Dialogue Tree – Should Fantasy be More Fantastical?

Dean Bowman (25/03/14 17.58)
I used to read a lot of fantasy when I was younger, until, in my pretentious adolescence, I abandoned the genre for real ‘literature’. Looking back on it, I suppose my main problem was that it all started to get so samey, and high-brow Magical Realism (Gabriel García Márquez, Haruki Murakami) offered a far more fascinating take on make believe. I recently returned to the fantasy novel, however, and was surprised to find a growing roster of writers who were bucking the trends and clichés of the genre, which had been established by Tolkien and copied ad nauseam for decades.

Fantasy, by its very nature, is supposed to encompass anything that can be imagined by the human mind, and videogames are likewise capable of realising any far-flung dreamscape

Writers like George RR Martin and Joe Abercrombie have moved the emphasis onto political intrigue, complex morally ambiguous characters and pulpy narratives, and meanwhile the likes of Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind) and Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora) have approached the genre from a stance of literary and philosophical thoughtfulness. When these writers do deal with traditional fantasy elements they more often than not turn them on their head. For instance in the figure of Bayaz in his First Law Trilogy, Joe Abercrombie playfully and cleverly subverts the notion of the wise and benevolent wizard established in Gandalf the Grey.

But if fantasy literature has begun to move into fresh territory, then why are videogames still so dependent on Orcs, Dwarves and Elves? Is this generic shorthand a result of the resource intensiveness of game development or a need to appeal to wide audiences through familiarity? The Elder Scrolls is a magnificent series that I love to bits, but it is also about as traditional a take on ‘high fantasy’ as you can hope to find.

Fantasy, by its very nature, is supposed to encompass anything that can be imagined by the human mind, and videogames are likewise capable of realising any far-flung dreamscape (which is no doubt why they so often draw on this literary genre most known for world building), so why do we keep falling into the same safe ruts? The Witcher provides a nice, dark alternative, based partly as it is on the folklore of another culture and series of Polish novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, but shouldn’t there be even more variety?

Kirsten (29/03/2014 20.03)
I did the opposite regarding my reading. I exclusively read serious classical literature from about 10 years old till my mid 20s and then started reading authors like Pratchett. I read so many Pratchett books that by the time I read Tolkien I was totally confused by it because I was always waiting for the jokes! I think because of my upside down fantasy education I was quickly put off by the samey highbrow fantasy stuff.

Isaac Asimov said that before the Second World War science fiction was about all kinds of things and after the Second World War science fiction was about the Second World War. I think the notion of underlying concept is really at the heart of this problem with fantasy too. You have fantasy that can be a retelling of the myriad of Greek myths or religious tales from around the world and all different philosophies. There are ones that are just “Here’s the war, again. Let’s play guess the Jews.” and I agree more recently it’s about politics and different moral takes on things, but mostly it’s just about 9/11.

For me, with video games, when you’re talking about something like Elder Scrolls it’s like they’re skinning games with a fantasy look but the writers haven’t thought about any of that other stuff about what story they’re telling. Maybe it’s because game writing is still (preposterously) in its infancy. So few games seem to have an overarching message. There’s a couple – the Mass Effect games, Portal 2 and Fallout 3 all had plots and characterisation anchored around ideas and philosophies. Why doesn’t this happen with fantasy?

Maybe they think that cloaks and potions and pointy ears are a plot? I agree with you that The Witcher’s use of another culture brings that variety. More writing from different cultural backdrops might be the way forward. Do you think the eastern mix of European fantasy with stories from things Shinto and Zoroastrianism works to bring some variety to the genre in non western RPGs?

Dean (14/04/2014 20.05)
You’re right about the war being the lynch pin, and it was right there from the beginning of the modern fantasy genre, as Lord of the Rings was written in the midst of it all. It’s hard not to read the big players and events of that conflict onto Middle Earth and its inhabitants, or to not think about the ring as some kind of weapon of mass destruction or corrupting ideology. The war changed a lot culturally; before it we had the dream play of surrealism and afterwards an angst riddled existentialism.

Dark Souls is profoundly unusual, but in a really subtle way, and I think it’s this uncanny nature that makes it so atmospheric, something which is heightened by its refusal to explain itself

I absolutely think Japanese RPGs bring variety to the genre, even more so than Eastern European ones like The Witcher. They have always played fast and loose with the rules of fantasy, warping familiar concepts through layers of (to us) impenetrable cultural and philosophical influences. The wonderful Shadow Hearts even dealt with the war, proving that the fantastical could be set in our world and history, and not necessarily some distant other-realm. The Final Fantasy series is the most famous of all and, despite its high number of entries and waning popularity, has always reinvented its world with each game. Say what you want about its occasional clichés, but this is unheard of in any other series.

I don’t know a huge amount about Shinto, but I do know it’s pretty ingrained in Japanese culture and the fact that it populates the world and nature with anthropomorphic spirits (Kami) has to have some fundamental effect on outlook that filters into all forms of society. I think you can see the echoes of this very strongly in Final Fantasy VII’s spiritual battle between modernity and the environment.

