How to handle violence in Fantasy

[Azul-din]

At the risk of stating the obvious, it strikes me that events in a Fantasy world seem to exist in a different plane than events in the world most of us live in. It has been said that a novel in the Romantic Genre presents the world as it might be and ought to be. Is it that in Fantasy we create the world as we would want it to be? Where Good and Evil are distinct entities at war with one another?

 

[Finchbearer]

I’ve read novels that are based on true real life stories with aspects of violence in them, lots of WWII and Cold War, and it’s true that real life is stranger than fiction, and that humans have a capacity for great acts of violence. Those sorts of books can be hard to read because you know someone out there really experienced that hardship or that level of cruelty.

I’ve read fantasy too, and what I find is that because fantasy as a genre removes us from reality, it is far removed enough that there can be stupendous acts of violence and it doesn’t seem as visceral or as difficult to read. Not saying you can’t infuse emotion into your fantasy novel, but it’s going to be different to that of real life settings.

And to add to this, as in real life, in fantasy, there does not need to be distinction between good and evil. There is often a tertiary grey area. Good people can do bad things, evil people can do ‘good’ things. That’s the basic thought.

 

[Queshire]

Deleted my post in the other one to post here instead.

I'm at work so I can't go into too much detail right now, but I fundamentally disagree with the question.

 

[Gurkhal]

For myself I don't find that fantasy or historical acts of violence are really that different to read about. Almost all acts of fantasy violence have been visited in some form in reality and thus formed the inspiration or equivalence for the fantasy act of violence.

You may ask: "How is a dragon attack with fire not a distinct fantasy event?" To that I would answer: "How does it not compare with a bombing run with napalm?"

Thus I don't think that fantasy in general is a world as we would like it to, although it could be that too. Personally I find it to be more often its a world as understood by the author. A author with a cynical perspective will write a cynical world, an author with a romantic perspective will write a romantic world and so on. The difference is that in fantasy there's few restraints on what the author can have in it as compared to many other genres. Fantasy is thus in my opinion more our understanding of the world that is unleashed and allowed to run wild.

 

[Finchbearer]

You may ask: "How is a dragon attack with fire not a distinct fantasy event?" To that I would answer: "How does it not compare with a bombing run with napalm?"

For me, they are completely different. They invoke totally different emotions. I’m not sure you can place dragons breathing fire and killing a load of fantasy fictional characters to real world chemical warfare on innocent human beings. It’s just not comparable.

 

[Queshire]

Before getting philosophical about the nature of violence in fantasty I think it's important to think about the role it actually plays in a story.

Violence is remarkably efficient. Put someone with a sword against another person with a sword and you instantly have a challenge they need to overcome. The criteria for success is easy to see, the consequences for failure are clear and wondering how the character is going to win this one builds tension.

None of these aspects are unique to violence though. A soap opera builds tension via drama between the characters, a romance builds tension by leaving the audience wondering "will they or won't they," and so on.

There's really nothing stopping you from translating these sorts of plots to a fantasy aesthetic. Honestly there are series that already do this.

The anime series Delicious in Dungeon establishes its initial tension via needing to go save the protagonist's sister before she's killed permanently, but one of the main challenges they face in getting to her is a lack of funds which forces them to rely on cooking up dungeon monsters for sustenance.

 

[Queshire]

As for Good & Evil as distinct entities at war with each other I think it's still a matter of efficiency, but it's efficiency at signaling who is on what team.

I mean, once you establish undead hailing from the cold frozen north it's a lot easier to have them just be the bad guys instead of going into how all those skeletons provide a vital labor pool to make the most out of their short growing season.

This goes all the way back to Tolkien. He might have taken a lot of the races from Norse mythology, but a lot of the in world mythology of Lord of the Rings is pretty clearly derived from Christianity.

 

[Finchbearer]

The anime series Delicious in Dungeon establishes its initial tension via needing to go save the protagonist's sister before she's killed permanently, but one of the main challenges they face in getting to her is a lack of funds which forces them to rely on cooking up dungeon monsters for sustenance.

See, this is almost comical to me. Does it come across that way in the series? Put this in a real life context and it instantly becomes sinister.

 

[Queshire]

See, this is almost comical to me. Does it come across that way in the series? Put this in a real life context and it instantly becomes sinister.

Oh there's certainly comedic moments, but not more than average for anime. I'd say that the real life context would most closely resemble a cross country trip where they learn to get by via hunting & foraging instead of just stopping by the nearest supermarket for snacks.

 

[Miles Lacey]

In 1982 I was at intermediate school. One day in class a girl picked up a cricket bat and whacked a boy in the stomach with it. No one lifted a finger to prevent it. No one lifted a finger to help the boy afterwards.

There was no explanation. No reason. No justification. No words exchanged between them before or after the event. Nothing. It was simply a random act of violence that just happened.

This is the difference between all fictional violence and real world violence: in the fictional world there is always a why. In the real world sometimes there is no why.

That's why real world and fictional violence aren't comparable.

 

[Devor]

At the risk of stating the obvious, it strikes me that events in a Fantasy world seem to exist in a different plane than events in the world most of us live in.

