# Is Violence Necessary?



## Ban (Aug 10, 2016)

After just watching this video Movie Violence Done Right - YouTube of one of my favorite youtube channels, Nerdwriter1, I thought to myself. Is Violence necessary? 

I am not asking if violence is a necessary component of all fiction, but if you think it is needed in specific genres. Does an epic fantasy need battles of large and small scale? Can an action-oriented novel stand on its own without a punch being thrown. Would this be compelling to you? And if so, what do you use to create suspense instead.


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## FifthView (Aug 10, 2016)

There are types of story that don't require violence, although sometimes violence can be implied, i.e. a threat of violence, even when it doesn't happen.

Violence is an odd thing when you think about it.  Does nature commit violence?  That question arises from yours about an action-oriented novel without a punch being thrown.  Trying to survive a series of disasters, or while crossing dangerous landscapes, could be filled with lots of high-octane action without humans fighting each other.  (And, besides natural geological disasters and threats, there are the non-human animal threats:  Are attacking bears, swarms of killer bees, a type of violence?)

As for implied violence...there can be many cases of political intrigue or interpersonal intrigue in which some form of potential violence exists just beyond whatever intrigues are happening.  Often, the threat of violence can be far more suspenseful than actual enacted violence.


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## Nimue (Aug 10, 2016)

This is something that I've been pondering in relation to my current WIP.  There is a battle in the first chapter, albeit on a fairly small scale, but I don't believe blood is spilled--except ritualistically--again in the story.  It's all magic, family conflict, breaking curses, and romance from there on out, salted with a brief imprisonment and threat of witch-burning.  In fact, when the MC tries to use violence against hostile soldiers, her magic deserts her.

I'm a little worried that first chapter will give the wrong impression of the story, and make what comes after seem too slow.  Relating to genre expectations, this story isn't epic by any scale, so I don't think that should tie in, but still.  I tend to like stories without too much violence or grimness, so this kind of plot feels natural to me.

I'll just have to write the rest of the story and see what beta readers think.


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## Devor (Aug 10, 2016)

I think it's hard to do fantasy without violence because it's something that fantasy does well, and readers expect it.  There's also something about swords and magic and wild creatures that you can use to take the edge off of fantasy violence - it sometimes doesn't _feel_ like violence, making it easier to fit into a story.

That said, _necessary_ is a strong word, and fantasy is a wider genre than the typical _Swords and Sorcery_.  For instance, is Pixar's _Inside Out_ considered fantasy?  There's no violence in it.


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## Ban (Aug 10, 2016)

I agree Devor, Fantasy is a very good genre or violence. Be it human vs human or human vs beast/monster. 

And Fifthview you raise some very good questions. Personally I would consider human vs beasts to be a form of violence as well, since these are individually acting beings with the purpose of harming a human. Nature does not have purpose and therefore can't be considered violence in my opinion. Which leads me to the mandatory second question. How compelling can human vs nature truly be. Nature has no inherent goal or direction, it is an abstract concept. A well-developed main character might be able to give emotion to this "antagonist" through some form of projection. Robinson Crusoe comes to mind. But how often can you make a story like that and have people like it?


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## FifthView (Aug 10, 2016)

Well in a fantasy world, nature might indeed have purpose, heh.

I think maybe it comes down to dangers and threats, potential harm to the protagonists, as important factors for a story.  Whether those take the form of violence or some other form might not matter as much.

There are theories of violence which look at direct vs indirect violence.  For instance, robbing a traveler of all his gear while he's sleeping or enacting a court order to strip a man of all his possessions could be considered acts of violence insofar as continued survival for the target is made more difficult.  Theories of government consider the ways that governments have more or less of a monopoly on violence, and law and order require threats of violence and/or the exercise of violence, so imagining a realistic portrayal of a world without these might be difficult.


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## skip.knox (Aug 10, 2016)

Certainly violence is expected in an action thriller. It's pretty much the definition of action. Technically, I suppose one could have nothing but chase sequences with no one ever being caught, physically risky actions with never a single fall or bruise. I could see trying it as a kind of writerly exercise, but I doubt you'd get rave reviews from readers. Why write a novel about a sea captain who never steps onto a boat? Because you can? Sure. Because it will be liked? Naw.

As for fantasy, that's a huge genre, but the OP asks specifically about epic fantasy. Here again, I can envision a violence-free story, but again what would be the point? There are plenty of other genres one could choose to write in where the lack of battles would not cause a blink. But over here in epic fantasy, we sit down expecting to see some satisfying set-pieces. Why disappoint us?


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## FifthView (Aug 10, 2016)

I've noticed that I prefer smaller encounters to giant battles, and even in giant battles it's the small encounters between MCs and direct opponents that I find most enthralling and invigorating, that zoom-in in the midst of larger battles.

I like ambushes, attempted assassinations, the sudden appearance of armed street thugs, bar brawls, a few of the evil King's city guards showing up–all those small encounters.


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## Ban (Aug 10, 2016)

I had not thought of indirect violence yet Fifthview. It is interesting to think of a story without even that. Personally I do not subscribe to the theory that "indirect violence" can be considered true violence, because it in itself doesn't hurt anyone. By the logic of indirect violence it is also theft to own a bird who steals silverware. Well... maybe not, but you get my point 

Also with your preference for smaller encounters. Would you say that you like those encounters more because of the more personal nature of it? Because in that case a direct verbal confrontation between two characters could theoretically achieve the same thing.


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## FifthView (Aug 10, 2016)

I mentioned indirect violence intending to continue the thought that "dangers and threats, potential harm to the protagonists" might be the important element, more than violence per se if violence is defined only as physical conflicts like battles, skirmishes and brawls.

I personally believe that violence is much broader than that, but maybe this obfuscates the discussion.



> Personally I do not subscribe to the theory that "indirect violence" can be considered true violence, because it in itself doesn't hurt anyone.



But if a man is traveling through a great desert and you steal all his water, that is hurting him!  It's the difference between first order, second order, third order effects.  Often in our world, this is a nifty excuse for doing harmful things.

But back to my general point.  "Dangers and threats, potential harm" could be things like emotional threats and harm, legal threats and harm, and so forth, and provide interesting conflict without needing to arm your characters with swords and/or offensive spells.  What if the potential loss of an inheritance was at stake?  The potential loss of magic—even, the possibility that _all_ magic in the world would be destroyed?  Either of those might or might not be considered harmful potentials for your characters.

Edit:  On the personal nature of those small encounters...yes.  But also it's that effect of pulling the camera way out and only getting an indistinct blob vs seeing all the little details.  I like the little movements, the intricacies, more than the general destruction.  I like the sharp stakes vs the more general and abstract stakes.


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## SeverinR (Aug 10, 2016)

Conflict is mandatory. Violence isn't.
There must be a goal, there must be a struggle to achieve the goal, a conflict of some type, maybe even someone else trying for the same goal. But violence is only one option of the conflict.


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## Alile (Aug 10, 2016)

Violence is a means to an end. The way I think of it, violence has to have a purpose. But that can be said about everything happening in a story, also everything that was avoided or averted. And everything the writer omitted.
A punch really isn't exciting. It is the WHY of it that is exciting. The emotions, the internal conflict and battle and fight within a character, the reasons for acting or speaking.
Maybe it's not a choice between evil or good every single time and maybe there is a gray zone in there too. Violence will have repercussions, right there in a violent situation or later on (someone saw the violence, the character is torn over his use of violence, etc).
I see a big difference between large-scale warfare and being in a brawl or someone stealing a purse. It can all serve its purpose in a story. I think however that the suspense, anticipation, conflict, internal struggle, are more valuable than violence. 
Violence for violence's sake, no thanks. 
However, I just read about "tasteful violence" in a film review. And let's not forget the old phrase Violence Glorification. I suspect these are around in a lot of fantasy books. I'm not saying it as a very bad thing, but just something to be aware of. I mean, I can appreciate the almost coreogrphed movement of the cavalry coming in on the enemy army's flank or the elven archers firing in waves, but... it has to have it's place and time and I suspect everything that leads up to the violence is way more interesting.


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## Gurkhal (Aug 11, 2016)

I don't think that anything is really necessary in an almost any genre but conventionallity often points towards some stuff that's in most of the big sellers, and readers often read the genre because of the big sellers were, well, big sellers. So they kind of set a predecent.


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## La Volpe (Aug 11, 2016)

I think violence becomes necessary depending on your specific subgenre. Like someone here said, it's all about the expectations. By writing a book in a certain genre, you're promising the reader that he will get things that are common to this subgenre (i.e. if he's reading a sword&sorcery, he'll be expecting swords and sorcery; if they don't make an appearance, he'll be disappointed).

That being said, I'm sure it can be pulled off. But the question is, why do you want to? If the story simply doesn't have any violence in it, but it still counts as epic fantasy because of its other elements, it's something you could test out. If you deliberately cut out the violent bits and replace them with say, verbal confrontation (unless it's Dovah-Zul, ha!), then you're probably doing a disservice to the readers.



FifthView said:


> But if a man is traveling through a great desert and you steal all his water, that is hurting him!  It's the difference between first order, second order, third order effects.  Often in our world, this is a nifty excuse for doing harmful things.



If you walk through a desert and see a man who's dying of thirst, and you don't give him some of your extra water, isn't that a violent act as well? I.e. where do you draw the line, and why there? As an absurd example, if you don't go out into the world and save every person who you could have saved, are you committing a violent act? Doesn't that dilute the meaning of violence too much?

In these cases, it's more of a lack of action, I know, but in the end, you're still making a decision that causes another person to be hurt, whether by his lack of water that you could have fixed or not. It's the trolley problem incarnate.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 11, 2016)

Necessary? First you'd have to define what you mean by violence. Fighting? Not all stories depend on physical conflict, or even involve fighting. Or do you mean injuries/gore? I'm a bit torn on this one. Part of me feels that graphic violence is gratuitous, but part of me feels that it's important to portray violence and death and ugly and horrible, because that's how it is in reality. It's not like a video game. 

Conflict is what's important, not violence. Often, action and violence are used as substitutes for conflict. Personally, I find internal conflict and developing tension to be much more compelling than fight scenes and gore. Often violence seems to me like a substitute for plot. It's a matter of personal preference to some degree...I like action and physical conflict, but I also like stories about family and relationships, and the stories I enjoy most are typically those with an equal balance of the two.

In fantasy, readers expect the plot to contain physical conflict. I'm not sure why. A fantasy story that's entirely a sweet, lighthearted romance, with no fighting or orcs or dark lords anywhere....why not? So...necessary? No. Expected? Yes. 

In real life, people die. In fights, people get injured. If this stuff doesn't happen, it won't be realistic, and the readers won't be worried about what happens to everyone, either...because they're invincible. 

My stories are quite violent. My WIP opens with the main character getting whipped and I describe it in a fair amount of detail. There's torture (physical and psychological), there are lots of deaths. My characters get injured. They get crippled. They get scarred. They get stuff stitched up and patched up and amputated without any anesthesia. The world they live in is dangerous, and they're in the midst of lots of conflict. Not to mention the wilderness is full of terrifying creatures, and humans lower on the food chain than in this world. There's plenty of physical conflict and fighting, I suppose...dragon riding, guerrilla warfare, spying, escapes, survival in the wilderness...but, the main story is centered around the characters' relationships and internal conflicts. One of my MC's struggles with grief and guilt after his love commits suicide, and is terrified to open his heart to anyone again. The other MC is both frightened and allured by the darkness of her powers, and doesn't know what side she should be on. She wants to protect the guy she loves, her brother,(the other MC) her friends, her dragon, but her convictions are tearing her away from them. Others are afraid of her powers, and she is too. She hurts people on accident, and she wants to do the right thing, but she's terrified she will have to sacrifice someone she loves. It's a lot more complicated than all that, actually...a LOT more complicated...but, the character's relationships are what fascinates me. The story wouldn't be whole without the action and physical conflict, either, though. They work together. In fantasy stories, that's kind of what is expected.


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## Alile (Aug 11, 2016)

I love finding new books and new stories that surprise me and aren't quite what I thought they would be or have an interesting way of formulating sentences (style of writing) or bring something new to the table. Yes, we are discussing fantasy but who would want to write what your future readers would expect? Who can even do that, writing a story is not quite like baking a cake. There are teqhnicues to writing but who would want to spoon-feed readers things they think will happen, in the way they think it will happen? Violence has been done before but I still think there are things one can do with it to make it unique, new and shiny i the eyes of readers.
Another point is the sad feeling I sometimes get when I think: "Now he's gonna say that. Now she's going to do that. Now she replies to his comment tenderly." And I'm right about it. Yes, you can lead readers to expect a punch/fight, and work with that, but when actions in your story becomes obvious it's not a good thing. 
Another thing is pinning themes/actions to people in your story (one writer I thougt did this was Robert Jordan) like Adam is the hot-headed one who always cracks his knuckles. And that's what he does, and that's how you're supposed to distinguish him from the rest of the cast of the story. Here we go. Adam is provoked, or annoyed, or bored, *crack*. Launch fight... Yeah, doesn't he have any other moves? Sorry, Robert Jordan... but sometimes you made me feel like you expected me (readers in general too), to be stupid and forgetful. Okay, sorry about my rant... I just think that characters need to come alive, and if you never thought they had the potential for violence, what do they "do when it really comes down to it?"
Within the limitations of a fantasy story; what violence can you write about, why would you do it, how, how much blood and gore and the sound and feel of bones breaking, do your character stare a man in the eye, stab him and "watch the light fade from his eyes"? You might not be able to write about a nuclear bomb, and frankly I feel there isn't that much realism in some violent scenes in fantasy, but I guess we are here to change all that.
I guess there is one more thing that hasn't been mentioned, beware of your age group of readers and what they should not read (young readers).


