/lit/ - Literature

Mostly just a form of trolling I introduced to this board when it was young. (I've been around a while)

Basically I wanted to imitate critics from media outlets like The Guardian and The New Yorker and watch /lit/ rage. They picked it up and it's been a staple of /lit/ trolling ever since.

/lit/ thinks they are too smart for fantasy and that reading something fun to read is bad.

There's a lot of people who like them, it's just really easy to drive-by and drop some shit about how immature fantasy is.

And to be fair a lot of fantasy is really bad and a lot of fantasy fans are dumb, it's not an entirely unfounded opinion

>>1992945
To be fair; a lot of fantasy titles are targeted for the young adult demographic.

Also, it's safe to say that every fanship has its dumbasses. Rednecks and Tom Clancy.

Hipsters and philosophy.
Then you have neckbeards and fantasy.

Though there are plenty of normal people who enjoy it as well.

Most big series have their own official boards and they're almost always better.

But you have to make an account for them. So, there's that.

If I were to suppose some kind of hate for fantasy from within me it would be because of the belief that it usually takes the form of egoistic or wish-fulfillment fantasies; which are pointless and self-indulgent. But I know in reality not all fantasy is like that.

Fantasy is a genre novel type, like romance, western, sci-fi, historical fiction, etc.

Most of these are bad pulp designed for cretins.

Sci-fi has been trying to pull itself up arse over elbow with the concept of speculative fiction. Even when day-to-day sci-fi manages this, it isn't great. And it is a world above the usual wishfulfillment fare of fantasy.

Fantasy is usually prurient garbage aimed at adolescent males who can't get laid and can't stand up for themselves in real life, so they have to imagine it in fiction.

Like, have you ever seen that part of the movie Heavy Metal, where an unlikeable nerd is transported to a fantasy kingdom, turns into a big muscular superhero, saves the kingdom and gets laid by its queen? That's what fantasy readers wish their lives were like.

>>1992956
>baseless assumptions

Reading is an escape; not matter what genre you like. People read to feel as if they're a part of something bigger.

By your logic, all reading is for virgins.

You seem to be narrowing fantasy down into simply the stuff aimed at young adults and not the darker, gritter stuff which is actually good...

>>1992968
There's a lot of 'dark/gritty' fantasy, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it makes it good.

>>1992968
Op here. I meant all fantasy. Hell, even Martin is trashed on this board.

>>1992964
For some people reading is an escape. For some it is the opposite. It takes diff'rent strokes to move the world, yes it does it takes, diff'rent strokes to move the world.

>>1992972
Fantasy is overblown escapism. I believe it was T. S. Eliot that said people can only take so much reality. I think intellectuals (and pseudos) take themselves to task whenever they neglect reality, and grow to disdain escapism, because it is a neglecting of life and purpose.

It's seen as lesser because great literature tells us about ourselves and what it means to be human, and fantasy makes us forget all that.

>>1992983
You're implying that fantasy can't have a greater meaning. Do you realize how much of a bigot you sound like?

>>1992972
It's because /lit/ discusses literature. I'm not trying to be snobbish here, I'm just saying that that means people here read some of the greatest prose ever written. And Martin's prose, from what I've seen, is... serviceable. It does the job.

>>1992988
I'm telling you the attitude. I never said it was mine. Do you know how presumptuous you sound?

>>1992988
You criticise too hard. The last line of >>1992983 was a judgemental statement, but the preceeding bit was a good point well worded.

Ugh. There's so much wrong with this thread. First of all, fantasy is not globally disdained on /lit/ -- there have been thousands and thousands of fucking threads on /lit/ which discussed fantasy books of various kinds in a positive manner. So first off, your assumption is wrong.

There must at least be SOME people who like fantasy on this board, or else those thousands of threads would never have taken place.

In the past month alone (I say this utterly without exaggeration) I have witnessed at least a hundred such threads. We're talking Orson Scott Card threads, Neil Gaiman threads, George R.R. Martin threads, Robin Hobb threads, Gene Wolfe threads, ad infinitum.

