An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Four: The Darkest Hour

Along our fantastic fantasy journey, so far, we've learned that we're special and could be the prophesied one, among other things. We've met a mentor and found some friends. We've also gone on a journey, probably in search of something. Hopefully, it's a been a learning experience, and we're fully prepared to meet the final challenge. It's a dark time for the rebellion, after all.

From the initial list I made (which you can see here), we need to cover three more points:

8. There is some kind of descent

9. There is some sort of "dark lord" who can only be defeated by the hero.
10. There's an absence of technology.

We'll start with #10 since it has less to do with plot than the rest of the list and, actually, almost fits alongside fantasy needing races of fantastic creatures or beings. Except that I don't think fantasy needs those creatures, I think we just like those creatures. There are plenty of fantasy stories out there that do not include elves and leprechauns. However, the technology thing is important and much more... mercurial. See, sometimes, the technology is the magic, which can make it difficult to distinguish. But let's go down the list of characters (go and see that same post for that last) and see where where and how the absence of technology applies.

1. Harry Potter -- Potter is set in the modern world, but technology doesn't really exist in the wizarding world. It was a neat trick by Rowling to set it present day but still give it that Medieval feel that everyone seems to want their fantasy to have.

2. Luke Skywalker -- The absence of technology thing may seem to not apply to a science fiction piece, BUT the idea in Star Wars, at least for the Jedi, is to eschew technology. Technology, even a technological monstrosity like the Death Star, is nothing when compared to the power of the Force. It's a hearkening back to a mystical (magical) power source. So, although there is technology in the story, the focus for the hero is to not rely on that technology but to trust his "magic."

3-5. Garion, Rand, Richard -- There is no technology.

6-8. Batman, Spider-Man, Superman -- Often in super hero stories, the technology is the magic. The best example of this (right now, anyway) is probably Iron Man, but it applies, also, to the Fantastic Four and, even, to Batman and Spider-Man. When the technology is so advanced as to, basically, not be reproduce-able for the public, it has become "magical." Alien technology is the same. And Superman is above the need for human technology.

9. the Starks -- Again, no technology.

10. Dorothy -- No tech.

11. Katniss -- Effectively, Katniss functions below technology. It's basically, a magic vs. technology environment, but the magic is the special-ness of Katniss and her superhuman skill with a bow.

12-13. Skeeve & Pug -- No tech.

14. Dresden -- The Dresden series is another one that handles technology in an interesting way. Being set in the modern world, technology exists, but there has to be some way to make the use of magic more desirable than the use of that technology, so... wizards, like Harry, disrupt technology. Destroy it, actually. What we end up with is a constant struggle between magic (the old ways) and technology (the new ways) and Harry walking the line in between the two.

The end result of all of this is a lack of technology in how it relates to the protagonists.

The other two points, the descent and the "dark lord" antagonist, have more to do with the hero story arc than fantasy specifically, but fantasy, more than any other genre, tends to depend upon the hero journey. The confusion (entanglement?) of these two things is probably what causes the association of Joseph Campbell with all of this, but the hero journey can actually be applied to any genre. Probably. I'm not actually sure about romance.

At any rate, virtually every one of our heroes has some kind of "dark lord" they have to face off against, even Dorothy. Of course, in the case of super heroes, they will, inevitably, be more than one. From my list, I'm only not sure about Skeeve (being a comedy fantasy, it's not really required and, although there are antagonists, I don't think any would qualify for the "dark lord" position) and the Starks. I don't think the Lannisters quite count as a "dark lord," and, well, The Song of Fire and Ice is not really that kind of story, anyway, but that would be telling (really, that's for another post not related to this series).

Virtually all of the listed heroes also have a descent of some type, often literal as with Luke and his descent into the cave. The descent serves as a learning experience for the protagonist. Even Dorothy has her descent (in the book) when she is made into a slave by the Wicked Witch. Again, Skeeve may be the only protagonist without a real descent in his story arc but, again, comedy!

The question, then, is how much of this comes from Tolkien. Certainly, it's true that all three of these exist in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was adamantly opposed to industrialization (both in life and in war (especially in war after being in the trenches in World War I)) and it shows in his books. The orcs and goblins are his metaphor for a "technological society."

Both Bilbo and Frodo are confronted with defeating "dark lords," though neither of them actually defeat the dark lords of their stories. Smaug is killed by Bard and Sauron by Gollum, even if it was inadvertent. However, it can be argued in both cases that the protagonists set up their defeats. Both heroes survive their descents into darkness -- Bilbo in the tunnel down to Smaug's lair and Frodo... well, most of Frodo's journey is a journey from one darkness to another -- and come out stronger on the other side.

Just as clearly, many authors have modeled these specific aspects of their own works directly after Tolkien, but is there prior precedence for these in fantasy literature?

And will I ever tell you if there is?

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Three: Who's Gonna Learn Ya?

