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What is teen fantasy anyway?

Started by Baggins, August 19, 2010, 06:38:14 AM

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Baggins

Lord of the Rings is "teen fantasy?  ???
Well, ya, King's Quest is on Earth. Daventry is very old city from a long time ago. It's in ruins now and people aren't quite sure exactly where it used to be. There are some archaeologists searching through the ruins, they think they know its Daventry. But its somewhere on Earth."-Roberta Williams http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/File:Daventryisearth.ogg

Delling

Well, it's fantasy... and most people read it in their teens... *shrugs*


Quote from: Allronix on August 19, 2010, 03:09:56 AM
... Cheap deaths have become the norm to solve story arcs (I'm looking at YOU, Joss...). Genuinely heroic or good characters are thrown under the bus in favor of folks I'd rather not support, or considered antiquated (Marvel, Civil War). There's also a proliferation of games that, while very entertaining and well-constructed, make me feel worse after playing.

Crapsack worlds and anti-heroes have their place. Sometimes, they are very necessary. But an endless diet of dreary cyberpunk and dark fantasy won't do us any more favors than an endless feast of glurge. I'd argue that the cynical nature of these really hurt our ability to hope and work for better. It gets us to accept the hopelessness and jaded outlook of things as "That's the way it is. I can't change it," and stops us from fighting when we NEED to fight.
:thumbsup: *likes Allronix's post*
Noli me tangere! Nescio ubi fuisti!
Don't touch me! I don't know where you've been!

Marquess of Pembroke
Duke of Saxony in Her Majesty's Court
Knight of the Swan for Her Imperial Highness

...resistance was obviously useless against a family that could invent italics.

"Let the locative live."

http://my.ddo.com/referral/Delling87

KatieHal

Yeah I imagine I'd say LoTR is more jut generally "fantasy" than 'teen', but nor is it overwhelmingly adult or something, either.

haha, oh Allronix, you wound my love for Joss Whedon! Not that I don't see your point, those do tend to happen a lot with him. But it can be a nice change from the formula of everyone lives, every time, just because they're heroes. You fight the forces of evil, after all, someone's likely to be taken down. But I also prefer stories where I can still LIKE the main character(s), yes.

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

Baggins

What's 'adult'? LOTRO is generally classified as "high fantasy".

Tolkien was primarily a philogist, not a writer. He didn't really write most of his work for any particular demographic, its been said most of his work was written for himself, and the purpose of expanding his own mythology. Though he wanted to make a kinda of medieval mythology for England, which he felt it was lacking (most  of the medieval mythology in England was imported from other countries).

Sure the Hobbit was written for children. Fellowship of the Rings started out as more or less a continuation of that level, but about halfway through the book he switched gears. Turning it into something else.

Its been claimed by some that Tolkein actually founded the subgenre of "adult fantasy"with LOTR. Before that it was pretty much 'fairy tales' and children's fluff paraphrasing Tolkien's own words.

I suppose some could argue that it appeals to all ages, and perhaps defies a single categorization.
Well, ya, King's Quest is on Earth. Daventry is very old city from a long time ago. It's in ruins now and people aren't quite sure exactly where it used to be. There are some archaeologists searching through the ruins, they think they know its Daventry. But its somewhere on Earth."-Roberta Williams http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/File:Daventryisearth.ogg

KatieHal

LOL, yeah, high fantasy is the phrase I was looking for. Adult fantasy would be something else entirely! Haha, and also not a source of inspiration for this game.  ;]

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

wilco64256

Quote from: KatieHal on August 19, 2010, 08:24:26 AM
LOL, yeah, high fantasy is the phrase I was looking for. Adult fantasy would be something else entirely! Haha, and also not a source of inspiration for this game.  ;]

Yes if you said our game was based on adult fantasy you'd probably chase away most of our current fans and attract and entirely different crowd altogether.  High fantasy = yes.  Adult fantasy = no.
Weldon Hathaway

