GoT is heavily rooted in European history. Martin draws a lot of the stories from real life events. The Red Wedding is Glencoe. The names of characters are just slight variations of English names like Robb, Caitlyn, Dany, Arya, Jon, etc. That's why it feels like Middle Fantasy, because there are so many touches of real world events and people in them even if they are barely disguised.
The war of the roses is crazy, and I agree, I think that inspiration is what leads to GoT feeling so grounded. It's a very human conflict.@@gabriellynch2764
@@aidanpocock Being inspired heavily by the Wars of the Roses has nothing to do with it. It's down to the fact that it's a drama and not an adventure. I think it's high fantasy despite our preconceived ideas
@@jamesalexander958I think the world is high fantasy because of the depth of the story. Similar to Tolkien, Martin was able to build up a rich myth and lord of his world which makes it high fantasy to me.
I agreed with your division of high and low fantasy and then immediately went wait what about Narnia then and you introduced a solution to the problem right away. Very well thought out definitely liking this and looking into your account more
That's incredibly kind of you! I've been having a blast making content and engaging with the fantasy community, I'm excited to keep making more videos!
Yeah I usually call the Cosmere secondary world high fantasy, ASOIAF is secondary world low fantasy, LOTR is high primary world fantasy, Harry Potter is primary/intrusive low fantasy, Narnia is secondary world high portal fantasy.
I do agree with your points on Isekai/people transported to the fantasy world issue despite being a big fan of the trope. Personally unless you are making a comedy where the point is making fun of the absurdity of the world, its important for immersion for the characters to get used to the world and accept what is happening to them. Basically be shocked and confused by the world at first but be accepting of the new reality by the end of the prologue with the only questioning of it being for explanation of material that the reader needs exposition for. AN interesting discussion I have seen with this type of story telling is whether it is even necessary in some stories. there are many stories, especially in manga or JRPGs, where the person is reincarnated or transported to the new world but after the "prologue" the character barely acknowledges the fact that they have been transported to a new world or anything about their old life. Leading to some feeling that the story could have just been written with the character being a normal denizen of the world and the writer is just using this as a crutch to explain why the character needs exposition dumps in the beginning of the story.
Great video. Agree with your stances. Thanks for the book recommendations! A favorite high fantasy book series of mine has always been Deltora Quest. Read the series way back in elementary school 25 years ago and it’s stuck with me since.
I love both types of fantasy but I find myself leaning towards low fantasy more often. I find high fantasy tends to feel very samey. The worlds follow all the same tropes just with different names and faces. Low fantasy might always use more of the real world but the fantasy twist is always unique to that series.
That's a good point! And it can really be fun to see how magic would integrate with the world we know. Plus, I think the mere concept that our mundane world could be hiding magical secrets behind every corner, is a really fun way to look at life
Well, that’s one way of classifying fantasies, and I suppose it makes sense. I wonder what you’d think of the World of the Five Gods series from Lois McMaster Bujold, which is a relatively modern and award-winning series: starting in 2001 with “The Curse of Chalion”, and now consisting of four novels and eleven novellas. It’s definitely set on another world with no connection to ours; but the other world is similar to Earth (in mediæval times). There are the five gods (who appear quite rarely), humans, demons, saints, and shamans, but no other fantastic elements (no dragons or other fantastic creatures). A demon can live only by inhabiting some other living creature; a human inhabited by a demon is known as a sorcerer if he/she manages to control the demon. He/she can then learn to perform magic, with the aid of the demon. Demons don’t die of old age; when their host dies, they choose another host (who has to be nearby at the time). But they can be killed by a god in some circumstances. I suppose you’d have to call this high fantasy, but it’s moderate high fantasy. There are relatively few fantastic elements, and the magic is fairly low-key: there are limits to what sorcerers can do. Although the author doesn’t tie herself down by specifying what the limits are. One definite limit is that, if a sorcerer kills anyone by magic, the demon dies; so they have to be careful!
A fantasy book series I really enjoyed ist The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott. I'm not sure though whether it is low or mid fantasy according to your scale, however I recommend to read those 6 books.
This is an interesting perspective. What is called low fantasy here, is often referred to as urban fantasy, which is fantasy elements in a modern setting. Although low fantasy is often simply only a few fantastic elements in general. A sword and sorcery story with barbarians fighting monstrous beasts is also often called low fantasy, because there may be some magic in the background, and it takes place on a different world, but the thrust of the story is at a human level.
