The wanderer figure in modern fantasy

[HareBrain]

As mentioned on the monthly reading thread, yesterday I read Shuna's Journey by Hayao Miyazaki. In it, a prince learns of the existence of a strain of wheat that produces a yield like none other, which is grown by a distant culture. The prince, whose people live at a bare subsistence level, sets off to find this wheat and bring some back. He knows nothing of the outside world. The story is basically what he finds and what he does in response: a classic tale of discovery and adventure.

Miyazaki uses a similar figure in his films Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa of the Valley of Winds: someone who leaves their home to explore and discover the world and solve a problem. This is the basic hero's journey as described by Joseph Campbell, and such figures are similar to the idea of the knight errant or Viking explorer, or even the crew of the Enterprise in Star Trek TOS. So you might assume they would be common characters in fantasy. And I think they once were.

But where are they now?

I had a look through the recent titles displayed in my local bookshop this afternoon. Most of their plots divided into three basic situations: magic school or similar; political shenanigans; or a response to a military-level threat. Mostly (as far as I could tell from the blurb) they revolved around one or more main settings known at the outset. The latest-published books I can recall reading that tell of a pure journey into the unknown is the Chathrand Voyage series by Robert VS Reddick, and they were over ten years ago. Shuna's Journey itself dates from 1983.

Am I missing lots of recent ones, or was there some kind of backlash against the classic "hero's journey" that meant everyone decided to do something else?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

A couple more recent come to mind - Curse of Chalkion perhaps? (Still quite old). But also look towards some of the younger female focused fantasy. Priory of the Orange Tree might be worth a look at, and also The Invisible life of Addie LaRue where Addie is a kind of invisible thread through history. Mark Lawrence has an interesting new one due out too.

As far as I can see, as a genre, trad fantasy is completely in the doldrums at the minute in terms of the bookstore market

 

[The Big Peat]

I don't think there was a spoken backlash.

I do think the zeitgeist has shifted from it. In terms of fantasy, the wheel has spun around to a position not unlike the 40s (high sense of national danger and lots of superheroes, check) where people are demanding rationality and explicability. They don't want flights of fancy and if they get them, they demand them with irony. They want to dig into the world around them rather than explore new ones and see how the world looks like when they get back.

By reputation, I think Sofia Samatar's A Stranger in Olondria might suit your yen. Perhaps also Ng's Under A Pendulum Sun. Logically some of the fairy tale riffs might go there, but they don't that I'm aware of. Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni has elements, albeit its someone exploring the brave exciting world of late 19th century New York, so maybe not that exotic (but I found it so). Actually now I'm thinking about it there seems to be a fair doing this in the more literary aspect - I think that's what Ishiguro's The Buried Giant was meant to be, I dunno, I got bored and DNFed, and Clarke's Piranesi is very much an exploration of the unknown for me.

But it is in the doldrums, particularly for trad fantasy. And there's nothing to do but stamp our feet and shout at publishers and demand they look for the next turning of the wheel... or just turn our backs on them and go read the old works of fantasy that get it.

 

[KGeo777]

If you are talking about corporate publishing, I think the concept of the wanderer is partly discouraged now because it can get into the issue of conflicts between different societies--which goes against the centralized multicultural consensus-built kumbaya trend of the moment. It's a harmonious global village.

A magic school is about institutional conformity-people from different backgrounds come together (like the UN).
Political shenanigans--I assume that involves a kingdom usually--so you have an institutional setting as well. A group dynamic.
And a military-level threat suggests a group response too right? Once again it is about a group usually, not an individual.

The individual wandering character is perhaps too independent for publishing tastes?

Same with movies isn't it.
How many movies are made now about independent characters who are self-sufficient and have no reliance on other characters for survival or success? Like the Man With No Name. Or Charles Bronson.

Star Trek is also about a group consensus even though Horatio Hornblower was said to be the inspiration for Kirk. He does a lot of independent acts, but he is on a ship with a crew. It's not like Odysseus on his own wandering from island to island.
Or John Carter or Tarzan or Conan.

 

[tachyon]

First thing that springs to mind is Fools Errant by Matthew Hughes (2001), though that's a Dying Earth style rather than a classic second world high fantasy. I second the suggestion of Samatar's "Olondria" (2013).

Sabriel by Garth Nix (1995)
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson (2016)
Quilifer by Walter Jon Williams (2017) has this sort of hero's journey
The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Harrow (2019) deconstructs and rebuilds this type of hero's journey on a couple of levels.

I don't think we see a lot of this currently but also we didn't see a lot of it in the past, though perhaps more than now.

 

[HareBrain]

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions. Priory of the Orange Tree and Curse of Chalion I've looked into before, but didn't get a "journey into the unknown" vibe from what I read about them. Piranesi is exploratory but also quite confined. I'll check out the others.