Baggins

QuoteLOL, yeah, high fantasy is the phrase I was looking for. Adult fantasy would be something else entirely! Haha, and also not a source of inspiration for this game.  
Probably one of those cases where teminology has changed over the years. Not all things that were 'once' classifed as 'adult fantasy' are fantasy porn (the "ADULT" fantasy :p)...
Well, ya, King's Quest is on Earth. Daventry is very old city from a long time ago. It's in ruins now and people aren't quite sure exactly where it used to be. There are some archaeologists searching through the ruins, they think they know its Daventry. But its somewhere on Earth."-Roberta Williams http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/File:Daventryisearth.ogg

KatieHal

Yeah...I was thinking 'fantasy but for adults, not teens' not really 'adult fantasy'.

But annnnnyways.

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

Big C from Cauney island

I have many friends into adult fantasy, but they say its because they are married and that I will one day understand.
But definitely not for TSL.

Delling

Quote from: Big C from Cauney island on August 19, 2010, 09:19:22 AM
I have many friends into adult fantasy, but they say its because they are married and that I will one day understand.

::) ::) 是吗? ...silly people...
Noli me tangere! Nescio ubi fuisti!
Don't touch me! I don't know where you've been!

Marquess of Pembroke
Duke of Saxony in Her Majesty's Court
Knight of the Swan for Her Imperial Highness

...resistance was obviously useless against a family that could invent italics.

"Let the locative live."

http://my.ddo.com/referral/Delling87

Big C from Cauney island

I agree. But its their lives not mine, no matter how morally conflicted I am with their belief systems.  This would require a whole new thread, possibly website.  But alas, this is not the forum to describe such things.  I say TSL is a "Mature adventure". 

Baggins

#11
"mature"?  :suffer: "I do not think it means what you think it means."

Or rather could have several meanings.

Also do not google "mature fantasy", you won't like the results.

"mature adventure", will just get you rated R stuff, like oh Phantasmagoria or God of War.
Well, ya, King's Quest is on Earth. Daventry is very old city from a long time ago. It's in ruins now and people aren't quite sure exactly where it used to be. There are some archaeologists searching through the ruins, they think they know its Daventry. But its somewhere on Earth."-Roberta Williams http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/File:Daventryisearth.ogg

Flubly

#12
Quote from: Fierce Deity on August 18, 2010, 11:35:38 PM
There's already a Harry Potter, and there's already a Kingdom Hearts. Don't try to relate two stories together that are separate.

I disagree.  The patterns that are often categorized and compared come from the fact that storytelling's source is from the society that informs the writer.  Creativity is innovation on existing material, re-arranging data to convey fresh ideas.  Putting aside the ironic example of Kingdom Hearts, Harry Potter's content is not an element that cannot be broken down.  If its parts are not traceable then they aren't human since we are, in most ways, products of our societies.  Feral children have taught us as much.

TheReturnofDMD

Quote from: Baggins on August 19, 2010, 01:20:04 PM
"mature"?  :suffer: "I do not think it means what you think it means."

Or rather could have several meanings.

Also do not google "mature fantasy", you won't like the results.

"mature adventure", will just get you rated R stuff, like oh Phantasmagoria or God of War.

Yeah. To me, teen fantasy is Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Kingdom Hearts, The Labyrinth. A generally new sub-genre, which I prefer to call "Tween" fantasy would be like for example Twilight or those gushy teen romance novels girls I know read. I differentiate them because I'd never put Twilight and LotR on the same level in any sense.