Next, Martin is not trashed on this board. ASOIF threads typically exceed 100-200 posts. There's debate, aye. There's discussion. He's not universally loved, and there are those who are vocal about flaws they perceive in his work.

But an absence of universal praise does not equate to global disdain.

>>1992972

>Even Martin

Is there some reason that Martin should be exempt from criticism?

Simple answer for you, OP.
Some people are ass holes. Bottom line is that you should do what you want, and usually people won't care. Everyone has little quirks, that's what makes us human. I see nothing wrong with a person reading fantasy, but then there are others who may look down on you for it. Who gives a shit. The watch dog barks, the caravan moves on.
The problem is, you'll see a lot of those folks on here on the /lit/ board. Apparently it is too difficult to ignore a thread, and some people seem to have it stuck in their mind that books should all be leather bound, and read while smoking a pipe in their study. The books should also give great insights to life. Sounds fun, doesn't it?
Keep doing your thing, man. In their own right, your accusers get shit on constantly all the time as well, for very similar reasons.
Stop being so insecure, if they think you're a retard, who gives a shit. They may also want to stop being such judgmental shits.

>>1993012
I bet you're a big Republican.

Late to thread:

Probably to do with the current market, not just Twilight drivel but the endless Lord of the Rings knockoffs.
Oddly, I once saw a blip about sci-fi being more for liberals and fantasy being more for conservatives. I thought it was a silly generalization, and left it wherever I saw it.

Fantasy as a genre is plagued with very generic stories with little variation between them. Not only this, but the nature of fantasy dictates that large amounts of the story are purely from the author's own imagination, which means that an understanding of the world we live in is not necessary to make a fantasy novel.

As a fantasy author, you don't have to have any grasp of history or global politics, since your world is fictional. Conflicts can be easily manufactured without regard for modern reality. You'd be hard-pressed to write any story set in the current era where large-scale race wars consume most of the plot (and one race is depicted as unilaterally evil), but this is a common device in fantasy fiction. Likewise you need no understanding of biology -- you can invent entire species (or recycle existing ones, like fairies) and give them specific attributes that dovetail nicely with your plot. Also any story involving magic can easily "bend" the rules of magic (since no such rules exist) to manufacture convenient plot twists or allow the hero a miraculous saving throw at the very end.

In the most overused of fantasy plotlines, you don't even need to establish any real motivation for your characters, and neither do you need to explain how all these disparate souls happened to convene -- there's a quest for a magical thing! or a quest to vanquish an evil sorcerer! and they all meet and interact because they're all part of the same adventuring party! Problem solved.

Is all fantasy necessarily like this? No. But the majority of it is. Even if you avoid the overused "quest" plots and eschew use of orcs/elves/dragons altogether, set it in something OTHER than Ye Olde Medieval Setting and eliminate all the magick, you still run the risk of letting some kind of deus-ex-machina sew up all your plot holes because your story has so little grounding in objective reality.

I LOVE FANTASY BOOKS. NOT READING THEM AS MUCH AS WRITING THEM. I LIKE WRITING ABOUT TWENTY-FOOT TALL MEDIEVAL FLAMING DRAGON DRAGON DICK BEING JAMMED UP MY ASS AND YOU, KNOW, STUFF LIKE THAT.

>>1993049

THIS is exactly the problem with fantasy. It represents nothing realistic about the world at all.

>>1992939
It has the same problem as all genre fiction. It has different goals from real literature. This doesn't necessarily make it a bad book, but almost always makes it poor literature. This being a literature message board, it will not be preferred. If this had been a fantasy board, it surely would.

>>1993070
This might not even be generally true. But even if it is, it's certainly not always true. There are fantasy novels, and novels in every genre, of high literary merit. And by that I mean: novels that are artfully written, and use symbolism, metaphor, subtext and theme to leave the reader with a richer meaning than may at first be apparent.

