What is high fantasy, and what is low fantasy? I used to think it was a matter of magnitude, but now I'm not sure

This is the only real answer, the rest of you guys are morons who don't understand that the word fantasy isn't equal to magic.

People thinking it is amount ARE right, but fantasy means deviation from the norm, specifically our world and its rules.

The problem is that magic isn't THAT crazy, it's something people (here referring to many groups) have at one point believed and been killed over. People have not killed because they thought someone was from Mordor.

Magic is simply a deviation from how our physics work, so harry potter seems somewhat plausible even though it is obviously impossible.

An alternate universe with different cultures, landforms, constellations, and such is much odder. Especially when you look at low magic high fantasy settings that have stayed static for thousands upon thousands of years. Obviously some weird physics don't work there.

To put it simply: low fantasy is grounded in our reality, and the higher fantasy your story gets the more it deviates into something that belongs in a dreamscape or someone's fantasy. Oh, maybe that's where the term comes from you fucktards

Technically, Etrian Odyssey is post-apocalypse

Not him, bit I think part of the problem of high/low magic is that it only takes into account magic, and maybe monsters.

High and low fantasy seem to refer to fantastical elements, which includes a lot more than just magic and monsters - other strange abilities and unique societies, new technologies, new creatures or races not connected to magic. Fantasy as opposed to reality, and that's how most people tend to understand it as because it makes more sense than fantasy only referring to earth or not earth. It feels wrong to have ASOIAF on the same level as Spelljammer, when there are vast differences between them.

Tolkien's Legendarium is set on earth

Guys, look how high fantasy my world is. There is not a single wizard or monster on this whole speck of stone, but it isn't on Earth so it's fantasy! AND HIGH!

Correct. That's Low Fantasy.

Correct. That's High Fantasy

This is a good example why
Is both right and wrong. I would agree with defining high and low fantasy by its degrees of deviation from a historical setting, but the 'On Earth' criteria can be broken in too many ways to stand up.

As well as the quoted example, what about dying earth/third law fantasy? It can be effectively anywhere on the high/low spectrun but just rubbing out "Earth" and calling the old world "Qyeieheiehsdfjg XVI" can change it from high and low fantasy while not altering the setting in any meaningful way, making the criteria irrelevant.

autism

>Low fantasy
>A game where someone can split himself into six perfect clones each as powerful as he is and unleash a powerful attack that overkills dragons, abyssal gods, and monsters the size of buildings is low fantasy.
>A game where a massive tree plonks down from the sky and creates an intricate labyrinth with its roots to pin down an eldritch terror it was chasing across the galaxy is low fantasy
>A game where a young girl covered in chains and suffering from anemia can freeze deadly monsters with a gaze and command them to kill themselves with a few words is low fantasy
>A game where monsters are constantly brought back to life by the power of a giant tree (and this is accepted as fact) is low fantasy
>A game where daggers that do fuck-all damage but have a ridiculously high chance of killing things that could rip an entire party to shreds in a few turns is low fantasy
>A game with wizards, elemental guns, curse masters, alchemists, shielders who can ward elements, warriors who can summon massive clubs of ice, and scrolls can teach people how to survive a single fatal blow with 1HP remaining, even if this blow does 4 or 5 digit damage, is low fantasy
YOU ARE FUCKING RETARDED

On that note, pic related is by my favorite low-fantasy writer

While this guy is technically correct, he's wrong and boring.

High Fantasy is about magic and the supernatural, it can normally be quantified but it is encountered every single day. Gryphon's are reared for the royal guard, the trees uproot themselves and run away from Lumberjacks and your wife is a Shortstack Halfling, you love your life.

Low Fantasy may well have magic and the supernatural be regularly encountered, but they're not quantifiable. Nobody rears supernatural creatures because they bite your arm off and touching one seems to cause a fever that'll probably kill you. The Trees don't bother telling the Lumberjacks to stay away, they just uproot and crush the guy before settling back down, and your wife is dead after drinking water from the town well.

It quite obviously depends on the prevalence of fantastical elements. If you have a largely medieval-like setting with only a few fantastical elements (magic, races, monsters, etc) sprinkled in, it's low fantasy. If it is chock-full of this kind of stuff it's magic. That is why ASOIAF is low fantasy and Forgotten Realms high fantasy.

bullshit

>>A game where monsters are constantly brought back to life by the power of a giant tree (and this is accepted as fact) is low fantasy
Wait wait when was this said?

It's said in 3 by Siegfred after you kill the Guardian. He basically says "Oh well, the power of Yggdrasil will revive it in a week".

I don't make the rules. See You seem to be getting high/low fantasy confused with high/low magic. It's an easy mistake to make so don't blame yourselves. :^)

i specifically said fantastical elements and listed races, monsters, magic as examples. so, no, no confusion here.

also:
>implying wikipedia makes the rules
hell, no

High fantasy is a story that is very fantastical.

Low fantasy is a story that is a little bit fantastical.

Both can exist in the same setting/universe. It's more useful as a way to describe a story, not a way to describe a world.

Kill yourself

...

I sadly don't have a good definition off the cuff, I judge based case by case.

Magic involved directly? High Fantasy.

Magic not existant? Low Fantasy.

Conan IS high fantasy.
Beowulf is low fantasy.

