High Fantasy

>High Fantasy
>Low Fantasy
>Epic Fantasy
>Sword&Sorcery

What does any of it fucking mean

Other urls found in this thread:

strawpoll.me/11802262
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fantasy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasy
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

I don't know. How does King Crimson work, OP?

google it

Maybe if you looked it up more than not at all you'd know. Come on man, you have access to almost the entire sum of current human knowledge at your fingertips. There's no excuse for this kind of shit.

>stupid
>boring
>cliche
>hipster

>Elric
>Game of Thrones
>Lord of the Rings
>Conan

>High Fantasy
Magic everywhere, distant from reality
>Low Fantasy
Magic sparse, close to reality
>Epic Fantasy
Same as High Fantasy but with a greater scope focus than individuals
>Sword&Sorcery
Attempt at meeting the middle ground between high and low fantasy by allowing mundanes to content with the supernatural

Fuck, this might be right.

> High Fantasy
Everybody gets magic.
> Low Fantasy
Nobody gets magic.
>Epic Fantasy
Global stakes. This one's kinda bullshit.
>Sword&Sorcery
Villains get magic. Heroes don't get magic.

>High Fantasy
Not grounded in reality.

>Low Fantasy
Grounded in reality.

>Epic Fantasy
Good vs Evil saving the world stuff.

>Sword&Sorcery
More personal and selfish sorts of plots.

>Epic Fantasy
>Lord of the Rings
Yeah that's on point. I can't really think of any setting that I'd describe as epic fantasy other than Middle-Earth.

Useful, but sometimes pedantic, categorization. It doesn't includes all the fantasy genre offers, like my favorite Invisible Cities.

The modern world has this mania for making a precise classification of things, and sometimes it is misleading. I consider this a side effect of the sheer amount of information our age produces and stores.

The biggest example is Lord of the Rings: defined as high fantasy, but that 'subgenre' was defined afterwards Tolkien wrote his trilogy.

When he made it, he intended to, and achieved, mythology. It's not wrong to call LofR high fantasy, but it has more in common, and draws from, the Odissey, Mahabarata and similars.

Those examples do have many ideas defined as trappings of high fantasy. The "Astras" showed in the Mahabarata are clearly epic and godly weapons that destroy great evils and powerful, Tarrasque-level monsters, each one could be the basis for an entire campaign.

>To summon or use an astra required knowledge of a specific incantation/invocation, when armed. The deity invoked would then endow the weapon making it impossible to counter through regular means. Specific conditions existed involving the usage of astras, the violation of which could be fatal. Because of the power involved, the knowledge involving an astra was passed in the Guru-shishya tradition from a Guru (teacher) to a Shishya (pupil) by word of mouth alone, and only following the establishment of the student's character. Certain astras had to be handed down from the deity involved directly, knowledge of the incantation being insufficient.

>Bhaumastra could create tunnels deep into the earth and summon jewels.

>Nagaastra would have an unerring aim and take on the form of a snake, proving deadly upon impact.

...

>GoT
>Low

I'd consider Elric Sword and Sorcery. If not in themes, in style for sure. It's old school.

>High fantasy
In literary terms it's fantasy with no connection to Earth. In neckbeard terms it's "fantastical" fantasy where the story emphasis is on the fantastical elements.

>Low fantasy
Literary: Some connection to Earth
Neckbeard: Emphasis is on human struggles rather than fantastic elements.

Lord of the RIngs is high fantasy in both senses.

Narnia and The Worm Ouroboros are examples of literary low fantasy, neckbeard high fantasy.

Game of Thrones and Black Company are literary high fantasy and mostly neckbeard low fantasy, though the fantastical elements are very fantastical, the focus of the story is on regular human shit.

>Epic

Come on man

>Sword and sorcery

This is a tougher one. Thematically sword and sorcery tends to be rough and gritty, old school where the dudes are huge and there's women hanging off of them, and the villains are usually evil sorcerers or lizard people.

Stylistically sword and sorcery tends to be more along the lines of something you'd hear told over a campfire.

Epic Fantasy is a name I'd only ever attribute to LotR. Tolkien practically wrote his own literary epic.

...

