Fantasy world
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Template:Fantasy A fantasy world is a type of fictional universe in which magic or other similar powers work. The world may be a parallel realm or dimension tenuously connected to our world via mystic gates (like Narnia and the Dreamlands); somewhere in our mythical past (like Middle-earth and the Hyborian Age of Conan the Barbarian) or future (Earthdawn, Dying Earth, Zothique); or the story may have no reference to our reality at all.
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World-Building
Despite the use of magic or other fantastic elements such as dragons, the world is normally presented as one that would work, one in which people could actually live, making economic, historical, ecological, etc. sense; it is considered a flaw to have pirates living in lands far from trade routes, or to give prices such that a night's stay in an inn would logically be equal to several years' income for a farmer. Furthermore, the fantastic elements operate according to self-consistent rules of their own; if wizards' spells sap their strength, a wizard who does not appear to suffer this must either be putting up a facade, or have an alternative explanation. This distinguishes fantasy worlds from surrealism and even from such dream worlds such as are found in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.
The process of elaborating and making self-consistent the setting of a fantasy is known as world-building.
J. R. R. Tolkien created Middle-earth, one of the better known fantasy worlds, and he wrote at some length about the process of creating them, which he called "subcreation".
All such subcreation is done, obviously, with materials taken from the real world. The commonest fantasy world is one based on medieval Europe. Such a world is often called "pseudo-medieval" -- particularly when the writer has snatched up random elements from the era, which covered a thousand years and a continent, and thrown them together without consideration for their compatibility.
Heavy and faithful use of real world setting for inspiration, as in Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds, clearly derived from China, or Lloyd Alexander's use of real world cultures such as Welsh for The Chronicles of Prydain or Indian for The Iron Ring, make the line between fantasy worlds and alternate histories fuzzy. The use of cultural elements, and still more history and geography, from actual settings pushes a work toward alternate history.
Conversely, the introduction of an imaginary country -- such as Ruritania or Graustark -- does not transform a world into a fantasy world, even if the location would be impossible owing to the lack of land to contain it, but such Ruritanian Romances may be pushed toward fantasy worlds by the ambiguity of witches and wise women, where it is not clear whether their magic is effectual.
Role-Playing Games
Dungeons & Dragons, the first role-playing game, has created several detailed and commercially successful fantasy worlds (called "campaign settings"), with established and recognizable characters, locations, histories, and sociologies. The Forgotten Realms is perhaps the most extensively developed of these worlds. These elements of detail can be a large part of what attracts people to RPGs.
Many established fantasy writers have also derided Dungeons and Dragons and the fantasy fiction it has inspired due to its influencing new writers toward reading the D&D Monster Manual instead of studying original mythologies from which the fantasy literature has sprung.
Due to the fuzzy boundary between fantasy and science fiction, it is similarly difficult to make a hard-and-fast distinction between "fantasy worlds" and planets in science fiction. For example, the worlds of Barsoom, Darkover, Gor, and the Witch World combine elements of both genres.
The Retreat of Magic
When the fantasy world purports to be Earth in its mythic past, the story frequently contains a retreat of magic that explains why the magic and other fantastic elements no longer appear:
- In The Magic Goes Away, Larry Niven depicted the exhaustion of "mana" the substance needed to power magic.
- In The Lord of the Rings, the destruction of the One Ring not only defeated Sauron, but destroyed the power of the Three Rings of the elves, resulting in their sailing into the West at the end of the trilogy.
- In The Charwoman's Shadow, the magician ends the book by summoning to him all the creatures of romance and taking them with him outside the world.
A contemporary fantasy may include reference to such a retreat. J. K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them explains that wizards decided, at one point, to conceal from Muggles the fantastic beasts such as dragons.
See also
For a list of fantasy worlds, see list of fantasy worlds, list of fictional universes, and Category:Fictional universes.
Reference
- Diana Wynne Jones: The Tough Guide to Fantasyland explains and parodies the common features of a standard fantasy worldde:Fantasiewelt