More Fantasy Talk

I know, I know, I said today I would write about Sci-Fi but I didn’t know I would be at that Tina’s house today when I wrote that. I can still write while I am here but I do not feel like I can give the proper attention required for a post on the genre of science fiction. Instead I have decided expound more on an idea that Renee brought up in a comment.

She said that everything she reads now after Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter seem to mirror them. She is absolutely right but I think there is a reason for that.

Lord of the Rings includes all of the major elements of high fantasy. It has all of the classic races, the adventure that is necessary for a good high fantasy story, and it has the same magic that is so recognizable. Races like elves and dwarfs have been running through people’s imaginations for centuries. It seems to me that there is something very primal about imagining a race of forest dwelling near-humans that have ethereal qualities to them. I think that same force is present in dwarfs because so many cultures have small humans who live under ground.

Also, all high fantasy has the adventure and epic battles.  The basis of most fantasy is the conflict between good and evil. The battle between good and evil in LotR is on a massive scale. Some books will have one good wizard fighting a bad wizard or even one good group versus a bad group. In Lord of the Rings, it is the ultimate ancient evil gathering all of the evil in the world in order to destroy all that is good in the world.

Another element of high fantasy that LotR has is named or magical swords. Bilbo and Frodo used Sting the dagger that glowed in the presence of orcs and goblins and Gandolf had Glamdring. Another named sword was Aragorn’s sword, Anduril, which is the reforged version of Narsil. This isn’t new to LotR. Excalibur is just one example of the magical or named sword. It was a common theme in folk tales.

The premise of a school for young wizards like in the Harry Potter series is not a really common one but the comic X-men was a very popular franchise about a school for children with mutant powers.  Other elements of her stories are from fairy and folk tales. Now there is several books about kids going to some form of magical school. Peter Jackson and the Olympians is one example. The kids are demi-gods, not wizards, but it is a similar idea. The Charlie Bone series is the same thing. He is a kid that gets sent off to a boarding school when he shows special powers. The boarding school is an arts school that also has kids who have similar special powers. Unlike Hogwarts, Charlie’s school is a creepy scary school with frightening teachers and is highly regimented.