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The anti-stereotype thread

Rhi Paille

Dreamer
Evening!

I'm getting sidetracked from what I'm supposed to be doing while my husband watches Game of Thrones. I'm not caught up yet because I work too much and I'm a big Fringe fan, sooooo I'm getting there.

I recently started a thread called "Top 10 Stereotypes in Fantasy" which worked out pretty well.

This is the anti-stereotype thread. List as many non stereotype elements you've found in fantasy novels.

Also, remember that once it's written, it'll no doubt be the stereotype if it becomes popular.

For instance, I was looking for an agent for my series The Ferryman and the Flame basically an epic fantasy about a grim reaper. Today, one of the literary agents I worked with on that book tweeted that 3/4 of the queries in her inbox all involve grim reapers. Sooo while I may have thought I was being stealth staying away from vampires, orcs, drow, werewolves, wizards, shape shifters, etc. etc. I may have spoken too soon.

Who knows though, maybe Ferrymen will be the next Vampires.

That or the Kraken who can't love themselves a good Kraken story?

Okay, non stereotypical fantasy elements?

Namaste,
Rhi
 

Queshire

Auror
Well, one thing that sticks out to me is the story of Saika (not sure about the spelling) from Durarara. It's a ghostly sword that possesses it's weilder causing them to cut people which then get possessed, grab a knife or other blade and become mini-saikas, pretty simple ghost sword / zombie scenario right? Well, the anti-stereotype is that the spirit of Saika, instead of being evil, LOVES humans, everything about humans and all humans. However, it's a sword, it's kinda limited in how it can expresses that love. It cuts people because it loves them and as a sword it can't show it any other way. The mini-Saikas actually ARE mini-saikas, as they are Saika's babies. I found that very, very neat.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
I've tried to defy the stereotype of "good = beautiful, evil = ugly" in many of my stories.

The Fair Folk in my fantasy duology are all inhumanly beautiful/handsome, even though most of them are True Neutral at best, Neutral Evil at worst. This extends to the main villain, whom the heroine acknowledges as handsome even while loathing every fiber of his being. Also, the main human characters (those being the good guys) are not exceptionally attractive, at least in my mind. I never go all-out describing them in painstaking detail for paragraphs; the one decently-sized description-dump in the second chapter of the first book, being of the heroine's father, serves the purpose of describing how out-of-sorts he looks after a night of little sleep and worrying to no end about his kidnapped daughter: messy hair, pale skin, baggy eyes (of which the color goes unmentioned) and stubble. This is lampshaded by himself and his brother as looking awful. Not a word about "eyes the brilliant blue of a flame's heart" or "a face marked by the fading scars of a distant past." The fire comparison does, admittedly, show up in the second book, but it's from the perspective of someone other than the man himself, and it's not part of another description-dump.
 

shangrila

Inkling
Ringil Eskiath, from Richard Morgan's Cold Commands, is the main hero...and an open homosexual. In fact, there are several rather descriptive sex scenes in both that book and the sequel. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I thought that was fairly anti-stereotype.

Sarene, from Elantris, is taller than most men, quick witted and devious. Not exactly the classic princess.
 

TGNewman

Scribe
I would say The Game of Thrones, in fact A Song of Ice and Fire is a very non stereotype example of Fantasy, and one of the reasons it has done so well. There are no perfect people, Th beautiful knights are just as terrible as the surly villains sometimes.

Yes there are dragons, but they are done differently to the standard form.

They are a fantasy series that does not rely on the stereotypes, but pays homage to them in subtle ways.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I am finding the non-stereotypical fantasies to be a lot more common since Martin started his series. Many shades of gray, flaws all around, a darker, less hopeful outlook in general. There's Martin, of course, but also Cook (who preceded Martin), Erikson, Bakker, Abercrombie, Moon (one series, also pre-dating Martin), Durham, Lynch, and so on. Most of the new work I've picked up off the shelf the last number of years fits this mold.

So I suspect that someone will come out with a very well done traditional fantasy and it will be a smashing success :)
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Cook, hmm I'll have to look into his/her work.

