~~ fantasy vs. fiction.

[reenka]

To start with, I'll take pity on those of you who read this lj for an H/D fix (I can only imagine your woe, but)-- I wrote two of the fluffy/snarky marriage(!!) snippets for Aja's the_eros_affair here. One of them -with- Aja. I call it "Untitled Fluffy Snark #2". I wonder if any of you could tell which bits are mine, muwahahaha. ♥
~~

In my creative writing class, we were reading our snippets aloud today, and there was a sentence in one girl's piece: "What is the difference between fantasy and fiction?"

The answer was basically an allegory for how in fantasy, the ugly rough broken spots of reality get smoothed over and swept under the carpet-- basically, fantasy isn't going to be emotionally, empirically 'realistic'.
    You know, I was thinking about this, and I suppose it's actually true of how most people fantasize, how they view fantasy-- as an escape (and I realize that yes, for me also it's an escape). It's also the reason a number of 'realistic' writers look down on fantasy: after all, it can't tell you anything real about the world or the people around you. Fantasy is around to -lie-.

It seems like we have largely abandoned the traditional uses of allegory and myth in art; the way of the fairy-tale, the art of telling-without-telling, of telling obliquely, of showing through symbol and archetype and allegorical truth. I'm naturally of the bent that predisposes me to allegorical rather than everyday or 'mundane', empirical truth, so yes, 'fantasy' is just easier for me-- which becomes clear because only one of the snippets I heard in the class was really fantastical, and even that one seemed to look down on fantasy. We as a culture see truth as so cut-and-dry a lot of times-- at least, whenever we're not collectively being superstitious and idolizing authority and power. Well. I suppose it's always been like that.

Though there's a lot of 'filler' fantasy being published, much more than there was 50 years ago, say, and tons more than 100 years ago, most of it seems somewhat... standardized and unimaginative to me. The same old recycled pseudo-medieval tropes, the same old videogame retreads, the same old theme-park atmosphere. With HP, in a lot of ways it mocks the fantasy tropes it uses, but there's something about it-- something about the sheer inventivess and silliness that does hold a sense of wonder, it seems like. Even though it -should- feel recycled, it doesn't; it seems fresh if only because of that sense of... surprise, I suppose. Possibly this is a result of them being written like detective novels along with the largely innocent protagonist, or perhaps I'm just a chump. Whatever it is, I never know what silly/weird/odd/useful/funny thing JKR's magic will do next, in the Potterverse. It's like a bag of magic tricks, base stuff really, but it sparkles in a way most fantasy books just... flicker and glow dully.

Even in fanfic for a fantasy and fanart for a fantasy series like HP, there's not a lot of truly mythical/fantastical or allegorical stuff going on. Most people just write romance (rather than romantic fantasy, say), and what fantasy is there (not counting use of 'helper' spells like love potions or Veritaserum or Apparating or silly things like Veela!Draco-- I'm talking about actually being creative within the fantasy medium) is very... um, out of place somehow. I've seen 'wicca' (used badly), I've seen old Egyptian magic (omg, no), and at best I've seen creative variations on JKR's existing spells. Regardless, for some reason none of those things read as fantasy to me at the time-- just something with fantastical elements. I dunno... maybe it's not that it wasn't fantasy so much as it wasn't very good.

Anyway, I got to thinking about all this after looking at this Michael Whelan fantasy art gallery, which you should all see if you're interested in fantasy/allegorical art at all. Whelan's really a master at his chosen themes, and looking at it would give you a sense of the sort of thing I like to see dealt with in writing, also (and I guess you could also see why it's so rare that I find what I like on that level). Maybe it's just because I'm desperate for art to really mean something; to speak to me on multiple levels, from the most base (mmm, porrrnnn!!) to the most spiritual (allegory, dammit!)
    In other words, I'm always looking to see the most unreal premise portrayed in a painstakingly realistic manner-- and that's one reason I love Whelan's approach, I think. It's also why I'm so deeply frustrated with nearly all H/D fics, because once the honeymoon glow wore off, no one was really writing them realistically enough, and my desire to suspend my disbelief for anything other than (a deeper) truth really ebbed.