>Narnia
>low fantasy

>literary low fantasy, neckbeard high fantasy.
He's kinda right. Low fantasy in traditional literary terms refers to fantastical events occurring in or in relation to our world. The idea that low vs high fantasy somehow decides if the setting has magic and dragons or not is something that came along later.

High Fantasy:
>doesn't take place on Earth

Low Fantasy:
>takes place on Earth

It's not hard you guys.

you can count the uses (and users) of magic in the world with one hand. monsters exist and generally none of them enjoy seeing any humans alive. that's a decent compounding of low fantasy tropes.

ASOIAF is High Fantasy because it doesn't take place on Earth. You are thinking of High/Low Magic.

>>Sword&Sorcery
>Villains get magic. Heroes don't get magic.

But heroes get big bulging thews, so it all works out.

So a completely magicless setting without any other races is immediately high fantasy if the continent it takes place on isn't shaped like europe?

That's bullshit and you know it. You can regurgitate the same opinion as many times as you like, I'm going to disregard it every time.

Means you should lurk moar

>Low fantasy in traditional literary terms refers to
>traditional literary terms
actually no, low/high fantasy as you're describing it is a colloquialism coined by neckbeards arguing about fantasy literature in the 60's

there's no traditional definition of low fantasy, be it in literature or otherwise

You're free to shut your eyes to the truth, user. I can't stop you.

>What is tone and a thematic setting?
Someone's been playing Darklands.

>High Fantasy
There are enormously powerful non-human Powers at play, influencing events and conflicts between various people with fantastic abilities with little regard to the laws of Science or Nature.
>Low Fantasy
People vie for resources and territory/political power, and resolve their conflicts through strategy and abilities that generally respect Physical Law.
>Epic Fantasy
Clashing Empires/Worlds/Dimensions struggle for their people's future, if not the future of all Reality
>Swords and Sorcery
Scrappy murderhobos try to overthrow the local dickish Warlord/Cult leader/Wizard who's making everyone's lives difficult.

This guy gets it.

What about shit like Malazan or Wheel of Time where you got godmode motherfuckers walking around blowing everything up and doing all sorts of crazy shit?

Almost the entire work of Michael Moorcock? Even Frank Herbert's Dune qualifies.
It's not our fault you aren't well read.

>genre fiction
>well read

>Oh noes genre
>In a thread specifically addressing genre

>Has only watched LotR blu rays
>Smugly weighs in on the differences of fantasy genre anyway.
>Gets touchy when he's called out for being completely unfamiliar with the thread topic

Go fuck yourself already

>"literary fiction" is still a genre, it's just a genre for snobbish people

strawpoll.me/11802262

Let's settle this

He's moved on to /co/, to tell them that comics and cartoons are for babbies

I settled it here
You weren't paying attention, clearly.

Where is the "it linguistically used to mean that it took place on an alternate earth, but evolution of the phrase means that in its modern usage it refers to a low-magic setting" option?

Then we're determining whether that shift has achieved critical mass yet.

The truth isn't a democracy.

Neither answer is correct. You can have hedge magic all over the place and it still be low fantasy, if hedge magic is just used to make the chickens lay extra eggs and cure warts and so forth. Whether it takes place in quasi-historical England or Xombarg is irrelevant as well.

>Buffy the vampire slayer is high fantasy
This is how stupid you sound.

The definition of words is. The will of the people says that 'gay' means 'cocksucking assfaggot', not 'happy'.

We'll compromise and call it middle fantasy.

Not with everything, but it is with words.

The best modern definition is Seriously, "it has magic in it" is something in basically every fantasy story ever told and how much magic is a waste of breath because you immediately have to use other genres terms to continue to describe it instead of being used like a subgenre.

It's also stupid because there is a defined floor and no defined ceiling to magic and the border is impossible to define.

It's a garbage definition even if the primary/secondary world is too broad and inconsistent.

The difference between High Fantasy and Low Fantasy is the extent to which the fantastical elements are driving the narrative and empowering the sides in the conflict.

You can have a Low Fantasy setting on Planet Shoobala with big pink dinosaurs and floating islands, and it just be some hunter gatherer types attacking each other with primitive weapons and burning each other's villages with torches.

Conversely, you can have High Fantasy in Wales with two warring clans using Druidic Magic and sacred monolithic stones to summon faerie assassins.