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## Holoman (Aug 11, 2016)

I like violence, even in romance stories 

It's probably possible to do a good fantasy book without it, but likely harder than including it.

That said, I'm not really into excessive gore and violence. I like it to be quite sparse but brutal. I'm definitely not a fan of huge battles, give me close quarters and intimate fighting, with emotions. And I don't like it going on too long. I like quick fights and the emphasis to be on the consequences and emotions.


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## Miskatonic (Aug 11, 2016)

You could have a mission impossible (the movies specifically) type scenario where the action comes form trying to outwit a high tech security system or something like that. Espionage type scenarios where violence is only the outcome if the spy/spies fail can be exciting. The same can be said about car chases, though they are probably going to be harder to write. 

You can have plenty of action where the threat of injury or death is always lurking but never comes.


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## FifthView (Aug 11, 2016)

La Volpe said:


> If you walk through a desert and see a man who's dying of thirst, and you don't give him some of your extra water, isn't that a violent act as well? I.e. where do you draw the line, and why there? As an absurd example, if you don't go out into the world and save every person who you could have saved, are you committing a violent act? Doesn't that dilute the meaning of violence too much?
> 
> In these cases, it's more of a lack of action, I know,



If you know, why ask?


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## Addison (Aug 11, 2016)

Violence is pointless without conflict. Hollywood hasn't been doing very well with it lately. Just because a car blows up or a person is shot doesn't mean the stakes go up or anything like that. Punch in the face? Meh. Punched in the face so your jaw is broken so you can't tell your friend he's marked for death? Yes. Of course there is a way to have the person unable to tell their friend without physical violence. Lose their cell phone, a jerk barista or such not letting them use the phone. Miss the bus to get to the friend. Violence in a story is like magic in the Enchanted Forest; a perk, not a necessity.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 11, 2016)

Addison said:


> Violence is pointless without conflict. Hollywood hasn't been doing very well with it lately. Just because a car blows up or a person is shot doesn't mean the stakes go up or anything like that. Punch in the face? Meh. Punched in the face so your jaw is broken so you can't tell your friend he's marked for death? Yes. Of course there is a way to have the person unable to tell their friend without physical violence. Lose their cell phone, a jerk barista or such not letting them use the phone. Miss the bus to get to the friend. Violence in a story is like magic in the Enchanted Forest; a perk, not a necessity.



totally agree about hollywood. 

I can't stand books that open with a violent, action-packed scene and people are getting hurt and dying before i have the chance to care or know who they are. Action can actually be the most boring thing of all when there is no reason to care what's happening. Descriptions of forests and rivers and cities without a character in sight can draw me in better than empty guns and chases and explosions stuff. 

So, basically, violence does not equal conflict.


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## A. E. Lowan (Aug 11, 2016)

Addison and Dragon both make excellent points.  Violence is gratuitous without conflict, thus violence is not needed - but conflict is.  Now, within our genre there are certain expectations that violence will be forthcoming, either on a grand scale or the more intimate violence favored by Fifth.  But always there must be conflict, or the violence exists without a point.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 11, 2016)

A. E. Lowan said:


> Addison and Dragon both make excellent points.  Violence is gratuitous without conflict, thus violence is not needed - but conflict is.  Now, within our genre there are certain expectations that violence will be forthcoming, either on a grand scale or the more intimate violence favored by Fifth.  But always there must be conflict, or the violence exists without a point.



Large scale battle scenes are extremely boring to me. I like my fight scenes brutal and intimate, and charged with internal conflict.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Aug 11, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Large scale battle scenes are extremely boring to me. I like my fight scenes brutal and intimate, and charged with internal conflict.


Large-scale battle scenes may be written in a way that makes them brutal & intimate...it's all in the execution. 

Consider POV choice. I'd agree that a broad overview of a battle is yawn-inspiring, but what if the POV choice was a lowly squire facing his first battle, soiling his armor as the enemy cuts down his master and advances on him. 

The telling of that battle, while still able to recount a large scale, could still be told in an intimate manner. Further, the violence would _mean_ something, because it impacts a character emotionally (hopefully invoking emotion in the reader, as well).


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## Mythical Traveller (Aug 13, 2016)

Excellent topic, @Banten! Thank you so much for starting it! 

I'm actually wrestling with this question myself at the moment. Violence seems to be becoming more and more prevalent every day in our own world and it gives me pause about carrying this human affliction of ours over to my fiction so readily. Surely the sword isn't the only tool that can resolve a conflict?

And while I am merely uncertain about dragging my story into all-out war, my heroine and hero are profoundly resistant to the idea. They are very much pacifist by nature. They are committed to living good, honorable lives, yet they are confronted with the fact that if they go to war, they will be wreaking untold devastation and misery upon others - namely, the denizens of the enemy kingdom. On the other hand, said kingdom (or more specifically, its ruling cult) Is committed to destroying what the heroes hold sacred, and the enemy's victory will likewise wreak subsequent untold misery. It seems to be a lose-lose scenario. Ever heard that quote, "nobody wins a war"? 

I've put a lot of thought into developing a solution that offers satisfaction to both sides of the conflict; still not 100% there, but I think I've got a good foundation. There still might be need/room for a small battle in there, however. Also, I believe I'll need to have at least one meaningful death in the middle of the story for plot & emotional reasons.

But then, when I think about stripping my story of (virtually) all the bloodshed, I think back to that Simpsons episode where Homer & the gang went off to see "The Phantom Menace" and they all wound up practically falling asleep in the cinema, because the entire movie was just about the galactic senate calling roll and amending bills.

Will a story that seeks a diplomatic resolution to a burning conflict just end up being a huge snooze-fest?


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## FifthView (Aug 13, 2016)

In April 1865, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his journal,

'Tis far the best that the rebels have been pounded instead of negotiated into a peace.  They must remember it, & their inveterate brag will be humbled, if not cured.  George Minott used to tell me over the wall, when I urged him to go to town meeting & vote, that "votes did no good, what was done so wouldn't last, but what was done by bullets would stay put."​
In this last year I watched the Ken Burns documentary on the American Civil War for the first time, and as I finished it and still to this day, I think it might be the best documentary ever made.  I was never a great scholar of the Civil War, so maybe the things I learned from the documentary are old hat; but one stunning realization was the way the American populace, on both sides of the conflict, believed the war would start and end within about six months.  After a while, after a handful of high-casualty battles surpassing in death totals any previously known battles involving Americans, the people marveled at the awful horribleness and thought, surely, surely it will end soon.  But later there would come battles far surpassing those totals in death rates, and years more of civil war.

It's quite difficult to "kill" an idea.  All manner of negotiation and compromise took place before the war, for decades, to no avail.  But if those who subscribe to that idea are killed?  And/or if a new, more horrible idea supplants that first idea?  (I.e., the awfulness of war.  "War is all hell." —Sherman.)  You can look at what became of Tsarist Russia for another example of trying to stamp out an idea or belief system.  The sad thing is that this happens on a much smaller scale all the time:  If you can't negotiate a person out of an idea or utterly defeat your opponent's ideas via argumentation, bring a gun and murder him; at least, people with limited perspectives and filled with strong passions seem to resort to this sort of win for their arguments in what many others would see to be petty disputes.  "What was done by bullets would stay put."


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## FifthView (Aug 13, 2016)

An addendum to that last comment, something I meant to include but forgot.

I think the enjoyment of violence in fantasy probably arises from the way the "bullet" makes things clearer.  It's a kind of straight shot of the good vs evil contest.  It's a kind of control, and the question of who can win control of their own destinies becomes clearer, sharper.  In our world these days many people feel a loss of control, a loss of absolute certainty, confusion instead of clarity about what will happen.  Terrorists blowing things up randomly, law enforcers being unable to help or sometimes even being a part of the problem.  "What was done by bullets would stay put."  The violence in fantasy novels is a way of clarifying things, of coming to a conclusion that will stay put, a clarification of the argument between good and evil, righteousness and depravity.

At least, this is in part how I experience the existence of violence in fantasy novels.


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## Mythical Traveller (Aug 14, 2016)

FifthView said:


> An addendum to that last comment, something I meant to include but forgot.
> 
> I think the enjoyment of violence in fantasy probably arises from the way the "bullet" makes things clearer.  It's a kind of straight shot of the good vs evil contest.  It's a kind of control, and the question of who can win control of their own destinies becomes clearer, sharper.  In our world these days many people feel a loss of control, a loss of absolute certainty, confusion instead of clarity about what will happen.  Terrorists blowing things up randomly, law enforcers being unable to help or sometimes even being a part of the problem.  "What was done by bullets would stay put."  The violence in fantasy novels is a way of clarifying things, of coming to a conclusion that will stay put, a clarification of the argument between good and evil, righteousness and depravity.
> 
> At least, this is in part how I experience the existence of violence in fantasy novels.



Odd thing about this is that a lot of fantasy, by its own architecture, undermines the whole idea of a happy ending that can "stay put". Take one of the centerpieces of the fantasy genre: Lord Of The Rings. How many times was Sauron defeated in battle only to _regroup_ and return? We are presented with an enemy who, very stubbornly, refuses to stay dead. Yet in the final epic struggle - the one that is presented to us with most emphasis - he is once again destroyed and we are led to believe that this time it really is for good; cross our hearts and hope to die and also pinkie-swear for good measure.

Maybe the characters who have told us repeatedly that he can't possibly survive without his ring actually do know what they're talking about. But the nature of the overall story seems to play against the idea of a clean resolution to the crisis. Winning epic wars against Sauron has proven to be only a stopgap solution in the past.

Don't get me wrong, that final war was well-managed and I'm not implying that the ending felt ambiguous to me; I was satisfied that Sauron was gone for good. But I think that that sense of resolution comes less from the epic battle fought and won against him and more from the fact that characters repeatedly told us "if we complete this quest (i.e. to destroy the ring) Sauron will be permanently defeated." It seems to come down more to the coroner pronouncing the villain dead than _"the bullet"_ you refer to actually hitting said villain.


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## Miskatonic (Aug 14, 2016)

Well LOTR lore always stated that Sauron's existence was bound to the one ring. Not like they changed the rules to let him come back for another chance to conquer Middle Earth.


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## Laurence (Aug 14, 2016)

One of the my favourite books of all time is Stoner and I'd love to read or attempt to write a similar novel with a few fantastical elements thrown in.

I absolutely recommend this book to anyone looking for a book that's captivating and heart wrenching without the use of suspense and violence.

Book book book.


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## FifthView (Aug 14, 2016)

Miskatonic said:


> Well LOTR lore always stated that Sauron's existence was bound to the one ring. Not like they changed the rules to let him come back for another chance to conquer Middle Earth.



Yeah, it'd be a little like a voodoo witch stabbing her doll through the heart and causing a king 300 miles away to die.  Sauron was bound to the ring; destroy the ring, and you destroy Sauron.



Mythical Traveller said:


> Odd thing about this is that a lot of fantasy, by its own architecture, undermines the whole idea of a happy ending that can "stay put". Take one of the centerpieces of the fantasy genre: Lord Of The Rings. How many times was Sauron defeated in battle only to _regroup_ and return? We are presented with an enemy who, very stubbornly, refuses to stay dead. Yet in the final epic struggle - the one that is presented to us with most emphasis - he is once again destroyed and we are led to believe that this time it really is for good; cross our hearts and hope to die and also pinkie-swear for good measure.
> 
> Maybe the characters who have told us repeatedly that he can't possibly survive without his ring actually do know what they're talking about. But the nature of the overall story seems to play against the idea of a clean resolution to the crisis. Winning epic wars against Sauron has proven to be only a stopgap solution in the past.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, that final war was well-managed and I'm not implying that the ending felt ambiguous to me; I was satisfied that Sauron was gone for good. But I think that that sense of resolution comes less from the epic battle fought and won against him and more from the fact that characters repeatedly told us "if we complete this quest (i.e. to destroy the ring) Sauron will be permanently defeated." It seems to come down more to the coroner pronouncing the villain dead than _"the bullet"_ you refer to actually hitting said villain.



@Mythical Traveller:  Aragorn, the hobbits, et al. never bothered trying to negotiate a peace with Sauron.  They also used implements with pointy ends to kill goblins and orcs and a giant spider.  Removing those opponents meant keeping them down, it was "done" and would stay done for each.  So violence figures into the story; would good or evil win the argument?

My mind is fuller with the movies than the books, having watched the movies so many times.  Wasn't the earlier attempt to utterly defeat Sauron a case of violence misapplied or haphazardly applied?  His finger gets cut off; but a bullet to the finger in our world probably wouldn't be a case of making something "stay put."  Multiple battles, repeated attempts, are not a case of the "bullet" not playing a part in the tale, in the metaphorical sense, any more than a back-and-forth verbal dispute not resolving an argument after only one short round of debate would signify an end to the contest of wits.