That is very interesting. Like I mentioned I think there are lots of different ways people categorize fantasy, and I’m still surprised id never heard of urban fantasy before.
@@aidanpocockif you‘re keen on checking out urban fantasy, I can highly recommend the Rivers of London series, it‘s a great series with a very interesting magic system
6:06 the thing with the elves is in German there is a difference between "Elfen" and "Elben" both are in most cases translated to "elves" in English. I know Tolkien wrote his books in English, but he had many parts of Germanic/Nordic tales in mind while doing so. For the German translation he insisted to use "Elben" and not "Elfen". And Elben are in old German or Nordic tales far more humanlike in appearence and Elfen are still more like the small creatures. So in German he never redefined what the word Elb in a Fantasy book means. But of course because it was redefined in English often lower quality translations of newer fantasy books from English to German use Elfen where in my opinion Elben would be far more appropriate. EDIT: some spelling mistakes
Wouldn’t call the book series low magic exactly with all the stuff that has been shown so far with all the warging, dead coming back to life, dragons, euron stuff and everything else . Tv show def is though
I agree with what you said with ASOIAF. I wouldn't class that as high fantasy either. There is a reason why it's so popular. The world feels real and grounded, the magic isn't over the top, the characters are realistic and are always at risk of dying. The world of Game of Thrones is one of the best out there, alongside Middle-Earth. When people bash fantasy, it usually just tells you they lack any kind of imagination. Fantasy is amazing, and is so much more diverse than the same bland thing we see in every day life.
I completely agree, I wish there wasn't such a stigma around fantasy content. It does seem like it's gotten slightly more mainstream in recent years, but it's still one of the lesser appreciated genres.
I think that while tv series is exactly what you say the books have so much more to them if you really delve deep into them. Mystery of azor ahai mellisandre doing weird shit and other characters like patches or qouthe have much more then meets the eye. Ofc it is grounded and very similar to our world yet so diffrent i think that when its finished it will deserve place in high fantasy
I would still classify it as high fantasy. For me, the level of "grounded" doesn't matter, what matters is that it is an entirely new fantastic world different from ours. If it was for the "grounded" feeling, then the Harry Potter series should be classified as high fantasy because it has more over the top magic than ASOIAF, yet, I would still place Harry Potter as low fantasy because it still happens in England.
Funny, these terms are used differently in my country (Czech Republic) or at least I have always understand them differently (I basically grew up on fantasy and sci-fi books). Figh fantasy always meant for me fantasy story focusing on promoting great ideals, moral black and white, etc. example would be LotR where bad characters are pure evil wanting world domination and good characters want's to selflessly save the world. And low fantasy meaning more realistic approach, where all characters have understandable motivations, sometimes intentionally doing bad things to fulfill them, sometimes doing good. Example would be The Witcher.
Odd. Gollum is neither good nor evil. A lot of the elves, Feanor to name one, are not black or white either. The general setting may be ine of good vs evil, but the characters populating middle earth rarely are 100% of any flavour. Think of boromir too…
One of Tolkien's main themes is that nothing is truly evil in the beginning. Not even Morgoth or Sauron, so I completely agree. I think that almost everyone in Tolkien's works have some level of "grayness"@@stoned3225
I think it is somewhat bold to say "my own scale, which is basically on par with how most people divide them up", especially considering that you put the Marvel Cinematic universe in there with dimension travelling world ending magic powers, time travel and spacefaring cyber-wizardry using gods. I think this could potentially work as an alternative scale to the classic dual level scale, but could use a bit more criteria than intuition. Also your particular scale creates a very big overlap between low and urban fantasy, which regardless of whether that's good, bad, intentional or unintentional might be something you want to keep in mind or expand upon at some point. Great video on the technical side from audio to visuals over script! Well done!
Thank you! And yeah, the more I’m learning about urban fantasy, the more I suppose I would just consider it apart of low fantasy as a whole. But it is a good distinction to make. I do think it would be interesting to take every marvel movie and rank where it lies on the scale from sci-fi to fantasy
@@aidanpocock If you work out a couple rigorous criteria for a Low/Mid/High scale, that would make for a banger tier list like video with opportunity for community engagement - definitely a great idea! Hope you keep up the videos
@@omen5000to be fair high fantasy effectively does fit marvel more so then low I think. It is earth but a almost entirely different earth, science is completely different, there's magic, gods, the only thing that it really fits low fantasy wise is in being based off of modern earth, but realistically it's so generally different that I think it can't be considered low. A case for middle could be made, but when you think low fantasy you think Harry Potter in that it's just the real world but there's some magic, there's sooo much more to marvel that makes it impossible to say it's low fantasy
This is a great video, with useful information, well done dude! Don't forget that George Lucas considers his Star Wars as fantasy! And what tthe author says is the only thing that defines it. People often misrepresent it as sci-fi, and it has minimal ties to sci-fi, Star Wars is a space fairy tale - a high fantasy. A great genre, old as the human civilisation itself!