>Satan exists and sends his demons to fuck with sexy vampires and the occult wielding humans who hunt them.
Yes, this is High Fantasy.

Each of these words mean something different to someone else but basic idea from what I understand is:

>High Fantasy

Anything from "Lord of the Rings" to "Final Fantasy". It's silly, magic is prevalent, scifi elements might be mixed into the batch, etc.

>Low Fantasy

usually means Game of Thrones or any fantasy where magic isn't prevalent and people die of diseases.

>Epic Fantasy

Have not heard this?

>Sword&Sorcerey

Often crosses over with Low Fantasy and explicitly just means "Conan the Barbarian" or anything of a pulp fantasy variety. Usually taking place in a proto-medeival setting.

Yes, same as Kevin Sorbo Hercules. Or Xena for that matter.
The overarching plot and conflicts are driven by supernatural entities who openly wield unknowable magic powers.
That's how High Fantasy works, even when it isn't Epic.

see

Solid definitions there senpai

8/10

Go back to Veeky Forums you David Foster Wall-ass

Low/high fantasy has never had a proper definition, it is merely a label slapped onto fantasy as a way of compartmentalizing shit some nerd wants to argue about in an essay.

outside of informal use, the distinction is literally a spook

Every dickish Sword and Sorcery BBEG warlord should be played as Jack Palance would have.

The motion carries, next order of business, the ratio of magic swords in high fantasy compared to low

Even still, a man is allowed to use words in an archaic sense both in everyday conversation and in writing. For example:

"Grey patriarchs of weathered stone gazing grim and stern over the green grasses where the laughing gay children run and play"

is perfectly acceptable to say.

Neither. It is about tone.

> Buffy isn't high fantasy
This is how stupid you sound

This is low Fantasy Sword and Sorcery, btw.

As is Conan the Barbarian, as Crom generally gives no fucks and Doom is a cultist who can wereshape into a snake. Valeria popping in for 3 seconds doesn't change this, as the narrative is simple "You killed my Father, prepare to die".

I really do think that Elric is closer to Sword and Sorcery, but still, that's not bad at all.

Princess Bride, also Low Fantasy Sword and Sorcery.

Elric's universe (multiverse really) is driven by an eternal conflict between Law, Chaos and the Balance, and he's eternally living lives upsetting the very balance of the universes he incarnates in, sometimes to the extent of destroying entire pantheons/nations.
It's definitely High Magic, Epic Fantasy.

That's not even close to what Buffy's plots or themes are. It's a monster of the week show featuring high schoolers facing unknown supernatural forces. Magic, demons, etc. are widely unknown to people.

>Hercules and Xena are high fantasy
By this definition fucking anything with fantastical elements is high fantasy. What is low fantasy to you?

>High Fantasy
Focus on grand conflicts, large presence of magic, and generally an emphasis on the influence of greater powers (gods, magicians, kings, ect...)
>Low Fantasy
A focus on the normal folk. Magic can be present but isn't the focus of the narrative. People are born, live, and die without knowledge of it and magic is known only to a handful of people.
>Epic Fantasy
Like high fantasy, but with more of an emphasis on the battle between good and evil as well as godly conflicts as well as larger-than-life characters
>Sword and Sorcery
A combination of low fantasy and epic fantasy, with grand quests and magic but mixed with personal struggles and grit. Mainly attributed to Conan and other like settings.

Yeah, you're right. I guess I think more of the pulpy bits of the books and tend to forget a lot of the larger world building.
Time to reread Elric and Corum at least.

Whereas Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are High Magic, Sword and Sorcery.
While Gods and Immortal Wizards exist, they rarely influence human affairs with their powers, and generally are a nuisance to the duo's petty robberies and squabbles.

>What is low fantasy to you?
Any setting where the Big Supernatural stuff (if it exists) is just window dressing for down-to-earth tales of robbery or regular warfare.

Frankenstein and Werewolf fiction are like this, they involve supernatural fantasy, but God or Satan isn't directly involved and the big bad is put down with fire or silver.