Because when you see all the good books out there, written by the best of humanity, that you've yet to read, why would you want to waste your time with pointless fantasy ?

It's like watching TV.

>>1993100
Your "high literary merit" is the basic expectation of any writing.

It doesn't pull this shit up out of genre and into the revelation of the human soul at full force in the vagina, mouth and anus.

Oh look, by referencing a meme I gave you richer meaning than may at first be apparent—at full force.

Did it again!

I see nothing wrong with the genre in principle, I just can't name any stellar examples of the top of my head. LotR comes close, but when you account for the fact that it's essentially a prose retelling of Der Ring des Nibelungen it loses some of its appeal.

>>1993127
Wow.... for a second I thought we might be able to talk seriously.
2/10

Because fantasy isn't literature. Anyone starting a fantasy/sci-fi thread is essentially breaking the rules of the board.

It would be like starting a DFW thread (who i hate) in /tv/.

>>1993132
By that sort of logic just about every book should lose their appeal because everything is strongly influenced by something else that is remarkably similar, intentionally or not. No author is free from influence and none are capable of writing without borrowing ideas, themes, or structure from authors they have read.

When it comes to fantasy, as with all things, 90% is shit, 9% is good, 1% is golden. This applies to all forms of human expression no matter the media, no matter the genre (if applicable).

This thread is dumb and full of "high literature" snob trolls and trolls responding to the trolls.

>>1992952
>>1993124
>>1993049
Sturgeons Law...

>>1993244

There's a difference between influence and the exact same thing with pointy ears.

I've never heard you guys discuss a good fantasy book. Good as in, the writer has skills in actual writing. People always talk about pulp from the plot up, they never discuss the prose. That also tips me off it's not very good literature. And, yes, most of it is shit. So before you pull out the sturgeons law bit, remember that no one likes to wade through shit to find something that might possibly be good. You all probably have bad taste anyway.


This is kinda hypocritical, since I just bought Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle but i'm pretty sure this isn't the type of fantasy you meant.

>>1992945
90% of EVERYTHING is shit, this is not a special feature of fantasy literature.

>>1992952
>pointless and self-indulgent
What isn't?

>>1993283
Literature that is NOT wish-fullfillment? In which you read it simply to know what the author wanted to say?

>>1992977
No it's not. Some people, like those who do Literary Studies, like to think that they read literature which is the center of the cultural universe and makes the world go round intellectually when in fact neither is the case. Just because you tack French theory onto your reading experience does not make it less escapist, you elitist pseudo-intellectual fuck.

>>1992983 great literature tells us about ourselves and what it means to be human

lol. What you call "great literature" mostly deals with a very limited portion of human experience and the tools available to literary description make those descriptions fundamentally and completely different from the things they describe. People who worship "great literature" often not only do not have a clue as to what "being human" means for the vast majority of humans, but they actually think this makes them superior somehow. This is escapism on an entirely different scale than those of fantasy nerds, because in terms of self-delusion, those pseudo-intellectual can never 'put the book down', as it were. If your identity revolves to a large extent around "high culture" chances are you couldn't even admit to yourself that this is escapism because of the psychological barrier created to prevent the subsequent emotional shock, even if you were intellectually capable of realizing that your pursuits are not actually more meaningful than anyone else's.

>>1993043

Yes, it is a rather facile exaggeration of the fact that fantasy is oriented at the past - like conservatism - while SF deals with the results of future change - like "leftism". Duh.

>>1993049
Building an immersive world for your narrative to take place in requires certain amounts of skill and the kinds of knowledge you mentioned greatly helps in creating believable imaginary counterparts. The fact that most writers fail at doing it is not a failure of fantasy per se, because most people also fail to depict the real world in biologically / politically / historically accurate or interesting ways.

>>1993259
Which LotR and the Ring don't quite fit, since the Ring is incredibly more awesome and involves a lot less walking through the forest describing the colour of the leaves, as far as I remember.

>>1993315

The timing's worse, yes. But all the truly stirring moments come straight from the Ring.