Lately I've discovered the Investigation Discovery cable channel and have become addicted.  It's a channel devoted to true crime tales, usually murder investigations.  One episode was about a divorced couple fighting over custody of their daughter.  The mother had had custody while the father had visitation rights, but she began refusing him his weekly visit so he took her to court and the judge basically told her in a hearing that when he ruled, she wasn't going to be happy.  So she goes to her parents, who basically babied her and would do anything for her, and the three of them resolved to use a bullet to win the argument.  The father is killed.  A done deal?  No, they were discovered, sentenced to prison, and the father's parents gained permanent custody of the little girl.  So the bullet may often go astray vis-a-vis winning arguments.  (Although in this case, it might be said that it was the "bullet" possessed by the state that achieved an outcome that would "stay put.")


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 14, 2016)

Violence is compelling when it happens to PEOPLE. People we care about. When we watch the deaths of people we just met and see the wounds of people we don't know, we feel disgusted or momentarily shocked, but it's no deeper than that. Violence in a story without characters for us to root for or hate or like is just pointless. Reading about it becomes drudgery. 

Apparently a lot of writers (read: author of the book I just read) don't get this.


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## Jess (Aug 16, 2016)

I've actually been contemplating the same thing. There is violence implied in my novel right now. My world is at war but I've been personally wondering if I need to really go into detail and write about the battles being fought. For me, I think it enhances the story. It brings a element of realism into the story. For your story, do you feel like it will draw your readers into the story deeper? Will it progress the story at all? Will it create a certain element of drama for any of your characters? Or will it help tell the story of the world that your story is based on? I feel like if you can answer yes to any of these questions than maybe you should consider adding said violence.


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## Helen (Aug 17, 2016)

Banten said:


> After just watching this video Movie Violence Done Right - YouTube of one of my favorite youtube channels, Nerdwriter1, I thought to myself. Is Violence necessary?
> 
> I am not asking if violence is a necessary component of all fiction, but if you think it is needed in specific genres. Does an epic fantasy need battles of large and small scale? Can an action-oriented novel stand on its own without a punch being thrown. Would this be compelling to you? And if so, what do you use to create suspense instead.



It probably isn't necessary - one could always find a way to avoid it and still pull off a dramatic story.

But my approach would be to embrace it when it seems to be needed.


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## FifthView (Aug 17, 2016)

Jess said:


> There is violence implied in my novel right now. My world is at war but I've been personally wondering if I need to really go into detail and write about the battles being fought. For me, I think it enhances the story. It brings a element of realism into the story. For your story, do you feel like it will draw your readers into the story deeper? Will it progress the story at all? Will it create a certain element of drama for any of your characters? Or will it help tell the story of the world that your story is based on? I feel like if you can answer yes to any of these questions than maybe you should consider adding said violence.



I think that imagining a world entirely without violence is nearly impossible.  Sure, this is fantasy, we're talking about fantasy worlds, and perhaps it's not truly impossible to imagine a whole world that doesn't have violence.  (Would such a world be relevant to us who live in a world rife with violence?  Maybe as a mirror for us drawn as an antithesis.)

BUT here's the thing:  We don't typically write whole worlds.  We write stories.  Stories are slices of a world.  And not all slices, not even in our own world, are rife with violence.

So writing a good story that has no violence is much easier to imagine than a whole world without violence.  A story can be set in a world that has violence without our having to put violence _in_ the _story_.

Of course I'm considering the subject in general.  Whether certain genres are more or less problematic in this regard may be a worthy question.  

Edit:  Sorry if my response seems odd, given your comment.  I was riffing off of it more than responding directly.

But, I agree with you:  Consider the story you are telling and decide whether violence will enhance it.  

I have been picking up a kind of anti-violence vibe in this thread.  A personal distaste for violence.  So when I've mentioned bullets—in real-world contexts, that can be quite uncomfortable.  I personally hate guns and always have a very negative visceral reaction when I am anywhere near a gun.  But I'm not sure that eliminating all violence from a story out of personal distaste for violence is a dependable technique for creating a good story.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 18, 2016)

FifthView said:


> I have been picking up a kind of anti-violence vibe in this thread.  A personal distaste for violence.  So when I've mentioned bullets—in real-world contexts, that can be quite uncomfortable.  I personally hate guns and always have a very negative visceral reaction when I am anywhere near a gun.  But I'm not sure that eliminating all violence from a story out of personal distaste for violence is a dependable technique for creating a good story.



Violence isn't supposed to be fun to write about or read about. It's supposed to be distasteful. I do have a distaste for violence, but that's part of being a compassionate human being. 

On the other hand, I do write violence. I write injuries, battles, and torture. I think it's impossible to avoid in many cases. In fact, it's insincere not to do violence justice...to gloss it over, to act like its no big deal. I don't think it's necessary to show gratuitous gore onscreen (onpage?); I've never written anything you would call gory, but in a story where violent acts must be performed for the plot's sake, you have to handle it properly. By this I mean handle deaths as an actual loss of human life and not as in a videogame. Having characters kill and watch others die without being mentally and emotionally affected by it is not realistic.

I suppose this all has been confusing up until now. What I mean is, you have to make your reader feel disgust, shock and horror.  If you write violence in a way that doesn't affect them in a way that violence should affect any mentally healthy human being, you're doing it wrong. 

Gore is overused and overdone. Violence is gratuitous more often than not. The reason for this is that violence is downplayed in fiction. Deaths have no impact. We're numb to it. Characters go through things that would give real people nightmares, PTSD, scar them for life, and are barely affected.


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## La Volpe (Aug 19, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Violence isn't supposed to be fun to write about or read about. It's supposed to be distasteful. I do have a distaste for violence, but that's part of being a compassionate human being.



I enjoy reading fight scenes. I enjoy writing them. I enjoy watching movies with action and explosions and sword fighting. I even participate in organised violence (combat sport) and I enjoy it.

Does that make me the opposite of a compassionate human being?

--

As a general comment, I think violence is a part of human nature. It's ingrained in our history and probably in our genetics. It's the reason we're the dominant species on the planet. To avoid using violence in our stories is avoiding a huge part of the human experience. That doesn't mean that all stories must include violence, but it does mean that the violence shouldn't be removed if it fits.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 19, 2016)

La Volpe said:


> I enjoy reading fight scenes. I enjoy writing them. I enjoy watching movies with action and explosions and sword fighting. I even participate in organised violence (combat sport) and I enjoy it.
> 
> Does that make me the opposite of a compassionate human being?
> 
> ...



You're talking about action; i'm talking about injuries/killing/gore. Violence as in fighting and violence as in gore and death need to be distinguished. 

Ad of course, don't remove anything from a story if it fits.


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## La Volpe (Aug 20, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> You're talking about action; i'm talking about injuries/killing/gore. Violence as in fighting and violence as in gore and death need to be distinguished.



Ah, okay, my bad. I can agree that excessive gore is (mostly?) only useful in showing how bad things are/shock value etc.


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## Peat (Aug 20, 2016)

With apologies for not having read the thread -

No.

It has come to be one of the genre's conventions and I will admit to enjoying to reading about violence, but it is not needed for fantasy - maybe for epic fantasy, but I think that could be challenged - and I'd like to see people buck the trend. 

For an example of a book involving a quest and opposition - of a sort a least - that barely involves violence, look no further than _Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy_. Could you combine that and some of the archetypal trickster myths that don't involve violence to create wonderful fantasy stories? I'd like to think so.


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## Ronald T. (Jan 5, 2017)

I suppose it depends on the genre.  

But if it's epic fantasy, I believe violence is indispensable.  I've been reading epic fantasy, primarily, for over forty years.  I have a 400+sq. ft. library, and it's filled with epic fantasy and science fiction.  And I don't think I have one novel in the epic fantasy genre that is free of violence.  I think it's an intrinsic part of those stories.  Along with a strong and exciting amount of magic, it's what readers look for.

If an epic fantasy novel was actually free of all forms of violence -- something I have yet to find -- I'd probably pass it up for a story that contained the elements I want to see. 

But that's just one man's opinion.


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## Steerpike (Jan 5, 2017)

I think you can have books in any genre without violence depicted in them. It's not common, but there is no reason it can't be done. 

Violence can be fun, both in the writing and reading, or it can be serious and shocking/distasteful. For fun examples, think of the man in black in the Princess Bride fighting Inigo and then the giant. Those scenes certainly include violence in the broad sense, but they're also fun scenes that are meant to be enjoyed. For the other end of the spectrum, see the opening to Saving Private Ryan.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Jan 5, 2017)

There's next to no violence in my books, and they could be called epic fantasy. There aren't any villains, either, and as to how I accomplished either of those impossible things...


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 5, 2017)

Yeah, the answer to the question depends on how you define violence.

The definitions of violence online vary, but many of them refer to the use of _physical force intended to damage or kill_. Key to these definitions imo are the words "physical force", "intended", and "damage or kill". Stealing someone's water would have intent to damage or kill, perhaps, but would be missing the "physical force" aspect. Being crushed in an avalanche would have the "physical force" and "damage or kill" aspects, but no intent.

There could be a debate as to what is considered physical force. Any movement of matter could technically be considered physical force. So with the correct definition of physical force, stealing water could become an act of violence. But I think most readers would not consider the act of picking up a bottle to be the use of physical force. With the right definitions, tickling someone with a feather could be considered an act of violence.  

I think epic fantasy requires action, but I think you could write an epic fantasy with lots of action that didn't equate to violence under certain definitions. Yet such a story might be filled with threats of violence.


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## Steerpike (Jan 5, 2017)

The answer to almost any question of the type "Does Fantasy have to have _x_" is no.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 5, 2017)

Epic fantasy without violence... depends on how both epic and violence are defined. A high fantasy without violence seems more likely... Epic to many people has a specific connotation of "world changing" and to be in the spirit of epic poetry, Iliad, Beowulf... It might not be impossible to write an epic fantasy without violence (as defined by some people) but, it would present issues for many if one tried to label it that.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 5, 2017)

Well, obviously there can be no violence in fantasy, but epic fantasy is a specific subgenre... There doesn't have to be a murder to be solved in mystery novel, but if it's a murder mystery... yeah, well. In the OP epic fantasy was the subgenre mentioned, and then recently tacked on to. 

An action story without violence, as also mentioned, would be tricky due to expectations and getting defined as "action". Yes, you could write a novel with piles of competitive action without violence, but would it really fit into the genre? It's an interesting discussion.



Steerpike said:


> The answer to almost any question of the type "Does Fantasy have to have _x_" is no.


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## Lucas (Jan 6, 2017)

No, but it does need suspension. A lot of sci fi novels have no violence at all.


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## Ryan_Crown (Jan 6, 2017)

I found myself dealing with this question with my current WIP. The idea I came up with for my main character is that he's under a curse that causes him to go into a mindless rage whenever he draws his swords, attacking friend and foe alike. As such, he tends to avoid combat if at all possible.

This posed quite the interesting challenge as I started to outline the plot. I had never really thought about how much fantasy tends to rely on battles/fight scenes until I started to plot out a story that very intentionally doesn't have them. Ultimately I decided to go for a pseudo-Indiana Jones style of story -- high on action/adventure, but not really combat oriented. So while the main character is dealing with deadly traps, environmental threats, or masses of hostile natives -- where the MC is all about discretion being the better part of valor -- I'm hoping to have minimal situations where outright fighting occurs. And in those situations where he does ultimately draw his swords, I want those scenes to be significant, for his curse to be enough of an issue that combat really does become a bad thing.

No idea how successful this sort of story might be, or if readers will be dissapointed by a lack of fighting, but I'm looking forward to finding out. And I expect it to be fun to write regardless of how well it connects with fantasy readers.


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## Chessie (Jan 6, 2017)

Banten said:


> After just watching this video Movie Violence Done Right - YouTube of one of my favorite youtube channels, Nerdwriter1, I thought to myself. Is Violence necessary?
> 
> I am not asking if violence is a necessary component of all fiction, but if you think it is needed in specific genres. Does an epic fantasy need battles of large and small scale? Can an action-oriented novel stand on its own without a punch being thrown. Would this be compelling to you? And if so, what do you use to create suspense instead.



Maybe not violence itself is necessary, but conflict is. I think a lot of newbies confuse action and conflict with violence.

Now, for everyday life, violence can have some serious life-changing consequences. I say with fiction it should be the same way. Violence + consequences only make your story that much more believable, that much tighter.

The non-fantasy writing part of me writes historical romance. In those stories, violence is a huge no-no. Especially the audience I specifically write for, which are readers who like inspirational stories with a sweet emotional tone. Conflict comes in all sorts and ways. Exes. Misunderstandings. Someone's feels got hurt, etc. There are also outside influences, like my WIP heroine's sister is about to have a major health crisis and everyone is seeing the writing on the wall. It's making her anxious and anxiety leads to some nasty behavior in people. Pair that with a secret the hero is keeping from her, and his anxiety over that, and you have two people rubbing each other the wrong way. That's conflict in the short. (my fantasy stories have plenty of violence so don't let me fool you either)

So a lot of different things can happen, you just have to be creative. That's the whole point of this anyway, yes?


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## Steerpike (Jan 6, 2017)

@Demesnedenoir: are you saying "violent" is synonymous with "epic?" I don't agree.


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## FifthView (Jan 6, 2017)

I think how we define epic makes a difference.