You can have monsters and shit in low fantasy but the use of magic may not be a thing.

fantasy = author's made up bullshit is real and normal for the world
fairytale = author's made up bullshit is not normal for the world

low fantasy = toned down conan the barbarian

high fantasy = lotr

nope. song of ice and fire is high fantasy just because they have those ice people in the north lol

No one is sure. Don't bother thinking about it

Let's break the rules and make ours then

What defines magic? Why would flying lizards that breath fire not count as magic?

that is the LITERARY definition of low and high fantasy

tabletop games (and video games) have used a different definition since forever

this is some of the worst posting in recent history

what the fuck are you talking about, the article contradicts your statement

The Wyrm didn't fly. That's a later thing.

The breath was also poisonous and the loose translations of the era could have easily been the same as Grendel and how his blood 'burned' steel despite just being poison.

Obviously its still fantastical but a poison spewing giant lizard/snake is less fantastical than Smaug or a lion who's coat made it invulnerable to blades purely because it's an exaggeration of existing elements and not directly supernatural.

After all Saint George killing a 'dragon' could just be him killing a large crocodile due to how the description loosely matching it. English legends don't really go full insane like continental Europe.

Grendel set the standards for trolls. Poison blood and too big for any man to feasibly fight.

His mother was the same.

The dragon set the standard for a monster that's TOO much for a hero and will result in his death regardless just like Thor and Jörmungandr.

The magical elements are a thing but they aren't directly explained or linked to the events. Magic in low fantasy tends to be passive at best or god only at worst.

When mortals have ANY access to it then it becomes high fantasy. Even if they are considered supernatural.

>WELL UMM THATS NOT THE DEFINITION ACADEMIA USES

You do realize that's because video games fucked it up and then no ever questioned it because fuck it, right?

Nothing like the etymology of your chosen definition being traced back to "some nerds used it wrong a couple times."

Your shittypedia article says that low fantasy is the supernatural happening in a rational world.

By your logic, Fate/Stay Night is low fantasy despite the world being as far from rational as it can get.

See, you're getting prevalence confused with potential.

Low magic settings have just enough magic to make it worth using in the setting. Things not much more powerful that light and heat spells/enchantments/etc, or maybe 6 hour rituals to call a single bolt of lightning or what have you. Magic exists, but it's never replacing even primitive forms of technology.

Whereas low fantasy can have straight up fireball tossing wizards or graceful fairies with eye-gouging beauty, but they're not a common part of the world. The world might not even know about them, in fact. Everything is going on about it's business, and the fantasy elements are impacting on the setting instead of overtaking it.

You should have known that, and blaming yourself would be appropriate.

>Die
>Cling on to life by your fingernails
>Come back to life
>Mystic Eyes of Death Perception
>You can now kill things to where every property it has is null, including toxicity, momentum, or value.
>You can even kill collective entities, concepts, or entire buildings in a single strike
That's Low Fantasy™ as fuck

Let's refrain from shitty prescriptiveness.

Buffy = low fantasy

Harry Potter = low fantasy

Twilight = low fantasy

Fate/Stay = low fantasy

LotR = high fantasy

LotR might be on an alternate earth (ignoring 'alternate' already being pretty high fantasy), but the characters and events are not set in something grounded on Earth which low fantasy requires. Buffy is about teens fighting monsters, HP is about a typical boy being caught up in a fantastical world muggles don't see, Twilight is shitty and about an incredibly generic girl getting involved in stuff, and type moon has stupid magic and nonsensical timelines but the characters (especially in the original work) are grounded on real world teens dealing with the fantastical elements.

That is the real differentiation. It can be argued that ASoIaF could be low fantasy because the social structures and conflict are so heavily designed on our own, but the period is so far away it isn't relatable so much as romanticized - making it pretty high fantasy especially since the introduction is that there is an evil apocalypse coming and the squabbling of nobility has made humans blind to it.

and? When discussing fantasy books, use the definition chosen by the nerds writing books. When discussing fantasy games, use the definition chosen by the nerds making games.

>Mount and Blade is high fantasy

Geeeet
Fucked

That's not how words work, user.

Those nerds making games just didn't know what the hell they were saying and/or the English translation was spotty. That's not an excuse when "moar magic = high fantasy" breaks so much worse than the classic definition.

There is no ceiling for magical power but there is absolutely a ground, so the definition becomes an arbitrary scale of low fantasy having consistent meaning while high fantasy covers too much ground.

High fantasy = setting where fantastical elements are mundane
Low fantasy = setting where fantastical elements are fantastical

>That's not how words work, user.
That is exactly how words work. The fact that you think the definitions of High and Low Fantasy are even well established in literature is more than a little ridiculous.

how is asoiaf low fantasy? it may be grittier than lotr, but there are dragons, mages of various kinds, and multiple intelligent non-human races, not to mention shit like resurrection.

Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
Yes.

You're an idiot.

Every genre definition is squabbled over, but not to the degree of "low fantasy is fantasy without magic well OK some magic but it's a vague level of magic in the story."

Low fantasy being as defined as "if it is set on Earth" is wrong but arguing between and is significantly different.

Wrong. Works set on fictional worlds where magic and the like aren't supposed to exist are low fantasy, and works set on worlds that are Earth In Name Only but have completely different laws of nature is high fantasy.

It was low fantasy from the start but it shifted as it went on

The whole "primary world/secondary world" split causes more arguments than you'd think, and there are many who'd consider things like HP high fantasy because of it.

Basically my point is nerds were arguing about this shit back in the 70's, and they still haven't actually managed to convince everyone one way or the other. There's no accepted definition of low or high fantasy. At best you'll be able to find essays on why one author believes it should be one way or another, while others print shit that disagrees with them.

It is literally and unironically the skub argument of fantasy fiction.