Yea, it's hard to really call it sci-fi when there's barely any science in it. Instead we have old monk orders feuding with magic, which is pretty fantasy.
Thank you! That’s extremely kind of you to say! I’ve been super bored job hunting lately and have decided to make some TH-cam videos to keep myself busy and practice my editing skills. It’s been a ton of fun and I’m really enjoying it!
I was sure while watching this is one of those professional Channels going deep into Geek Theory about different fantasy Universes, which I just love. Seeing that is not the case surprised me a lot. So you get a new subscriber today.
I'd consider the Abhorsen series of books to be a good example of Middle Fantasy. Two bordering nations, one like England between the wars, and the other is a High Fantasy world, but both the worlds do have some impact on each other. Magic system is easy enough to understand. Fun series to read.
I have yet to explore 40k, but it sounds pretty cool so I’d love to check it out. It also seems pretty daunting, what’s the best way you recommend approaching it?
@@aidanpocock There's a huge amount of 40k lore-based content on YT, and with that many creators have at least one video where they recommend a starting point for delving into the lore (usually by way of the novels/novellas put out by Black Library). They mostly suggest starting small with some short story collections to see if you enjoy the setting and then working your way up to the novels and novel series. I personally jumped in face-first and started with book 1 (of more than 50) of The Horus Heresy series, because I was given a set of models when I was much younger and became obsessed with reading the rulebook (which is lore-rich in its own right) so knew I was already interested in the universe and lore. On the YT side, I highly recommend Leutin09 who resparked my interest in 40k lore after over a decade of putting it to the side.
I would personally also put Star Wars into the fantasy category, but in its own subgenre of space fantasy. While many people would label Star Wars as sci-fi after taking a cursory glance, I would argue that the universe has far more fantasy elements (magical wizards, various sapient species, massive lore and history, disregard for scientific laws and realism, epic good vs evil battles, and complex character relationships) than sci-fi ones. After all, Star Wars is set "a long time ago," and the technology acts more like the magical constructs of Lord of the Rings than the scientifically realistic tech of Star Trek. Hell, Star Wars never even explains why gravity exists in their spaceships, and the ships themselves are designed not with practical spaceship design principles in mind, but rather following the rule of cool. IMO, only two Star Wars pieces break from the fantasy genre, and those are Andor and Resistance; however, every other piece falls somewhere along the fantasy spectrum. The Original Trilogy, Rebels, The Bad Batch, and the Book of Boba Fett feel more Middle Fantasy, while the Prequels, the Sequels, The Clone Wars, the Obi-Wan series, The Mandalorian, and ESPECIALLY the Ahsoka series all feel more High Fantasy except mediæval earthlike society is replaced with multiple worlds of a galaxy far far away
Although im a big Lotr fan, i gotta say that low fantasy can be pretty awesome as well, as my second favorite saga is the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver. An extremely realistic prehistoric setting with just a little shamanism and otherwordly entities, and she managed to write a story that literally changed my life
Do, I read them a few years ago and I really like the Stone Age setting which sets it out against almost everything else which is either modern or medieval and as a result it’s much more memorable than most other series
Whoa, big fan of Wolf Brothers (as the series was translated in my language) and recognised Michelle Paver's name, never knew the series was originally named that! Was a huge fan of the books growing up, haven't read them in over a decade now, but all books are still on my bookshelf right next to me. I agree that it's a very good series (the first two books in particular are favourites of mine), and like someone else said here, the setting in particular really is a standout.
4:14 That is such a shallow description though. If you were to ask me why I like Harry Potter, I would probably say the overarching story is good, the characters are really well-written, the mystery writing is gripping, and the themes are good. I think most Harry Potter fans would agree with my opinion.
This is also my favorite series together with the other novels from Erikson in the same world and even the novels from his high school friend Esslemont are good. As they build the world together, though Erikson is the better writer.