There's all different types of Fantasy. One sub-genre I LOVE is Dark Fantasy, which includes Conan the Cimmerian (the books, not the movie), Gotrek & Felix, HP Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, etc. Stuff that isn't ''adult'' as in X rated but makes for a generally much more sinister read than say Lord of the Rings. Like the Gotrek & Felix series for example is very action oriented, lots of hacking and slashing, but beyond that, the tone is very dark, very bleak. At one point the duo, whom the series is named after, fight a group of Chaos cultists who capture and sacrifice babies; At another point, they're down under the sewers of a city fighting a species of ''rat-men" (basically humanoid rat like creatures) called Skaven.
Not to harp on this series, but it really is awesome. This is what a Skaven in the Warhammer Fantasy Universe (which is what Gotrek & Felix is set in) looks like:

Baggins

#14
Lord of the Rings never was "teen fantasy". It is what they call "high fantasy".

Quote
From letter 189:

"I find that many children become interested, even engrossed, in /The Lord of the Rings/, from about 10 onwards. I think it rather a pity, really. It was not written for them. But then I am a very 'unvoracious' reader, and since I can seldom bring myself to read a work twice I think of the many things that I read – too soon! Nothing, not even a (possible) deeper appreciation, for me replaces the bloom on a book, the freshness of the unread. Still what we read and when goes, like the people we meet, by 'fate.'"


From letter 215:

"But the desire to address children, as such, had nothing to do with the story as such in itself or the urge to write it. But it had some unfortunate effects on the mode of expression and narrative method, which if I had not been rushed, I should have corrected. Intelligent children of good taste (of which there seem quite a number) have always, I am glad to say, singled out the points in manner where the address is to children as blemishes.
I had given a great deal more thought to the matter before beginning the composition of /The Lord of the Rings/; and that work was not specially addressed to children or to any other class of people. But to any one who enjoyed a long exciting story, of the sort that I myself naturally enjoy. ....
I am not specially interested in children, and certainly not in writing for them: i.e. in addressing directly and expressly those who cannot understand adult language.
I write things that might be classified as fairy-stories not because I wish to address children (who qua children I do not believe to be specially interested in this kind of fiction) but because I wish to write this kind of story and no other."
"Do you limit your enquiry, as may be supposed, to (North) European children? Then in what ages between the cradle and the end of legal infancy? To what grades of intelligence? Or literary talent and perceptiveness? Some intelligent children may have little of this. Children's tastes and talents differ as widely as those of adults, as soon as they are old enough to be differentiated clearly, and therefore to be the target of any thing that can bear the name of literature. It would be useless to offer to many children of 14 or even of 12 the trash that is good enough for many respectable adults of twice or three times the age, but less gifts natural."

From letter 234, about "The Lord of the Rings":

"It was not written 'for children', or for any kind of person in particular, but for itself. (If any parts or elements in it appear 'childish', it is because I am childish, and like that kind of thing myself now.) I believe children do read it or listen to it eagerly, even quite young ones, and I am very pleased to hear it, though they must fail to understand most of it, and it is in any case stuffed with words that they are unlikely to understand – if by that one means 'recognize as something already known'.

Conan is actually in the genre of of "low fantasy".
Well, ya, King's Quest is on Earth. Daventry is very old city from a long time ago. It's in ruins now and people aren't quite sure exactly where it used to be. There are some archaeologists searching through the ruins, they think they know its Daventry. But its somewhere on Earth."-Roberta Williams http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/File:Daventryisearth.ogg

TheReturnofDMD

Quote from: Baggins on August 19, 2010, 06:23:28 PM
Lord of the Rings never was "teen fantasy". It is what they call "high fantasy".

Quote
From letter 189:

"I find that many children become interested, even engrossed, in /The Lord of the Rings/, from about 10 onwards. I think it rather a pity, really. It was not written for them. But then I am a very 'unvoracious' reader, and since I can seldom bring myself to read a work twice I think of the many things that I read – too soon! Nothing, not even a (possible) deeper appreciation, for me replaces the bloom on a book, the freshness of the unread. Still what we read and when goes, like the people we meet, by 'fate.'"


