# What *is* High Fantasy?



## SFF Fan (Apr 12, 2011)

The word usually conjures images of grand scale world building and quests to save the land from an evil dark lord. Obviously it doesn't have to be set in a fake northern Europe but a lot of the stuff I see classed as "high fantasy" (just judging by book covers) is pretty narrow in scope. Does it have to be epic in scale and take place in several different parts of the world? Or is the only stipulation that it has to be in a completely imagined world? If a story took place mostly in another world, but in a single city and didn't focus too much on worldbuilding, would it still be "high" fantasy?


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## JustPassingThrough (Jul 17, 2011)

Is that when you eat some bad mayonnaise and then go out into the desert and read the _Similarion_?


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## Stephen Palmer (Jul 22, 2011)

It's reading LOTR on mushrooms.


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## Freelancer (Jul 22, 2011)

SFF Fan said:


> If a story took place mostly in another world, but in a single city and didn't focus too much on worldbuilding, would it still be "high" fantasy?


No. In this case, it's called as Dragon Age 2, the worst fantasy sequel ever. 

But seriously, it's not really High Fantasy, because it is excluding many HF elements, including the worldbuilding and the details.


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## Chaoticheart (Jul 22, 2011)

Freelancer said:


> No. In this case, it's called as Dragon Age 2, the worst fantasy sequel ever.



Pfffftttttt. Dragon Age 2 is only a bad game because it's a sequel. Let's face it, if the game was released by itself and Dragon Age: Origins had never existed, everyone would love it far more than they do. And as it stands, I found the story to be of far higher quality than many of Bioware's past works.

/endrant.


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## Freelancer (Jul 22, 2011)

Chaoticheart said:


> Pfffftttttt. Dragon Age 2 is only a bad game because it's a sequel.


To me it gave me the impression of a bad, ultimate dumb and half ready game. However the story was maybe good (I also enjoyed the beginning of it), but I never reached Chapter 2 or 3 as I abandoned it because of the cheap and dumb design and especially the repetative, bad and painfully dumb missions and sub-stories.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Jul 25, 2011)

It's hard to define, because some readers will argue distinctions between High Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Heroic Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, and any number of other sub-genres, while other readers will lump them in all together.


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## CS Johnson (Nov 3, 2011)

I think you need to ask the people who make up the definitions, which certainly ain't the readers or authors.


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## j d worthington (Nov 3, 2011)

It is certainly one of the more controversial descriptions and, as Teresa says, many will argue what belongs where. There have been several things written defending this or that view as well. I wouldn't say, from my experience, that it has to do with massive _world-building_ (though that is often a part of the whole) as it does with a certain _worldview_ or aesthetic. High fantasy, as I understand it, is much less concerned with the adventure aspect -- which is more descended from the semi-romantic school of Haggard, Howard, etc. -- than with redefining the world through the lens of fantasy; what Tolkien spoke of in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" when he talked about becoming reacquainted with the primary world as if it were fresh and new; what I tend to call "seeing it with new eyes". Ultimately, it has a regenerative philosophy behind it, an intent to stir the reader to high (or noble) emotions using the tropes and symbols of what we have often traditionally regarded as moral, at times humanistic, ideals placed at genuine risk of being lost; where the struggle is less about a political system, or against a "dark lord", than about retaining our highest ideals against an all-too-often cynical world. (Sauron, for instance, isn't a danger because he is intrinsically, actively evil in the usual sense, but because he represents the negation of everything we hold dear. What comes under his sway is forever perverted and lost, as with the Nazgûl, who themselves were once representatives of humankind in all its promise.)

Here is Professor Tolkien's expression of the idea:



> We should look at green again, and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep, and dogs, and horses -- and wolves.[...]
> 
> Recovery (which includes retrurn and renewal of health) is a re-gaining -- regaining of a clear view. I do not say 'seeing things as they are' and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say 'seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them' -- as things apart from ourselves. We need, in any case, to clear our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity -- from possessiveness. Of all faces those of our _familiares_ are the ones both most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult really to see with fresh attention, perceiving their likeness and unlikeness: that they are faces, and yet unique faces. This triteness is really the penalty of 'appropriation': the things that are trite, or (in a bad sense) familiar, are the things that we have appropriated, legally or mentally. We say we know them. They have become like the things which once attracted by their glitter, or their colour, or their shape, and we laid hands on them, and then locked them in our hoard, acquired them, and acquiring ceased to look at them.


