Cynicism in Fantasy

[George]

I’m curious if other group members have notice a trend in fantasy to inculcate the stories with a heavy degree of cynicism…or construct worlds that are unrelentingly grim where there is little to differentiate between antagonists and protagonists. I’m currently reading Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold and while I’m enjoying the novel, it’s tone seems more suited to a hard-boiled detective novel…the same can be said for Steven Erikson’s Malazan books of the Fallen. This is why I think I enjoy the stories of Fellow Good reads author Franz Mclaren as much as I have…they still have a degree of caprice and innocence that I find refreshing…Is it just me, or have other members noticed this trend…if so, how do you feel about it? It’s not that I don’t enjoy a story with a pervasive tinge of cynicism (George Martin’s Dances with Dragons is fraught with cynical dialogue and I’m certainly enjoying it) but I’m wondering how the trend might effect the genre as a whole?

[Maxwell]

As always, George, and excellent topic.
If anyone has read my stuff they will say that I follow that same "unrelentingly grim" feel. And that is fine, because it is.

However, I do not feel I am doing this to follow a trend, or to cash in on the current money train idea that is grim fantasy.

For me, when I sat down and created the world that is the setting for the Genesis of Oblivion Saga, I approached it with the mindset of, "if magic, monsters, and mayhem were real, what type of world would it create?" I call it "realistic fantasy."

The main reason I am writing it is the fact that this is my favorite type of fantasy to read. In your opening post, George, you listed off some books I have thoroughly enjoyed. So, as I really like that style, I write in that style.

However, I think it has nothing to do with "fantasy" and to limit this topic to that alone is missing the reason why it has become popular. I think it has to do with the audience (which I am one of.) The late 70's and 80's saw the rise of Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, it is still around, and doing well. But, before fantasy had its own section in Barnes & Noble (fantasy was simply put under sci-fi back then) us sword & sorcery geeks had very little we could sink our teeth into. And, those that purchased what was produced were children. So, what was produced for mass consumption was slanted to that age group.

Now, all of us born in the 60's and 70's have grown up. We are the ones with the disposable income to spend on entertainment. And, we still love sword & sorcery. The thing is, I am in my 40's now and I love magic and dragons. But, I don't want to be talked down to like I am 12! I have grown, along with my wallet and desire to be entertained. But, I want realism in my entertainment.

20 years ago, the majority of fantasy books were purchased by or for kids. Today, the majority of fantasy books are purchased by or for adults.

As always, George, and excellent topic.

If anyone has read my stuff, they will say that I follow that same "unrelentingly grim" feel. And that is fine, because it is.

However, I do not feel I am doing this to follow a trend, or to cash in on the current money train idea that is grim fantasy.

For me, when I sat down and created the world that is the setting for the Genesis of Oblivion Saga, I approached it with the mindset of, "if magic, monsters, and mayhem were real, what type of world would it create?" I call it "realistic fantasy."

The main reason I am writing it is the fact that this is my favorite type of fantasy to read. In your opening post, George, you listed off some books I have thoroughly enjoyed. So, as I really like that style, I write in that style.

However, I think it has nothing to do with "fantasy" and to limit this topic to that alone is missing the reason why it has become popular. I think it has to do with the audience (which I am one of.) The late 70's and 80's saw the rise of Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, it is still around, and doing well. But, before fantasy had its own section in Barnes & Noble (fantasy was simply put under sci-fi back then) us sword & sorcery geeks had very little we could sink our teeth into. And, those that purchased what was produced were children. So, what was produced for mass consumption was slanted to that age group.

Now, all of us born in the 60's and 70's have grown up. We are the ones with the disposable income to spend on entertainment. And, we still love sword & sorcery. The thing is, I am in my 40's now and I love magic and dragons. But, I don't want to be talked down to like I am 12! I have grown, along with my wallet and my desire to be entertained. But, I want realism in my entertainment. Not pixie dust and fairy dragons.

20 years ago, the majority of fantasy books were purchased by or for kids. Today, the majority of fantasy books are purchased by or for adults.

