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/lit/ - Literature

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10523256 No.10523256 [Reply] [Original]

Does fantasy really need to feature humans? It's extremely hard to find books that don't.
Humans are always the same jack-of-all-trades good-but-corrupt generic shit, do away with them.

>> No.10523265

>>10523256
As opposed to what, all the """original""" fantasy races that are transparently obvious expies of real life or mythological human societies, or their mix, or their ""subversion""?

>> No.10523271

I think a cool idea for a fantasy book would be one where you choose one of the less popular generic races like and make them the protagonist. Instead of some big macho human warrior chosen one you follow the adventures of a unskilled parochial halfling finding himself in the middle of some big generic fantasy quest he is totally unprepared for.

>> No.10523281

>>10523265
Yes. In fact it's more interesting when humans are the extinct common ancestors of humanoid races.

>> No.10523352

>>10523281
Read all tomorrows then.

>> No.10523447

>>10523256
I had an idea recently. Why not have humans be some kind of super-race? One could portray the races such as elves, orcs, halflings ect. as fractions of humans.

>> No.10523501

>>10523271
underrated post

>> No.10523535

>>10523271
that's literally the hobbit though.

>> No.10523540

>>10523271
OP BTFO

>> No.10523563
File: 9 KB, 480x360, joke.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
10523563

>>10523535

>> No.10523565

>>10523535
shut up

>> No.10523574

>>10523563
I'm not good with jokes

I browse /lit/

>> No.10523578

>>10523271
Nah

>> No.10523581

>>10523271
Fuxking keke

>> No.10523583

>>10523271
The problem is that hobbits were directly identified with an idealised England, so a hobbit was basically an exaggeration of an Englishman and his point of view.

The problem with writing a non-human protagonist is that you're likely to end up either creating a character that is a "human but something or other", a rubbishy stereotype of some fantasy race, or, if you succeed, a character that is almost totally incomprehensible to the reader.

>> No.10523584

You mean something like Redwall

>> No.10523594

>>10523265
Just stop it with the orcs and elves and that would be enough for me. I don't understand why people try to take new spins on these races instead of just making their own

>> No.10523598

>>10523574
fair enough lmao

>> No.10523602

I like Watership Down, and the great thing is, if you read it in the bathtub in a postapocalypse scenario, you can recycle your tears into drinking water.

>> No.10523649

Why is it always set in the past? Why not elfs and orcs and wizards and shit but with future levels of technology? Or even current day technology? We already have dwarfs. Imagine Lord of the Rings but with tanks huge tank battles on the plains of Rohan, Mordor and Gondor involved an a Fierce war for air superiority, maybe Saroman dropping agent orange on Mirkwood, Frodo and Sam has to fly a suicide mission with not enough fuel to try and drop the ring into Mount Doom after they find out Sauron has the atomic bomb. They having to do it of course since they are the lightest being Hobbits and will therefore waste less fuel.

>> No.10523740

>>10523649
shadowrun has a grip on that market

>> No.10524791

>>10523256
It doesn't need to feature humans, but without human characters, or something identifiable as nearly human, the work becomes unrelatable. A great deal of the novel would be devoted to developing a new species, showing us how they communicate and live. This is a difficult prospect because language, idioms, and stereotypes all stem from our shared human heritage. The work would be bogged down almost immediately.


I think it is a shame that fantasy cannot exist without human characters.

>> No.10524811

>>10523649
there was a movie for you a month ago

>> No.10524870

Why not just use the races that already exist, irl? Asians(elves), blacks(orcs), whites(humans), etc.

>> No.10525554

>>10523649
>Warhammer 40,000