I Don't Like Classic Fantasy

I think this is going to draw the ire of many people including one of my best friends, but I do not like classic fantasy. What do I mean by that? Well stories like A Wizard of Earthsea

By Ursula K. Le Guin bore me. The including of songs into a story like The Lord of the Rings aren’t needed. Most importantly character development occurring off screen like in Stephen Lawhead’s The Paradise War. I am using Classic Fantasy as my focus, but these pet peeves occur in many modern books as well, I just notice them most in fantasy written and while I do think these books deserve respect, their day in the lime light needs to pass on.

What exactly is my gripe? Well often in these fantasy stories pre-1990 less care is taken in the development of a character in favor of world building or story. I’ve read things like ‘the character went on a long journey where many great and wonderful things happened. The character grew and overcame trying obstacles to stand before the grand academy,’ or other story relative place. Why this bothers me so much isn’t necessarily because I like reading long stories, but because as the reader I think I’m missing out on key points in the characters ‘life.’ In modern story telling we watch the characters make decisions that influence how we see the character. The depth spent on characters make them feel real to us. In the majority of the stories I’ve read in this classic vein characters are left simple, good or evil, very comic book like. Often times we see them in plain scenes that show off their might or intelligence, but not how they struggle or feel when it comes to internal conflict.

We as the reader are told about the character more often than showed what the character is capable of. They are strong or wise or brave and then they do those things in brief snippets of a compilation scene and then we are just told to accept that the character is now this way.

While stories like the Iliad and the Odyssey do this as well they are not written as enjoyment, but more akin to fairy tales with moral or personal implications rather than entertainment purposes. Epic poems like Beowulf and Paradise Lost really bring out the characters we see. Its possible from these works to sympathize with Grendel's mother or even Lucifer.

At the time these stories were written they drew from these sources like fairy tales, legends, and myths, like the mighty Odysseus and Jason from the argonauts. The Grimm brother’s tales were short and sweet, with no character development. From there the authors needed to develop a story length tale around these characters. Often times the tales were epic and grand, but they didn’t spend time on the character because it was less important. The reader knew it was a good guy going against a bad one.

I apologize for the long delay in posts, but this one took some thought. While the title may be a tad misleading, I do not read older fantasy unless I am looking for the original of an idea before writing my own take on the source material. That being said the works that come before deserve all the credit and respect as modern writings, but maybe it is time to distinguish between a shift in writing style. Plot and action based stories in the past and character driven stories in the present.