/lit/ - Literature

Dragons are cringe.

Don't let other peoples opinions affect you. like what you like, status strivers are faggots

>>19027474
nice filename

Fan base smells like PlayStation sweat, Doritos and crusted semen

>>19027474
Because Tolkien perfected the genre and everything since has been mediocre and derivative at best.

>>19027525
YOU TAKE THAT BACK

>>19027474
It's historical fiction for people too dumb and slow to be interested in actual historical fiction.

>>19027474
Not enough pseud cred and academics cant write 1000 page interpretations of it

>>19027474
Because 99,9% of "fantasy" literature is young adult garbage.

>>19027474
they are dumb, ignore them anon

>>19027593
meaning, the people looking down on fantasy. not the fantasy books

>upon

>>19027474
Because anime did it better like always

Fantasy seems like a very narrow genre when compared with science fiction. Science Fiction has transcended its genre roots consistently and there are many literary works in that genre. The same is not true for fantasy,

Yes, there are literary works that are fantastical - Kafka, Marquez, Rulfo, Gogol, Bulgakov; these all write fantastical stories and are literary giants. But when people actually say 'fantasy' what they really mean is dragons, elves, medieval magic, Tolkien-esque. In that narrow genre there are almost no literary works.

John Gardner's Grendel
John Barth's Chimera
George MacDonald's Lilith
Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars
Jorge Luis Borges' Fictions
Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities
Alasdair Gray's Lanark
Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan
John Crowley's Little Big

Fantasy is generally pretty bad but that’s not the reason it’s looked down upon. It’s looked down upon because tastemakers are anti-art realists who love realism and hate everything else.

>>19027766
yeah pretty much this

>>19027474
Why? Calvino is fantasy as with Borges.

Can you actually define "Fantasy" though? Fantasy is a genre, which is why people define it as "genre trash", but this is only because there are too many fantasy books. If thousands of people starting making Metamorphosis clones after reading the Kafka work, then it would become a "genre" and maligned for being formulaic and boring, instead of appreciating the stories as what they are.

>>19027525
YOU'RE CRINGE

fantasy fans who like big bad fights and grizzly tough guys and heroes and heroines of all the tropes are the worst because IRL they are milksops who just indoctrinate everyone they know into their little escapist worlds and read the same books over and over again in an attempt to theorize and know the characters like real friends. They are all weak people and I should know, since I am in FB groups with them, I hate socializing with people that read the fantasy books I've read. I cringe every time they say anyuthing so asinine as not un derstanding something even though they've read the book 30 plus times or the "I was Today Years Old When" they realized something they always missed before. If you are going to brag about reading a book 30 times, don't go on to say you didn't understand it for all the time you wasted.

>TLDR I am what I complain about, but at least I hold my tongue and have actually had adventures of my own and am not a milksop.

>>19027474
They're fodder for dumb autists who want to differentiate themselves from the popular kids by doing nerd shit like reading books instead of playing sports but are too dumb to read actual books of literary merit.

>>19027474
It isn't.

>>19028348
Literally for frogposters
>>19027474
Dumb frogposter

>>19028305
this

>>19028313
>>19028361
>dude what even is fantasy lmao nothing is real
deconstructionalism is the frogposting of philosophy

>>19027474
Lower shelf

>>19027474
There isn't much innovation in the genre to let it expand and become unique beyond the typical 'swords and sorcery with dragons in a medieval setting.' Most of the tropes are becoming stale and stereotypical to where readers will roll their eyes every time they see something like 'he's the chosen one' or 'prophecies' or anything else along those lines. It doesn't help many deviations don't find success because the mainstream is still bogged down by cookie-cutter bullshit trends.

>>19027474
Because it's worthless.

Sturgeon once wrote that 90 per cent of science fiction was crud, implying thus that the remaining ten was somehow worthwhile; I shan't attempt to dispute that, although I may disagree.
Fantasy writing, however, has produced nothing worth reading since Tolkien. Before him and his essay on Fairy Stories fantasy—as we now call it—was for a large part dedicated to children's stories; but there were children's stories worth reading and beside them some adults' too. Because of Tolkien's influence—and for a larger part because of his success—fantasy expanded to a greater readership beyond children, parents and folklorists. What a shame, then, that almost all fantasy today is derivate; and not only derivative, but derivative of a single source: Tolkien. Near all fantastic writing these days emulates Tolkien's Saxon fairy stories, their elves, dwarves, dragons and orcs, but with no understanding of his influences nor of the role they played within his stories.
For the last half-decade fantasy writing has been a refuge for those with little imagination, those who borrow without understanding; worse than pulp fiction, which, while simple and disposable, can turn the reader's attention to societal discomfortitures, the attempts attempts of a fantasy writer at this are laughable at best, deceitful at worst.
While the last half-century has not been as good to literature as the one before it—or the one before that—it is not impossible to find worthwhile works of fiction in that list. When it comes to 'fantasy' this task is impossible. While in earlier works of childlike fancy like Lewis' or Carrol's one could find a hidden depth, the best the decades since have to offer are the satirical works of Pratchett, which, while humourous, have little depth; their satire, while funny, is shallow and purposeless.
While I could list several examples—Martin's directionless subversions, Rothfuss's self-congratulating wish-fulfilments—I shall refrain from doing so; instead I shall continue thusly: Any fantastical work of literary merit has earned the right to be called by some other name than that slur, 'fantasy': Hence the term 'magical realism', for what would it be called but fantasy were the name not restricted to the lowliest genre writers.

In short, despite its name, fantasy literature is unoriginal and unimaginative. It has little influence, it is poorly written and pointless; a fantastical work of any merit will be called by a different name instead. If you look for 'fantasy' books that are not—deservedly—looked down upon, you must look to Tolkien or to proto-fantasy, i.e., to fantastical books written before it became a necrified genre incapable of innovation.

>>19029568
Sovl

There is not much literary merit to fantasy. The genre exists for the same target audience as shonen anime.

>>19029653
Thank you.
I am rather pissed, and for me it has become a sort of habit to write half-drunken essays—these posts are too short for that but I cannot think of a better word—on random topics on /lit/. They are rather pompous—this I acknowledge—and I regret them in the morning, but there are worse ways to spend one's time; and furthermore, since my posts are anonymous I can pretend they never happend. I dread to imagine what would happen if instead I took the habit of writing vaguely antisemitic posts on Facebook.

>>19028361
Most of these are not actually fantasy.

>>19027525
WRONG

>>19029702
“Literary merit” is a made up myth.

Fantasy is the whitest of all genres of fiction as it is based on nostalgia for the middle ages (social hierarchy, patriarchy etc.)

>>19029790
I’m going to combine all my essay /lit/ posts into a book.

>>19029840
Well, there was that one twitter poster who published—presumably with the help of some friends—a book of her 'Collected Tweets'.

Nothing wrong with fantasy, unless that's all you read and won't shut the fuck up about it. It's the nerdy soiboy faggots that's looked down on, not the genre itself. Grown men will refer to themselve as fanboys, what's not to hate about that?

>>19027578
name a fantasy book that fits in that last 0,1%

>>19031373
I can’t.

>>19027525
/thread

>>19027474
I enjoy fantasy and non fiction. Lit is filled with contrarian faggot psudes who shit on popular things because they have no other personality traits.

>>19031373
The Lord of the Rings

>>19027474
it's another thing that has been ruined by its fanbase
fantasy fans are so autistic and tragic that people assume fantasy must be shit without even reading it