 
What high fantasy does (or attempts to do) is to startle us our of this mode of seeing the world (and ourselves) and reacquaint us with the strangeness, wonder, beauty, terror, and poignancy of it all, so that it becomes once more something we realize why we hold dear, and how precious and fragile, yet unbelievably enduring, it in truth is.

That is certainly not a dictionary definition; but from my understanding, that is what separates "high" fantasy from nearly every other kind....


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## CS Johnson (Nov 3, 2011)

An excellent proposition, J.D., and one that makes much sense.  Where I’m a little unclear, though, and would appreciate your further views, is whether the definition you present is confined only to Fantasy by virtue of the initial question or should it rightly be seen as explaining only the term ‘High’.  For example, I can see your argument equally supporting High Fiction in general or indeed even High Fact, come to that.


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## j d worthington (Nov 4, 2011)

I think in large part the connection to fantasy (in the sense that term is generally applied these days, which is much narrower than used to be the case) is in connection with the query itself. In the broader sense, I think it applies to fantasy because fantasy (using the term in its broader sense) allows for types of emotional resonance seldom approachable in more "realistic" fiction. I do not at all think Tolkien's relation of fantasy to fairy-tales is mistaken, as the two bear great similarities in this regard.

To be a bit more concrete, when I speak of the term "fantasy" being applied in its larger sense, I would include a wide variety of modes of writing (or genres, for those who would prefer that term here), including horror, science fiction, "magic realism", etc., as each of these has the potential to touch on such emotions in a very affirming way. Take a look at one of the great influences on the original Gothic school, for instance: Edmund Burke's essay, "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", for example, which may help explain how "horror" (or, more properly, terror) literature applies here; or, if you prefer a lighter tone, read James Branch Cabell's odd book *Beyond Life* (the first in his final form of the lengthy Biography of the Life of Manuel), where he calls it "seeing things not as they are, but as they ought to be".

At its best, high fantasy -- or "high" literature in general -- also evokes that feeling of awe and wonder as a part of what I express above, and that is rather difficult to do with literature of a more naturalistic nature....


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## nightdreamer (May 5, 2012)

I know this thread is starting to show its age, but I just found it.

@J.D.: Thanks for your insight on definitions.  My only completed fantasy novel I have never hesitated to call "epic," but never one saw fit to call it "high."  I had definite images of the usage of those terms but not the words to express them, rather like a toddler who can tell a he from a she but unable to articulate the difference.  You were able to distinguish them quite clearly, and in agreement with my perceptions.


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## j d worthington (May 5, 2012)

Thank you for the compliment, and I'm glad my statements proved useful....


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## Warren_Paul (May 5, 2012)

I always considered High Fantasy to be the more far out worlds, like LOTR. Full of Elves, Orcs, Goblins, Wizards and witches, actual full blown magic. Things that defy reality and show the reader that they really aren't on Earth anymore. Plant life and animals that are nothing like reality. 

Take the sci-fi elements out of Avatar, and it'd be High Fantasy imo - leave them in and it's Science Fantasy. The book I'm reading through atm (The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson) is certainly High Fantasy - although it's definitely got an Epic Fantasy feel to it too. Reality is just so different in his book compared to Earth, in regards to the plant and animal life, supernatural beings. Amazing, well imagined world - a book everyone should read.


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## Finnien (May 6, 2012)

I saw a great definition of High Fantasy once in an article I was given in a class that was reading C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew.  I can't find it at the moment - my google-fu is weak today.  However, it listed certain criteria that basically adapted the Hero's Journey to a fantasy setting... it went something like this, but parts may be wrong:
1) Hero is called by a Herald to a Destiny/Task
2) A Quest must be undertaken, involving a lengthy journey with frequent trials
3) This quest takes place in a world of different rules than ours, allowing what we perceive as magic (although the essay took a broad take on the term - Jedi or Wizards or arcane mathematics all counts)
4) The characters are morally pure and oppose absolute evil - there is no gray morality
5) The fate of the world is at stake.