>As a fantasy author, you don't have to have any grasp of history or global politics, since your world is fictional.

Neither you do as an author of any other type of literature. Historically accurate novels are few and far between, and those novels that deal with history/politics and are classified as "real literature", like "War and Peace", inevitably resemble reality only in most superificial ways, because their authors are too busy ramming their message down readers' throats to bother about any real-world resemblance.

huge fantasy fan here
most of /lit/ hates everything that isn't egdy and hipster and they're all angsty teenagers writers wanna be that will gladly find any opportunity to bash any succesfull writer but those few that do like fantasy have given me constant good titles

>>1993310
+1

I love fantasy, I don't know how anyone can hate a particular genre, just because LOL NOT ALL OF IT IS GOOD, maybe it's a hipster reflex seeing as fantasy is one of the more popular genres of literature

I used to love Fantasy but it's gone from being fairly interesting to poorly written, boring and far too thick. I'm also sick and tired of Fantasies that turn into sprawling 10-volume "cycles". The ideal page count for me is 300-400 pages. If you can't tell and wrap up a proper story in that amount of pages, I'm not reading.

Prince of Nothing and Aspect Emperor are the only good fantasy series I have read. (+LoTR)

It's stylistically and technically void. It's like twilight for boys.

>>1993529
> /lit/ hates everything that isn't egdy and hipster and they're all angsty teenagers writers wanna be that will gladly find any opportunity to bash any succesfull write

sure sounds butthurt in here

>>1993539
>This trilogy details the emergence of Anasûrimbor Kellhus, a brilliant monastic warrior, as he takes control of a holy war and the hearts and minds of its leaders. Kellhus exhibits incredible powers of prediction and persuasion, which are derived from deep knowledge of rationality, cognitive biases, and causality, as discovered by the Dûnyain, a secret monastic sect. As Kellhus goes from military leader to divine prophet, Drusas Achamian, the sorcerer who mentored Kellhus, comes to realize that his student may well be the harbinger of the Second Apocalypse.
>The key feature distinguishing the Prince of Nothing series from its contemporaries is the importance of philosophy to the work. The plot, characters, setting, and metaphysics of the Prince of Nothing are intertwined with philosophical positions unique to the series.

>>1993555
trips don't lie.

>>1993539
someone needs to read The Way of Kings

>>1993557
angsty teen writer wanna-be detected

what's the matter, your latest short-story got no positive feedback from /lit/?

stay classy

>>1993555
lol.

I like both fantasy and the kind of books /lit/ makes sure they're seen reading.

I gain equal enjoyment from both.

Recently finished this and Wise Man's Fear, they were fantastic. Also read the Long Price Quartet before that, that was the shit as well.

>>1993295
Open your mind, Quaid.

>>1993519
>>1993310
Oh I certainly wasn't saying that all fantasy is lazy writing, or that no fantasy author ever studies real-world subjects to help with building their fantasy -- just that you don't *have* to do so, and many fantasy authors don't.

Put it like this -- I have two books I write. One is set in the real world. If my characters live in New York I can't just fabricate the details of New York; it has to be at least loosely based on the real city or readers will notice. If my main character is a journalist, and I have only the foggiest idea about the profession, it'll show. And if I want him to be of Indian descent, but I know nothing about the culture or the language, I can't give any detailed background on him or it'll show immediately that I didn't do the homework.

Fantasy can solve all those issues. I may know much less about Indian journalists in New York than several of my readers, but nobody knows any more than I do about orcish spellweavers of Karnath -- because I just made all that shit up.

And I agree, a fantasy writer with a good grounding in history/biology/etc can make an awesome story -- being fabricated doesn't make it worthless. And an overstudied author (who spends pages and pages talking about how the printing press at the newspaper works) is just as insufferable as someone who ties up all their plot holes with "a wizard did it!" I actually like some kinds of fantasy fiction too; I'm just describing the common pitfalls that make it ill-regarded as a genre.