There is something about scope in epic tales.  Often they involve broad areas of a world and longish time periods—the story doesn't begin on one day and end 2-3 weeks later in the same city with no other setting for the duration.  A large cast of characters is common for epic fantasy tales.  If scope is the only factor, I can see an epic without violence being rather simple to accomplish.

Lately I've been leaning toward a different key element for definition of an epic.  By the end of the tale, the world must have changed significantly due to the events that have occurred.  Violence in this case is a great help for epic fantasy because violence is effective for causing fundamental, irreversible changes to the world.  But I think it's possible to imagine a fantasy epic in which the change is wrought through political means, technological innovation, magical events, and the like, without the need for violence.* 

Just because those other possibilities exist doesn't mean they'd be representative of what we've come to know as epic fantasy, however.  I also wonder at the ability for such grand, epic-scale change to occur _without_ violence in most typical fantasy worlds without building into them a mechanism other than violence for change.  I recently watched a documentary on Martin Luther, so I'm intrigued at the possibility of introducing a new-fangled printing press into a fantasy world and the emergence of some innovator of thought—but even in our own world, the change that followed Luther's activities took the form of violence also.

*Edit:  After writing the above, a thought occurred to me.  You could show a changing world and achieve a large scale/scope if you had a long-living character traveling about the world and witnessing the normal changes that occurred through time.  So you could have an epic without violence in this way—or at least something with an epic feel.  A kind of travelogue spanning time and place, with interesting encounters at each stop along the way.


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## Ban (Jan 6, 2017)

I see this thread has become a discussion again. I was a bit surprised to see that the Original Post was mine. 
Interesting. I guess it is time to think about this question some more myself.

Alright, alright carry on


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 6, 2017)

It all depends on how you define epic... obviously. These things aren't defined in stone. But, violence and epic fantasy are heavily interwoven, and mind you I am breaking high and epic fantasy here. Epic infers some sort of great change on a world scale, this is life and death shit, and that basically never happens without violence... and if we go into reader expectations... yeah, violence is probably necessary to truly be accepted as an epic fantasy. That doesn't mean it can't be a great story, a great fantasy, maybe even high fantasy... sure! But when you say epic fantasy to the greater portion of epic fantasy readers, or to marketing folks... uumm. Sorry. I don't think it flies without violence and/or the threat of great violence. Now maybe if you add another word... epic romantic fantasy... but even then, what romance doesn't have some sort of violence? 

Which of course brings us to defining violence. You could say that you have an epic fantasy of man vs nature... Islanders vs the Volcano, or whatever, but there would still be have to be some violence or major threat thereof to defeat in order to be "epic". Now whether you qualify nature as violent... one could nitpick the definition. But, I will stick with epic fantasy requiring violence in order to fit into the expectations of the genre and its readers.



Steerpike said:


> @Demesnedenoir: are you saying "violent" is synonymous with "epic?" I don't agree.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 6, 2017)

Concerning your edit... If we are talking about anything approaching realistic human relations, broad regions, long time periods, and big changes, these simply don't happen without violence. The character may not witness the violence, but it would have to be somewhere in the background. It is difficult to live our lives for any period without witnessing violence. It's kind of like some low budget films... which will narrate past a character going off to war to see them return (dead or alive)... sure, we don't see the violence that affected the character, but it was still there.

But even if creating some strange pacifist utopia undergoing some major peaceful change... and you wrote the hell out of it... I don't think it would be labeled epic fantasy due to reader expectations. It could well be high fantasy, but epic? Not really.

Now, someone could write it and call it epic fantasy, and some people might agree, but I believe the greater epic reading market would disagree.



FifthView said:


> I think how we define epic makes a difference.
> 
> There is something about scope in epic tales.  Often they involve broad areas of a world and longish time periods—the story doesn't begin on one day and end 2-3 weeks later in the same city with no other setting for the duration.  A large cast of characters is common for epic fantasy tales.  If scope is the only factor, I can see an epic without violence being rather simple to accomplish.
> 
> ...


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## FifthView (Jan 6, 2017)

I agree, I'd have to assume some violence occurred in the world off-screen.

But I'd made a comment about that sort of thing during the first go-round with this thread.  Is the question about whether violence exists anywhere in the world, or only about whether violence occurs within the book/story?  Does mentioning a battle that happened 20 years earlier, off-stage, break the issue of "lack of violence" in the story?

Also is "epic fantasy" different than "fantasy epic?"  Heh.  Well, I'd agree with you re: expectations.  And then there is the thorny issue of "epic" vs "epic feel" also...  



Demesnedenoir said:


> Concerning your edit... If we are talking about anything approaching realistic human relations, broad regions, long time periods, and big changes, these simply don't happen without violence. The character may not witness the violence, but it would have to be somewhere in the background. It is difficult to live our lives for any period without witnessing violence. It's kind of like some low budget films... which will narrate past a character going off to war to see them return (dead or alive)... sure, we don't see the violence that affected the character, but it was still there.
> 
> But even if creating some strange pacifist utopia undergoing some major peaceful change... and you wrote the hell out of it... I don't think it would be labeled epic fantasy due to reader expectations. It could well be high fantasy, but epic? Not really.
> 
> Now, someone could write it and call it epic fantasy, and some people might agree, but I believe the greater epic reading market would disagree.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 6, 2017)

There's all kinds of thorns on the bush, no doubt about it. LOL. Epic vs an epic. 

That's why I think it might be easiest to break it into reader expectation... if you market something as Epic Fantasy, I'm not sure how you get away without violence somewhere. At the minimum, a great threat of violence against the MC and/or the world probably needs to exist, and the best way to show a threat is to demonstrate it... testing the Death Star, heh heh. 



FifthView said:


> I agree, I'd have to assume some violence occurred in the world off-screen.
> 
> But I'd made a comment about that sort of thing during the first go-round with this thread.  Is the question about whether violence exists anywhere in the world, or only about whether violence occurs within the book/story?  Does mentioning a battle that happened 20 years earlier, off-stage, break the issue of "lack of violence" in the story?
> 
> Also is "epic fantasy" different than "fantasy epic?"  Heh.  Well, I'd agree with you re: expectations.  And then there is the thorny issue of "epic" vs "epic feel" also...


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## Lucas (Jan 6, 2017)

The most important part for me is to _avoid_ the glorification of violence. Though my current story is High Fantasy, the violence depicted has some grimdark undertones, and most military losses are incurred, partially "on-screen" by untreated, infected wounds and diseases.


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## ascanius (Jan 6, 2017)

Lucas said:


> The most important part for me is to _avoid_ the glorification of violence. Though my current story is High Fantasy, the violence depicted has some grimdark undertones, and most military losses are incurred, partially "on-screen" by untreated, infected wounds and diseases.



What does it mean to avoid the glorification of violence?  What that violence can only ever be bad?  Anything can qualify as the glorification of violence depending on the readers perspective.  Funny how an examination of when violence is necessary is never a topic but non-violence permeates society.  

I don't see what the problem is with violence in a story....within reason otherwise it becomes absurd.  As to the OP I think it entirely depends on the story you are telling and it's scale.


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## Devor (Jan 6, 2017)

Absolutely violence is necessary, especially for beginning writers.

If you ever spend six months trying to edit your first story, I would think just about anyone would want to spend a little time decapitating somebody, with their words or otherwise.


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## Lucas (Jan 6, 2017)

ascanius said:


> What does it mean to avoid the glorification of violence?  What that violence can only ever be bad?  Anything can qualify as the glorification of violence depending on the readers perspective.  Funny how an examination of when violence is necessary is never a topic but non-violence permeates society.
> 
> I don't see what the problem is with violence in a story....within reason otherwise it becomes absurd.  As to the OP I think it entirely depends on the story you are telling and it's scale.



The glorification of violence is basically when violence serves primarily an aesthetic purpose or to increase the pace of the story, and the heroes come out unscathed out from a hundred battles. In my recently finished novel, the heroes are basically refugee kids trying mostly to avoid the Dark Lord's mooks.


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## Malik (Jan 6, 2017)

The issue that I see with violence is that it's misunderstood in our culture and therefore feared. I would go so far as to say that we're repressed in our thinking about violence.

We go through life being told the same hoary old cliches about how violence never solves anything. And nothing could be further from the truth. Very few things in this world are better at solving an immediate problem than a calculated dose of swift, expertly-applied violence. The problem is that since we have vilified violence, we no longer value its utility, so we never use it anymore.

Stick with me on this.

Violence is unparalleled at solving immediate problems. Ask me how I know. 

I'm not saying that everything should be settled in the Thunderdome, though, because what violence does is create a whole set of follow-on problems; problems that we're never prepared for because _we don't deal with violence on a regular basis_. I'm a professional soldier and a former amateur boxer. I am intimate with the implications of violence, as it is both a profession and a hobby for me. 

This is the disconnect that I see in a lot of fantasy -- authors who construe violence either as an extension of our modern understanding of it, and therefore contemplate writing fantasy novels that have no violence in them -- or who fail to see it through to its logical conclusion, which is where we get ridiculous books lathered up with Hollywood-style antiseptic violence and no follow-on effects. 

A society that deals in violence will respond completely differently to its employment. There is a time and a place to punch someone in the face. But what, then? What does your fantasy world condone, and what does that tell you about them?

The role of violence in society is as much a part of your worldbuilding as the role of religion, money, or sex. There's no reason to think that other societies will respond to violence the way that we do.


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## ascanius (Jan 7, 2017)

Lucas said:


> The glorification of violence is basically when violence serves primarily an aesthetic purpose or to increase the pace of the story, and the heroes come out unscathed out from a hundred battles. In my recently finished novel, the heroes are basically refugee kids trying mostly to avoid the Dark Lord's mooks.



OK, see this is why I asked.  To me the glorification of violence is more what daesh posts to YouTube.  Your version seems.... More like plot or setting preferences than any sort of glorification.



Malik said:


> The issue that I see with violence is that it's misunderstood in our culture and therefore feared. I would go so far as to say that we're repressed in our thinking about violence.
> 
> We go through life being told the same hoary old cliches about how violence never solves anything. And nothing could be further from the truth. Very few things in this world are better at solving an immediate problem than a calculated dose of swift, expertly-applied violence. The problem is that since we have vilified violence, we no longer value its utility, so we never use it anymore.
> 
> ...



Couldn't say it better, really couldn't. Looking at Hellenistic Greece they had a completely different morality with regards to violence than we do now, the same could be said for almost any culture of the past.


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## Devor (Jan 7, 2017)

I usually see "glorification of violence" as a reference to video games like Mortal Combat or Grand Theft Auto which - even putting the moral questions aside for a moment - do make gratuitous violence into the grand "payoff" of playing them.  You're not supposed to be afraid or determined or sad or anything else when you face the violence.  You're supposed to be happy at the way characters are disemboweled.  Hence, glorified.


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## FifthView (Jan 7, 2017)

I think that most _gratuitous_ violence I've encountered in written fiction is committed by various villains–those who delight in torture and physical punishments.  Almost always, this doesn't bother me.  I have an easy time believing in sadistic characters.  Sometimes I don't like reading through it, but at least it's sensible unless the character is drawn as an over-the-top caricature.

There are occasionally examples of _glorification_ of violence in stories that involve Mary Sue type characters; we're meant to understand they are expert fighters hacking and slashing their way through anything.  The problem I have with those stories is the lack of nuance in the characters and realistic, sensible scenarios and worlds.  No solution but hacking and slashing ever occurs to the characters, and no scenario but frequent encounters and hacking and slashing occurs to the writers.  I don't have much of a problem with them–because I simply stop reading them.

In movies there's a certain visual spectacle that helps to make the glorification of violence ... glorious, if done well.  As with books, a lack of nuance and realism can work against the visual spectacle, leaving me with an empty feeling (my wallet; why did I bother to buy a ticket?)  But I think my tolerance level for this type of glorification of violence is greater than in the examples I've stumbled across in books.  Sometimes I like seeing it play out on screen.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 7, 2017)

Glory is in the eye of the beholder... see the movie Patton, which can be seen as rah-rah or anti-war. What you seem to be pointing out is what I'd call gratuitous violence, violence for the sake of violence... which has its uses in certain genres (see Wile E. Coyote). For me, as long as the violence makes sense and fits the story, it doesn't bother me.



Lucas said:


> The glorification of violence is basically when violence serves primarily an aesthetic purpose or to increase the pace of the story, and the heroes come out unscathed out from a hundred battles. In my recently finished novel, the heroes are basically refugee kids trying mostly to avoid the Dark Lord's mooks.


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## Lucas (Jan 7, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Glory is in the eye of the beholder... see the movie Patton, which can be seen as rah-rah or anti-war. What you seem to be pointing out is what I'd call gratuitous violence, violence for the sake of violence... which has its uses in certain genres (see Wile E. Coyote). For me, as long as the violence makes sense and fits the story, it doesn't bother me.



I would say that some good authors engage a little bit too much in gratuitous violence. Take George R R Martin for example, and the entire Vargo Hoat vs Sandor Clegane arc. Entirely pointless, and ultra-violent even beyond the standards of the medieval age.