Well, obviously, I wasn't thinking of the exact order I was going to deal with my list from the first post in this series, because, today, I need to do some rearranging. So let's look back at the list of the central tropes of current (by current, I mean the last few decades) fantasy literature:

1. The protagonist (I'm just going to say "hero" from here on out; it's shorter) is not an adult (and usually male).
2. The hero is an orphan (usually both parents are dead, although there is sometime one (usually the mother)).
3. The hero is "special" in some way.
4. There is a prophecy, generally related to the hero.
5. There is an old mentor of some sort, usually a male. (We recognize this character as "the wizard.")
6. There is a quest of some sort involved that only the hero can complete.
7. There is some kind of descent
8. The hero has companions who help him on his journey.
9. There is some sort of "dark lord" who can only be defeated by the hero.
10. There's an absence of technology.

 We dealt with #s 1-4 in part two of this series, so let's take a look at the next bit with a change in the ordering. We'll look at the new #s 5-7:

5. There is an old mentor of some sort, usually a male. (We recognize this character as "the wizard.")
6. The hero has companions who help him on his journey.
7. There is a quest of some sort involved that only the hero can complete.

This is the part where, hopefully, there is character development. But that's actually a different topic. What we want to do here is look back at the list from part two of this series (because why not use the same one?) and see how many of them use these three things. So, first, here's that list:

1. Harry Potter

2. Luke Skywalker

3. Garion (The Belgariad)

4. Rand al'Thor (The Wheel of Time)

5. Richard Cypher (The Sword of Truth)

6. Batman

7. Spider-Man

8. Superman

9. Arya and Bran Stark (A Song of Fire and Ice)

10. Dorothy (The Wizard of Oz)

11. Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)

12. Skeeve (MythAdventures)

13. Pug (The Riftwar Saga)

14. Harry Dresden (The Dresden Files)

And here's how each of the three things apply:

1. Potter -- Dumbledore and, primarily, Ron and Hermione; each book has its own quest, but it climaxes in the quest for the horcruxes.
2. Luke -- Obi-Wan and Han, Leia, and Chewbacca; the quest theme isn't as clearly defined in these: there are moments of questiness
3. Garion -- Belgarath and, well, really, many more than I want to list; the orb
4. Rand -- Moraine and Lan serve the part of mentor while Mat, Perrin, Egwene and Nynaeve serve as compainions; being such a long series, the quests change as the series progresses
5. Cypher -- Zedd as mentor and Kahlan as companion; the quest is for one of the boxes of Orden
6. Batman -- Alfred serves as mentor while Robin (through most of Batman's history) is his companion; his quest is for justice
7. Spider-Man -- Uncle Ben as mentor, but Spidey has no consistent companions, being mostly a loner; his quest is similar to Batman's but focused more on preventing the devastation he felt from failing to prevent his uncle's death
8. Superman -- Pa Kent and a variety of newspaper cronies; I think Superman is mostly questless
9. a. Arya Stark -- I'm going to say that Jaqen serves as her mentor; she has companions, but I'm not going to look up their names. I'm not sure how to label her quest other than as revenge.
9. b. Bran Stark -- I believe the mentor character is Brynden Rivers (but I could have the name wrong); there are various companions. There is some quest or other that takes him beyond the wall. Thing. Whatever it's called.
10. Dorothy -- The closest thing to a mentor is Glenda; probably, you all know the companions. And the quest to get home to Kansas.
11. Katniss -- Haymitch is probably the primary mentor, though a case could be made for Effie. Peeta is her primary companion, at least in the first one. The quest stuff is less defined in these books (from what I can tell from the movies), though the overall patter is the same.
12. Skeeve -- Aahz is the mentor, and he has various companions. I'm not sure the quest trope fits (it's been too long since I read them.)
13. Pug -- Kulgan is Pug's first mentor, though that changes when he leaves Midkemia. He has two sets of companions, too. There's more than one quest.
14. Dresden -- Ebenezar McCoy is about as mentor-y as you can get and has all flavors of Gandalf written all over him. In overalls. There is the expected cast of companions with Karrin Murphy as the main one. Also, Bob. As a series, the quests vary book to book.

As you can see, virtually every example listed uses some variation of all three points, the most notable exception probably being The Wizard of Oz because calling Glenda the mentor is actually a stretch. This is also the part of fantasy story-telling that we can most "blame" on Tolkien. Specifically, we can blame it on the excellent character of Gandalf that he created and everyone has wanted to play with ever since then. In fact, the authors Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis have their wizard Fizban call himself Gandalf "by mistake" in one of their books, something I found quite amusing when I was a teenager.

Tolkien also sends us on quests and gives us companions for our protagonist. In The Hobbit, the dwarves serve somewhat interchangeably as companions, meaning that none of them other than Thorin are strictly necessary, though he does flesh them out enough to show us that specific dwarves are better at particular activities, like Fili and Kili and their ability to make fire.

It's in The Lord of the Rings, though, that the "party system," as we've come to think of it, and which D&D so liberally "borrowed," was really created. Each companion has his own field of specialization, so to speak. Legolas is "The Archer;" Gimli is "The Warrior," though we've actually come to think of that as "dwarf warrior" in fantasy circles, because Beorn is the "human warrior." Arogorn is "The Ranger." And there's Gandalf... And nearly every fantasy book written since LotR has used some variation of this.