@@thomasamsler3842 Well said, although my opinion is that Esslemont is enjoyable for reasons separate from Erikson. They do different things w their part of the world and they do those things expertly
Omg omg my absolute favorite books! I’m obsessed lol. Hard read but even better as a reread and fun to research. Liked Esslemont’s books but not as much. But any world building in the malazan world is a win win!!
Nice video - my understanding is you mean the more fully immersed we are in the alternate reality, the higher the fantasy - this seems a very consistent and straightforward approach, and useful - for my part, I do make a distinction between fantasy and myth - myth seems like us just framing reality as a society in a way to draw out underlying meaning - I think it has something to do w how our minds work, how we use storytelling and metaphor in our thought process - but I think Tolkien was a pioneer in fantasy, a newer genre where the goal is precisely to escape into such a different world - Tolkien was wishing that England had a different mythos than it did, in a way that would tie into England's national identity, and so he set out to create one, like Dr Frankenstein setting out to create his own artificial life form, that would correspond w his ideals - myth and legend are dipping into a shared communal pool, like Mallory and TH White each tapping the Arthurian legends for their own respective generations, or Dante and Milton each feeding into our shared ideas of Heaven and Hell - Tolkien tried this, but seemed unsatisfied, and so instead he constructed his own cosmos from scratch, to bring the readers into a world entirely inside his own mind, informed by his own cosmic rules and lore, modeled on his vast scholarship re how such rules work, which also tied to his language background and his creation of new languages - he created synthetic myths to go w his fictitious languages, and set up a giant frame to house them - I think this is what's different about fantasy as a genre, in a way that intersects w both myth and religion, but is also set apart from them - it frames its reality in mythic terms, but within a context that's cut off from the legacy of heritage, and exists in the mind of its respective author (all the better to copyright? I would also actually include certain space operas like Star Wars among your high fantasy category, since they seem less interested in science, and more in the metaphysical forces that inform fantasy) - and your categorization seems a fine way to consider fantasy on its own terms -
The show absolutely of ASoIAF is middle fantasy cause they toned down the magic and dumb and dumber were embarrassed they were making a fantasy show. The books tho are totally high fantasy
4:07 in reality, those people usually don’t understand Harry Potter on propuse bc they don’t share the same political opinions as the author so they can insult her even more, it’s more about they previously hating Harry Potter for their political opinions and the hating it in order to insult the author.
I started with the Belgariad. It isn't my favourite fantasy (LOTR) but is my second favourite and I've read a lot of fantasy. I highly recommend the audiobooks as well. Also there is a sequel series while not quite as good is still welcome because of how enjoyable the world and the characters are. The Elenium books are a fun ride as well.
The Chronicles of Prydain were some of my favorite books growing up. I would kill to see a new adaptation after the tragedy that was the Disney animated film. @@lpvrooom6714
Yeah, I remember when someone told me Harry Potter is fantasy and I was like "nah, for me Fantasy is like tolkien-fantasy with dragons and orcs, elfs, wizards and.... oh, wait...." Because I tried watching the original Lord of the Rings trilogy like 2 times and both times it didn't click for me. The movies felt very long with little plot, they were just traveling, being chased, traveling, being chased, traveling ect. I wanted more battle tactics or mysteries being investigated or more flashy action with special moves. So I associated that with fantasy, but the seperation to different style of fantasy really clears things up for me. Turns out in the end I ended up liking eastern fantasy the most, which is often less indeph and more inspired by fantasy RPGs and MMOs instead of novels.
While Harry Potter is often held up as the typical low-fantasy, and LotR as the typical high-fantasy, I don't think that they're as low/high as people make out. This distinction is usually made purely on the basis that some of the locations of HP are our real-world, while LotR locations are made-up. But locations are not the only aspect of what makes something fantasy. LotR is fairly limited in how much magic it involves. The number of people who can do magic is very small, and even then they use it sparingly. Most of the stuff that is going on in LotR involves things which we are familiar with from the real-world; people fight with swords and travel on horses, they farm fields and smith metal and wear real-world medieval clothing. Meanwhile, in Harry Potter magic is being used constantly, we're constantly being introduced to new magical abilities/objectes/creatures and navigating non-real-world rules of how stuff works or how people behave. I don't think the fact that a small number of chapters happen in real-world locations is enough to definitively make something low-fantasy. It's not difficult to think of stories/IPs which are much much "higher" fantasy than LotR, and much much "lower" than Harry Potter.