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## Miskatonic (Jan 7, 2017)

Malik said:


> The issue that I see with violence is that it's misunderstood in our culture and therefore feared. I would go so far as to say that we're repressed in our thinking about violence.
> 
> We go through life being told the same hoary old cliches about how violence never solves anything. And nothing could be further from the truth. Very few things in this world are better at solving an immediate problem than a calculated dose of swift, expertly-applied violence. The problem is that since we have vilified violence, we no longer value its utility, so we never use it anymore.
> 
> ...



Like super hero films where you have superhuman or extra-terrestrial entities leveling entire cities, causing deaths of countless people and at the end of the day are still considered the good guys. This is one thing that the Batman vs Superman movie at least tried to address, with Superman's existence on Earth carrying huge risks. 

This problem goes far beyond the concept of violence, unfortunately. A lot of people apply modern ethics/morality to books written a century or more ago and then condemn the author for holding certain views, which at the time were not uncommon.


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## Chessie (Jan 7, 2017)

Lucas said:


> I would say that some good authors engage a little bit too much in gratuitous violence. Take George R R Martin for example, and the entire Vargo Hoat vs Sandor Clegane arc. Entirely pointless, and ultra-violent even beyond the standards of the medieval age.



I was done when the window incident with Bran happened. 

Nope! Done!

Look, I enjoy violence as much as the next reader but there has to be a good reason for it. Out of all the stories I've written, only ONE of my characters has actually murdered someone. And he was an abusive asshole who got what he deserved. So, if it's violence just cuz, then I'm outta there.


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## Lucas (Jan 8, 2017)

Chessie said:


> I was done when the window incident with Bran happened.
> 
> Nope! Done!
> 
> Look, I enjoy violence as much as the next reader but there has to be a good reason for it. Out of all the stories I've written, only ONE of my characters has actually murdered someone. And he was an abusive asshole who got what he deserved. So, if it's violence just cuz, then I'm outta there.



One of my characters is psychotic and has violent murder and disembowelling fantasies about his own mother, but she deserves it too.


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## ascanius (Jan 8, 2017)

Chessie said:


> I was done when the window incident with Bran happened.
> 
> Nope! Done!
> 
> Look, I enjoy violence as much as the next reader but there has to be a good reason for it. Out of all the stories I've written, only ONE of my characters has actually murdered someone. And he was an abusive asshole who got what he deserved. So, if it's violence just cuz, then I'm outta there.



I really don't understand how this is gratuitous violence, I assume you are talking about when bran was thrown out the window.. The reasons behind what happened seem very clear and logical to me.


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## Malik (Jan 8, 2017)

ascanius said:


> I really don't understand how this is gratuitous violence, I assume you are talking about when bran was thrown out the window.. The reasons behind what happened seem very clear and logical to me.



Exactly. Hell, I'd have done the same thing.

Er, I mean . . .


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 8, 2017)

Yeah, that wasn't gratuitous at all. It is nasty as hell trying to murder a child, but the fact is, that bit of violence is critical to the greater story. In fact, you could call it the "inciting incident" for a great deal of what comes after. Without pushing Bran from the window, a huge part of the story would be entirely different. Hell, there isn't much that wouldn't be open to change... maybe Daenarys's story might stay the same, but the Seven Kingdoms would be utterly different. Catelyn doesn't take Tyrion... oh dear, what a snowball effect.



ascanius said:


> I really don't understand how this is gratuitous violence, I assume you are talking about when bran was thrown out the window.. The reasons behind what happened seem very clear and logical to me.


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## Chessie (Jan 8, 2017)

ascanius said:


> I really don't understand how this is gratuitous violence, I assume you are talking about when bran was thrown out the window.. The reasons behind what happened seem very clear and logical to me.



Uh...anything involving the harming of children is a no-go in my book. Personal preference and besides, I hate ASOIF for many reasons. If I ever had Martin in front of me, I'd seriously hold back not kicking him in the shins.


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## Steerpike (Jan 8, 2017)

Chessie said:


> Uh...anything involving the harming of children is a no-go in my book. Personal preference and besides, I hate ASOIF for many reasons. If I ever had Martin in front of me, I'd seriously hold back not kicking him in the shins.



I think there is a difference between personal boundaries and dislikes, and what is "gratuitious." I don't think what happened to Bran was gratuitous, but I can certainly understand why it would put people off the books.


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## FifthView (Jan 8, 2017)

It's interesting to contemplate what movies or television shows would be like if the level of violence was opposite what it is.

_Game of Thrones_ would probably turn into something like daytime soap operas (yeah, I know some of them use murder or fights occasionally, but long stretches don't) or _The Social Network_.

If _The Social Network_ went the GoT route, the fictional Mark Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss twins would probably be joined by various leaders from Google, Apple, and Amazon in a bloody contest for something called The Cyber Throne.


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## Miskatonic (Jan 8, 2017)

Steerpike said:


> I think there is a difference between personal boundaries and dislikes, and what is "gratuitious." I don't think what happened to Bran was gratuitous, but I can certainly understand why it would put people off the books.



Don't forget what it was he was thrown off the tower for seeing.


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## Steerpike (Jan 8, 2017)

Miskatonic said:


> Don't forget what it was he was thrown off the tower for seeing.



Yes. That's why it isn't gratuitous. It makes sense in the context of the story. What happened to him, and/or what he saw, might turn people off though.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 8, 2017)

Ha! And I found the first half of game of thrones boring lol! I had to force myself to trudge through it because I was promised it would get better. It did. I love the series. I must be a sicko. I'm not sure how one could actually hate an author personally for something they've written? Chessie, do tell the reasons why you'd want to kick him!


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## FifthView (Jan 8, 2017)

Followup to my last comment....

Sometimes the qualifier "gratuitous" is used to describe when writers and directors choose to utilize violence in a work when they could have written a given scene or whole story in a different way.  I.e., it's not used to refer to a lack of reasons for the violence in the story so much as a commentary on a style of storytelling.  _Could X tale have been told with less violence–or less focus on violence? _ 

My example from a much earlier comment:  A scene in which some sadistic villain tortures our MC or someone the MC loves.  These scenes bother me greatly, especially when the author seems to be overtly trying to push my buttons by including the scene or extending the torture scene for a much longer stretch than necessary.  The issue is a little like whether to describe a sexual encounter in great detail or fade to black.  (But the question there would concern gratuitous sex rather than violence.)  Either approach might be supported by the story and relevant to the story.  I can easily believe in the existence of sadistic villains (or honest-to-goodness vibrant sexual encounters.)  But are these detailed excursions gratuitous?  That's a question we can debate forever, probably.


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## ascanius (Jan 8, 2017)

FifthView said:


> Followup to my last comment....
> 
> Sometimes the qualifier "gratuitous" is used to describe when writers and directors choose to utilize violence in a work when they could have written a given scene or whole story in a different way.  I.e., it's not used to refer to a lack of reasons for the violence in the story so much as a commentary on a style of storytelling.  _Could X tale have been told with less violence–or less focus on violence? _



I see problems with this though.  It just becomes a game of what if.  what if there was less violence could just as well be less romance, sex, anything really.  I have no doubt that any scene in any book or movie could be written or filmed with less violence are anything else for that matter.  In this instance it seems more a complaint that the scene wasn't done the way the reader/viewer thought it should have been done, a back seat author if you will.



FifthView said:


> My example from a much earlier comment:  A scene in which some sadistic villain tortures our MC or someone the MC loves.  These scenes bother me greatly, especially when the author seems to be overtly trying to push my buttons by including the scene or extending the torture scene for a much longer stretch than necessary.  The issue is a little like whether to describe a sexual encounter in great detail or fade to black.  (But the question there would concern gratuitous sex rather than violence.)  Either approach might be supported by the story and relevant to the story.  I can easily believe in the existence of sadistic villains (or honest-to-goodness vibrant sexual encounters.)  But are these detailed excursions gratuitous?  That's a question we can debate forever, probably.



Honestly I think that when such things become overt then I see it more as a failure of the author and not so much violence or what have you.  

One thing though I'm using the definition of gratuitous as being without apparent reason, cause, or justification.
Based off that it would seem that gratuitous violence is more like a meteor randomly crushing a character.

This brings up something that I have pondered.  Isn't the goal of an author to push buttons?  I would argue that it is their primary goal otherwise one would read a tv repair manual.  Don't we want readers emotionally involved in our stories?  I'm not saying leave the reader emotionally catatonic but some degree of button push is necessary.  I think the trick is not letting the reader realize it.

I see violence, be it on the more extreme end or even the suggestion of violence, to be useful.  Its a tool the same way romance is and they each have a place in the toolbox.


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## Chessie (Jan 8, 2017)

Steerpike said:


> I think there is a difference between personal boundaries and dislikes, and what is "gratuitious." I don't think what happened to Bran was gratuitous, but I can certainly understand why it would put people off the books.



It was gratuitous to me. As a mother, I was horrified. The entire book was too much for me, but then again I read mostly romance so....


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## Chessie (Jan 8, 2017)

Heliotrope said:


> Ha! And I found the first half of game of thrones boring lol! I had to force myself to trudge through it because I was promised it would get better. It did. I love the series. I must be a sicko. I'm not sure how one could actually hate an author personally for something they've written? Chessie, do tell the reasons why you'd want to kick him!



Because, thanks to him, most epic fantasy books now are filled with pointless whoring, violence, and everything else in between that we read in the newspapers on a day to day basis. Now, this is a personal opinion, but I read for escapism. The world is filled with all sorts of BS as it is. I don't enjoy books that remind me of how awful our Earth is. I like to relax when I read books. Yes, I do enjoy realism to an extent and it's just that violence doesn't personally entertain me.

GOT was boring until page 73. After that, the story picked up steam but everything that came afterwards was meh. But like I said, I don't enjoy reading or watching violence very much. Ya'll can call me a softie if you want. I like books with good messages and values, not anything that promotes the horrors of daily existence.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 8, 2017)

FifthView said:


> Followup to my last comment....
> 
> Sometimes the qualifier "gratuitous" is used to describe when writers and directors choose to utilize violence in a work when they could have written a given scene or whole story in a different way.  I.e., it's not used to refer to a lack of reasons for the violence in the story so much as a commentary on a style of storytelling.  _Could X tale have been told with less violence–or less focus on violence? _
> 
> My example from a much earlier comment:  A scene in which some sadistic villain tortures our MC or someone the MC loves.  These scenes bother me greatly, especially when the author seems to be overtly trying to push my buttons by including the scene or extending the torture scene for a much longer stretch than necessary.  The issue is a little like whether to describe a sexual encounter in great detail or fade to black.  (But the question there would concern gratuitous sex rather than violence.)  Either approach might be supported by the story and relevant to the story.  I can easily believe in the existence of sadistic villains (or honest-to-goodness vibrant sexual encounters.)  But are these detailed excursions gratuitous?  That's a question we can debate forever, probably.



The problem with that definition is that an author always "could have" written something differently. It's a decision that is specific to the author and story, and what a reader views as 'gratuitous' will vary with the reader. Vastly. 

It's a very tough question. Being a sensitive person, I tend to avoid books with graphic, detailed, disturbing violent content. I just dislike it. But that's my preference as a reader. Can I label anything outside my comfort zone as 'gratuitous?' I don't think so, really. 

'Gratuitous' doesn't so much refer to the intensity of the content as the necessity. Many might consider 'gratuitous' to be when violence is included only to make the reader feel disgusted or horrified. Your example of the torture scene is an example of this, I guess. But what if i want to make my reader horrified and disgusted? There surely is a place for that. 

So, yeah. You can debate this forever.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 8, 2017)

Chessie said:


> Because, thanks to him, most epic fantasy books now are filled with pointless whoring, violence, and everything else in between that we read in the newspapers on a day to day basis. Now, this is a personal opinion, but I read for escapism. The world is filled with all sorts of BS as it is. I don't enjoy books that remind me of how awful our Earth is. I like to relax when I read books. Yes, I do enjoy realism to an extent and it's just that violence doesn't personally entertain me.
> 
> GOT was boring until page 73. After that, the story picked up steam but everything that came afterwards was meh. But like I said, I don't enjoy reading or watching violence very much. Ya'll can call me a softie if you want. I like books with good messages and values, not anything that promotes the horrors of daily existence.



Fellow softie here. Yes, I'm pretty cruel to my characters and I have enjoyed darker (not too dark lol) books, but...I feel distinctly that lots of graphic violence in books is a trend now, and i'm not at all attracted to it.


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## Chessie (Jan 8, 2017)

Another point, I don't think it's fair to say that there's a difference between gratuitous and necessary. It's a personal boundary, I believe. There are just some things I do not find funny, such as incest (in GOT), child abuse (in GOT), adultery (in GOT), and etc on it goes. I've dealt with many serious issues in my life so I don't find it a laughing matter when a book goes popular because of these sorts of things. Kind of like Lolita, which I will NEVER read. Why? Because I don't find pedophilia entertaining. I don't care if he realizes his mistakes or not. It still glorifies pedophilia in a way. That's my personal opinion, boundary, what have you, and so to ME that's a no-no.


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## FifthView (Jan 8, 2017)

ascanius said:


> I see problems with this though.  It just becomes a game of what if.  what if there was less violence could just as well be less romance, sex, anything really.  I have no doubt that any scene in any book or movie could be written or filmed with less violence are anything else for that matter.  In this instance it seems more a complaint that the scene wasn't done the way the reader/viewer thought it should have been done, a back seat author if you will.



