The Black Citadel

THE ALIEN/MYSTIC/MYTHIC FANTASY MANIFESTO: On the Tone of Fantasy I Enjoy

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Quick thing I threw together.

A majority of fantasy writers are all cowards. They are too content to imagine worlds within the scope of so-called "reality" and the ones who attempt to be fantastical still bind themselves to recognizable conventions. In here lies the problem: The mind is infinite, so why not make some weird shit?

In comes my personal 3 (or 4) tenets:

WEIRD

As in "Weird Fiction. Fishmen, Black Magic, Dark Gods, all that good pulpy shit. Try to break yourself free from what is considered "traditional": In short, Tolkein go fuck himself. In this house we bow only to Crom!

This does not, however, mean there is nothing we know. Throw in dragons and wizards, just make them strange. Throw in things that fuck with how we know them. Put a Spin on it.

ALIEN

Both for society AND for flora/fauna. Cows and Sheep are discarded for weird animals called "Gnurps" or something. Human societies, although following sociological and anthropological conventions, should not be within our ideas of what is an "earthly" society. Why would these people on a random space planet be medieval europeans, or vikings or feudal japanese? Get weird with it.

This does, however, brings up the ugly head of Orientalism and Exoticism. "Ohh these cultures are cool lemme copy-paste the bastardized racist view of this for my fantasy" STOP! DON'T DO THAT! Consider, carefully, how you are to integrate elements of culture. Do your research, get a fucking Anthropology major lmao.

MYTHIC

Magic is strange but in a way ever-present. The Gods and the Supernatural permeate through the world just as the people of aeons saw their world. Sagas are long, heroes chronicle their lives, feats and failures. Prose should be somewhere between The Epic of Gilgamesh and a Conan story.

At its, the fantasy should have stories at their core. A monster never dies because we continue to sing its song into existence. A god becomes a god because we deify the king or eldritch being that it was in its old life. There is no one "definitive" answer to something. Everyone you meet will have a different worldview.

MYSTIC

Reach enlightenment through doing so many drugs. Wizards aren't scientists as much as they are philosophers and hermits. The search for power is both mortal and magical: descents to the underworld, communes with gods, searches for enlightenment, etc.

As a character journeys through their life, they begin to understand the meaning of the universe. As they develop as a person they develop their philosophical worldview and their world is shaped as such. Know thyself, Magician: The world is only as real as you.

READING LIST

Mind you, these entries aren't perfect, but they're close enough to something you can cobble together for a general overview.

#ranting #theoryslop #writing