/lit/ - Literature

wizards.

>>4818666
There are wizards in Conan too.

>>4818669
Exactly.

It's a very blurry distinction but high fantasy tends to have a much greater amount of magic and spells and otherworldly creatures running around.

It's just how much a universe is rooted in reality. Low fantasy is more "realistic" than high fantasy.

i don't know i don't read children's books

Low fantasy is Star Wars, high fantasy is Star Trek

>>4818685
>tippity-taps the sweet fedora-bop

>>4818685
>said the anon on the anime image board

>>4818689
>video games are an art !
>fantasy books are literature !!!
[tips fedora]

>>4818683
I thought it was the importance of the plot in relation to the world it happens in. Like in Lord of the Rings everything the protagonists do is important and ultimately saves the whole world from being literally overshadowed by evil. In Conan on the other hand, at least regarding the first movie, the protagonist is just somebody where it's unclear if his actions really change anything. It's just a story within a big world.

>>4818697
Isn't that just whether or not the story is epic?

I know it's from wikipedia but it's a reasonable distinction and I don't care enough to put any further effort into the debate.
>Low fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy fiction involving "nonrational happenings that are without causality or rationality because they occur in the rational world where such things are not supposed to occur."[1] Low fantasy stories are set either in the real world or a fictional but rational world, and are contrasted with high fantasy stories which take place in a completely fictional fantasy world setting with its own set of rules and physical laws.

>>4818704
Fair point actually. It might be. But I guess epicness is on criteria that differentiates low and high fantasy, or fiction for that matter.

>>4818706
>igh fantasy stories which take place in a completely fictional fantasy world setting with its own set of rules and physical laws
So much of science fiction is just high fantasy?

>>4818713
I guess? Do you put tomatos in a fruit salad? Genre definitions are usually intuitive and vague, over-thinking them is pointless.

>>4818713
The key here is whether there are swords or lasers.

>>4818721
Why not both?
Yoda is little more than a goblin, after all.

>>4818723
But aren't goblins pretty lame in fantasy in general ? Yoda is green, small and funny, that's all they have in common. He is alone more badass that all goblins in modern literature together.

>>4818723
What would low fantasy set in space look like?

>>4818739
>everyone dies asphyxiated after the first minute

Now I understand.

>>4818739
Firefly I guess. Not even trolling.

>>4818739
I'd say the first alien is pretty low fantasy.

>>4818739
A book.
Magical realism set in space. Things like Alien ("a fictional but rational world") or that thing with Nick Cage where all the children get kidnapped by aliens at the end maybe. Any sci-fi with magical happenings so potentially Gene Wolfe or Heinlein's Stranger. Ender's Game?

>>4818732
What on earth does that have to do with it?

>>4818761
What what has to do with what ? Too many ambiguous referentials here.
I'm saying Yoda isn't really a goblin because he is too exceptional, too singularized and too skilled. Goblins are generally presented as a mass of undifferenciated and rather weak or stupid beings. Yoda is much more like an elder elf in this respect.

>>4818777
I just don't see why his being badass means he's not a goblin. Why can't a goblin be badass? Goblins differ in behaviour and characteristics from story to story, as do elves. By which I mean he's no more one than the other or even a dragon: we're back to the intuitive and vague definitions that don't bear over-thinking.

>>4818777
The big goblin in the Hobbit was rather smart. He spoke the queens english for crying out loud!

>>4818665
low fantasy has titties.

>>4818787
Yoda doesn't seem intuitively Goblin to me. I'd even go as far as to say he's anti-Goblin.

>High fantasy
Tolkien

>Low fantasy
Not-Tolkien

>>4818809
Right, and lightsabres are anti-swords and The Force is anti-magic. The labels we're both using don't really apply unless we agree on them.

>>4818817
lightsabers are swords with energy in it. There is nothing anti about them. Yoda is anti-Goblin because, if nothing else, he stands out in the Star Wars-verse like no Goblin stand outs in Tolkien or any modern fantasy franchise. Lightsabers play the same role as magic swords, basically. The Force plays a role comparable to magic. I can't think of any Goblin who is comparable, in role and standing, to Yoda. Perhaps in old Norse mythology, but that's not really fatasy.