Yes and no and maybe.  Heh.  We don't know how ASOIAF would have progressed had Bran not been thrown out the window, because it was written in the one way and not the other.  Some aspects would have been different, but we don't really know whether the difference would have been good, bad, better, or worse.



> Honestly I think that when such things become overt then I see it more as a failure of the author and not so much violence or what have you.
> 
> One thing though I'm using the definition of gratuitous as being without apparent reason, cause, or justification.



I think there are more reasons than overt in-world logic, or plot-logic, when choosing how to write a scene.  Sometimes, the issue is tone and establishing character and so forth.  So maybe the author wants to show that this villain is extremely vile–but more than that, the author wants the reader to hate this villain, nay, more than hate.  He wants the reader to feel disgusted, revolted, or any number of things.  In such a case, how are we to draw an objective line in the sand?  These are not mathematical equations but rather largely subjective effects resulting from irrational factors, keying into that indefinite thing we call "taste."

In any case, some things we put into a story have a purpose that goes beyond simply building a logical story and plot.




> This brings up something that I have pondered.  Isn't the goal of an author to push buttons?  I would argue that it is their primary goal otherwise one would read a tv repair manual.  Don't we want readers emotionally involved in our stories?  I'm not saying leave the reader emotionally catatonic but some degree of button push is necessary.  I think the trick is not letting the reader realize it.



I do think that button-pushing is important.  A story that was told in a matter-of-fact way with no button pushing would probably be extremely boring.  I'm not sure I've encountered such a story however, hah, although some go about it in a very subtle manner.  But I don't know that there's an absolute requirement to hide this button pushing from the reader.  I suspect that the opposite is more the case:  We want our buttons pushed.  But we're very finicky about  how this is done.


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## Steerpike (Jan 8, 2017)

I don't think you can put the blame solely at GRRM's feet when it comes to violence in fantasy. More gritty works predated his, and others were contemporaneous. The trend isn't limited to fantasy, either. But he became the face of it because his books were so popular.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 8, 2017)

A point I want to make is that violence has to be treated with care and respect to give it meaning. 

Do I believe it has a place in books? Yes. Do I believe it is always necessary to tell a fantasy story? No. Do i believe that it must be handled WELL? Absolutely. 

By this, I mean that you must be prepared to explore the full implications and effects of violence, and do so realistically and thoroughly. Sometimes this could mean being graphic and not holding back; sometimes this means avoiding focus on the violence. Including violence in your stories means more than whacking off heads and splattering blood. You have to explore the emotional and psychological impacts of it on the characters. You have to explore the effects on society and the larger world. If you want violence to be an important part of your story, you have to show scars, disfigurement, trauma, grief, devastation, chaos, sorrow...I could go on, but I'll go straight to the point. The mere act of violence is not enough. If you only show the act, you are not showing it fully. You are disrespecting your work and your subject...and yes, I believe violence is a subject that deserves MORE respect and care than almost any subject. You have to be more careful, thoughtful and thorough with violence than you have to be with moss or churning butter. 

Well, I don't like saying 'have to." Disregard the have to's. You never have to do anything. But if you describe violence graphically and rely on the blood and smashed skulls and viscera to bring out a reaction in your reader, you really risk coming off as cheap. There is a great danger, I think, in using the violent acts themselves to bear the weight of a scene or story instead of their effects on the characters and world. I'm not going to say that pure shock will NEVER have a place and time to be used, but if overused shock is no longer shocking. 

It deserves to be mentioned that the more sparingly you use graphic descriptions, the more powerful the effect on the reader will be when you DO. 

I guess my message is that to be done well, violence in a book has to have some kind of meaning, in the broadest of senses. Blood and guts alone is not going to accomplish that, and adding more and more and MORE blood and guts is only going to make it more meaningless.  As a writer you must handle your reader carefully. Their reactions and emotions are precious, breakable objects you must gently cradle with your words. 

The trend seems to be that in books, the more violence, the better. That is not true. Sometimes more is better, sometimes less is better. My instinct is that readers are already desensitized to violence and new authors continuously compete to be MORE shocking and MORE gruesome to elicit a reaction from their jaded audience. 

I'll provide an example of what i'm talking about. I read a book (I didn't finish) not too long ago that I ended up putting down for many reasons, but one of them was the extremely careless use of rape in the story. 

I swear the word was mentioned every ten pages. The main character was constantly told that she was so beautiful, it was only a matter of time before she was raped. We are constantly reminded that women and girls are getting raped all the time. The creepy bad guy is always making rape threats to a female character we like. The word was thrown around very carelessly, dropped in dialogue constantly. But our MC never got raped, rape was never shown in the story, and I don't think it ever affected the plot. Which is fine. I didn't want to read a rape scene. What I disliked was that it was painfully plain that rape was being used to make the story more gritty and disturbing and to escalate the tension in certain scenes. It felt disrespectful. Yes, disrespectful. Because rape is a VERY SERIOUS subject and usurping the word's connotations to add edginess to your story is insulting to rape victims and to the reality of the crime. 

The worst part was that I never felt scared for the MC. I never FELT how women in her society were powerless, dehumanized into objects of gratification. I didn't feel it. And there was something wrong with that. 

please DO NOT use violence like it's some kind of strong spice to throw into your story willy-nilly when you feel like in needs more grunge or edginess. 

(Having never read ASoIaF (as I said, softie) I'm not commenting on these books specifically, jsyk.)


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## Heliotrope (Jan 8, 2017)

I'm wondering about readers/viewers.... maybe I'll use the word "consumers" who specifically seek out violence as a prerequisite? I use my husband a lot in these sorts of discussions lol. So my husband is of the persuasion that when he opens a book or watches a movie it is not for a "spiritual awakening" (like it is for me, usually). He (in his words) wants "Two hours of shit blowing up." 

Die Hard? yes. 
Transformers? yes. 
The Dark Knights? yes. 

Horror? Yes. With the most gratuitous violence, you can imagine. Disturbing. I worry about his mental health. 

But... there is a market for this stuff. So I don't think saying "Yes, violence is okay if...." or, "yes, violence is okay, but..." 

There should be no conditions put on writers when or how they use such tools, because as Dem put it earlier, violence is a necessary trope to some genres. It is a specific thing that some viewers look for. 

As soon as we get into debates about how and when violence is okay, and how it must be treated with respect etc.. then it starts to sound a lot like censorship.


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## Malik (Jan 8, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> new authors continuously compete to be MORE shocking and MORE gruesome to elicit a reaction from their jaded audience.



There is a flip side to this, though. Readers never know anymore when we're going to do something mind-wrenchingly horrible to a character they love. The stakes are raised.



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I never FELT how women in her society were powerless, dehumanized into objects of gratification. I didn't feel it. And there was something wrong with that.



I went 180 degrees with this in my world; I removed STDs, dropped fertility rates, and made sex essentially a sport.

I appreciate that rape is about power and not sex, but with all of the taboos about sex removed, including the ridiculous notion that having intercourse vests some type of property rights to another human being (a concept that, when the MC explains it, generates open-mouthed stares), the fantasy world I created is a lot less rapey. Sex and masculinity are not considered necessarily related, and there are plenty of genitals to go around for everybody who wants some. Even when the Big Bad captures the princess, the idea of him raping her never even enters the conversation.

When rape does happen -- and I have a villain in the first book who is particularly rapey -- it's considered such an aberration that the perpetrator is dealt with extremely harshly because there's clearly something wrong with them. Ultimately, his punishment is literally the most gruesome thing that I could come up with (scaphism), and everybody is okay with it because he is so far outside the accepted norm.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 8, 2017)

Heliotrope said:


> I'm wondering about readers/viewers.... maybe I'll use the word "consumers" who specifically seek out violence as a prerequisite? I use my husband a lot in these sorts of discussions lol. So my husband is of the persuasion that when he opens a book or watches a movie it is not for a "spiritual awakening" (like it is for me, usually). He (in his words) wants "Two hours of shit blowing up."
> 
> Die Hard? yes.
> Transformers? yes.
> ...



Somehow I feel like there is a standard of quality that transcends what audiences want, though. 

Do some people like "two hours of sh*t blowing up?" yes. 

Is it...what you would call a "good story?" 

Am I allowed to say no? 

I would assume as a writer you are looking to hold to some level of...idk what the word I want is, artistic integrity?...and create something that has some kind of meaning in it. And smearing all your pages with blood won't help you do that. I would assume that most of us are trying to do a little more than please audiences on a basic level. I know I do. 

And geez, I'm not trying to censor anything. People can write whatever they want, I'm just a teenager on a forum somewhere. 

I believe that literature can have value outside of being entertainment. I also don't think that just because something entertains, it is 'good' and should be perpetuated and encouraged. I hope others here do too.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 8, 2017)

Malik said:


> There is a flip side to this, though. Readers never know anymore when we're going to do something mind-wrenchingly horrible to a character they love. The stakes are raised.



Weirdly enough, this is not at all true for me. When there is too much violence, I shut down emotionally and become unable to connect with the story. I don't know if it's a defensive thing or what, but killing indiscriminately makes me unable to care about anyone. I think, "well, what's the point?" It creates a sense of total disconnect with the characters. 

What I said, though, had more to do with the ability of readers to continue to perceive acts of violence as mind-wrenchingly horrible. If they're happening constantly, it's numbing. If they are used sparingly, they have more impact. Right?


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## Steerpike (Jan 8, 2017)

Whether a story is good depends largely on the goals of the author and the reader. If you're trying to write simple action and adventure with a lot of things blowing up, that can be a good story if done well. If you're trying to write literary fiction, a completely different set of criteria apply when determining whether it is good.


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## Chessie (Jan 8, 2017)

Heliotrope said:


> Die Hard? yes.


Omg but _who_ doesn't love Die Hard? 

Okay, I really should be writing (being a bad girl right now), but horror is one of my favorite genres. I love horror because fear is a feeling that's somewhat addictive. Just like gladness (ie joy/love) which is also addictive. I think what genre of entertainment we choose to enjoy depends on what we get out of it. Maybe, for some people, violence is necessary for their deeper understanding of a story. And for others like me who prefer less violence, it's because something entirely different is the "it".

In horror, gore adds on to the experience but the fear should already be there. It's why movies such as The Honeymoon and Psycho are strong examples of the genre. Fear is the main focus, not blood. When it comes to fantasy, violence is an important trope of the genre. The levels of violence depends on the story's specific audience. I don't write a lot of violence in my novels. It's a different audience so I give them something else entirely, although I DO on occasion use violence. Another writer here may need to use more violence because they write battles or assassins etc. 

There is no right or wrong when it comes to fiction and entertainment. It's whatever strokes your boat.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 8, 2017)

Chessie said:


> Omg but _who_ doesn't love Die Hard?
> 
> Okay, I really should be writing (being a bad girl right now), but horror is one of my favorite genres. I love horror because fear is a feeling that's somewhat addictive. Just like gladness (ie joy/love) which is also addictive. I think what genre of entertainment we choose to enjoy depends on what we get out of it. Maybe, for some people, violence is necessary for their deeper understanding of a story. And for others like me who prefer less violence, it's because something entirely different is the "it".
> 
> ...



I don't watch many movies, I just know I completely loathed transformers. 

And...well, yes, I do really appreciate horror, or I would, if I wasn't way too sensitive to read it...anyway. Gore and violence? Not fond of it. But a story that artfully evokes fear? I have some level of respect for that. There's an art to it.


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## Chessie (Jan 8, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I would assume that most of us are trying to do a little more than *please audiences* on a basic level.


This is all I care about. So, no.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 8, 2017)

I don't appreciate horror, but then I'm old and jaded, it's just shit far as I'm concerned. I don't have a fear effect adrenaline thing when reading at all... ever. I barely do with a movie. I won't waste two hours watching it, I sure won't waste more hours reading it.

And Transformers was just lame ass. I even like Transformers as a memory of youth, but... the movie blew. The two lead actors didn't help one bit, I can't stand either of them. It makes sense that Shia is in the one Indiana Jones movie I'd like to erase from my memory. It's one of of those movies with "cool" factor with FX, but nothing else, except the hot chick who also annoys me.



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I don't watch many movies, I just know I completely loathed transformers.
> 
> And...well, yes, I do really appreciate horror, or I would, if I wasn't way too sensitive to read it...anyway. Gore and violence? Not fond of it. But a story that artfully evokes fear? I have some level of respect for that. There's an art to it.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 8, 2017)

I know I'm going to get LYNCHED for this, but...I still feel like I should say it. I kind of posted the last post with the assumption that you guys had the same underlying views as me. The reactions I've gotten suggest differently. 

It is my honest feeling that being a writer is about creating art, and an artist SHOULD try to handle important issues carefully. They should try to write things that are meaningful rather than writing...porn, for lack of a better word. An artist should try to adhere to a standard of integrity. An artist should try to avoid being cheap, offensive, and thoughtless, ESPECIALLY when dealing with SERIOUS issues that affect people (like rape). Is there an audience for stuff that's just senseless gore? Yes. But I'm not calling it art, I'm not approving of it...I can't stop anyone from writing it and I'm not stopping anyone who likes it from liking it, but I think it's a good thing for writers to do better. 

And, yes, I do think an objective standard of "better" exists other than how much people enjoy it. If how much people enjoy it was the only standard of quality, porn would be the holy grail of literature and I would give up on writing. 

