Discussion of modern fantasy

[Suira]

Pick one (what makes a more interesting story):
- different countries all ruled by humans, but all with a radical different culture and lifestyle.
- different races that not only look different, but also have their own (stereotypical) culture.

Am I the only one that would allways prefer the first version?

Not sure how I should explain why, but I have the impression that often elfs/orcs/dwarves are used because it makes a lot of things way easier to explain. You don't have to explain why the orcs are violent, you don't have to say who the good guys are, you don't have to explain why the humans hate the undead, you don't have to explain why the dwarves are isolated, etc... Don't get me wrong, a few races are fine (like how Prattchet does it), but race should never be a casus belli or a way to explain stupid/weird behavior of an entire nation.

Tl;dr version: books with conflicts between humans tend to countain more interesting morals and objectives than books about yet another orcish/undead invasion.

[Velensk]

- different countries all ruled by humans, but all with a radical different culture and lifestyle.
- different races that not only look different, but also have their own (stereotypical) culture.

Surely you've seen at least one case where there are several cultures per race? Even Dragonlance manages that for most of its races and it never seemed to make much of an attempt towards not being stereotypical fantasy.

[Suira]

Fair enough, I certainly don't want to say using several races is allways bad (at all). Rather that your book should still make sense if you remove the different races part.

Wether there are several cultures per race or not isn't that important for my point though.

[Alarantalara]

Don't get me wrong, a few races are fine (like how Prattchet does it), but race should never be a casus belli or a way to explain stupid/weird behavior of an entire nation.

I'd actually go the other way. If you are going to have a different race, then some physical difference must affect society or they should be humans. If elves live 10 times longer than humans, what effect does that have on them socially?

Since I've already brought them up, I'll mention Steven Brust's Dragareans (elves by another name) as an example. One of the early books has everyone wondering why the villain was acting so quickly, since they could see only ten years worth of plot and that felt too fast to the characters. However, the time taken could not be reduced and still have the story be plausible since

Spoiler:

it is eventually revealed that the villain needed time to become an expert at sword fighting.

That is, other races need to look at an issue from a non-human perspective. Removing the race in a good book should break the book. It's the difference between Watership Down and Redwall.

[thespaceinvader]

For my money, I FAR prefer human-only fantasy, as a general rule. The generic races are too easy to do badly, relying on pre-existing assumptions not real worldbuilding and characterisation.

[Suira]

That is, other races need to look at an issue from a non-human perspective.

True. For reference, I am actually trying to seek an explanation for why I tend to dislike stories that use races. Maybe I expressed myself wrong when I said that a story should stay intact without the race differences, or maybe you didn't udnerstand me the way I intented. My other quote "race should never be a casus belli or a way to explain stupid/weird behavior of an entire nation" explains it better.

If elves live 10 times longer than humans, what effect does that have on them socially?

You could try replacing the elves with humans that just happen to have control of a fountain of youth or something like that. Chances are the story would still break, simply because people would expect a writer to talk a little bit about the consequences of that fountain of youth on that human civilisation, whereas a fantasy writer can get away with "oh and elves live 1000 years" without giving any further explanation.

Different example, you'll have a hard time replacing "the stereotypical orcs that constantly attack nearby human settlements" with a human civilisation unless you created a much more interesting theory about it, unless you invent a plausible reasoning for why one civilisation attacks the other besides "one of them happens to be orc".

Goal of those examples: races are sometimes used as a way to make story telling easier, to avoid having to give an explanation. In my opinion that's often a bad thing.

PS: your example of Brust's book seems to have a typo somewhere (or I'm really dumb) because I don't get what you mean.

[Velensk]

I understood the Brust example easilly.

Looking at history, you really don't need any explanation, reason, or excuse why one civilization would attack another. Being orcs merely makes it seem like even less of an issue.

[Suira]

So people wonder why the villain is acting so quickly, until they found out that the time taken could not be reduced?
Maybe I've been studying so much I fail at basic logic, but how is the above possible?

Looking at history, you really don't need any explanation, reason, or excuse why one civilization would attack another.

