting an innocent from bullies. So by making it out of that tower even though his mother didnât, Jon becomes the survival and rebirth of the fantasy ideal. You could even make the argument that just because Lyanna died doesnât mean fantasy died as well because it lives on through Jon, her son. And this is actually is aided by Lyannaâs pleading for her sonâs life, so she has some agency in how fantasy is preserved in the same way she had agency in how itâs perpetuated when she protected Howland Reed and when she ran off with Rhaegar. The princess living on and becoming the hero/knight in the stories is thus taken on by two characters here: Lyanna and Jon, mother and son. Jon goes even further into the Arthurian-knight playbook by encountering and eventually killing another vicious bully, Janos Slynt, who was coincidentally had a hand in his fatherâs demise. Then enter princess in the tower 2.0, Sansa Stark.
Sansa is an interesting case because sheâs not martial in the way Lyanna and Jon are. But she too encounters her fair share of knights and villains. Janos Slynt is one of them, and Littlefinger will be another. Iâve talked about this before but Jon becoming the valiant hero Sansa wished for is important because it directly plays into GRRMâs reconstruction and (imo) defense of the ideals of fantasy. Itâs not so much that heroes donât exist - they actually do. They just might be far away, or might be the ones youâd never expect. This is the opposite of the âfantasy is dead, stop believing because everything sucksâ reading you might see in some sections of the fandom. This moment may not end up meaning much for Jon and Sansa and their relationship, but it means a lot to us readers who are audiences of GRRMâs conversations with the genre and his arguments for its appeal. But thatâs not the only interesting thing because Sansa, unlike Lyanna, does eventually make it out of the tower. But sheâs currently in the hands of Littlefinger who, like Janos Slynt, was a villain responsible for her fatherâs demise. In this scenario, will she have to wait for a valiant hero to come take care of him again? Or will she instead don the knightâs armor (figuratively) by enacting justice in her own right? Based on the GoHHâs prophecy, it looks like it will be the latter; and itâs important to note how often âarmorâ as a motif is repeated in Sansaâs chapters. Thus, the princess evolving into the hero is told through the arc of a singular character here. Sansa is the princess who makes it out of the tower to become a hero of her own making; important disclaimer though, Littlefinger doesnât really play into the elements of knighthood but he does count as an evil lord holding a princess hostage so Sansa can still be a subversion of the knight rescuing the maiden - the lesson being that she is her own knight, her own salvation!
Itâs a very powerful meta-textual thread that exists between these three characters. They all fit into a wider narrative about fantasy and how it can live on, whether played straight or twisted a little crooked. So Sansa doesnât have to be an overt in-universe parallel to Lyanna because thatâs just not her role in the story. And I personally donât think any âsimilaritiesâ they have are actually important to Sansa as a person or to Jon because letâs face it, Lyannaâs primary (and most important) role is to be Jonâs mother and everything else informs on that. But both these women (and Jon) can be meta twinsies based on how they fit into GRRMâs wider narrative goals.
#asoiaf#jon snow#sansa stark#lyanna stark#valyrianscrolls#fantasy tropes#my stuff#tldr it doesnât matter if sansa and lyanna are similar as characters - I personally donât think they are#but they could still have complementary elements based on how they fit into GRRMâs overall engagement with the genre#hope that makes sense lol#and btw this is strictly academic so donât come here with shipping nonsense#jon and sansa are my top 2 but I DO NOT SHIP!! just letting people know so they donât cry and whine if I block đ
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I'm curious: How do you define low and high fantasy?
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and i meant to say even before talking about mia but like.. unless this is just me being forgetful, in which case please don't bite my head off, i do feel like people overestimate how common the '5000 year old demon sorceress whatever who looks like a 10 year old child' trope actually is.. i mean just considering how often i see it as the first (or even only) example people bring up of paedophilia in anime. or what i should say is, i feel like people are underestimating anime's willingness to sexualise literal little girls without even bothering with the '5000 year old' bit đ
#if absolutely nothing else that trope is limited to the fantasy genre.. sexualising children is not#what is farrr more ubiquitous is teenagers/adult women looking acting and talking like children (whilst being sexualised)#no magical element involved#that shit is everywhere
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Genres: Sci-fi
It's been said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things: science fiction the improbable made probable; fantasy, the impossible made probable.
#Rob Serling#science fiction#scifi#sci fi#scifi and fantasy#sci fi and fantasy#Genres#genre: sci fi#scifi aesthetic#Scifi moodboard#Science fiction aesthetic#Science fiction moodboard#scifi geek#Genre aesthetic#Genre moodboard#moodboard#aesthetic#books#TV#movies#sci fi aesthetic#sci fi movies#Sci fi moodboard#sci fi tropes#sci fi tv#sci fi books#scifi story#scifi fantasy#scifi films#scifi movies
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