The Raven’s Shadow Trilogy by Anthony Ryan and The Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan are current favorites of mine. I would classify them as high fantasy and they’re the kind of books that I consider old friends and will go back and reread over and over again. I would also give the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire a look. These are a series of novellas that would fall under Isekai however they approach it in a different way. There is a school/home for children who have traveled to other worlds and found themselves back in our world. The problem is that they were happier and more suited to the other worlds and never wanted to come back to ours. The worlds are unique and not always nice but the one thing they have in common is that to someone they were more home than our world could ever be.
I like to believe that J.R.R Tolkien's world, the world of Arda (Middle earth referes to only a certain region of it) is above high fantay. He created a world with a functional timeline that is full of events from the creation to now (look in his letters.) His world had multiple lanhuaged full of complexity that rivals modern day languages. Almost ALLL fantasy stories wouldn't exist if not for Tolkien's world.
Not a lot of people know that the world is Arda, so props to you! I usually just refer to it as Middle Earth because it's more recognizable and easier to explain hahaha. And yes, it is absolutely the most fleshed out world in all of fiction. How many authors create a fantasy world based around fictional languages? It's so freaking cool.
You should check out Terry Pratchett's Discworld Series if you haven't read it yet. The series can be read in any order. I would suggest a book like _Hogfather_ to start with. My favorite, though, is _The Fifth Elephant_ .
@@aidanpocock I suppose you’d have to call the Discworld series high fantasy because it’s definitely set on another world with no connection to ours; there are wizards, witches, dwarfs, vampires, werewolves, golems, Death, the Auditors, and so on and so forth. And yet there’s a rather down-to-earth feel about it; the characters speak and behave much like normal people from our own world. It also tends to be funny; although Pratchett has his serious side, the books are not pure comedy, and some of them are relatively serious.
I get what you are saying, but I am not so sure its true. I think when people say they dont like high fantasy - or just fantasy, in general - its more that they would just prefer to read a different genre, rather than they dont actually like it. Few would argue with calling the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the ultimate high fantasy series. Those four books have sold more copies than almost every other book, in all of time. You just cannot reach those numbers with only fantasy readers.
I think there is still a massive fan base for fantasy, but that is just due to how many people there are in the world. I do feel like it's one of the less mainstream genres out there, and maybe it's just my personal experience, but I've met so many people who have no interest in it, or just straight up hate it.
You classified Avatar: The Last Airbender as being High Fantasy, and I wholeheartedly agree with that, but what about Legend of Korra? It is obviously set on the same planet as ATLA, but its 1920s-inspired aesthetic brings in many more elements that make it feel more similar to the real world-cars, radios, movies, telephones, etc. Would that maybe be another example of Middle Fantasy?
Hmmm, that's an interesting question, I hadn't thought of that. I do think that Legend of Korra might start dipping into middle fantasy. Not because the world itself has necessarily lost any of its fantastical foundation, (the spirit world is a huge part of that series) but because the story itself seems to lean away from magical elements and focus more on industrialization and tech powered antagonists as the driving forces for the narrative. To me, industry and fantasy don't always mix super well. I know some people tend to disagree, but in my personal opinion, there is a threshold before a show becomes middle or low fantasy. Even the original ATLA pushes the boundaries a little bit with the inclusion of war balloons and submarines. Everyone has different opinions and tastes for fantasy genres, but I do know that I myself struggle with steampunk content, and prefer shows set in a pre-modern society. So I did struggle with Korra a little bit because of that.
I have found some high fantasy set during the industrial revolution time period dnd's world of eberron which has all the characteristics of high fantasy but it is just set during the industrial revolution era
That's really cool! I haven't seen a lot of high fantasy like that! I guess the legend of Korra could count for that, as could Mistborn era 2, and I enjoyed those both. So maybe I should check out some more
You don’t seem to know what you’re talking about at all. There isn’t even a term “low fantasy” and “high fantasy” doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of “fantasy-ness”. Moreover, asserting something like the Wizarding World, definite _Urban Fantasy_ , is “lower” in fantasy is silly. It has high levels of magic, where there are also fantasy settings with little magic, like Middle Earth or Westeros, and even no magic, like Gor. Further, LotR and GoT aren’t High Fantasy. They’re _Epic Fantasy_ like Shannara, Dragonlance, the Belgariad, etc. High Fantasy usually consists of one or two adventuring protagonists, rarely involves saving the world, and are exemplified by the likes of Conan, Kull, Elric, and Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser. Their closest relatives are Planetary Romance (John Carter of Barsoom, Adam Strange, Flash Gordon), and Dying Earth (mostly Jack Vance’s stories, but crossing over to D&D’s Dark Sun setting). I don’t know why. I didn’t name it.