>>4818706
A Never Ending Story is Low Fantasy by this definition and The Dark Crystal is High Fantasy.
The inclusion of Earth is the separation?

>>4818822
Don't you see how you're picking and choosing what you claim are "essential" properties to fit your argument? What if I said the role of a goblin was to be a short, wrinkled, slightly gross and green-skinned humanoid that lives in unpleasant places, for example swamps? Light-sabres are not "swords with energy in", they're handles which project short lasers: completely unlike a sword which is just a piece of sharp metal. The way The Force works is completely unlike magic. No Jedi ever cast a spell or anything like it. For the most part it's telekinesis which can easily be hand-waved away as futuristic science.
See? Our distinctions are completely arbitrary.

>>4818810

Tolkien is the poster child of high fantasy.

Low fantasy are things like Game of Thrones, arguably Harry Potter, urban fantasy, and the supernatural. High fantasy are warlocks and goblins and elves all set in a made-up world with magic leaking everywhere like god had a spicy burrito before he made the earth.

>>4818831
>hat you claim are "essential" properties
I never made any claim of the sort. I never spoke about anything being "essential".

>role of a goblin was to be a short, wrinkled, slightly gross and green-skinned humanoid that lives in unpleasant places, for example swamps?

That's not really a role, though, that's a description. You can fit this description and be the hero (or the villain, or the wise mentor) in a story. There's a confusion of types here. We're basically not speaking about the same kind of distinctions. You consider that what is a goblin is what looks like the common description of goblin. I consider that a goblin is what fills the traditional role of a goblin in a story (which means he has to be considered along its relation to other characters and to the setting, and not just in itself).

>See? Our distinctions are completely arbitrary.

Not completely. They can potentially further our understanding of the genre and its narrative devices, and you can design them according to this purpose. Thank you for making me explain more precisely my opinion on Yoda, I had but a vague intuition, but now I understand that my intuition were about how a goblin relates to its world, not about how a goblin looks or speaks or dresses.

Same comment works for lightsabers and the Force. The Force is some mysterious power that permeates everything but most people are unaware of it, and you can learn to master its arcane but following the teaching of a master. This entails having a better understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe and also a better self-mastery. Learning to master the Force is also is spiritual endeavour and how you use it will depends on your moral stance (you don't see much "neutral" or "mechanical" use of the Force). It can't be used by a machine, but some devices can harness the Force of a living being (even the droid general that uses lightsaber is a living being with mechanised parts). It functions a lot like magic in fantasy settings. As close-combat weapon that run on Force and can only be safely used by people who use Force, lightsaber function also a lot like magic swords.

They key here, again, is "function".

>>4818839
I'm not sure if Game of Thrones is low fantasy or just a high fantasy story at an early point. I mean ultimately magic seems pretty dominant, there probably will be full fledged heroes, and there's a good against evil thingy going on. Like ice god versus fire god. At least it hints that way.

>>4818856
I bet if Georgle Lucas was doing Star Wars again in this day and age the force would just be self aware nanobot leftovers of an ancient civilization. Not even impossible I think.

>>4818856
You didn't use the word essential but you're speaking of the role as being inherent to the race. Not all portrayals of Goblins are the same, as I've said. Why shouldn't a goblin play the role of the wise mentor? Star Wars is an example of that. There is no such thing "traditional role of a goblin" any more than there is of elves or dwarves.

>The Force is some mysterious power that permeates everything but most people are unaware of it, and you can learn to master its arcane but following the teaching of a master. This entails having a better understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe and also a better self-mastery.
So is learning to be a physicist then taking a course to work in a nuclear power station magic too, then?
You're imposing your own ideas of what the functions of things should be as "essential" to their being.

>>4818869
>You didn't use the word essential but you're speaking of the role as being inherent to the race.