You're not the first person claiming that. Most of the time people say that, it ends up completely derailing the thread and proving Goldwin's law, so i'll try to answer and hope that my successors will be smart enough to stay on topic (wether that's human only vs lots of races or just general fantasy discussion, I don't care).

Anyway, casus belli where very important. Wikipedia is allways useful, so I'll link this article with the convenient title: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casus_belli . Also keep in mind that while a lot of times the reasons for war aren't very apparant, it doesn't mean there aren't other hidden reasons behind it. True, a lot of those reasons were very silly, but you'll notice that the big wars (the ones worth having a book written about) allways had several reasons (if only that the king wanted to become a bit richer/renowned).

Also note that this whole point is somewhat irrelevant anyway. Even if you would give me an example of a big war with absolutely no excuse, I still wouldn't like books that contains yet another orc/undead invasion solely because those orcs hate humans. Again, I can easily imagine some people don't care about the reasoning behind the war as long as the hero gets to fight enough epic battles, I respect their opinion.

PS: as I'm new on those forums, maybe it's worth noting I generally prefer satire (catch 22, praise of folly, divine comedy, reynard cycle) above fantasy books. Which might explain my preference for more philosophic books.

[Velensk]

It would help if you had read the story I think. The villain is acting very quickly for the long lived 'elves' who prefer longer term planning, he is however, he is not moving as swiftly as he could if his objectives were extremely time sensitive. This is puzzleing because they generally believe things can be accomplished better over long periods of time and yet he seems to be rushing it, yet he is not moving as quickly as a person who feels fire lapping at his heels ought to (They consider humans to always be actings as if fire is lapping at their heels owing to their short life-spans).

On Wars:
It is not that there are not reasons, it is that frequently they arn't important/distinct enough to be worth worrying about and sometimes not even worth explaining. If you could somehow catalogue all the wars in history I suspect you would find that most of them are fought for the same reasons over and over again. When it comes to it, you can generally say that the neighbors are attacking (whether they be humans, orcs, or anything with a humanlike mind) and it will generally be assumed that one of the standard answers is in play.

For setting up histories, orcs (or any conveniently agressive faction) might attack someone because they hate them(this one strikes me as unlikely unless there is a second motive which is likely the cause of the hate), or because they're economics are based on raiding, or that food is tight and this way they can both capture food while killing off excess population, or that raiding/war is a part of their culture(or religion), or because one orc chief wants to boost his reputation/wealth, or that entire tribes are willing to hire themselves off as mercenaries, or that some overlord has intimidated a horde of orcs into being his minions and wants to attack for whatever reason, or maybe even that they feel quite threatened by the humans, or any combination of the above. With the possible exception of the overlord, do you think the worlds history would take much care to note any of these motives in a few centuries especially considering just how many of these wars there likely were in the time period? It might be known if it is homogenus across all wars but other than that I don't see why it would be worth noting. It is common for in the case of orcs for the author to say war/raiding is apart of their culture, chiefs are consistantly looking to boost reputation/wealth, and they're looking for loot (perhaps because their economy is based on raiding). Since these are the ones that are constantly in effect while all the others are being shuffled around as far as history is concerned orcs attack people because they are a greedy bloodthirsty horde even if individual wars may have had more to them (or maybe not). Vikings in our history tend to get this treatment.

Once you have this as a part of your history you may want to use something esle for the plot of your actual story but at the same time as it is so omnipresent a fact that 'orcs' (or whatever conveniently aggressive faction you have) do this, you don't actually need a stated reason for them to attack. Orcs are convienient because everyone 'knows' that orcs act like this and thus you don't even need to explain it. Now you can have orcs and have multiple cultures including those which do not act in the same way and you can use orcs that are exactly like that but add in the extra layers because the story is not history, the narritive is on the ground and needs to know what is important at the moment for this attack.

[johndh]

I've found that some of the more obscure wars are often the best fuel for ideas when it comes to causes and motivations. For example, one of the many ideas bouncing around in my head, is based on the cyclical/ritual warfare of the Tsembaga Maring tribe of New Guinea.

