why is it that in many fantasy stories, humans are the focus?

[Svrtnsse]

My tale Emma's Story does not feature humans at all. Humans are mentioned in the encyclopedia entry at the beginning of the book, but only through a reference to their calendar. The rest of the story only feature anfylk characters.

On the surface, anfylk seems to be just a different name for hobbit, but once you get into the story you'll see there are enough differences to make them a distinguish them from hobbits. Are they different from humans though? Probably not very much.
Apart from physical differences there probably isn't all that much separating them from humans, and I could probably have swapped them for humans if I'd wanted to and the story wouldn't have been significantly different.

Probably.

Thinking about the characters as anfylk rather than as humans slightly shifts my attitude towards them, and slightly changes the options I have for how they react and behave in their interactions with each other and in their daily lives. These are small changes - things that can be difficult to put a finger on other than as a mood or vibe, but they're there.

I could probably have achieved the same kind of mood with humans, but I think it would have been more difficult. Humans bring a long a whole slew of preconceived notions and associations that can be difficult to step away from. Using not-quite-humans makes this step a lot less difficult.

 

[skip.knox]

SF writers have been doing this forever. One of my favorites is Vernor Vinge's, A Deepness in the Sky.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

It’s all humans. I went through the phase of wanting to read non-human POV’s, and it’s all fun... but in the end, it’s all human because we cannot write non-human POV. I loved Tailchaser’s Song by Tad Williams, but it’s just a human dressed up as a cat faking catness. Orc and Elf and hell, a Predator’s POV, can all be great fun, but in the end... once a human jumps in their skin, they become human.

The best way to keep aliens alien is to not write from their POV. I hve one POV which is not human so far... but it’s a another being transitioning into human who doesn’t remember their pre-human existence.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Because i'm human, and my readers are also human. I have many different fantasy races, but they are, essentially, just accessorized humans. I'm not sure it possible to write a truly nonhuman character, and if you could, no one would relate to them.

 

[Steerpike]

The story doesn't have to be about humans, per se, but I think it is likely to be more effective if it is about people who are recognizable as "human," even if they're aliens, or some other race. When Gregor Samsa wakes up as a giant bug, he's still human, and as the reader we can empathize with that.

 

[skip.knox]

Human, non-human. It looks binary but doesn't need to be. Take a non-human race. They can have human attributes, which is to say they have motives and goals that make sense to us. They can also have behaviors that are exotic without being utterly incomprehensible. They can have beliefs that we find odd or silly or even reprehensible, without making the character unrecognizable as a character in a story.

Also, "human" isn't merely one thing. Think about the wide range of behaviors and beliefs across the variety of human cultures and down the centuries of time. As we are fond of saying, everyone is an individual. So why can elves not have individual variations? Go ahead and make dwarves with beer beards, but make *your* dwarf a puritanical tee-totaler. Or make a whole community of them.

IMO, this whole alien-ness thing is a bit of a red herring. Which, btw, actually does exist, but you have to dry and smoke them first.

 

[ArelEndan]

My first thought on this question is that I want to write "human" stories but not work within the confines of our world, so I usually write humans in a fantasy setting and focus on developing rich cultures for them. When I do write non-humans, I want there to be a reason for their "otherness" that goes beyond making them part of the setting (e.g. I'm writing fantasy so I'll throw in a few dwarves). I guess a lot of it depends on what I think the story needs to feel real and have the best emotional impact.

 

[Helen]

it's been something that has since throbbed in my head the moment I worked on my setting. i've asked this question a lot before and the common answer is because,well, humans are relateable. we can't relate to an elf because they feel too flawless. we can't relate to a dragon because they're too overpowered. and, we also can't relate to an alien because, well, they're very alien. It does make me feel better that as long as i add human traits to a character, they can at least connect with audience just as much as human can. toy story and many others shown us how it was done, and they got a lot out of that.

so perhaps there is a market for stories set in a garden full of humanized bugs in a sword and sorcery fashion.

but for any of you fantasy writers and world builders, why do humans exist in your setting? is it because their easier to write or is there so much that you could do with them?

Ask Pixar.

The characters don't have to be human but we are dealing with human weaknesses, flaws, themes, learning. And don't forget we are the audience.

 

[Yora]

I have no humans whatsoever in my stories. I guess I'm rather unique that way.

I eventually decided to not have any humans after my setting had become populated entirely by fictional non-Earth animals. Having the people refered to as humans seemed somewhat out of place.

Though at the end of the day, they are still "people" with no meaningful differences from humans.