So we do find that Tolkien used these three points of the list, but the real question is whether he invented these things or if they came from somewhere else.

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Two: Orphans and the Gum Under the Seat

It may seem that the easiest way to find the origins of fantasy literature would be to simply follow the trail of fantasy literature back in history until we get to the earliest examples of it, but that would cause some problems. For instance, when does fantasy cease to be fantasy and become legend or myth? Are we going to call Beowulf a fantasy story? Or the tales of the Greek and Egyptian gods? Or Gilgamesh? It gets kinda messy if we do that. And that's not really what we're looking for, anyway. No, we're trying to establish where our current model for fantasy writing comes from. Look back at the last post to see the list.

So, although we're not going to go looking for historical beginnings, we are going to start at the beginning. Or, at least, where all fantasy stories start: the orphan boy. Sure, sure, it's not always a boy; Disney has given us plenty of girls, after all; but, when we start talking about the genre of fantasy literature, it's nearly always a boy. Or, even, outside the strict confines of fantasy. Let's take a look at some of the most popular examples (and some that I just like):

1. Harry Potter
2. Luke Skywalker
3. Garion (The Belgariad)
4. Rand al'Thor (The Wheel of Time)
5. Richard Cypher (The Sword of Truth)
6. Batman
7. Spider-Man
8. Superman
9. Arya and Bran Stark (A Song of Fire and Ice)
10. Dorothy (The Wizard of Oz)
11. Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)
12. Skeeve (MythAdventures)
13. Pug (The Riftwar Saga)
14. Harry Dresden (The Dresden Files)

And, actually, I could just go on and on, but I've probably made my point. The fact is, almost any piece of fantasy that you pick up will have the orphan kid as the protagonist. In fact, I'm having trouble thinking of anything that doesn't use that as a starting point. Okay, technically, Dresden is not an orphan kid at the beginning of the series, but there is much made of the fact that he was an orphan so, even though we start with him as an adult, we get the full orphan background for him and how that set him up as the person he is when the series starts. And, yes, Arya and Bran don't start that series as orphans, but the orphan thing for them is significant and clearly part of the paradigm. We just get to see them get orphaned.

In fact, the author that is conspicuously missing from this list is Tolkien. Bilbo is most definitely not an orphan nor is he a kid. Bilbo isn't even young. Nor is Frodo. Okay, you could make a case for the orphan status of Frodo, but it doesn't actually have any bearing on the story. It was actually a contrivance by Tolkien to give Bilbo an heir that wasn't there during The Hobbit. Then there's the fact that Frodo is 50 by the time he leaves the Shire with the Ring. The orphan trope just doesn't apply when we're talking about Tolkien, so it must have come from somewhere else.

Added to the "orphan boy" trope there are the "child of prophecy" and "special" tropes. Special can mean some sort of special ability or having royal parents or any number of things. So let's go down our list and see which of these apply to the group I've selected.

1. Harry Potter -- there is a prophecy, and he's special (survived the death curse)
2. Luke Skywalker -- son of Vader, which makes him pretty special (and the prequels add in a prophecy)
3. Garion -- there's a prophecy, he's the hidden son of a king, and he's a powerful wizard
4. Rand al'Thor -- there's a prophecy and he's special
5. Richard Cypher -- he's got both things, too
6. Batman -- no prophecy, but he's special (yes, unlimited wealth counts as a special ability)
7. Spider-Man -- also, no prophecy, but he's genius smart and gets super powers
8. Superman -- I think the special is apparent. Have they ever included any kind of prophecy for him? I don't know.
9. Arya and Bran Stark -- Arya has some kind of prophecy about her, and Bran has special powers. Maybe there's a prophecy about him, too? Not having read the books, I'm not clear on all of it. But it's clear that these two are central to the story, and they have all the markers. Actually, so does Daenerys.
10. Dorothy -- there's no prophecy, but they certainly treat her as if she is special
11. Katniss -- also no prophecy (I don't think), but she is clearly portrayed as being extraordinary
12. Skeeve -- I don't remember there being any kind of prophecy, but Skeeve is portrayed as being above normal.
13. Pug -- prophecy and special magic powers
14. Harry Dresden -- there is some kind of prophecy (though I'm not to a point in the series where I know what it is, but it's been mentioned), and he's more powerful than he ought to be

So all of these examples have at least one of the two things and many have both. Tolkien, however, has neither. There is no prophecy in either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien makes it very clear that Bilbo and Frodo are only special in that they are willing to go, which is to say not special at all. They have no special powers or abilities. They are just hobbits.

When we look back at the first four things on the list from the last post (special orphan boy of prophecy), we find that Tolkien has none of these things; therefore, saying that this part of the fantasy structure is based on Tolkien would be a foolish thing to say. This idea is fairly central to modern fantasy, but it certainly doesn't come from the "Father of Modern Fantasy."

Oh! Before you leave, make sure you check under your chair; the orphans, special or not, leave gum there for good little children. Or whoever is sitting in the chair.