Of course, it helps that Final Fantasy games have always had a message or philosophy at their heart as well. Whether it’s the superb critique of organised religion in FFX or the study of prejudice in FFXIII, which was ingrained in its very gameplay, making you feel like a pariah funnelled down a single trajectory by social pressure. I think Final Fantasy VII, with its mix of Japanese folklore and steam punk setting, as well as its surprisingly mature environmentalist subtext, was so well received in the west because it was a startling contrast to what we’d come to expect from the dominant line of Dungeons & Dragons influenced questing. People were looking for something new.

Recently the JRPG has been in decline and Japanese designers have been drawing more and more from Western influences, but even here they are changing things up. Dark Souls is profoundly unusual, but in a really subtle way, and I think it’s this uncanny nature that makes it so atmospheric, something which is heightened by its refusal to explain itself (its story, whilst original, is almost completely subtextual). Then we have Dragon’s Dogma, which gets weirder and weirder as it goes on, until the notorious ending completely sucker punches you. These are games that filter Western tropes through Asian outlooks, so I’m really curious to see what comes of Deep Down.

Perhaps the clichés of the high fantasy genre that we are so reliant on over here are so self evident now that even subverting them isn’t good enough, because they resist things like good characterisation and sophisticated writing. Perhaps we need to start chucking things out to make room for good game writing, in the same way Abercrombie, Lynch and Rothfuss have in their novels? Peel back the skin completely. But what will we find underneath?

Kirsten (4/05/2014 18.15)
Also ‘fantasy’ without the ‘high’ poses a problem for me as I like bright sunny places and pretty swords, and that. You sent me a link to that Eastern European RPG, Kingdom Come: Deliverance the other day where the tagline is Dungeons & No Dragons and I think that’s very telling, isn’t it?

It’s what you’re saying about chucking things out to find what’s underneath. They’re selling the idea based not on what’s included but what isn’t. It’s a Kickstarter project where they say straight out “You will not find any dragons, half-naked Elven warriors, or wizards in Kingdom Come: Deliverance”. This is clearly what people want to see – RPGs but with a difference. They got three times their pledge goal so there’s something in that.

Also ‘fantasy’ without the ‘high’ poses a problem for me as I like bright sunny places and pretty swords, and that.

I dunno though, the only thing I was thinking when watching the trailer was “Can I play a girl?” I know you can’t in Deep Down for ‘story reasons’ and if Kingdom Come: Deliverance is meant to be realistic then you won’t be able to play as a female as all the adult women will be pregnant and half crippled from grinding wheat on their knees, I expect. That’s fair enough with these more gritty RPGs but the big attraction for a lot role playing fans it to be able to, you know… develop a role for themselves.

Dean (9/05/2014 00.52)
Yeah Kingdom Come looks like it could be a bold step in the direction of modern fantasy literature, but I think going for that really gritty realism is only one of several paths away from the suffocating embrace of ‘High Fantasy’ (fantasy with a double helping of Dwarves and Elves). Fantasy can move away from cliché without having to resort to coating everything in layers of mud and realism. There’s still room for pretty swords I think. I’m interested in Deep Down too, and I think it’s fair enough that they want to tell their story about a particular type of character. I think it’s a shame that some people are reading sexist motives into that decision, although I am certainly aware that there is, sadly, a bias towards white, male protagonists in games (although that’s a discussion for another time).

More now than ever videogame designers are being asked to tread a fine line between telling a complex, immersive story whilst not taking choices away from the player. It’s a tricky balancing act that’s all the more apparent in the RPG genre, which has always been about giving players a huge range of customisation. I think it’s very difficult to craft a sophisticated story without putting some constraints on what a player can be and do in a game, and as long as the game is upfront about that, then I don’t think it breaks the social contract with the player. Perhaps The Elder Scrolls games, which succeed more than most in allowing the player to run rampant with roleplay in a massive open world, rely on fantasy tropes so much because the sheer freedom they give the player needs a foundation of familiarity to build upon. Perhaps the more unfamiliar a game becomes in its setting, the more linear the story becomes to compensate, although I think there will come a time when these training wheels can come off. The forthcoming Lord of the Rings game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor will be an interesting test because it promises to take advantage of how familiar we are with orcs by procedurally generating enemies with personality traits and social group dynamics.

Also, if anyone can build a complex story that still foregrounds player agency it’s Bioware, so I’m interested to see what they do with Dragon Age: Inquisition. That series has very interesting lore, especially all the stuff to do with The Fade and the Grey Wardens. They even put a great deal of effort into making the tired old dwarves and elves feel very distinctive. Dragon Age 2 was poorly received because of its heavily scaled down nature, but I found it fascinating that it was all set in the same place, and explored the dramatic events shaking the world through the fortunes of one city and its shifting political landscape. It was a bold step away from the epic fantasy setting that unfortunately backfired.

There are certainly some interesting things on the horizon and I think the technical advances delivered by next generation hardware and a renewed interest in fantasy in popular culture, thanks in no small part to HBO’s excellent adaptation of A Game of Thrones, suggest that we’ll see a lot of changes to the fantasy RPG genre in the coming years.