For a while now there has been an emphasis on realism in our fantasy, which has created some exciting new stories and series, including some personal favourites. However, as the trend for ever more ‘real’ fantasy grows stronger, I hope there will always be a place for the impossible and the mysterious in our genre.
I was once discussing fantasy with a friend who was in the middle of playing a fantasy video game, and he was getting frustrated with some of the settings and ideas in it. It reminded him of the wall in A Song of Ice and Fire – too big, too silly. The problem with fantasy, he said, is its tendency to go just that little too far over the top – structures that are too tall, objects and ruins that are too old, weapons that are too powerful, bridges that span too far, civilisations that go too far back in time. For him, this tendency was annoying; it tarnished those fun ideas and great worlds. I suppose for him, fantasy is a genre of excess.
I don’t disagree with all of this – fantasy does include a lot of larger than life elements, and I can even understand why some might scoff at them – but I have completely the opposite reaction to it. These unlikely and unbelievable elements are exactly why I love fantasy. They create a disconnect with the reality of our world, with logic and order, creating a sense of mystery and wonder that complements a certain kind of fantasy story so well.
Try searching for some fantasy art online. You’ll start to notice some fairly common themes. Whisper-thin bridges spanning depthless caverns, tiered cities perched precariously on cliffs with connecting walkways hanging over dizzying drops, trees the size of mountains, medieval castles as tall as skyscrapers, sail-ships crossing the skies, civilisations at the depths of the sea. In other words, fantasy art embraces the unlikely and the impossible. But I feel like I’m seeing less of this in fantasy books, and more and more emphasis on realism, particularly in worldbuilding.
Of course, realism can be vital in many aspects of a story, and realistic details really enhance a fantasy world, but it is not the only choice available to the writer. There’s no reason why a purely fantastical castle, a little too tall or a little too vast to be entirely believable, couldn’t feature in a fantasy world just as well as a thoroughly researched medieval keep. It depends on the tone of the story. There’s also no reason why realism can’t also be accompanied by touches of sheer, inexplicable fantasy. That touch of the impossible or the surreal that gives you a sense of wonder, a feeling that reality has been left behind. Look at those fantasy art images again. Tell me you don’t want to know about what it’s like to live in those incredible, impossible places.
I recently began the Gentlemen Bastards series by Scott Lynch and instantly fell in love with the world conjured up in those books. In particular, it was the elderglass remains that fired my imagination and gave me that feeling of wonder and joy at the fantastical. And it’s not just the idea itself, but what Scott Lynch does with it – a tower that has its lowest entrance hundreds of feet off the ground, with guests winched up in cages to attend parties; a glass garden at the top of a tower, as deadly as it is beautiful, used as a training space for sword combat; a house balanced on a thin arm of glass, suspended over a drop. In another context these things would be absurd, but that’s what’s so brilliant about them. They add a feeling of eccentricity to the world and to the plot that places it firmly in fantasy. That’s not to say that Scott Lynch’s stories are completely unrealistic – far from it. His characters act like real people and the internal consistency of the world is maintained. To me, they represent a perfect balance of the familiar and the impossible. And I don’t think those books would have had the same impact on me without those surreal, unrealistic pieces of worldbuilding, even if the story itself had remained unaltered.
Other books may do similar things with their settings, or the clothes people wear, or the creatures that exist, or simply the characters’ acceptance of the spiritual or the impossible within their lives. In fairy tales and folklore, the characters and readers take the impossible in their stride and accept that this is how things are. Children’s books commonly include this kind of acceptance of all things magical and strange; it is less common in adult fiction but it does work well when used. If you read almost anything by Neil Gaiman or China Miéville, for example, the weird just…is. It exists and it’s largely unexplained and unquestioned.
Now, I’m not arguing that all fantasy books should do this. Sometimes the point of a particular story or world is to focus on the details or the science behind the fantastical or the supernatural, to ask: why? And these can be incredibly compelling. Magic systems, for example, are a lot of fun! They give the reader the chance to understand and predict things, almost like a murder mystery where all the clues have been laid out for the reader. But I have often seen discussions that claim magic systems are essential, that magic can’t work as a major story element unless its rules and consequences have been fully explained. I don’t agree with this. A book like The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is, to me, a great example of how a more mysterious and less predictable kind of magic can take centre stage in the plot and still be satisfying.
I’m certainly not saying that there isn’t a place for realism in fantasy – of course there is – but within the fantasy genre, realism and the impossible really don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Even the grittiest books can feature the most fantastical elements – just look at the Night Angel series. Nor should every fantasy book have to include these elements of pure, incredible fantasy. But when impossible worldbuilding does appear, I don’t think of it as a flaw. If science is about pushing limits, surely fantasy is about breaking them.