>High fantasy is defined as fantasy set in an alternative, fictional ("secondary") world, rather than "the real", or "primary" world. The secondary world is usually internally consistent, but its rules differ from those of the primary world. By contrast, low fantasy is characterized by being set in the primary, or "real" world, or a rational and familiar fictional world, with the inclusion of magical elements

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fantasy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasy

Excalibur is just rivals fighting over a girl and a small kingdom on an island, it's Low Fantasy Swords and Sorcery. Merlin makes some smoke, disguises one guy, and a Lake Maiden hands off a really sharp (but breakable) sword.

Dancers at the End of Time is some crazy shit too.

Personally, I'd put the Gentlemen Bastards series for Low Fantasy, but then that's still relatively obscure.

The Thorn of Emberlain when?

>High Fantasy
Fate of the world
>Low Fantasy
Fate of the kingdom
>Epic Fantasy
Fate of the multiverse
>Sword&Sorcery
Fate of the dick

Not nearly soon enough.

/thread

It's not like it's a hard discipline, there have been no referendums on this terminology. There can be and are different definitions.

The distinction of high fantasy and low fantasy being non-Earth and Earth are the first definitions of those terms. They were coined meaning these things, by Lloyd Alexander.

It makes sense (arguably more sense, which is why people started taking them this way to start with) that they're used to mean "more fantastical, thus more magic" and "less fantastical, thus less magic", but it doesn't change what the terms were created to mean.

Not as stupid as the spongebob squarepants movie does not follow the heros journy but its up there.

I would say it does not auctualy matter.
However high fantasy will have more of the higher end magic swords although low fantasy can sometimes reach much higher quality at the top end.

>i've shit taste and can't roleplay anything that isn't mary sue
>i've shit taste and can't enjoy anything that isn't in covered in shit
>i've shit taste and can't enjoy anything that doesn't go well with my dragonforce collection
>i've shit taste and i like to ripoff conan the barbarian

For your sake I've also taken liberty to define certain other genres:
>dark fantasy=i've shit taste and my setting is like dark souls but tabletop
>science fantasy=i've shit taste and i love to mix things that should not be mixed
>science fiction (soft)=i've shit taste and i like to recycle my fantasy shit in space
>science fiction (hard)=i've shit taste and my autism doesn't allow anything fun in my setting
>lovecraftian=i've shit taste and i just read at the mountains of madness and decided that it would make a perfect run'n'gun setting

>I've shit taste and my autism doesn't allow anything fun in my setting
What is: The Expanse?

Cyberpunk is the best genre?
Okay then.

The Expanse isn't anywhere near hard sci-fi. What are you talking about?

kys

Could you provide examples?

>*rattles tits* GENRE FICTION GENRE FICTION GENRE FICTION

Isn't Hard Sci-fi cyberpunk in space?

mech fantasy best fantasy. Mechs and mideval is my fave aethetic.

Only ones i can really think of are warmachine and (to an extent) 40k knights

What about Dark Fantasy?

Urban fantasy

99% of current dark fantasy campaigns can be summed up
>it is like dark souls expect X

Not necessarily. The Expanse is pretty solidly hard SF in the background (apart from super-efficient fusion drives, but there's no FTL and colonies are made using generation ships) but the alien tech that appears in the books is pretty much sufficiently advanced technology. The books still respects science up to a degree, though, so it's nicely hard. You're thinking of stuff like transhuman space and eclipse phase (which are hard sf + cyberpunk, and a sprinkling of borderline incomprehensible advanced technology in the latter's case).

What would you classify this setting?
Literally Medieval Earth but with all locations and cultures under different names with magic being prevalent, gods are real but they rarely appear and only their effects can be seen and no explicit Judeo-Christian religions, but various analogues for them exist.
Various mythylogical creatures exist but the focus is still on humans even though humans can become as strong as demigods through magic if they apply themselves.

So basically it's the new >it's like Berserk except X

this
+
this.

for sure.

useless definition.

if it takes place on our earth, its not.

if it takes place on an alternate earth with magic (harry potter) (buffy) (marvel comics) (dresden files) etc, its still not our world, its a different world simply designed to look less alien.

this definition of high/low fantasy is functionally useless.

>forgotten realms is low fantasy
this definition is not functionally useful.

So from what I learned from this thread is that varying degrees of fantasy definitions is just neckbeard autism made manifest?