Glen Cook. The Black Company. A great series of books, and one that I think was a significant inspiration to Erikson in his Malazan books. The first book is simply called The Black Company, and in reading that you'll be able to tell whether the series is for you. At the time of its publication (1984), it was quite different from what had come before in Fantasy. Of course, since then there have been many authors who have adopted similar themes.
 

Mindfire

Istar
I am finding the non-stereotypical fantasies to be a lot more common since Martin started his series. Many shades of gray, flaws all around, a darker, less hopeful outlook in general. There's Martin, of course, but also Cook (who preceded Martin), Erikson, Bakker, Abercrombie, Moon (one series, also pre-dating Martin), Durham, Lynch, and so on. Most of the new work I've picked up off the shelf the last number of years fits this mold.

So I suspect that someone will come out with a very well done traditional fantasy and it will be a smashing success :)

That's what I'm hoping for actually. I predict that Martin's popularity will set off a chain of copycats who will flood editors and agents with uber-grimdark, yet unoriginal, schlock. Some of it will even get published. But as the market becomes saturated with Martin copycats, publishers and audiences will inevitably tire of them (just like the Harry Potter clones, Eragon clones, and Twilight clones before them), thus setting the perfect conditions for the introduction of a new, more idealistic and thoroughly original series: MINE. :insertevillaughhere

Popular opinion is like a pendulum. It swings one way, then swings back the other way. If I can time it just right, I might be able to make my work a modest success.

The timing is nearing optimum actually. Harry Potter's over. Eragon is finished. Redwall is gone. the Codex Alera and Ranger's Apprentice have concluded. Martin is (gradually) wrapping up ASOIAF. My knowledge is admittedly limited, but it seems like all of the "heavy hitters" of the genre are riding off into the sunset, which leaves room for new ideas.
 
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Jabrosky

Banned
That's what I'm hoping for actually. I predict that Martin's popularity will set off a chain of copycats who will flood editors and agents with uber-grimdark, yet unoriginal, schlock. Some of it will even get published. But as the market becomes saturated with Martin copycats, publishers will inevitably tire of them (just like the Harry Potter clones, Eragon clones, and Twilight clones before them), thus setting the perfect conditions for the introduction of a new, more idealistic and thoroughly original series: MINE. :insertevillaughhere

Popular opinion is like a pendulum. It swings one way, then swings back the other way. If I can time it just right, I might be able to make my work a modest success.

Genius idea there!
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I'm sure the dreck is already out there. A lot of the stuff is better than what Martin is doing, in my view - Abercrombie, Erikson, for example. Martin has started to lose focus a bit I think, though I will reserve judgment until after I read the most recent one.
 
Ringil Eskiath, from Richard Morgan's Cold Commands, is the main hero...and an open homosexual. In fact, there are several rather descriptive sex scenes in both that book and the sequel.

Have you read Samuel R. Delany? After he got established, he started putting gay characters in his novels and exploring all sorts of non-mainstream sexuality. I haven't read anything of his more shocking in that department than Dhalgren, but that's plenty out-there itself. Also, his Return to Neveryon series (sorry about the lack of diacritics here) basically subverts the whole sword-and-sorcery genre. The third book in the series deals with an AIDS epidemic in a primitive society.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
Son of a Witch, the sequel to Gregory Maguire's Wicked, has a protagonist who's either gay or bisexual (it's hard to tell, since the only time he has sex with a woman is when she rapes him while he's comatose and gets pregnant with his kid (whited out for spoilers and squick). A lot of the sex in that series is pretty squicky and gratuitous, especially when you get to A Lion Among Men.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Mercedes Lackey has openly gay MCs in some of her Valdemar books. The series goes back to the 80s, though I don't know when the gay characters arrived. At least by the early 90s.

Storm Constantine deals with issues of gender and sexuality in her Wraethu books, which were first published in the 1980s. She also has books that have characters in incestuous (brother-sister) relationships.

There quite a bit of Fantasy out there dealing with alternatives to traditional gender and sexuality issues, for at least the last 25 years (Delany's work mentioned above may well predate that).
 

Rhi Paille

Dreamer
Thanks! I thought so too!