I do think the fantasy elements create a bit of distance between the reader and story. I wrote a short story on this site years ago where the wizard pulled out a gun to kill someone, and I honestly felt that ramped up the level of fear more than his smoke and fireballs.

But I was looking at that story recently, and I realized how much I had glossed over the effects of the fireball. I didn't develop the heat that the character was feeling, or have her hold breath while the smoke cleared, or be thankful that the padding under her armor separated her from the metal plates that would've gotten hot enough to burn. All of these details would've helped to offset the distance that comes with a character throwing fireballs.

Which is to say that any kind of broad statement we could make about fantasy, even if a little true, about being a distant plane, or the world as we want it, or the battle of good and evil, or the escapist themes, or so on, are all things that a writer doesn't have to be bound by. It's your story and you can do literally anything you want with it.

Isn't that the point of fantasy?

 

[Azul-din]

Actually I was arguing with myself about a critical scene in the WIP- a very bloody battle scene between the main character, an anthropoid cat like creature, who fights with her claws ( all four limbs) and fangs, and an assassin armed with two pruning knives. In her homeworld swords etc are considered a coward's weapons. I found that using her own claws and fangs seemed a more deeply personal means of combat, as opposed to a sword, knife, or gun or any other means including a magic ball of fire.

She wins, btw

 

[Azul-din]

For myself I don't find that fantasy or historical acts of violence are really that different to read about. Almost all acts of fantasy violence have been visited in some form in reality and thus formed the inspiration or equivalence for the fantasy act of violence.

You may ask: "How is a dragon attack with fire not a distinct fantasy event?" To that I would answer: "How does it not compare with a bombing run with napalm?"

Thus I don't think that fantasy in general is a world as we would like it to, although it could be that too. Personally I find it to be more often its a world as understood by the author. A author with a cynical perspective will write a cynical world, an author with a romantic perspective will write a romantic world and so on. The difference is that in fantasy there's few restraints on what the author can have in it as compared to many other genres. Fantasy is thus in my opinion more our understanding of the world that is unleashed and allowed to run wild.

Then there are the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm, which are undeniably fantasy, but which in an historical sense derive from a time when there Were frequent famines, actual ogres who lived on human flesh, cruelty and a capacity for causing suffering which was commonplace. Yet we read Little Red Riding Hood to our children, or used to in pre-woke times. Could it be that there is fundamental truth in all fantasy which supersedes our somewhat blinkered concept of the 'Real World'?

 

[Azul-din]

For myself I don't find that fantasy or historical acts of violence are really that different to read about. Almost all acts of fantasy violence have been visited in some form in reality and thus formed the inspiration or equivalence for the fantasy act of violence.

You may ask: "How is a dragon attack with fire not a distinct fantasy event?" To that I would answer: "How does it not compare with a bombing run with napalm?"

Thus I don't think that fantasy in general is a world as we would like it to, although it could be that too. Personally I find it to be more often its a world as understood by the author. A author with a cynical perspective will write a cynical world, an author with a romantic perspective will write a romantic world and so on. The difference is that in fantasy there's few restraints on what the author can have in it as compared to many other genres. Fantasy is thus in my opinion more our understanding of the world that is unleashed and allowed to run wild.

I really like that last sentence-'Fantasy is thus in my opinion more our understanding of the world that is unleashed and allowed to run wild.'

I am moved to echo the comment once made by Oscar Wilde, 'I wish I'd said that.' To which a friend replied, 'You will, Oscar, you will.'

 

[pmmg]

At the risk of stating the obvious, it strikes me that events in a Fantasy world seem to exist in a different plane than events in the world most of us live in. It has been said that a novel in the Romantic Genre presents the world as it might be and ought to be. Is it that in Fantasy we create the world as we would want it to be? Where Good and Evil are distinct entities at war with one another?

I don't think the thread title matches this topic. There are plenty of fantasy worlds where Good and Evil are not the backdrop for the main conflict, so...I guess my answers is 'no'.

Fantasy allows us explore things in a way that the real world is not open too, and it does allow for there to be archetypes of Good and Evil, and they can be diametrically opposed, and the real world is not really like that. People are a lot of things at once, bad in some aspects, good in others. Fantasy, I think, still is an attempt to reach for something true in the universe, or the human condition, or maybe both together. And it allows us to ask big questions, and show in its own special way, how they come to affect us all, albeit, thought the lens of a mythical place. To me, that is its special value. I get to escape. enjoy a world of magic and characters, and maybe learn some lessons in life.

I am not sure if you really care about the handling of violence. Violence is just a tool, sometimes its the right one, and sometimes not. In a fantasy sense, it comes up a lot. There are usually wars, and oft time, races that we can just assume are bad. Violence is often the most likely outcome of encounters, and as such, hit the page. Generally, if there is going to be violence, I think it should both advance the story and say something about the characters. I also think, its best to keep it brief. Its not always easy to write, cause a battle is both something that happens to characters, but its also something that happens in the story. Its not always easy to show what the character experiences, and explain the battle in a way that the whole of it is known. That is why we all look to improve our craft.