This week: If high fantasy is dragons and orcs and wizards, then what is low fantasy? Then it's the return of the trivia segment, plus all the usual footnotes. Here we go.
One of the longest-running magazines for short science-fiction often finds itself abbreviated as F&SF. That F is for fantasy, itself a genre so broad and branching that defining it as a genre is nearly impossible except for one thing: Fantasy stories1 have magic. The only question is what kind. Is this the magic of Gandolf the Grey fighting the Balrog, or Dorothy's silver slippers taking her back to Kansas, or Harry Potter's broom-riding, spell-slinging, time-warping adventures?
So, today we'll look at three terms being used to subdivide the fantasy genre. There are, of course, many more. But these three are a good starting point for deciding what kind of fantasy you're looking at.
High Fantasy
These days, when we talk about high fantasy, we mean books like the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien didn't invent the genre, but, much like the Velvet Underground's first record2, his epic adventure set the template for the next generation of authors. And I mean that literally. In the seventy years since LotR was first published, authors like David Eddings, Robert Jordan, and George R.R. Martin3 have published their own epic stories, each borrowing liberally from Tolkien.
So what, aside from magic, makes a story high fantasy? Setting, mostly. High fantasy novels (or movies) are set somewhere other than our Earth4. Think of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain or Tad Williams' Osten Ard. From there, other elements might include mythical creatures like dragons or elves and usually involve some sort of quest or long, drawn-out adventure.
Low Fantasy
On the flip side, low fantasy stories are often set on Earth, or at least a version of it. They tend to be more grounded; a lot of popular modern fantasy fiction could be considered low fantasy because the characters interact with people who do not know about the fantasy world around them. Think about muggles in the Harry Potter universe, blissfully unaware that there are wizards and witches walking amongst them every day.
Low fantasy can also have lower5 stakes than high fantasy. Think about a series like the Southern Vampire Mysteries, which you may know better as the t.v. show True Blood. The stakes in those stories are rarely the Fate Of The World, but more along the lines of, who killed that guy?
Somewhere In Between
The vast majority of popular fantasy series do not fall neatly into either category though. There are series like John Christopher's Sword of the Spirits which only slowly reveals that it is actually set on Earth or Terry Pratchet's beloved Discworld, where the stories are comedic and low-stakes but set somewhere other than our Roundworld.6 For that matter, should the Oz books be considered high or low fantasy? Or do they have to be taken individually depending on whether Dorothy is fighting to save Oz or just trying to get back to Kansas? It's impossible to say with any certainty.
This is, of course, as it should be. Over the past few issues, as I've explored different genres, I've made the point that genre is largely a marketing term. But in this case, genre provides a starting point for analyzing and dissecting the tropes that make a good fantasy story, allowing authors to build something new and entertaining out of all-too-familiar pieces.
Further Reading
Here are a couple of blog posts that have lots of examples of both genres and their related subgenres for anyone looking for some good summer reading:
Trivially Yours
It's incredibly frustrating to a word nerd like me that fantastic has two distinct meanings:
based on or containing elements of fantasy
great
I'm guessing, on any average day, I hear that second usage a lot more than I do the first. And when I do want to use the first meaning, I find that I always have to clarify: Yeah, it's a pretty fantastic movie. I mean, it's a fantasy. I mean, dragons. There are dragons in the movie. So, uh, fantastic.
Stay curious,
J
Unlike the real world, dammit.
"The Velvet Underground didn’t sell many records, but everyone who bought one went out and started a band." - most likely adapted from an interview with Brian Eno about Lou Reed
Martin especially is interesting because his (Game of Thrones) is a modern work that sets out to deliberately subvert a lot of the fantastical elements of typical high fantasy.
Tolkien insisted that the LoTR could not be high fantasy because it is set on Earth, just in the ancient past.
Wikipedia helpfully notes that the "low" in low-fantasy comes from the number of fantastical elements, not the quality of the work. Good to know.
If you don't get the reference, start with my favorite Discworld book - Mort - and go from there. You won't regret it, I promise.