I'm rather understanding (or trying to understand) the race as something filling a set of roles. So that would probably lead to having different kind of Goblins based on the roles they fulfill, which in itself is not an uninteresting clarification.

>Not all portrayals of Goblins are the same, as I've said.

Of course, but does that exclude the possibility of saying that, in most fantasy setting, Goblins are there for a limited number of identifiable narrative purposes ?

>There is no such thing "traditional role of a goblin" any more than there is of elves or dwarves.

I'm not so sure about that. It depends of the body of work you consider. A good deal of post-Tolkien fantasy works with a rather limited set of roles for these races.

>>4818869
>So is learning to be a physicist then taking a course to work in a nuclear power station magic too, then?

In a way, yes. The links between magic and science are nothing surprising for anyone who had to think about the matter for more than half an hour.
But note that the physicist isn't harbouring the nuclear energy within himself, or using it out of moral convictions (at least not necessarily) and cannot sense it or manipulate it intuitively. And the nuclear energy here is not derived from a living being, it's directly produced by a machine that is not sentient. So it doesn't fit most of the criteria I exposed in my other post.

>You're imposing your own ideas of what the functions of things should be as "essential" to their being.

I'm not imposing anything, I'm just trying to elaborate what lies under my own intuitions.

>>4818914
I don't think what you're trying to do is much less valid than the traditional method but I don't hold much stock in either. But you've no grounds to say that goblins can't fill certain character roles, that's just a choice you're making yourself.

>Of course, but does that exclude the possibility of saying that, in most fantasy setting, Goblins are there for a limited number of identifiable narrative purposes ?
>A good deal of post-Tolkien fantasy works with a rather limited set of roles for these races.
In most but not all, so that's irrelevant.

>In a way, yes.
If magic and science are the same thing then why are you quibbling about Goblins when the larger issue of Science Fiction and Fantasy are now the same thing?

>the physicist isn't harbouring the nuclear energy within himself
He's got radiation inside of him, what difference does that make?
>moral convictions
Never heard of a true neutral mage? Irrelevant.
>sentient
again, irrelevant. Not all magic is sentient. Most of it probably isn't.
>I'm not imposing anything, I'm just trying to elaborate what lies under my own intuitions.
You're taking your intuitions and arguing that they're correct, or at least you're working backwards from it and finding ways to apply it and say "this is how it is".

>>4818857

At first he was gonna make the dragons all smoke and mirrors, but then the obese faggot changed it. I'd say low fantasy.

>>4818694
>being this angry
>being this opposed to discourse

>>4818665
Well what's the difference between genre fiction and literary fiction?
the marketing

Low fantasy is Harry Potter, high fantasy is Lord of the Rings.

Jesus fucking christ. You guys made a thread out of such a simple question.

High fantasy = entirely fictional, heavy on world building and lore.

Low = harry potter, Narnia, more 'grounded'

>>4818665
The tone, not the setting.

Even grimdark fantasy reveals its ancient evil has awoken plot sooner or later.

>>4818665
One work can be both. Look at ASOIAF novels. It started as Borgias crossed with War of the Roses, but never lost its predestination plot that saves the world.

I believe low fantasy was initially coined to describe a fantasy not set in a secondary world. I don't use it as such but I prefer it over a thinly drawn line about how many magic users or otherwordly creatures there are in a book [series], or how fantastic/rule-based the magic is. It's also why I prefer to use epic fantasy instead of high fantasy.

That said, it does leave me in a bit of a quandary on where to put works like K J Parker's. All of her novels are set in secondary worlds, but most of them have no other fantastic elements whatsoever, and there's rarely any epic, large-scale conflict going on either.

Any good works on theory of fantasy literature genre and somesuch?

High fantasy is what you have after smoking weed.

>>4818739
Old school pulp scifi. Northwest Smith and Eric John Stark spring to mind. They were just dudes trying to make some money and had their own codes of honor they were not trying to save the universe or anything like that.

>>4818687