But, as I said, this is not just in fantasy. Almost every genre that was directed at kids 20 years ago has grown darker. Just look at Super heroes from comic books. Compare the Michael Keaton Batman movie from 1989 to the Christian Bale Dark Knight movie of 2005. In the original, the tone was WAY less dark than it is in the new versions.

Even the comic books they came from are WAY darker than comics of 20 years ago. And it is the audience. When I started diving into the graphic novel market, I was shocked by the statistics I found. 20 years ago, the average age of a comic book purchaser was 13. Today it is 22! Now, one reason is the $4 to $5 price of a monthly comic. Most of my friends who are still purchasing comics spend an average of $150 a month on them. And most 13 year olds do not have that kind of disposable income. Still, this has caused the industry to be forced to cater to an older audience. Meaning more realism... A.K.A. "unrelentingly grim."

I mean, they just killed off Peter Parker, and let a new guy take up the mantle of Spiderman.

For another great example, look at Harry Potter. Book one is definitely a young adult book. But, as she started selling more and more in the adult market, the situations in the book matured. By book 5, I would be hard pressed to classify this series as appropriate for a 10 year old. Certainly not by book 7.

Those of us who grew up on this stuff, still like it. But, we don't want to watch something made for kids. We want real entertainment. I think that is the reason for the shift.

So, I think it is simply a growth of the audience, as opposed to a shift by those producing.

Maxwell Alexander Drake
Read the first five chapters of my award-winning fantasy saga at www.genesisofoblivion.com

[Jane]

I also think this a great topic George. I don't know if the world is getting meaner or I'm just getting older but these days I want less black and white, good verses evil, and more nuances. And let's face it, our leaders aren't offering us much to believe in at the moment. The twentieth century offers endless examples of those who did believe in their leaders and wind up being walked all over.
Mind you Joe Abercombies books were pretty harsh. The final reality is devastating. But perhaps nuances have always been there in fantasy for those who choose to see them. After all in Tolkien the ring is a methaphor for power and at every turn it corrupts. The only people who can safely be exposed to the ring are those who are two insignificant to use the power.
But Maxwell might be right. Perhaps we are just getting older.
Jane Routley
The Dion Chronicles
http://clandestinepress.com.au/conten...
Read the first chapter on my author site at good reads

[George]

I think, setting aside Maxwell's contentions for a moment, the truth has more to do with the general inclination of modern society in the last decade toward a colder, indifferent disposition. Nuanced characters are critical is you want to weave even the slightest semblance of realism into your work, but we live in a society where sarcasm has become the substitute for wit and intellect and being blatantly obnoxious...especially in the world of social media where your identity can remain concealed behind a user name...is almost an admirable trait. For affirmation of this perspective, I invite you to go to CNN net, pick any story at random and read the feedback comments that accompany every single story...there is the intrinsic root of cynicism.

[Ty]

I think there's some truth to what everyone has suggested so far. To take George's comments a little further, I think the modern mind has a difficult time accepting anything in their fiction that is not cynical or sarcastic. Unless done very well or with some kind of quirks (humor?), how many modern readers would accept a heroic knight, for example, who charged into battle simply because it was the right thing to do? At the very least there would have to be pages of conversation or inner dialogue explaining away why such a character would do so without any direct benefit to him- or herself. Morality, whatever the stripe, and honor and the such are not expected in our modern world, and often enough are frowned upon. The person who is honorable is considered a fool, the person who is a moralist has something to hide or is out to get something from others. And, unfortunately, reality too often matches those hardened expectations, making it even more difficult to have faith in others.

[George]

Ty...you have defined cynicism to its ugly core...Characters who adhere to some code of virtue are viewed by many as trite or boring and real life human being who attempt to do the same are frowned upon and regarded with suspicion...Just like discourtesy, cynicism in literature seems to have become a odd virtue of sorts.

[Robert]

George, I think that you can have a virtuous code without being trite, boring or an unreal representation of a human being. What I think modern lit strives for more these days is to see what in addition to that code motivates someone, because it is interesting to see a hero with complex motivations.