Guys, without getting spiritual/religious (though my beliefs do strongly influence what I think about this issue) there's got to be something more than this. 

To be fair I just finished reading a book about the Roman era. Pretty disturbing. After all the graphic descriptions of the gladiatorial games and all the parallels to today's society, my attitude is as far from "anything audiences like goes" as it can be.  When audiences like people being torn apart and their entrails being spilled out, just for the sake of seeing people suffering and dying and not as part of a larger story that takes precedence and justifies them...maaaaaaybe we should question the audiences instead of being like "oh, they like what they like and that's a good thing, and we shouldn't make an effort to try to do better." No ones exact words, but this is a vibe I'm kinda getting from the discussion.

I can't stop anyone from writing what they like (same with filmmakers and their films.) But this is what I feel. 

Please note that none of this is directed at any of you guys...Before you attack me for calling you "not artists," im not. Before you attack me for mis-assuming your opinions, please clarify them rather than get angry at me. I'm trying really hard to be civil. Really really hard.


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## TheKillerBs (Jan 8, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I also don't think that just because something entertains, it is 'good' and should be perpetuated and encouraged. I hope others here do too.



I disagree. The world can be a crappy place, and I wholeheartedly believe that anything that brings a smile, or a moment of joy to someone can only be a good thing. The caveat being, of course, that this anything does not bring harm to someone else.


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## Chessie (Jan 8, 2017)

@Dragon: I get what you're saying. However, using "should" seems so restrictive and shaming. I think we can all agree on some things being healthier than others but isn't the definition of art self-expression? If people can't express what's in their hearts when they make art, then what is the point?


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 8, 2017)

Chessie said:


> @Dragon: I get what you're saying. However, using "should" seems so restrictive and shaming. I think we can all agree on some things being healthier than others but isn't the definition of art self-expression? If people can't express what's in their hearts when they make art, then what is the point?



A very good point. I really don't like using the word "should..." but, I did not know how else to express my thoughts on the idea. 

The definition of art (I used this for a paper like a few weeks ago so it's fresh in my memory) is basically "something someone creates that expresses important ideas or feelings." So it has to do with both, I guess...expressing yourself, but expressing what is meaningful to you. Which ties in meaning and self-expression inextricably.  

I observe that in a lot of entertainment, there is very little meaning. I could even say I don't see the self-expression. Since Transformers is being discussed, I'll use that as an example. Self-expression? I don't think so, personally. 

And cheap-gore-filled writing may, I suppose, be self expression, but it's self expression on a very basic level of that is the case. I think there must be different levels of self expression. Like, I like dragons, and if I draw a dragon, that is self expression, but I'm also constantly in a state of wonder at the complexity of human relationships, and if I write a story about that...it's more complicated, it's deeper, and it connects to a deeper, more complex part of people than the dragon does. And it comes from a deeper part of me. I don't know if this makes any sense...

I would venture to say that if something is genuine self-expression it will have meaning of some kind. But I also think it is good to hone and deepen the meaning our art brings out...and try to work our way down into our hearts and find out what is most deeply meaningful to us...

Gah, this is a deep topic. O_O and I don't know how to discuss it without getting extremely religious because I see art as such an intensely spiritual thing.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 8, 2017)

TheKillerBs said:


> I disagree. The world can be a crappy place, and I wholeheartedly believe that anything that brings a smile, or a moment of joy to someone can only be a good thing. The caveat being, of course, that this anything does not bring harm to someone else.



In reference to stuff like extreme gore with no deeper meaning to it or redemptive value, I would disagree. Of course, the point of that is to be disturbing, and if it genuinely brings someone joy they are probably a sicko. So...I suppose I agree?


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## skip.knox (Jan 8, 2017)

Chiming in here to say we have wandered a bit from the OP. Here is part of it

"I am not asking if violence is a necessary component of all fiction, but if you think it is needed in specific genres. Does an epic fantasy need battles of large and small scale? Can an action-oriented novel stand on its own without a punch being thrown. Would this be compelling to you? And if so, what do you use to create suspense instead. "

Given that Banten explicitly said not asking if violence is a necessary component of all fiction, we certainly spent a lot of time speaking to that.

Can an action-oriented novel stand on its own without a punch being thrown? I'd say possibly, but it may well not be advertised as an action novel. It sort of doesn't matter what genre the author claims. What matters is how the publishing house markets it, which shelf it gets put on. Or, if self-pubbed, what matters is how your readers react to the categories you claim for it.

I think the same goes, more or less, for epic fantasy. Battles are more or less expected. I can write something without them and I can claim it's epic fantasy, but I may be whistling in the wind.

Finally, what would I use to create suspense instead? That question goes a bit sideways. The preceding questions aren't about suspense. They're about violence. Some violence raises suspense but some violence actually releases it. Certainly, as was pointed out in the thread, there are plenty of ways to raise suspense without resorting to violence.

Much of the rest of the thread is more about whether violence is a Good Thing to put into your book. I have nothing to add on that.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 8, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> Chiming in here to say we have wandered a bit from the OP. Here is part of it
> 
> "I am not asking if violence is a necessary component of all fiction, but if you think it is needed in specific genres. Does an epic fantasy need battles of large and small scale? Can an action-oriented novel stand on its own without a punch being thrown. Would this be compelling to you? And if so, what do you use to create suspense instead. "
> 
> ...



Sorry :/ I derail threads a lot.


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## skip.knox (Jan 9, 2017)

No apologies! I was just trying to square the circle. Cube the sphere. Whatever.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 9, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> No apologies! I was just trying to square the circle. Cube the sphere. Whatever.



Oh, ok. I must say that I rather like a good tangent now and then; it allows my mind to wander into ideas I haven't yet considered. 

But in response to the OP...writing a fantasy without violence, or, if not any onscreen violence, the strong implication of it...possible, of course. Totally, completely possible. But totally inconsistent with what already exists out there and what people think of when they hear the word fantasy. 

It's almost implicit in the definition of fantasy that there will be some kind of fighting going on, whether it's two kingdoms fighting against each other, or a sorcerer and a dragon, or something like that, even if said violence does not occur onscreen. 

That said, if we're counting implied violence, it would be near impossible to find a book that does not contain it. In ANY genre. Violence is s huge part of our world and our existence. Almost any book is going to include it. I tried to think of a non-fantasy novel I've read recently. The Help came immediately to mind, though that was almost a year ago. While there isn't fighting and swords in it, violence (against a particular group of people) helps define the whole atmosphere and build the tension. Without it, the story would fall flat. 

If we're going to confine the definition of violence to onscreen violence, I suppose, yes, it is possible to write a fantasy story without violence. Conflicts in fantasy tend toward the external, though. Almost all of fantasy's most unavoidable tropes involve violence. And if you include those tropes, but refrain from showing violence onscreen...I suppose it is possible, but you will have to justify it. 

Why would you want to write a story entirely without violence? Not that it's a bad idea, but is there a particular reason?


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## Steerpike (Jan 9, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Oh, ok. I must say that I rather like a good tangent now and then; it allows my mind to wander into ideas I haven't yet considered.
> 
> But in response to the OP...writing a fantasy without violence, or, if not any onscreen violence, the strong implication of it...possible, of course. Totally, completely possible. But totally inconsistent with what already exists out there and what people think of when they hear the word fantasy.



No. Have you seen Kiki's Delivery Service? Read Jo Walton, Patricia Wrede, Ellen Kushner, Charles de Lint? Ursula K LeGuin, Connie Wllis? I don't remember Pratchett being particularly violent. Harry Connolly has a pacifist urban fantasy protagonist. Terri Windling. Maybe The Goblin Emperor. If we really want to dig into this we can come up with a lot more of these, probably including some Gene Wolfe stories, James Blaylock certainly, and others.


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## Chessie (Jan 9, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Why would you want to write a story entirely without violence? Not that it's a bad idea, but is there a particular reason?



This depends entirely on your audience. There is no violence at all in my sweet historical romance stories. Deep life and philosophical issues are resolved with a completely different approach to my fantasy stories. Violence happens in those in a wide range. One niche caters to a particular audience that wants inspirational & feel good stories while the other is more tolerant of fantasy elements such as violence and grittiness.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 9, 2017)

Chessie said:


> This depends entirely on your audience. There is no violence at all in my sweet historical romance stories. Deep life and philosophical issues are resolved with a completely different approach to my fantasy stories. Violence happens in those in a wide range. One niche caters to a particular audience that wants inspirational & feel good stories while the other is more tolerant of fantasy elements such as violence and grittiness.



Don't no one get slapped or punched in the nose? I simply can't cotton to no story where there ain't at least a bloody schnoz, heh heh.

And people have different ideas when they say fantasy... which is why I tried to keep the violence locked into epic fantasy. There are sub-genres suited for pacifism.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 9, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Don't no one get slapped or punched in the nose? I simply can't cotton to no story where there ain't at least a bloody schnoz, heh heh.
> 
> And people have different ideas when they say fantasy... which is why I tried to keep the violence locked into epic fantasy. There are sub-genres suited for pacifism.



Not all stories merit bloody schnozzes, I suppose


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 9, 2017)

Banten said:


> ... Does an epic fantasy need battles of large and small scale? ...



At least one agent does not believe that epic fantasy must have "battles."

Genre Breakdown: Epic Fantasy ? Mary C. Moore

This agent is looking for epic fantasy with guerrilla warfare over bloody battles. A lesser degree of violent conflict.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 9, 2017)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> At least one agent does not believe that epic fantasy must have "battles."
> 
> Genre Breakdown: Epic Fantasy ? Mary C. Moore
> 
> This agent is looking for epic fantasy with guerrilla warfare over bloody battles. A lesser degree of violent conflict.



It's really cool that you mentioned this because the fantasy series I'm planning (or have been writing and planning) involves mainly guerrilla warfare over battlefield conflict.


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## Russ (Jan 9, 2017)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> At least one agent does not believe that epic fantasy must have "battles."
> 
> Genre Breakdown: Epic Fantasy ? Mary C. Moore
> 
> This agent is looking for epic fantasy with guerrilla warfare over bloody battles. A lesser degree of violent conflict.



On a completely unrelated note, Kimberly Cameron and Associates, Ms. Moore's agency, are a really interesting group of both professional and progressive agents with a fascinating group of clients.  I have friends represented by them and they speak well of their representation there.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 9, 2017)

I would not go so far as to say epic fantasy requires warfare either... although it never hurts, LOL. But depending on the period, warfare is warfare, no matter how you want to label the tactics. It seems a bit strange to differentiate on this. The Epic I'm working on involves zero warfare in the first 500 pages with one ambush episode, skirmish/guerilla warfare to stay alive during a migration in book 2, and then as they resettle in book 3, it would still be more skirmish warfare with only a few pitched battles. I would never have to approach marketing different.



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> It's really cool that you mentioned this because the fantasy series I'm planning (or have been writing and planning) involves mainly guerrilla warfare over battlefield conflict.


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## Gribba (Jan 10, 2017)

I have not read the entire thread (read some of it and scanned some of it)... so, sorry if I am repeating something already said, I just wanted to chime in as I found this interesting and very relevant.

I just finished binge watching Trapped (Ã“fÃ¦rÃ°), Icelandic TV series. 
One scene had so much impact and there was no violence but it spoke volumes of the violence the character had gone through off screen.
There is a case that is being investigated and it has human trafficking involved. A 13 year old girl is hiding with her sister, in a home of the police woman. 
The girl sees one of the men that are involved in the trafficking ring, outside the window, the scene shows the floor by her feet and her peeing on the floor. It did not require more as that spoke volumes of the violence behind that reaction she had to only seeing him. 

Also if you see the original versions of the films, The ring, The grudge and Dark Water (not the american version), those films do not show you so much violence as they suggest it and let the viewer take it to the next step. 

Suggestion of the violence can often be worse than the blood and description of the violence because the reader (viewer) gets into his/her own head and makes assumptions about the violence that took place and we all have different thresholds to what we can take and what we imagine as the worst thing that could have happened in each case. 

In fantasy writing I think it can be very difficult to do, as the readers do have some expectations the writer has to fulfill and especially with epic fantasy, and not to mention the publishing/editors might insist this expectation to me met... but I think it could be so interesting and fun to see if it can be done and done well.

I am actually inspired by this and considering trying it out with one of my stories!!! 
Thanks for this awesome tread and the awesome answers!!! Love it!!!


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## skip.knox (Jan 10, 2017)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> This agent is looking for epic fantasy with guerrilla warfare over bloody battles. A lesser degree of violent conflict.



Erg. This agent evidently has not much experience with the nature of guerilla war. Speaking as a civilian, give me regular army, any day.


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## glutton (Jan 11, 2017)

I would've never thought of guerilla war as being 'tamer' than other forms of warfare or of 'battles' having to be numerically large-scale conflicts to fill some kind of violence quota.

My current heroine's one-on-one 'battle' with a mountain sized monster is pretty violent and epic without needing mass numbers. The only casualties in that fight are the monster and the heroine herself (she comes back to life through sheer willpower lol) but the stakes were high with her whole city and potentially nation being at risk of being annihilated. She did her city/nation/bloodline proud XD


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jan 11, 2017)

I second all that's been said recently. It would seem that guerrilla warfare is if anything more intense, at least in some ways. I prefer it for that reason.


