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Underused Themes

Black Dragon

Staff
Administrator
We all know that there are common themes that often reappear in stories. Fantasy stories, in particular, usually rely on a short list of oft-repeated themes.

What are some themes that rarely appear in fantasy writing, but have the potential to enhance a story?
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
The 'big bad' isn't quite so bad.

My tales are set in a world where a quasi-roman empire basically collided with Lovecraftian abominations. Usually, Lovecraftian entities are so vast and so utterly alien that humans matter as much to them as bugs or bacteria do to us - at most we mere mortals are of but passing interest, and like as not we'll get stomped. However, a minority of Lovecraftian tales plays up the alien angle while cautiously sidestepping the indifference and destructiveness. Sometimes, these entities are willing to chat. Sometimes, their goals do not involve annihilation or enslavement of mere mortals. Their acts may even be (gasp) beneficial. That is an approach I took with 'Empire' and 'Labyrinth' - the 'big bad' hell bent on decimating the planet is gone. Other powerful alien entities are stirring to life and poking around, but correctly approached, they are willing to talk, and their goals do not involve utter destruction.
 
Necromancy not being the fall back to automatically Evil. It's rare to see it in any form of positive. I use it at it's most base form for my Eld stories. Mostly as a way to talk with the dead or commune with them. Sure, at a bit of a price, but there's usually one for everything. Most the time it seems like there's not even a slope, just bam and Necromancy means automatically using undead and running amok with demons. Death is never a great thing, but to treat those who deal with it as automatically evil or unclean seems a bit much.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Necromancy not being the fall back to automatically Evil. It's rare to see it in any form of positive. I use it at it's most base form for my Eld stories. Mostly as a way to talk with the dead or commune with them. Sure, at a bit of a price, but there's usually one for everything. Most the time it seems like there's not even a slope, just bam and Necromancy means automatically using undead and running amok with demons. Death is never a great thing, but to treat those who deal with it as automatically evil or unclean seems a bit much.
I have a order of saints in my primary world, the 'Order of Saint Cryptus,' who are effectively mediums, renown for speaking with the dead, calming them, and urging them to the next life. Ordinary citizens find them spooky, but not evil.
 
I could be wrong because obviously I can't read everything thing but in young adult fiction is see parent/adults vs kids a lot.
Parent-teen relationships only seem to be positive if the parent is dead or about to die. Most of the time these books focus on the teens friends or love interest, never on a good relationship with a parent unless it directly relates to the plot. It seems some YA writers are all about getting the parents out of the way so the kids can save the day.

Mental health - not just the "psycho villain". The amount of times I've read books that are set in slum areas yet no one seems to suffer with depression. No disabled, blind or deaf characters. Don't think I've seen one in Fantasy. That's not saying there aren't any, just I haven't read them.
 

Ken Muckenhaupt

New Member
My novels concentrate on caste oppression by a genetically superior caste. The overriding theme is the fear that the oppressed must constantly endure while subjugated to the superior caste. In this case, the superior cast, or Ancients as I call them in my books, can read the monds of the oppressed, or commoners. The only salvation for the comoners is the hope that a secret, distant caste can save them from their oppression.
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
I'll be the first to admit I am not up to date with fantasy literature, I rarely read it and I haven't written it in years, so I may be generalizing and fantastically wrong (thanks again for not kicking me out yet). But one thing I have noticed in my reading, is that fantasy lit tends to lack heavily in non-material culture. On the material side it is fine, clothing, cuisine and festivities are easy for writers to discern and give their own spin to, but many writers seem highly hesitant to explore behavioral differences in cultures.

I believe this is by and large an issue of writers being scared to stereotype, and believing that by making other cultures ascribe to other values than their own, that they make an 'other' out of them. However I'd argue that in so doing they homogenize their world into 'the west fantastified' . The level of Individualism and consumerism, and the values of the Antlanticist world are not the worldwide norm, and I don't think it is realistic (or interesting) to assume it would be in a fantasy world.

Then again, most fantasy writers in the mainstream are from these places that do coincide with these values, so I think it might simply be unconscious projection.
Interestingly the same hesitance rarely applies to fantasy species.
 
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On the material side it is fine, clothing, cuisine and festivities are easy for writers to discern and give their own spin to, but many writers seem highly hesitant to explore behavioral differences in cultures.
I am inclined to agree with you, but I think there are a few big exceptions, though I can't think of too many of the top of my head. As you mentioned mainstream authors, G.R.R.M. is in my opinion at his best when introducing characters to cultures they're unfamiliar to. The Daenerys chapters in A Storm of Swords and A Feast for Crows are easily some of the highlights in these books. They are, even without context a very worthwhile read.
 