[Ty]

Robert, I think you kind of just proved George's point about cynicism. Being honorable can be a complex motivation in and of itself, without having to fall back on the darker elements of our psyche. For good or bad, most people today (at least in the West) won't buy into that. Why? Because they're cynical! :-)

[Jane]

Cynicism is often the response of the disappointed idealist which if you look at what the ideaolgies of the 20th century lead us too is understandable.
But it is a pity that we regard people who do good things with such dismissal. We mostly perform charitable works, for instance, because it gives us a pleasant feeling os self-satisfaction but it doesn't mean that the charitable work is of no value. I'm not sure how this applies to fantasy. Except that writing cynical anti-heros is a bit cheap and easy but in the end not very satisfying for the reader,

[Marc]

Jane wrote: "The only people who can safely be exposed to the ring are those who are two insignificant to use the power. "

'Insignificance' is not what makes Frodo and Sam the characters they are, nor can anyone be safely exposed to the ring.

It's not that people don't want to do the right thing, but it's hard to know what the right thing is. Sure, go and slay the evil man, but the evil man employs lots of people, which feeds their families, and now they're out of jobs and...they chase the hero out of town because he's ruined their lives. (Tarkas, the hero of my series, starts the second novel in pretty much that situation, and his nephew tells the story of how he killed a man with a fish as an example of another.) Not that a real hero would let a little thing like being chased out of town stop him.

Ultimately I think it's laziness on the part of authors. It's easier to write cynical characters than to wrestle with the ethical dilemmas themselves and put the struggle on paper for their readers.

[Joe]

What is important when creating characters is to make them realistic. No person in the world is purely good or purely evil. A realistic character does things, whether good or evil, for a reason that he or she believes is right or is driven by some fear or some other strong motive. I'm a great believer in Yin Yang. In all of us there is both a drive toward good and a drive toward evil and sometimes it's hard to tell which is which.

[George]

I thought I would post my review of Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold...this novel is the very essence of cynicism in modern fantasy...

As I preface all of my reviews, I want to begin by stating that this review is a personal opinion only and should be taken as such. As I am hardly the arbiter of what is good or bad, this should in no way deter someone from purchasing this novel.
Best Served Cold is an ugly novel about extremely ugly and brutal people doing extremely ugly and brutal things to each other in the name of power or revenge. Even the rather explicit sex scenes in this novel are ugly, crude and mildly repulsive…a sating of base urges and nothing more. This is far and away, the darkest and most unapologetically cynical piece of fantasy fiction that I have ever read.
The novel’s central theme and story revolve around Monza Murcatto, the female general and master tactician of The Thousand Swords, a group of mercenaries who help Duke Orso of Talins achieve his dream of becoming the king of Styria. Fearing that Murcatto is growing too popular with his subjects for securing one bloody victory after the other in the nation’s civil war, and that she has designs on this throne, Orso attempts to have her and her beloved brother killed. The brother dies and Murcatto survives (though barely) and vows revenge on Orso and all those involved in the ambush. This is the opening chapter of the novel and the rest of the story focuses on her scheme of revenge in which she enlists the aid of a group of mercenaries, a master poisoner and a torturer. Every single character who populates this novel is basically an ambulatory piece of excrement and the story’s shading, tone and ambience is in keeping with the nature of this collection of miscreants…again, it is the darkest and ugliest story that I’ve ever read under the fantasy banner.
So, now comes the Verdict.
Did I like this novel…absolutely! Joe Abercrombie is a novelist of considerable talent and he crafts a masterful story here…with excellent narrative and great pacing that keeps this dark tale moving at the perfect pace…As expected with such a cast of incorrigibles, the treachery comes at a fast and furious pace that keeps the pervasive ugliness of the novel enjoyable even in its darkest moments (and there are no shortage of these). Would I recommend this novel…yes, but with the caveat that it is not for those who look for life-affirming joy and optimism in their fiction. Again, this is one ugly novel, but it is one that is written with skill and a deft touch for great story-telling.

Rating 5 out 5

George Straatman
Author of the Converging
Journey through the Land of Shades