(I originally had this in my progress journal, but I also want to post it here.) I’ve come to the conclusion that some major motivating concepts in fantasy are love and death. Most notably, our capacity for love, and the tendency for the villains to underestimate that capacity, and the fear of death…most notably, the fear the villains have of death and the lengths they will go to avoid it. You see this in Harry Potter and many others. Our heroes are strong because of their capacity for love- for strong friendships and allies and loyalty. Conversely, this is what makes the villains weak- their "friendships" are based on fear, not love, and the consistently underestimate our hero's capacity for love and why that makes them strong. Successful fantasy fiction deals with love, death (a fear of, or struggle to understand death), and good vs evil. Villains tend to fear death and go to lengths to avoid it. Heroes tend to struggle to understand and come to terms with death. But it's another one of those main themes of fantasy. And of course, the struggle of good versus evil. Heroes know that if they don't stand for something, all that is good in their world will cease to be. Villains want to control their world. They want power and seek to subjugate others to gain that power. Heroes just want to live their lives- they are not out looking to be a hero, but they understand that if they don't do something, others will perish. And that's why they make a stand. Anyone else have insights into the fantasy genre?
Hi Storm the heroes in the books I've read are always made stronger by the bonds of friendship, love, and kindness. What will they do to protect the ones they love, what would any of us do? I know I would go to great lengths. My favorite villain, Benjamin Linus from the tv show Lost. He seems like a weasely character at first. That's just one of his weakness's as a strength. My favorite saying is this "Every protagonist needs a Good Bad Guy" the best villains I know are "good" at being both "bad" and "good" makes for a better story if the villain doesn't trip over his own robes and accidentally fall on his own sword almost dieing from his own clumsiness. This would be my insight for you, also if you wish for a chess game, make one of your characters equally intelligent. They could be able to fence there way one attack of the mind game after another that the villain thrusts in there path.
Those are valid not just for fantasy, but for other genres as well. It's human nature and stuff. The whole world moves around good, evil, friendship, allies, love, death. So that's what authors put in books, in all genres. If you pick something random, let's say, "Silence of the Lambs", which is not fantasy, you'll notice that those musings are valid there, too. So, it's all true, just not really fantasy specific.
Definitely Dee there's a lot of that in Silence of the Lambs. Spoiler Jodie Foster had some exceptional smarts to her. Anthony Hopkins the super smart creepy cannibal.
The lead protagonists of the Urban Fantasy I'm editing are 3 villains who love each other so much that they'd be willing to die for each other
What a great bond they have, willing to kill and die for each other. What more could you ask of a friend?
If you don't mind me going into a bit of anthropology here, you're absolutely right about the fear of death and the bonds of friendship. It really hasn't been so long since we were forming tribes to deal with the threats of the natural world. Comradery, having friends to help you, meant that you might be able to avoid being eaten by that giant snake lurking just outside for another day, or survive a few nights of freezing temperatures. Having more people in your tribe, more people that you somehow convinced by some miracle that you were worth caring about, really did make a human being more likely to avoid death. Because mortality is the most horrifying thing to deal with imaginable, if you're unprepared for it. What helps you deal with it better? What gives you the courage to face up to it? Friends, and people who give a damn about you. That's embedded in our DNA. It's absolutely mind blowing when you think about it.