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## Miskatonic (Jan 11, 2017)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> At least one agent does not believe that epic fantasy must have "battles."
> 
> Genre Breakdown: Epic Fantasy ? Mary C. Moore
> 
> This agent is looking for epic fantasy with guerrilla warfare over bloody battles. A lesser degree of violent conflict.



Skirmishes are far more likely to happen than full scale battles anyway. That being said, guerrilla warfare can be just as horrific, and given it's in a more intimate setting (focused on far fewer people), can be just as powerful as a huge battle with hundreds or thousands of people dying. 

Just look at Vietnam for instance. Or Afghanistan.


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## CupofJoe (Jan 11, 2017)

Miskatonic said:


> Skirmishes are far more likely to happen than full scale battles anyway. That being said, guerrilla warfare can be just as horrific, and given it's in a more intimate setting (focused on far fewer people), can be just as powerful as a huge battle with hundreds or thousands of people dying.
> Just look at Vietnam for instance. Or Afghanistan.


Or, looking to Tolkien.... 
The Fellowship's battle in Moria compared to the Battle of Pelennor Fields. Both are wonderful to read but I find Moria far more compelling because I know those involved.


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## Miskatonic (Jan 11, 2017)

CupofJoe said:


> Or, looking to Tolkien....
> The Fellowship's battle in Moria compared to the Battle of Pelennor Fields. Both are wonderful to read but I find Moria far more compelling because I know those involved.



Aragorn cleaving the orc chieftain's helm in half is one of my favorite moments in the whole book. Especially the audio book version.


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## FifthView (Jan 11, 2017)

A benefit of smaller-scale, one-on-one battles for epic fantasy is that they bring the larger scale world-changing forces down to the intimate scale.  It is like a smaller version of the change occurring to the whole world.

As someone mentioned earlier, this can be achieved by zooming in to the characters during large scale battles.  But even in those cases, there may be less foreshadowing of victory and even less of risk.  A small party that fights and succeeds against another small party, ending the battle in victory while suffering injuries and experiencing the threat of total loss might "bring home" the stakes, the promise of an eventual win in the larger conflict, and so forth.  But a one-on-one victory against an opponent on a large battlefield leaves the question of total victory a little more up in the air.  (Unless that opponent's death seals the total victory, e.g. when the leader of the enemy army is kill and his whole army dissolves into chaos as a result.)


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 11, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> Erg. This agent evidently has not much experience with the nature of guerilla war. Speaking as a civilian, give me regular army, any day.



Sorry, the bit about "a lesser degree of violent conflict" was my addition to what the agent said. She only mentioned a preference for guerrilla warfare over bloody battles. It was my assumption she was looking for a lesser degree of violent conflict. It may be that guerrilla warfare is degrees more violent, so I shouldn't have added that bit. Apologies to both her and you, skip. _Edit:_ Apologies to all who read my previous post and took my addition to be attributable to the agent.


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## skip.knox (Jan 11, 2017)

No apologies needed. I just wanted to point out the guerilla war can be horrifyingly bloody and cruel. So can set-piece battles, just in different ways.

Moving back to the OP, it feels almost abstract to me. Writing an epic fantasy without battles or violence sounds like a technical challenge one might put to an advanced writing class. Just for the exercise, like writing a poem without using the letter "a". Sure it can be done. But why? And don't we have better things to do, like writing epic fantasy *with* the things readers normally associate with epic fantasy?


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 11, 2017)

_Mistborn: The Final Empire_ is categorized as Epic fantasy on Amazon. That book talks about gathering an army, and there's some military conflict involved, which isn't described at all except after the fact. If the off-scene conflict hadn't been mentioned in the story, would that omission be enough to knock the book out of the Epic fantasy category, or would the fact of gathering the army with intent to use it have been enough to make the story Epic?

Look at this another way: If I have a traditional fantasy story, and I revise it so that an army is gathered and its presence has some bearing on the plot, does that automatically make the story Epic? I don't think so. There's something other than battle scenes that has to be present in an Epic fantasy. Is it scope? And if it's scope, why can't a story have a world-encompassing scope without there being even a single battle scene or any mention of an army?


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## skip.knox (Jan 11, 2017)

I'm not speaking to what might be done. Ultimately this is all that matters: 1) where agents and bookstores position your book on shelves; 2) based on the keywords you use at Amazon etc., whether your readers think your book matches those keywords. 

We control neither of these. 

The rest is _ex post facto_ analysis. We could do a literary analysis on a hundred books in the category of epic fiction and see what the percentage is that employ violent or large-scale military scenes. Might be worthwhile for market research, but I don't think it bears on the question. Write as you please, choose your keywords carefully, and hope for the best.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 11, 2017)

I don't think that war was ever mentioned as necessary for Epic fantasy, or as defining epic... but violence almost certainly is an expectation of the subgenre. Mistborn contains violence. Many "epic" stories will skirt around war scenes for a variety reasons. Epic has other qualifiers which have been discussed.



Michael K. Eidson said:


> _Mistborn: The Final Empire_ is categorized as Epic fantasy on Amazon. That book talks about gathering an army, and there's some military conflict involved, which isn't described at all except after the fact. If the off-scene conflict hadn't been mentioned in the story, would that omission be enough to knock the book out of the Epic fantasy category, or would the fact of gathering the army with intent to use it have been enough to make the story Epic?
> 
> Look at this another way: If I have a traditional fantasy story, and I revise it so that an army is gathered and its presence has some bearing on the plot, does that automatically make the story Epic? I don't think so. There's something other than battle scenes that has to be present in an Epic fantasy. Is it scope? And if it's scope, why can't a story have a world-encompassing scope without there being even a single battle scene or any mention of an army?


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## Miskatonic (Jan 12, 2017)

Epic fantasy needs some kind of escalating conflict since the stories tend to involve a substantial geographic area, multiple political powers, etc. War/violence, historically, has been the outcome of many of these types of conflicts, so it seems to be the natural go to scenario. I like the epic showdowns between massive armies, but I'm more interested in chess board type maneuvering, not only of armies, but also that of the choices leaders (kings, politicians, etc.) make when trying to win the war. I guess you could call this the "Game of Thrones" element of the story.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 13, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> I don't think that war was ever mentioned as necessary for Epic fantasy, or as defining epic... but violence almost certainly is an expectation of the subgenre. Mistborn contains violence. Many "epic" stories will skirt around war scenes for a variety reasons. Epic has other qualifiers which have been discussed.



The OP posed the question: Does an epic fantasy need battles of large and small scale?


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 13, 2017)

A large scale battle does not a war make, depending on definition. But more straightforward, whether we see the battles or not, I don't think "epic" is defined by there being "war" present. A large scale, world/regional shaking conflict, yes... which will entail violence on or off screen, I would roll with.

Mistborn is the tale of overthrowing an empire, and I am hesitant to speak much of large battles without finishing the book. but seeing as I've seen people discuss whether religion was present in the books with some folks remembering it not having any... and wow is it, I hesitate to assume no battles. As far as religion goes... Heck, defeating the lord ruler is as much defeating a religion as it is an empire. But I digress. The lack of large scale battle scenes (if true) would not, IMO eliminate it as epic. Someone else might disagree, of course. Defining any genre/subgenre down too tightly kind of gets whacky, Epic Fantasy might be worst than most because of its breadth.



Michael K. Eidson said:


> The OP posed the question: Does an epic fantasy need battles of large and small scale?


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## glutton (Jan 13, 2017)

Michael K. Eidson said:


> The OP posed the question: Does an epic fantasy need battles of large and small scale?



I think if the MC kills a god changing the order of the world, that would qualify for epic without needing what you are referring to as "battles". Although when I saw the OP I interpreted battles as including one-on-one, one-on-many, or small group fights and not necessarily organized military conflicts.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 13, 2017)

I like your responses, Demesnedenoir and glutton, because I'd like to classify my WIP as epic fantasy. It has no military conflicts, no armies marching anywhere. But near the end of the story, practically everyone on the planet will observe two powerful magical entities in combat, and the result of that conflict will impact everyone. The scope of the impact is large, while the number of participants in the "battle" is not.


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## Christopher Michael (Jan 13, 2017)

Is physical/magical violence between 2 entities necessary to be a good story? Absolutely not.
Is violence between 2 (or more) entities or groups necessary to be a good epic fantasy? That's a more delicate issue. In fantasy, and both Epic and High fantasy in particular, the violent conflicts are part of the expected convention. I would argue that they may not strictly be _needed_, but they are expected. I think you would alienate a sizable percentage of the community by _not_ including it. (But that may just be me.)


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## Fenrir (Jan 13, 2017)

Necessary... I think not.  Tied to the genre, expectations, and an easy way to create Interest? Yes.  Life and death or the threat there of is high stakes.  And high stakes are generally interesting. When we think of conflict on large scale, well war is right up there and familiar.  So interesting + large scale = war/violence is a viable formula. 

But, is it a required formula?  Off the top of my head Robert Asprin does some fun fantasy and sci-fi reads that are very low on actual violence.  Myth series and Phule series spring to mind.  Threats of violence, and so on, abound.  But actual kill 'em violence?  Rare.  Fisticuffs sometimes tho.  The Phule series particularly deals in multi system species versus species conflict at times, which is epic in my book anyway.  Yes its SF, but could be re-fluffed fantasy easily enough. Of course that is still low violence, and not no violence so...

The anime No game No life has quite a few episodes that are totally violence free as I recall. Yes its an anime, but it is also fantasy with sweeping country vs country conflict (eventually) and a good watch.  Something like that could be done completely violence free I would imagine and at least I would watch/read it.


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## Christopher Michael (Jan 28, 2017)

Fenrir said:


> Tied to the genre, expectations, and an easy way to create Interest? Yes.


Well...yes. And, of course, no.
Is it tied to the genre? Absolutely. Is it tied to expectations? Definitely.
Is it an "easy way" to create interest? Absolutely not.
In fact, good "violence" that does everything the reader expects it to do is exquisitely difficult.
You have to strike the right balance of violent enough whilst not also being too violent. You have to focus on your POV character, especially their state of mind and how this impacts their emotions and personality.
Does the violence mean something? If it doesn't, it is best to leave it off the page, because your reader will grow quickly bored.
I could continue on, and on, with this. Violence is needed, in measure, especially in fantasy. (Even the ones you listed _include violence_. It may be minimal, it may be personal, _but the violence is there_.) But it absolutely has to be delicately handled, delicately balanced, and brilliantly used. A good writer will _never_ include violence "just because."  Even GRRM, an author whose works I absolutely despise for so very many reasons, doesn't include violence just because he can. It serves the story, or the character, or the mood he is trying to develop.



Fenrir said:


> Life and death or the threat there of is high stakes. And high stakes are generally interesting.


Actually, high stakes is boring. The reader and viewer needs to _know_ the high stakes, but it is the _small_ stakes that invest the reader.
Take a look at Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy. I don't care if you like his version of the books or not, that's not why we're going there. Take a look at the battle scenes, especially Helm's Deep. You view the high stakes, the large picture. But you don't stay there. You crash in on characters- not even always major characters. Those are the small stakes. The guard watching his buddy get turned into hamburger by an orc. Legolas watching his Elven friends cut down. 
Those are the beats a _good_ author hits. I don't mean great. I mean good, because any competent author should be able to do this. The small "reaction shots" are what invest the reader.


Fenrir said:


> The anime No game No life has quite a few episodes that are totally violence free as I recall. Yes its an anime, but it is also fantasy with sweeping country vs country conflict (eventually) and a good watch.  Something like that could be done completely violence free I would imagine and at least I would watch/read it.



And that's just it. A creator doesn't, hopefully, go for a niche audience. They create what they want to see- and generally hope that a great many others are also interested in it.
You're not only talking about a niche audience, but an extraordinarily small one.


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## Peat (Jan 28, 2017)

Christopher Michael said:


> Actually, high stakes is boring. The reader and viewer needs to _know_ the high stakes, but it is the _small_ stakes that invest the reader.
> Take a look at Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy. I don't care if you like his version of the books or not, that's not why we're going there. Take a look at the battle scenes, especially Helm's Deep. You view the high stakes, the large picture. But you don't stay there. You crash in on characters- not even always major characters. Those are the small stakes. The guard watching his buddy get turned into hamburger by an orc. Legolas watching his Elven friends cut down.
> Those are the beats a _good_ author hits. I don't mean great. I mean good, because any competent author should be able to do this. The small "reaction shots" are what invest the reader.



Amen to this with a side of "I'm real bored of it suddenly all being about saving the entirety of mankind".


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## Christopher Michael (Jan 28, 2017)

Peat said:


> Amen to this with a side of "I'm real bored of it suddenly all being about saving the entirety of mankind".



I'm fine with that being the High Stakes. I'm completely okay with it.
But the thing is...nobody can really get behind that. I mean, sure. Intellectually, even spiritually, I can absolutely get behind that. But the grunt on the field? He/she can't. Your hero absolutely can't. It's not about the politics, the salvation of the entirety of the universe, or whatever. It's not even about glory or honor, although those can factor in. It's about revenge. Or anger. Or their sweetheart.

2 quotes from "Hoot" in _Black Hawk Down_ absolutely nail my approach to combat in my writing.

"Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit just goes right out the window."
"When I go home people'll ask me, "Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?" You know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is."


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