In this segment we're going to go over, maybe not all things fantasy, but talk about different types and elements of fantasy, mainly those relevant to Elden Ring, hopefully this will give some of you who are looking for something cool to check out while you wait for ER will find something worthwhile or learn something new. To do that we're going to talk about:
- High Fantasy
- Low Fantasy
- Dark Fantasy
- Lord of the Rings
- A Song of Ice and Fire
- Dungeons and Dragons
- Berserk
Note:
There are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes high fantasy, dark fantasy, etc. The terms themselves have been diluted over a number of decades for a number of reasons as the world of writing isn't exactly black and white. But what I want to do here is share some examples of what makes one distinct from the other.
Also, I am by no means an "expert" on any of the following, just a fan and a fan of some more than others. I'm sure there are plenty of you out there who know far more than me about any or all of these and if you are one such individual, I'd love to have you chime in and share your own thoughts, opinions and recommendations.
High/Epic Fantasy:
The term "high fantasy" itself is typically an indicator of the percentage of "Fantasy" content more than anything else, including tone. But your archetypal High Fantasy world or story has a number of elements that generally make the whole feel distinct against other fantasy stories.
Some of those elements being:
- A world that is not our own.
- The presence of fantasy creatures such as dragons
- Magic
- Typically inspired by Medieval Europe
- The Hero's Journey
- A band/Cast of characters that accompany the protagonist on their journey
- A lighthearted tone
- Multiple [intelligent] races [Elves, Faeries, Trolls, Giants, or whatever else your world has as native inhabitants]
- A bright color palate
- A number of incredibly fantastical locations that could not exist in our world
Again, none of these elements are required. You can have a story that omits having a cast of characters that accompany the protagonist and a light hearted tone and or having multiple intelligent races and still have it be considered "High Fantasy" but it may be referred to as "Epic Fantasy" Instead and the line there is quite thin. But we'll talk about that more later
Low Fantasy:
A "Low Fantasy" story can have all of the elements of the above
except that it would have to take place in our world. An example of this would be something like Harry Potter. It's got dragons and fantasy creatures, magic, the heroes journey, a mostly lighthearted tone and a cast of characters but because it takes place in our world it's considered "low fantasy". I would imagine that despite there being a number of fantastical elements, the ratio of real world elements to fantasy would fall in favor of the former.
Dark Fantasy:
The exact definition and distinctive characteristics of "Dark Fantasy" are hard to pin down due to the term being used and abused over a number of decades as well as the fact that there's a lot of crossover. The only real specific descriptor that can really apply to all things considered "Dark Fantasy" is that it's fantasy,
but dark. What exactly "dark" means can change from work to work because again, the term has been overused but if there was a specific descriptor I would use that differentiates [what I would consider to be] Dark Fantasy over really any other forms of fantasy is that it often showcases and or takes to extremes the degree of hostility and malice that people are capable of or just the overall "darkness of humanity".
A Song of Ice and Fire:
Depending on who you ask, what sort of Fantasy "A Song of Ice and Fire" is outside of being "Medieval European Fantasy" you could get a few different answers, high fantasy, epic fantasy, dark fantasy even
realistic fantasy. This is why its kind of hard to draw hard lines between different types of fantasy. There are also essentially two versions of ASOIAF out there. There's "ASOIAF" the series of books and then there's "Game of Thrones" the television series. While I'm not going to make any comments regarding quality, for the purpose of what we're trying to do here, (Look at Fantasy for fun but also for the purposes of ER) I'm going to ignore the show and focus on the book series. This Is for two reasons.
A: If you want to get a good idea of how G.R.R.M creates worlds, characters and fantasy, you're going to need to look at G.R.R.M's work rather than an adaptation.
B: Game of Thrones neutered and removed a number of the fantastical elements of ASOIAF, due to budgetary reasons, production reasons as well as in favor of wider appeal.
So, Game of Thrones isn't really a good example for what we want to do.
That aside, ASOIAF features most of the above examples of High Fantasy though we can sort of remove Hero's Journey, the lighthearted tone and characters accompanying the protagonist [As there is no single set protagonist]. The color palate is debatable given that this is a book series and the color palate technically is whatever you imagine it to be, that being said, there are a number of officially commissioned works of art that we'll be looking at in another section.
I'm sure by now that unless you've been living under a rock you've heard of the content within Game of Thrones [and by extension ASOIAF], how dark and depressing it is, that it's brutal, sex obsessed, your favorite characters will all die, etc and you might get the idea that as a result this would be a "Dark Fantasy" series. But I don't think that's a label I would really agree with.
A lot of people have the idea that GRRM is some sort of masochistic, evil story teller but that isn't really true and is a misunderstanding that seems to primarily stem from GoT and D&D's adaptation and handling of the material.
Based on that image, people make a lot of assumptions on what ASOIAF is, the way GRRM writes and how that will effect Elden Ring.
GRRM for the most part has a very unique way of writing and creating casts of characters with interesting traits and weaving them together to create a very engaging story.
