I really like mixed genres, and they rarely fall into cliches. I'd really like to see a Horror/Fantasy (a standard Fantasy world, but instead of having the epic quest, the characters just get killed), Detective/Fantasy, or even a Western/Fantasy
I completely agree... Every time i approach a new work i keep that in mind. To be totally honest, i even end up with bad ideas working their way in simply because i would rather put out a crap idea than an overplayed cliche.
What makes a fantasy generic to me isn't the iconography or the world or even the races. It's the absence of mystique. Books that read well create their own mystique like an aura that keeps drawing you back to that writer hoping to rediscover that place again. The books I put down halfway through or mid-series are lacking it. For me, that mystique doesn't hang on a single premise or idea, it's the combination of authentic voice, interesting characters and milieu, and if a work has got it, it can have all the usual stuff in it and still work as a captivating read of the fantasy genre. I read a lot of published and unpublished fantasy stuff. What I see is writers trying to make the story epic, 4 part series, whole world hangs in the balance, dark forces amassing. It's this very attempt at being epic which kills the story most of the time. Where are the stories where the character fights for something personal rather than global? Yes I get it when stakes are high tension is high, supposedly. Except in a genre where the stakes are always high in exactly the same way the tension dissipates because you roll your eyes and go....Dear God no. Not another kingdom teetering on the brink, while the dark overlord moves to throw all into chaos....again.
That is how I feel about the difference between Avatar: The Last Airbender (mystique and high stakes) and The Legend of Korra (just high stakes). I mean, we went from a rogue prince trying to restore his honor, to a hamfisted anarchist straw man. We went from seeing the heroes (and even the antagonist) spending episode after episode training in preparation for looming battles (and being forced to confront spiritual turmoil), to seeing a big fight in every episode where the heroes discover cool powers whenever convenient to the plot.
I can definitely see your point here. The problem is, if you avoid the genre completely then you are going to miss the really stand out novels that get lost amongst the more cliché work. I suppose you can only really depend on reviews in the end.
Have you tried Richard Scott Bakker? I've read his books about the Second Apocalypse, and I'm starting to like it. Probably it was the premise about his novels, set in a world after the "classic" epic war against the Ultimate Evil of Evils (trademark)...a war that, for once, was lost. Or probably it was the very peculiar setting, full of values, customs and character developments that doesn't actually fit well with generic fantasy stuff....anyway, it dragged me back to the fantasy genre after years. It's worth a try, at least in my humble opinion.
I was actually referring to season 3 of The Legend of Korra (Zaheer is the hamfisted anarchist strawman).
I like Avatar The Last Airbender more. I barely watch the new series because I have too much stuff to do. There is also a new epic fantasy movie coming out soon, called The Seventh Son. It has the same cliche' plot and I don't think it will do well in theaters. Writers need to branch out still.
It doesn't kill the story, it gives it a vast feel. As humans we're always teetering on what might be our doom with how things have occurred lately. People in undeveloped countries feel like their world is always on the verge of utter apocalypse and they have to fight to make it better. You roll your eyes on something that can't be expressed enough. Literature isn't all about entertainment. It's lessons hidden with numerous patches of context.
It really depends. In fantasy, having an epic struggle between good and evil is...well, let's be honest. It's a cliché. The evil overlord wants to invade/destroy/enslave a peceful country (bonus points if it's a shadow of its former powerful self). Some random Joe Everybody is going to become the great hero...or maybe it's Marty Sue the Disney hero that's going to save the world. Sometimes they even team up. I understand that "fight to make your world better" and "never let evil take root" are sensible and powerful ethical messages: but it's been done and done and done and then done again for good measure. Often in so many permutations of lazy writing that this cliché trascended the genere, and if we ask to describe Fantasy to someone that does not read or like it, chances are that this plot will crossing his mind. I'm sure that this could be reverted, if there are good ideas and if the world-building is good: my example of Bakker's novels is one of them.
If I want moralising I'll turn to the bible, not a fantasy novel. I recently read a trilogy where the author had set up three characters to become....gosh darn it, a triumvirate that is going to....wait for it....save the world. The author was talented, he'd published multiple novels with a great story telling style. I even really like one of his three characters, the other two made me want to stick forks in my eyes. He could have had three books following the one character I liked, defeated the insect creatures and it would have been a better story for it. Instead he overlaid this infernal moralising about the sea, the earth and balance and frankly I wanted to puke. It's not because I don't care about the pain in the world, people and their struggles. But I'd like to be left to draw my own moral conclusions, not have them shoved down my throat by someone with an axe to grind.