I guess I didn't have much of a strategy there. Just put out the book and wait for people to pick up on it. Fantasy is one of those rare genres where people become dinosaurs and legends and instead of being forogotten they're said to have paved the way for other authors.

I guess I don't look at my work as being inspired by Martin, Cook, Sanderson, or Brooks, or Goodkind because they're not authors on my favorite authors list. (No offence if they're on your list though) I am however familiar with their work.

I've been inspired by Tolkien, Fitzpatrick, Clare, Stiefvater, Kagawa, and Morgenstern respectively, but I read their books after writing the first draft of my first fictional novel.

I guess all anyone can do to stay relevant is hope for the best. You have to hope that your version of fantasy is different than someone else's, different enough that it stands out. And that's true for the people writing urban fantasy, paranormal romance and dystopian right now too. Be different enough to be accepted by the masses and you might win.

For Goodkind he had the Confessors which I always thought were brilliant.

Me? I've got the Flames, nine individually hand crafted weapons that could cause the apocalypse. They're like genes. And even though there are 9 of them all of them are different. My story focuses on the Amethyst Flame, who is I guess the leader of the Flames though she doesn't prefer to think of it that way. Her weapon is sort of a total destruction kind of weapon and so I've had to be careful when and where to use it.

For me what I find different about my Fantasy novel is that I never intended it to be epic fantasy. I sort of woke up one day and was like, "OMG I WROTE EPIC FANTASY." and thus had a moment on facebook where I was like, "um, conundrum people, sooo I wrote epic fantasy but dislike reading it, anyone want to tell me what's wrong with me?"

After that I mostly turned it into something I could read, which meant keeping the technical epic fantasy elements in play because that's just how the story works, but introducing a lot more paranormal romance elements, and historical fantasy elements. I wanted my characters to know where the Lands of Men were, and know that there's other places in the universe, have a grasp on the big picture too, not just their little island.

And it's helped a lot from distinguishing it amidst the crowd.

Anyway, rambling aside, you folks have a good one, thanks for the feedback!
 

shangrila

Inkling
Have you read Samuel R. Delany? After he got established, he started putting gay characters in his novels and exploring all sorts of non-mainstream sexuality. I haven't read anything of his more shocking in that department than Dhalgren, but that's plenty out-there itself. Also, his Return to Neveryon series (sorry about the lack of diacritics here) basically subverts the whole sword-and-sorcery genre. The third book in the series deals with an AIDS epidemic in a primitive society.
I haven't, though I'll give it a look
 

Aravelle

Sage
I've tried to defy the stereotype of "good = beautiful, evil = ugly" in many of my stories.

The Fair Folk in my fantasy duology are all inhumanly beautiful/handsome, even though most of them are True Neutral at best, Neutral Evil at worst. This extends to the main villain, whom the heroine acknowledges as handsome even while loathing every fiber of his being. Also, the main human characters (those being the good guys) are not exceptionally attractive, at least in my mind. I never go all-out describing them in painstaking detail for paragraphs; the one decently-sized description-dump in the second chapter of the first book, being of the heroine's father, serves the purpose of describing how out-of-sorts he looks after a night of little sleep and worrying to no end about his kidnapped daughter: messy hair, pale skin, baggy eyes (of which the color goes unmentioned) and stubble. This is lampshaded by himself and his brother as looking awful. Not a word about "eyes the brilliant blue of a flame's heart" or "a face marked by the fading scars of a distant past." The fire comparison does, admittedly, show up in the second book, but it's from the perspective of someone other than the man himself, and it's not part of another description-dump.

I've actually heard of non sweet, unpixie like faeries multiple times in literature. It's slowly becoming a cliche of its own.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
The Fae in their original Celtic folklore were creatures to be feared and respected, quick to anger and slow to forgive wrongs. I believe it was the writers of the Victorian era who turned the fearsome Fair Folk into twinkly Tinkerbells.
 

Aravelle

Sage
I know an aspiring writer IRL who has cat people...but they're not always attractive. If anything, they're a persecuted racial minority and actually have unique health problems.

Avtar: the last airbender -although not a book- has Toph. For those of you not in the know, she's a blind earthbender, but her blindness isn't anything to pity her for. It's not treated as a handicap.
 
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