They want to dig into the world around them rather than explore new ones

That would seem to be the case: more depth, less breadth/length. I wonder why.

 

[Toby Frost]

I can't think of much, but modern fantasy isn't my strong point.

The idea is very much alive in computer games: all the Fallout, Morrowind, Skyrim type games involve you being an outsider who wanders into a land and either takes command or helps the rightful leader do so.

The recent film of The Green Knight would definitely qualify. Maybe even the last Mad Max film would work. To what extent does this overlap with road movies where a character goes somewhere to right a wrong and develops in the process?

 

[HareBrain]

The idea is very much alive in computer games: all the Fallout, Morrowind, Skyrim type games involve you being an outsider who wanders into a land and either takes command or helps the rightful leader do so.

That's true. And their popularity in games perhaps makes the lack of similar in novels more surprising. On the other hand, maybe if people are into that kind of story, why read a book when you can play a game instead?

 

[Toby Frost]

I think you can do more with it in a game. Apart from that basic setup, the details of your character (the hero of the story, or perhaps its arch-villain) and how the story pans out are entirely up to you. You usually get four or five main options as to how the story ends, depending on who you recruit/side with, which is maybe more interesting than the pre-set narrative of a novel in that kind of setup. And that sense of free exploration is very appealing to some people (me included).

I would suggest The Road, but it's not really a hero's journey as much as a refugee's flight.

 

[The Big Peat]

That would seem to be the case: more depth, less breadth/length. I wonder why.

That all depends what direction you hold the picture, innit?

LotR is a pretty classic wanderer story. A group wanderer story too, a counterpoint to KGeo's idea that maybe the downfall is the wanderer is seen as individualistic - the wanderer doesn't have to be an individual.

In some ways, in terms of per page, LotR is a super-heavyweight in terms of depth. We learn so much about the world and its history. In certain aspects, we learn absolutely nothing though. Tolkien felt no need to tell us about Gondor's economic policy, or whether Minas Tirith people laughed at people from Dol Amroth, or the rest of it.

From one angle, people will tell you all his characters are shallow, that it's nothing more than escapist fluff. From another, people would argue the composite gives an extraordinary, powerful insight into grace under immense and violent pressure.

There is no reason a stranger in a strange land can't learn and show as much depth about a place as a native. What they lack in insider knowledge, they gain in not taking things for granted.

Anyway, it's all about the angle. I think there's a ton of stories these days that go deep into cultures, deep across the world, and as a result can't get the breadth going in the characters.

 

[msstice]

Same with movies isn't it.
How many movies are made now about independent characters who are self-sufficient and have no reliance on other characters for survival or success?

Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher were like this and pretty recent.

 

[KGeo777]

Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher were like this and pretty recent.

They are modern-set right?
It's hard to be the lone warrior when you got an iphone and a zoom conference

"Before we fight, I need to update my Instagram followers...'hi friends! I am in the middle of the Gobi desert about to battle someone in hand to hand combat. Vote for me! #cannotbebeat"'

 

[msstice]

They are modern-set right?
It's hard to be the lone warrior when you got an iphone and a zoom conference

"Before we fight, I need to update my Instagram followers...'hi friends! I am in the middle of the Gobi desert about to battle someone in hand to hand combat. Vote for me! #cannotbebeat"'

I don't know how the books are, but the movies are pretty much one-man-army type plots with the usual "no man is an island" feel good arcs.

 

[Draven Vertigo]

Oh noes! my current working title for what Im writing is The Wanderings of Bhaask. Nobody likes these stories anymore? Part of the reason im even writing it is because Im a Joseph Campbell fan! Booo! Social Trends Suck! Booo!

 

[williamjm]

For recent books, I think Josiah Bancroft's Babel series might count, while it may be mostly set in a single building the Tower of Babel can take a lifetime of wandering to fully explore it.

S.A. Chakraborty's Daevabad trilogy also has quite a bit of exploration of a new world, even if the protagonist isn't doing that particularly willingly.

The idea is very much alive in computer games: all the Fallout, Morrowind, Skyrim type games involve you being an outsider who wanders into a land and either takes command or helps the rightful leader do so.

The recent film of The Green Knight would definitely qualify. Maybe even the last Mad Max film would work. To what extent does this overlap with road movies where a character goes somewhere to right a wrong and develops in the process?

For recent fantasy television, I think Geralt in The Witcher is definitely a wanderer and there's a lot of exploration of new worlds in His Dark Materials, although obviously in both cases the source material is older.

 

[BAYLOR]

Kane the Mystic Swordsman by Wagner would fit the the Wanderers category. He's under a curse and as result is ageless and virtually immortal, meaning that he's taught ot kill but can only die by the kind of violence he brought into the world. He outlived both enemies and friends and as relate, he can never settle down for long.