The thing about ASOIAF and GRRM and High Fantasy is that in the same way that Evangelion is a bit of a reaction and deconstruction of Gundam and mech anime. ASOIAF is a bit of a reaction and deconstruction of High Fantasy and LOTR in particular, where everything isn't good vs evil and that all your words and actions have consequences. Between that and the focus on being, maybe not accurate (I don't know, I'm not a medieval historian) but more based in realism setting of a medieval political landscape and the result is a story that is often dark and brutal, but not out of any singular intention and desire to be so for the sake of being so but is more so the logical conclusion of the intersection of these elements.
Medieval life was not great, rape, murder and mass murder happened often, as a result, these things are also present. Beyond that, characters dying or ending up in precarious situations (with some individuals just having terrible luck) is more often than not a result of their own actions and traits leading them down a bad path.
GRRM doesn't believe in "fool me once, shame on you" it's, "well if you got fooled it's your own damn fault" as the logical conclusion of many actions are often telegraphed far away, in universe where characters can often fail to heed warnings or common sense and the ones that get ahead are the ones that don't fall into those trappings. The infamous Red Wedding is probably a perfect example of that. But this is also what makes them feel real and the story engaging. Some people can be really great and noble, some people can be really shitty, most people fall somewhere in the middle and have a number of traits both positive and negative that make them an individual. Some of those traits can be a strength or a weakness depending on the situation and how either you or someone else decides to exploit them and that's really what it's all about.
Is it still morbid? Yes. Is it morbid to the incredibly exaggerated degree that pop culture has made it out to be? Not really. But I suppose this will also depend on your tolerance. Though if you're reading this out of interest in Elden Ring and From works in general I'd imagine you'll be fine. Acts of sex and violence aren't really gratuitous like they can be in the show, they aren't glossed over but given what feels like the appropriate tone and weight while also not dwelling on it much either and I feel are written fairly tastefully, given the subject matter.
Despite events also more often than not being, less than positive to say the least, I feel that there is a degree of optimism and positivity to be found within his writings. Seeing characters face internal or external hardships and seeing how they pull themselves through. While I find some characters to be far more relatable than others I find that there's often something that I can connect to in each character on a personal level. So much so that I had once asked a friend which character I reminded him the most of and they listed off 6 or 7 different characters.
Beyond that, one of GRRM's best (and most relevant) traits is his ability to world build. Westeros (Really Planetos as a whole, given that Westeros is only a single continent not the entire world of ASOIAF) feels incredibly vast, but also fully realized and lived in, with an increasingly detailed history spanning across multiple books even outside of the main releases.
Despite the story as a whole really revolving around medieval politics, houses and individuals far more than elements of fantasy. Many of the standard tropes of fantasy are present within the world. From it's most obvious element of dragons to the likes of:
-Multiple races [Giants, Children of the Forest, The Others]
-Many many elements of magic (Witches and Warlocks and Pyromancers [Oh My!] and really Wizards of all sorts)
-Multiple forms of the undead
-Gods, some of many forms and some of many faces, some in high places and some much lower[some might say deeper]
-Literal forces of nature
-Massive imposing castles and structures that have a lot to say about the history of the location and those who inhabit such locations
All of these things have some significance in both the narrative and the world in some form or another, some more than others. While it's not really the sole focus of the narrative as it is in something like LOTR, these elements are still present. So it becomes pretty clear as to why despite being so different in terms of tone and intention, almost being on the opposite side of the spectrum of LOTR yet can still fit into the same category even though it may not fit the same mould. But all of these things come together to create a very cohesive and interesting world, despite succumbing to some tropes of the genre it has its own unique spin on many of them or the way in which they interact with the rest of the world makes them interesting, even if the concept isn't wholey or inherently interesting on its own.
So what is the point of all this and how/why is this relevant to Elden Ring? The first point being to try to sell you guys on ASOIAF, introduce you to something I personally love and give you something to check out while you wait and get a real understanding on how GRRM does things. It'll obviously be an influence on Elden Ring in some places either intentionally or not simply because Miyazaki himself is a fan and GRRM is working in collaboration on the title.
Obviously given the basis of this collaboration, with GRRM writing only writing world history and helping to create the world and From's general proclivities in terms of narrative, there won't be much in the way of sprawling multi character driven narrative. But again, given that GRRM is involved there will be some natural overlap in terms of ideas and themes that are explored and the way things are explored. That's not to say Elden Ring is ASOIAF-Lite or even ASOIAF-adjacent. Again, fantasy kind of takes a back seat for the most part in order to be more character driven by the way of medieval politics. There will still be elements of politics, this is GRRM but given the needs of this sort of game, especially a From game, it's going to be more fantasy based and focused as a whole.
That being said, you'll get a much better idea on how GRRM creates a world by reading his works than you will by watching the show or even just reading what other people say about it and you're better off reading ASOIAF to get a better understanding of what Elden Ring is rather than going out to pick up X European Fantasy Legend collection to develop your ideas and speculation and hopefully in the weeks and months to come this is another element that we can discuss as well as post launch.
To really help pique your interest and give you something to look at I'll drop some of my favorite ASOIAF pictures.
