Fantasy stereotypes

[Esfires]

I've done all that lol - the newspapers call him the ''Royal Oaf'', he's surly, insular and weird. However, as king some of that won't work. I've come to the conclusion my readers will read what they want into Angus

Nothing wrong with that. If we cared about our audience seeing exactly what we wanted them to see we'd be making movies instead.

 

[Dante]

Stereotypes appeal to some people. They're stereotypes for a reason, because they are tried and true archetypes that people can immediately identify. It breeds laziness for writers, since if I write that I have an archer and a thief, I get all the connotations of archers and thieves added to my characters without have to write another word.

 

[evaunitone]

I like fantasy stereotypes. I think they're powerful and putting a different take on a tried and true archetype can yield really cool characters. I'm writing something at the moment with a main character who is very chainmail bikini Medieval princess, but she's also exhiled, alone and afflicted with an incurable disease. I think seeing a stereotype broken down is really cool.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

I don't mind fantasy stereotypes, but neither will I use them every time. I did have elves in Morcalia, though they weren't automatically good archers or all noble, and I had quite a few spins on things. I did have a lot of creatures based off Greek mythology, though again, with my own certain spin.


I'm rather meticulous to myself in the details of my worlds and its characters. Some of my old characters were very sexual, violent, aggressive types with no care or respect in the world for law and order. Yeah, okay, there might be a lot of creatures and/or characters like that in fantasy time and time again, but I've noticed that no author I've come across had bothered with the detail of explaining why they were that way.

The way I had it set up was that most of them were half-breeds: Half-elves, characters with dragon/elf or dragon/human, demon/elf, demon/human, demon/divine backgrounds, and my explanation was that, much like in clinical depression, there were hormonal imbalances in these individuals causing them to act in such destructive, impulsive manners. The conclusion of Morcalian scholars and physicians were that the genetic markups of certain half breeds were incompatible between species and the resulting hormonal conflicts would overload neural receptors in the brain, causing symptoms similar to that of schizophrenia or aggravated drug use; auditory and visual hallucinations, uncontrollable sex drive, a tendency towards self-destruction via drugs or mutilation, and a tendency towards violence to others.


Also, much in the way of the horse/donkey phenomena, most Morcalian half-breeds were sterile. I think this is going to be an aspect I take on to the new world.



After that mouthful, I think it shows that with certain careful planning, things can go a lot deeper under the surface of a character or a world than is often portrayed.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

And once you've found the cause, Karn, some people will want to find the cure. But who says all the halfbreeds want to be cured?

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

They've tried to find cures for it. The trouble is, they just didn't seem to work, and as you said, most of the affected ones weren't exactly volunteering.


Not that it matters at all now, haha. Morcalia has been destroyed by colliding with Earth. And considering it was a planet roughly the size of Jupiter, well, that's not to mention what happened with us.

 

[Chel]

They forgot my favourite stereotype from the list! The handsome bard-womanizer...
...but at least he starts off pining for the One That Got Away 10 years ago, and his supernatural singing talent is because the goddess of music likes him.

Oh... and my female protagonist is one of those annoying ladies that does what she wants. But then, all young ladies in her society do, and everyone knows it and everyone is ok with it as long as they bring their bodyguards and are discreet about it.

 

[Warren_Paul]

They forgot my favourite stereotype from the list! The handsome bard-womanizer...

I've got one of those! He is actually one of my best characters.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

I've got one of those! He is actually one of my best characters.

I don't. I refuse to use bards. They're useless.


I use drug lords.

 

[Brandon Pilcher]

I recently designed a female character who was a black woman from a roughly African-inspired fantasy culture and had a woman on another message board accuse me of using racist, imperialistic stereotypes in my design. Here's the design in question:

(There is a reason for the jet-black skin tone; her world was supposed to receive a LOT of ultraviolet radiation, therefore necessitating a lot of melanin)

I admit that my design does combine tropes associated with "tribal" cultures, but the thing is that I actually have seen photos of traditional African people with loincloths (which are appropriate for hot tropical climates BTW), face paint, and animal-claw/tooth necklaces. Furthermore, this particular character was supposed to be beautiful and sympathetic, and truthfully I created her precisely because I wanted to present a positive image of black women in the speculative fiction genre. There was nothing inherently derogatory about my character whatsoever.

The woman who protested my design claimed to be an African feminist, but I frankly don't believe her. She had the attitude that white men who were particularly attracted to women of color were "fetishizing" or "exoticizing" them. In my experience, women with that attitude are usually white pseudo-feminists rather than women of color themselves, so I'm inclined to think she was a white concern troll as well.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

You can never please everyone. My gay characters have only so far had one person accuse me of being stereotypical and writing the kind of thing that would've stopped him coming out. However, he did it in the form of a screaming, queen, tantrums and tiara stereotype, all that was missing was a flicked wrist before he sashayed away.

It was interesting to be accused of writing stereotypes by the most stereotypical gay man I have ever met in real life.

Within fantasy I do wonder though - I don't use elves, orcs etc I made up my own races but when I hear screams they are stereotypes in fantasy part of me wants to scream. I mean we don't consider humans stereotyped and overdone in contempoary literature. (not this board it is refereshingly free of that but NaNo during November and a couple of other teen heavy boards I am on are really bad)

My cosy mystery has a murder which I think has been done before.

The avoidance of stereotypes or the attempt to subvert them has within some teen writing I've read recently had a detrimental effect and lead to ludicrious lengths. Whereas a stereotyped elf, orc, goblin etc actually may have led to a better story. (says she who's elflike race are sex mad drunks with blue skin and orange eyes; and based her ogre type race off of characters from Little Women)

When I read the work around the internet the subverted stereotype is rapidly becoming the stereotype.

 

[chrispenycate]

I have a bard. She's about eight metres long, and plays harp. My idea was she could eliminate flashbacks by doing ballads of the requisite events, a musical info dump.

But I was informed here that there is a large minority of readers that automatically skip any poetry, musical interludes or anything that doesn't fill the page in an ordinary, rectangular right to left format, so she's only got a few cameo appearances now.

Mind you, she was a dragon, so possibly not all that stereotypical.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

dang, Chris! I love the minstrels and poetry bits in fantasy. It's one of my favourites when it's done well and I bet you're good at it. (Part of the problem is the number of people who put it in because it is clever and they clearly have not a lot of talent)

Done well stereotypes are wonderful. I use them liberally when creating my characters and then let the story round them out. The stereotypical bit is what a reader recognises and draws us in.

My favourite for characters is Dolly Parton and she does depressed women, ragged little girls, grumpy loners, wanton women etc wonderfully, but they all have a hint of the familiar stereotype about them. She draws these amazing characters very quickly.

 

[Warren_Paul]

I have a bard. She's about eight metres long, and plays harp. My idea was she could eliminate flashbacks by doing ballads of the requisite events, a musical info dump.

I've done this, but almost ready to take it out, not sure yet though. Both because of the fact that it's still an info dump, and because the information contained could be easily slipped in elsewhere in small doses.

It's not a song though, just a tale told in a bar.