If I want moralising I'll turn to the bible, not a fantasy novel. I recently read a trilogy where the author had set up three characters to become....gosh darn it, a triumvirate that is going to....wait for it....save the world. The author was talented, he'd published multiple novels with a great story telling style. I even really like one of his three characters, the other two made me want to stick forks in my eyes. He could have had three books following the one character I liked, defeated the insect creatures and it would have been a better story for it. Instead he overlaid this infernal moralising about the sea, the earth and balance and frankly I wanted to puke. It's not because I don't care about the pain in the world, people and their struggles. But I'd like to be left to draw my own moral conclusions, not have them shoved down my throat by someone with an axe to grind.
If I want moralising I'll turn to the bible, not a fantasy novel. I recently read a trilogy where the author had set up three characters to become....gosh darn it, a triumvirate that is going to....wait for it....save the world. The author was talented, he'd published multiple novels with a great story telling style. I even really like one of his three characters, the other two made me want to stick forks in my eyes. He could have had three books following the one character I liked, defeated the insect creatures and it would have been a better story for it. Instead he overlaid this infernal moralising about the sea, the earth and balance and frankly I wanted to puke. It's not because I don't care about the pain in the world, people and their struggles. But I'd like to be left to draw my own moral conclusions, not have them shoved down my throat by someone with an axe to grind.
It is possible to get me, the reader, to feel what they feel by getting me to care about characters and to fear for them. It is possible to do this in a fantasy epic in which the world is at stake, but the author's effort must begin with interesting characters and escalate outward to epic conflicts between groups of them, rather than beginning with an epic good vs. evil conflict and filling in the blanks with "interesting" characters. That is why I like A Song of Ice and Fire so much more than The Lord of the Rings: both have great characters and conflicts that threaten the whole world, but ASoIaF feels like it is about interesting people who live in a world at war and TLotR feels like it is about a world at war that is populated by interesting people.
I like a Song of Ice and Fire because its characters are human. Period. There's nothing wrong with "good vs. evil", the cliche part goes where the good characters are pure-hearted, who, despite their flaws, come around in the end. The evil characters are just evil, maybe with a sad story to make you relate to them, and eventually they fall. All of that while they are seperate into two distinct sides, ect. with the world hanging in the balance. And then you have ASoIaF, where there is a conflict, about five sides at least in its peak, and you get the feeling you want every one of them to win at some point or another. There are good characters, there are plenty of evil ones, and most just moving in the grey zone. That, in my opinion, makes this series a masterpiece, and the problem with the "good/evil" story.
This is what struck me about GoT's too. It was a human story entirely and one in which each faction is acting for reasons you can understand and motivations that were credible, even noble at times. You could relate to every character, even if you didn't like them. LoTR's did a very neat trick. It cast an inanimate object in the role of villain., the ring. It had its own personality, motivations and allies. So even as it sat in a hobbits pocket it drew all the forces of darkness to itself in order to be discovered. The hero is now doomed to carry the damn thing across the landscape all the while evading the rings allies and avoiding its temptations. Without doing anything at all, it caused the coalescing of massive energies in the world. I didnt believe the ring was evil, I believed it to be power corrupted which sometimes begets evil.
Are you speaking about Star Wars or what? Even the worst "cliche collection" can be a success if it has elements that are fresh and interesting.
You're right. But making something cliche good is quite a bit harder. When I read the first two books of the Inheritance Cycle, for example, it just felt like one big Star Wars rip-off. I'd also like to mention that Star Wars came out in the 1970s, some time ago, before that theme was as used up as it is now.
@Domino355 : I think cliches are cliches because they work. It is not a problem if there are a few ones in a book/film. The problem is when there is no additional content (or not enough). A fantasy in a medieval setting with kings and dragons is a cliche in itself (and is really overdone) but it can be as excellent as A Song of Ice and Fire if the setting is just the background of an otherwise interesting story.
I've got to admit though in the first book when the word dragon popped up I flinched, almost ready to put the book down. It was only the strength of the story that far which helped me to get past that. If Danerys had turned out to be a slightly more unlikable (she is the one character that really grates me) i would not have bothered.
I never put a book down if I started to read it. Even if I don't like it I can learn something from it. Everyone and everything is good for something, if not else then used as a deterrent example
I also think another reason why fantasy cliches keep popping up because most of the writers are probably fans to typical books like LOTR and D&D, or even Star Wars. They known those plots for so long, that is all they can think of when they start to write their own novels. Both writers and readers are so familiar with those stories, it hurts them when they try to do something new. However, George R. R Martin took the typical medieval style and made it more character driven than a LOTR wannabe. It takes time to come up with new ideas for fantasy, but new ones will happen soon.