From letter 215:

"But the desire to address children, as such, had nothing to do with the story as such in itself or the urge to write it. But it had some unfortunate effects on the mode of expression and narrative method, which if I had not been rushed, I should have corrected. Intelligent children of good taste (of which there seem quite a number) have always, I am glad to say, singled out the points in manner where the address is to children as blemishes.
I had given a great deal more thought to the matter before beginning the composition of /The Lord of the Rings/; and that work was not specially addressed to children or to any other class of people. But to any one who enjoyed a long exciting story, of the sort that I myself naturally enjoy. ....
I am not specially interested in children, and certainly not in writing for them: i.e. in addressing directly and expressly those who cannot understand adult language.
I write things that might be classified as fairy-stories not because I wish to address children (who qua children I do not believe to be specially interested in this kind of fiction) but because I wish to write this kind of story and no other."
"Do you limit your enquiry, as may be supposed, to (North) European children? Then in what ages between the cradle and the end of legal infancy? To what grades of intelligence? Or literary talent and perceptiveness? Some intelligent children may have little of this. Children's tastes and talents differ as widely as those of adults, as soon as they are old enough to be differentiated clearly, and therefore to be the target of any thing that can bear the name of literature. It would be useless to offer to many children of 14 or even of 12 the trash that is good enough for many respectable adults of twice or three times the age, but less gifts natural."

From letter 234, about "The Lord of the Rings":

"It was not written 'for children', or for any kind of person in particular, but for itself. (If any parts or elements in it appear 'childish', it is because I am childish, and like that kind of thing myself now.) I believe children do read it or listen to it eagerly, even quite young ones, and I am very pleased to hear it, though they must fail to understand most of it, and it is in any case stuffed with words that they are unlikely to understand – if by that one means 'recognize as something already known'.

Conan is actually in the genre of of "low fantasy".

I'm speaking in terms of tone. Like Twilight is something that even nine or ten year olds can read and enjoy (I've witnessed this with my nieces)-It's not very dark, or mature; It's very ''Tween.'' The Hobbit, in terms of tone could even fall into this category but would be slightly darker, whereas the Lord of the Rings is more fit for teenagers in terms of tone--I don't think a young child could grasp it the way young girls seem to love Twilight.
To continue with the tonal comparison, I'd say Conan is a great deal darker and more mature than LotR.

wilco64256

See I admit to reading about 70 pages of Twilight and just not being able to stand it at all and never going back.  Which is funny because I couldn't put "The Host" down and ended up reading the entire book in one day.
Weldon Hathaway

Flubly

Isn't there a twilight book where an infant is bitten out of her mother or something like that?  That sounds dark to me but it doesn't give the books any more legitimacy.  A dark tone is something you use well or badly, I wouldn't even say it helps your chances of writing a mature story.

KatieHal

Flubly: yes, the horror of the birthing scene in Breaking Dawn is hands down the most graphic thing in the entire series. And yet even something like that has, essentially, absolutely no consequences to it. The problem with Twilight, IMO, is exactly that: there are no consequences, and no one ever actually has to make any sacrifices. Nothing ever changes, not really, and the "love story" is presented without ever being built up. They're in love simply because they are in love, nothing deeper than that.

GAH. I could go on and on about what I hate about Twilight. And I freely admit I read them like the popcorn novels they are until the 4th book. I finished that one and went, wait...WTF just happened?? Also, vampires do not sparkle!!

Similarly, I read through The Host rather quickly and I liked the ideas in it, but the ending was terrible, a total cop-out where again no one ever really had to sacrifice anything.

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

B'rrr

Quote from: Baggins on August 19, 2010, 06:38:14 AM
Lord of the Rings is "teen fantasy?  ???

Is teen fantasy an actual used term in literature? a real subgenre. it makes no sense really.  

I can understand fantasy books for little childeren, easy to read, low descriptions regarding violance and sexuality, etc. but that is childeren books vs normal books and has nothing to do with beeing fantasy or not.
~Mary Jane supporter~
~Legend~