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Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
I'd agree that Martin did a good job in this regard, though I think he was at his best in Westeros not Essos. The differences in mindset between the traditionalist and direct northerners and the adaptive and cordial southerners is well played out, not to mention the ironborn, dornish and freefolk among others. It feels a bit more subtle than the somewhat alien mindsets of the slavers bay and qarth.

Now the lack of linguistic diversity in westeros however... I'll stop nitpicking.
 

Gurkhal

Auror
From what I've read, but I'll admit that I haven't read much in the way of more recent fantasy beyond GRRM, is the lack of interests in the little guys. This may be more of a problem for heroic fantasy but what about the stories of those souls living in the shadow of giants and can be crushed or have their lives wrecked as an unforseen and uncared for side-effect of an act by the great and powerful? I know that when watching war movies and I saw some soldier, including a bad guy, get shot and die, I can wonder what this person did ten years ago and how he thought his life would play out? What did he dream of and hope for, ten years ago? How will his family take the news of his death, and so on.
 

Firefly

Troubadour
On the material side it is fine, clothing, cuisine and festivities are easy for writers to discern and give their own spin to, but many writers seem highly hesitant to explore behavioral differences in cultures.

YES. Of course, there are writers who are exceptions, but I think this is right on for most stories. I wonder if this is why I gravitate so much to fantasy races over different cultures of humans? The big cultural factors that affect what people value and how they think have always been by far the most interesting aspects of culture for me, while the "material stuff" as you put it has been at best fun background color and at worst extraneous or confusing extra detail that I know is necessary but tend to get bored with really quickly.

I may be wrong, but I think another reason why this side of things gets neglected so often is that it's harder to research and more complicated to get across in the text. It's a lot easier to communicate to the reader that "oh, it's the apple harvest festival" or that your protagonist is eating crab than something more amorphous like the way their culture views life and death. It's definitely doable, but it takes more thought and skill, especially to avoid stereotyping and negative "othering" like you mention. It's also a lot more doable to just skip it you're the opposite of me and the material aspects are what's interesting to you. You can ignore this element throughout the whole process and have a story that turns out fine, but it's a lot harder to do that with things like food and clothing.

I could be wrong because obviously I can't read everything thing but in young adult fiction is see parent/adults vs kids a lot.
Parent-teen relationships only seem to be positive if the parent is dead or about to die. Most of the time these books focus on the teens friends or love interest, never on a good relationship with a parent unless it directly relates to the plot. It seems some YA writers are all about getting the parents out of the way so the kids can save the day.

Yes, this is definitely a thing, but I think there are good reasons for this. Pretty much every YA story has to somehow address the issue of why teens are solving the story problem instead of their parents or mentors or any other competent adults in the setting (Who obviously can't do so because... the target audience wants to read about teenagers). The easiest ways to do this are killing the parents off, making them incompetent, or making them antagonists, so you see all three of those fairly often. More nuanced parental relationships can exist, but because of the way they tend to take away from the main character's agency, they tend to not get a lot of page time.
And, of course, the "We want to read about teenagers" thing extends to supporting characters as well, so friendships and romances are often more interesting to the targeted readers anyway.
Not to say you're wrong and we shouldn't have more positive examples, (we should) but they are much more difficult than you might think.
 
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skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Religion.

Oh, there are plenty of churches and orders and gods in fantasy, but they're mainly window dressing, even when they figure prominently. For the most part, there are stories about gods, stories with gods manipulating, oppressive churches (they're nearly always oppressive), or simply to frame the presence of D&D-type clerics.

In general literature, though, there are many books across the generations that consider questions of faith, doubt, and internal spiritual struggle. I don't think there's really a market for this in fantasy, but the potential exists to consider what faith might mean to an elf or dwarf. Or even what it would mean to be monotheist when there's more than one species with a "soul" - however the author might choose to define that.

SF has done a fairly good job of this over the decades, but not fantasy.
 
The religion thing may not be covered as much in fantasy as due to the fact that a lot of times the gods are decently easy to get a hold of. Sometimes. If not being active in some form in the worlds. Otherwise a lot of it is kind of glossed over. Oddly I think some fantasy video games do a pretty good job of it, mainly Dragon Age's myriad of takes on the human's main religion, the elven and even the dwarven ones. Then there's the Qunari ideology and it. Though it takes some reading in game and maybe a bit more talking, but it's an RPG. Do that stuff when not actively grinding through hordes of mutated monsters.
 

WooHooMan

Auror
I would like to see more small scale conflicts. Fantasy has a tendency of falling back on war, politics, gods and the fate of the world to make their conflicts seem more meaningful. You rarely get straight forward stories about an average joe going through some tough times.

I would also like to see some moral conflicts that go deeper than just “good vs evil” or “hey, maybe the antagonist isn’t so evil”. Like, deontology vs consequentialism or libertarianism vs authoritarianism. Or a character who is a moral absolutist that can actually rationalize his position beyond “doing good things is good”.
 
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