fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2676 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2676 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Can someone explain explain it to me?

High fantasy = different, author-created world. Epic scale. Fantasy elements dominate.

Low fantasy = real world, or an author-created world that obeys laws akin to the real world. Fantasy elements do not dominate.

So a low fantasy world wouldn't have things like magic or mythical creatures?

It could, but those things would be completely out of the ordinary.

Basically, a low fantasy would be like...you're in New York City. The actual New York City of right now. And you turn down an alley, and there's a centaur. And you're like, "what the fuck? I can't be seeing a centaur. That's ridiculous."

Whereas a high fantasy would be like you're walking around in Elgaloleth, City of the Fourth Magisterium, and you turn down an alley, and there's a centaur. And you're like, "oh great, just what I need: a fucking centaur."

This is a good way of putting it. Basically most urban fantasy tends to fall into low fantasy. People often equate high fantasy with elves and dwarves.

Ok, that makes more sense, thanks

No, seriously, fuck those guys.

Centaurs are generally assholes, yeah. :(

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HighFantasy

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LowFantasy

Read those two and compare, that should sort it out for you. The tl;dr is that high fantasy tends to be less morally ambiguous and more epic. Low fantasy is an attempt at more realistic (or someone's idea of realistic) stories. In other words, it's Lord of the Rings (high fantasy) vs, say, Dragon Age (low fantasy) or (depending on who you ask) Game of Thrones.

This is where I'm confused. So would low fantasy have something like magic, but less 'good vs. evil' elements that high fantasy would have? So it's not necessarily the fantastical elements that make high fantasy 'high fantasy', but the moral elements and its 'epicness'?
I will read those pages, thanks.

That's pretty much it. Low fantasy, even if it does have magic, tends to treat its own internal politics, settings and systems with an eye towards realism, which leads to both the heroes and the enemy being of ambiguous morality.

Ok, that makes sense, thanks!

See, I disagree with this (and with TVTropes' definition). My understanding of high vs low fantasy has always been that it's about the world rather than about morality or politics. If a work is set in a world where it's generally accepted that physics allow for magic and that biology allows for fantastical creatures, then it's high fantasy.

Dragon Age is high fantasy, because it takes place in a world where the fantastic is commonplace. The political and moral implications are secondary.

OP of thread

This is the point about the difference between high fantasy and low fantasy that I'm still confused about. Is there actually a consensus on the definition of the terms?

Well, seeing that someone disagrees with me and that there is another set of definitions has made me think that there is a grey area. But there are still some aspects of high fantasy that I think are rather set:

-The world exists apart from ours, either in its characterization or its physics
-The fantastical is ordinary

Yeah, those do seem to be what is most agreed on.

Definitely agree. To me, high and low fantasy aren't about politics at all. They are about the world, and magic inherent in the world.

High fantasy: Almost always invented world with INHERENT magical properties. Magic is normal, and most likely, so are magical creatures.

Low fantasy: Possibly invented world (but probably not, or at least, alternate universe of our own world), magic is not prevailing or normal, or at least do not define the world.

Dragon Age is definitely high fantasy. I don't think high fantasy is, or should be, constrained by including "definite good vs evil" or barring any "normal" things like politics.

DA

I would say a better example would be Lord of the Rings (high fantasy) vs. The Dresden Files (low fantasy). I agree with a_potato, that it's the setting and world-building that makes it high vs. low. GoT to me is high fantasy. What with the glowing green magickal napalm in a world just barely into the Iron Age....

As you can see from the previous responses, there's some ambiguity.

I've generally seen "official" definitions as high fantasy= takes place in a created world, low fantasy = takes place in our world, but with magic. This is not a terribly useful definition.

I more often see it used as high fantasy= what I'll call "heroic" fantasy, fantasy in the vein of Lord of the Rings, with the conflict epic in scope, and less focus on individual scales of plot. Tends toward a more black-and-white, good vs. evil morality. Magic tends to be a matter-of-fact, but not necessarily well-examined part of the world.
Then low fantasy = what I'll call "warts and all" fantasy, where you get a lot smaller in scale, more stuff about political or personal conflicts, and a tendency towards more grey morality. Magic and magical creatures tend to be either more out-of-focus, or much more detailed on a human level.

I think a lot of the ambiguity comes from historical reasons, where having a built world was mostly equivalent (in the mainstream) to a Tolkien-esque story, and setting a story in our world was mostly equivalent to a more down-to-earth story. These days, there's a lot more variety in the mainstream of built-world fantasy fiction, so it's a lot blurrier. For example, something like Game of Thrones is a "warts-and-all" fantasy in a built world, while something like Harry Potter is a "heroic" fantasy in "our" world.

Thanks for more clarification. I'm definitely seeing a divide in this thread on whether the defining difference between the two is in it's setting, or in it's narrative. Your explanation for the ambiguity makes sense. So you would consider Harry Potter to be high fantasy or low fantasy? Or a mix of both?

sa
Yikes, please ignore my grammar mistakes

[ SECRET POST #2676 ]

Difference between high and low fantasy

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