Or maybe I just really like this picture. And this. And this; and this.... Still and always, I hope.

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm with you on the wishing for people outside the groupthink endorsing outdated thinking patterns, I'm just not sure as to the relationship between writing about & studying something and using it as source material for storytelling, and endorsing it--? I mean, if I read book on old Egyptian gods and how they were worshipped and then read a comic set in a fantasy Egypt where there was actual magic, say, am I endorsing dangerous groupthink somehow--? I mean, outside of a small overall percentage of pagans, I'm not sure how the myths most commonly used in fantasy are currently threatening social progress. It's not like it's a popular field or anything, you know. We're talking obscure ancient pagan cultures and their lore, not precisely most people's idea of a good time.

So I'm not precisely saying society should be made more aware of myths or I'm about to go around enlightening people as to the Elder Edda's role in the development of early poetry or something and its influence on modern fantasy works. I mean, it's not so much that I want to avoid cultural/social issues, I'm just saying there's a separation between storytelling usage and academic study--? You could say as a writer, one has a responsibility to the people and all that, but I'm uncertain what that responsibility is in regard to something like how I reuse the myth of Sisyphus, say, in a story about a really pissed off Japanese salaryman or something. While I'm -interested- in sociology/anthropology, as a reader of mythic fantasy, given I read for pleasure, it seems there remains a difference between furthering my education & restricting my field of interest or something. So it's not in the context of discussion, I meant in the context of reading/writing, there's only so much I can -do-.

I don't know if I made it clear, but I wasn't specifically meaning the Jungian sense of the collective unconscious, something that links the individual to the overall history of the species and culture and planet, etc. I wasn't trying to say there was this big divide between the conscious and unconscious mind, but rather than there are different aspects of 'unconscious', some of which aren't directly influenced by current culture and is more driven by imagination, hardwired associations, snippets of stories and dreams... though this is more intuition than anything else. I have this feeling like there are different layers/facets of the subconscious mind-- the perceptual framework which handles the brunt of unnoticed perception distinct from though likely connected to and feeding the part which creates more longterm condensed symbols in the id. I dunno what I'm saying anymore. It's impossible to separate the idiosyncratic from the cultural from the archetypal, of course, as there seem to be influences everywhere, but... It's not so much universality or anything so much as repeating patterns, always different in major details but retaining some common thread of story. It's like, similar things evolving naturally, perhaps. It's not 'the story' so much as the raw components at that point; mutated shadows that were once related to experienced reality but took on a life of their own in the unconscious mind-- that become something concrete when put inside a specific context. And these inner shadows have things in common with each other the way people themselves have things in common, it seems like. It's not universality in terms of an over-myth (ubermyth?) so much as interconnectedness....

But since I think in highly symbolic terms, I can't help but feel there are repeating themes that are instinctive to us, often repeated in stories of many different cultures. It's not one story but many, I guess-- it's just that they all share common characteristics. The specific myth inevitably changes, it's only human nature that remains the same. Something like eternal change bringing about an eternal constant. This is more my own observation than any thought-out proof, though :>

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

I mean, if I read book on old Egyptian gods and how they were worshipped and then read a comic set in a fantasy Egypt where there was actual magic, say, am I endorsing dangerous groupthink somehow--?

No, because that's now just a story. Though it was once a myth, that was endorsed through groupthink, mostly for exploitative purposes of the Egyptian upperclass.

I have no doubt there's as much (if not more) mythological bullshit in Paganism as there is in any other mainstream religion.

I dunno what I'm saying anymore.

^^ That's okay. I do. And I agree with you on the facets of the subconsciousness thing you described and uberconnectedness even if I may have been a bit cunty in some of my past replies. Sorry, just boogers running down the back of my throat make me cranky. I mean, you can see similarities in the development of certain pop cultures in certain countries at the same time when the same sort of socio-political events occur. And I mean, ancient cultures that existed at the same time but in different (yet similar) geographical locations in the past were like that too.