I believe there was also something about guardians/mentors/sage advice listed, as well as referencing Objects of Power (lightsaber or magic ring), but that's more or less the kind of definition I read.  It seemed pretty accurate at the time - a novel about the journey of a single person whose destiny it was to save the world against absolute evil, essentially.  It's probably why I've never seen Game of Thrones as high fantasy - it's political fantasy, really.  I would argue that Tolkein's definition is that of fantastic imaginative fiction, but not specifically "high" fantasy.  

However, as evidenced by the inability to find a solid definition and people's widely differing opinion on what it means, I'd argue the term itself is actually worthless.  Some people say it has to have other races.  Others say it has to be medieval.  Others say it has to have a specific kind of magic.  Others say it has to contain X plot, or Y device, or Z point of view.  Oddly enough, that resembles the debate over the term Science Fiction as well.  The regular use of undefined terms in different ways has really rendered them almost meaningless.


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## The Procrastinator (May 6, 2012)

Almost but not quite. Sometimes it can be hard to pin something down, and easier to think about something in terms of what it isn't. What a boring world it would be - how _Low_ - if everything could be completely defined in verbal terms.


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## j d worthington (May 6, 2012)

Warren_Paul said:


> I always considered High Fantasy to be the more far out worlds, like LOTR. Full of Elves, Orcs, Goblins, Wizards and witches, actual full blown magic. Things that defy reality and show the reader that they really aren't on Earth anymore. Plant life and animals that are nothing like reality.


 
It's an interesting approach, but in what way does this make it "high"? I can understand "extreme", but "high" carries a different connotation, implying loftiness (as in morality or ethics) or greatness (as in a major innovation or a paradigm shift), or both.

I can think of a number of fantasies which fit the description given above, but which are anything but "high"; some of them are, in fact, quite vulgar or low in any meaningful sense of the term. And even those which use "traditional" figures, such as elves, goblins, fairies, sprites, etc., are often low in the sense of comedic or farcical (the Pratt/de Camp *Carnelian Cube* and *Land of Unreason* come to mind here). Much as I love Moorcock's work, I would seriously hesitate putting the Elric stories in the class of "high fantasy", despite the often extreme nature of the creatures, plants, etc., involved, not to mention the sometimes staggering concepts he plays with. Even the Brak stories by John Jakes would fit the description given above, yet they are no more than potboiling, knock-off REH-style S&S, lacking any pretension to anything higher.

In other words, in order for the term "high" to have any sort of significance, it must refer to more than the incidentals of plot or the flora or fauna of the world depicted, and instead reference a seriousness or _gravitas_ which has some larger philosophical, moral, or ethical end in view.


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## Isabella Amaris (May 31, 2012)

j. d. worthington said:


> What high fantasy does (or attempts to do) is to startle us our of this mode of seeing the world (and ourselves) and reacquaint us with the strangeness, wonder, beauty, terror, and poignancy of it all, so that it becomes once more something we realize why we hold dear, and how precious and fragile, yet unbelievably enduring, it in truth is.


 
I love this, but I have to wonder if it's a definition that can be applied more to Tolkien's ideas of faerie than fantasy... I guess I'm one of those who's always tended to think of high fantasy as more along the lines of setting... ie. something which is set in a totally different world from ours, with heavy worldbuilding involved... Though I have to say, the sentiments and sensibility expressed in your definition would probably be something all writers of fantasy would wish to achieve on many levels in their work... Lovely definition...


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## j d worthington (Jun 2, 2012)

Isabella Amaris said:


> I love this, but I have to wonder if it's a definition that can be applied more to Tolkien's ideas of faerie than fantasy... I guess I'm one of those who's always tended to think of high fantasy as more along the lines of setting... ie. something which is set in a totally different world from ours, with heavy worldbuilding involved... Though I have to say, the sentiments and sensibility expressed in your definition would probably be something all writers of fantasy would wish to achieve on many levels in their work... Lovely definition...


 
Thank you for the kind words. I cannot, however, accept credit for the thought expressed, only for its expression in this particular instance. The general thought is one I have encountered time and again from a variety of writers (not all of whom used the term fantasy, though some did). I simply compared it to any other definitions of the term and went with the one which seemed (to me, at any rate) to apply best in a wide range of writings, often called "high fantasy". Of course, this sort of approach long predates "modern" fantasy, hence has something of an advantage... of chronological priority, if nothing else....


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