Forces that are invading purely For The Evulz is one of many ways that authors cut corners, allowing them to focus on the fighting. "What do you mean 'why are they invading'? They're BAD! We covered that already!" On the other hand, we have authors who put their audience to sleep by putting half the book in a senate/council hall discussing the reasons behind what's going on.

[Frogger5]

So, if we take those last two posts, then we can say this: (correct me if I'm wrong)

All the real wars that actually happened, were caused by a variety of reasons, if we break those down we come up with; greed, hate, revenge, or two sides both after the same goal. The thing about fantasy, is that we come up with more reasons. But authors use factions like orcs, which gives no reason except all that "It's a part of their instincts" crap. If making decisions like that relies on instinct, then they're animals and the author should treat them as such. But they don't, because as mentioned earlier they assume instincts is a good enough reason. However there is another bonus to using orcs. No one likes them, nor do they care weather or not they live or die, and as a result, it makes the good guys, look even gooder.


Mini rant about all powerful warrior type authors.

Spoiler:

Obviously, people enjoy reading about characters the excel in certain skills, mostly combat. People read about a hero killing orcs with massive swordsman skill, and take the side of the that hero. Thats also why we can enjoy reading about bad guys, cus they're powerful and such. And this is another point that has been missed on occasions. The hero is an awesome fighter, so the reader is on his side, so therefore he and his comrades are the good guys right? I think the biggest example of this would be the David Eddings, Sparhawk series. So LotR. The main character is a hobbit, a small helpless halfling who relies heavily on the help of others, and his own faith in what he's doing. Compared to a knight who wears black armor and wields a broadsword with utmost skill and honor. I know which one I'll find more fascinating and deep. I know which one will seem more epic, and sure enough by the time I've finished reading a book or a series, I want to feel like I've just completed and epic journey, not simply strode through lopping peoples head's off.

[Zerovirus]

A summarized, shortform of a prime rule for writing in general:

Increase in hero's skill and power must be matched by a multiplicative modifier to the villain's skill and/or power. You can't make Frodo a Jedi without giving Sauron the Death Star, if you want your story to retain interest. Mary Sues are boring not from their inherent power- fiction has no official scale, each work resides in its own continuum of realism and power scalars- they're boring from their power being too high above the expected scale of the work. This is the rule that self-inserts, fix-the-storyline-for-the-hero stories, and wish-fulfillment fiction always fails to comprehend.

Just dropping this in here.

EDIT: @Frogger: Go google a short fantasy story called The Sword of Good. It's quite an interesting perspective on the old "Evil Orcs R Evil" stereotype.

[Frogger5]

Could you please give me a link? I' having trouble finding it.

Found it.
If anyone else wants to read it.
http://yudkowsky.net/other/fiction/the-sword-of-good

[Velensk]

Actually what I was saying is that I don't find the way orcs are generally portrayed a problem because you could have orcs go to war for all the same reasons that humans have historically without changing anything about them really. Wesnoth campaigns are infamous for using the 'oh it's a horde of orcs attacking you again! Because they're orcs and it's part of their culture' but when it comes to it you could quite easilly set a wesnoth campaign in the middle east a few thousand years ago and have your characters going 'Oh no, not the Isrealites again!'. The 'overlord' effect where you have some powerful figure intimidates or convinces large masses of people into being his minions and using them to subjugate even more people has happened plenty of times as well. There have been groups of humans that have been every bit as warlike as fantasy orcs and in need of as little reason to attack as fanstasy orcs seem to. Now there do seem to be particuarly bad cases where they seem not to have any motive at all due to bad writing but in just about every case it would not have been hard to write in those same motives as humans have had without changing anything about the situation or the character of the race at all.

[Frogger5]

All hatred, all wars and attacks are because of a reason. It's a part of their culture is the excuse, but it's not good enough without a reason. Unless there is a reason, it simply can't be real.

I think that some authors are using excuses instead of reasons, making the baddies motivations unbelievable.