This stuff isn’t a matter of opinion. These terms have definite definitions. There’s no “to me, high fantasy means…”. You can have opinions as to what label or labels a work falls under, but what they _are_ is a prescriptive reality, otherwise you may as well just be speaking another language.
I think a lot of definitions can fit into one another sort of like Russian nesting dolls. And also I disagree, there are numerous definitions of fantasy that people can't seem to settle on. But the main thing used to categorize high fantasy is whether it takes place on our world or another. Saying Lord of the Rings is low fantasy is something that many people often assume due to it's involvement of magic but I don't think that's entirely the determining factor there. Moreover, the Lord of the Rings universe is brimming with magic, regardless of whether the story we are told with Frodo personally observes all that much. I think the distinction I could make if you are arguing for Lotr to be included in Low fantasy, would be to agree that perhaps the third age is on a lower fantastical scale, but everything that came before that is absolutely brimming with magic and wonder. The first age of middle earth is on a whole other level.
i can't stand the bland self-insert characters in children's fantasy. their only purpose is for the reader to immerse themselves into a new world, but that almost never translates well into film
How would you classify something like Mount & Blade or Ace Combat, where there there are no supernatural elements, but the world it takes place on isn't Earth, with different landmasses and countries and history? An extreme version of low fantasy, or something else entirely?
If I can go ahead and make myself look foolish, I'll admit that I haven't read discworld, so I apologize that it wasn't included. It is on my list of things to do. Skyrim I would consider high fantasy, and if you want more of an explanation why, I just posted a new video going over Skyrim in detail
Another reference of Middle Fantasy could be Patrick Rothfuss' book series Kingkiller : a stro,gly built world, but explored step by step through the chronicles of a protagonist. And of course Robin Hobb's Farsseer Trilogy and its sequels
I'm personally rather fond of portal fantasy stories (or "isekai" if you will) since they practically always feature fish-out-of-water type main characters. That gives you a reason to explain stuff without blatantly info-dumping a lot of exposition, as the protagonist will be just as clueless about the setting as the reader. That way they can both learn everything they need to know together in a way that seems natural.
That's true, and it is a benefit of the genre. Though there are many other classic tropes authors use to convey the same thing. Oftentimes having a main character come from a backwater town and having little to no knowledge about the outside world ie, the Hobbits in the shire. Can help avoid all that needless exposition dumping that feels out of place
I respect your opinion but I absolutely love isekai. Or at least, the concept of it. When it’s done right (which is unfortunately not very often) it’s one of my favorite genres. Btw if you want a really good isekai, Ascendance of a Bookworm is superb. Highly recommend
There is some isekai that isn't too bad, but most of it just isn't really my cup of tea. Though I acknowledge there are really fun stories to be told in that genre!
Hold on... Isn't Low Fantasy primarily defined by not having a lot of explicitly unrealistic elements? Usually set in a pseudohistorical medieval setting? In which case, isn't Harry Potter about as far from Low Fantasy as it is possible to get? I mean explicit spellcasting with very poorly defined rules is pretty much classic High Fantasy fare. A Song of Ice & Fire is mostly Low Fantasy, though it differs from one character focus to another (Bran & Dany have more High Fantasy focus because their stories are more explicitly magical, while most of the rest is Low Fantasy). Heck, even the Lord of the Rings is lower fantasy than Harry Potter, as most of the magic is still "special". As in only specific individuals can command it while most are limited to purely physical means of going about their lives.
Maybe we think less linear and instead think of something like the political compass or the alignment chart of D & D. It is difficult to fit every story with fantastic elements in this low fantasy - high fantasy scheme, even if we introduce a middle state . Where does Stephen KIngs horror fit in? In IT you are in the real world, but there is a malignant supernatural present. We start in what we consider reality and suddenly reality is not what it we thought it was. There is science fiction that feels like fantasy, like Dune and Starwars. As you said, the superhero genre has it rules of its own and blends low fantasy with soft sf. Where to put the sword and sorcery stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser on the world Nowhen (part of a multiverse, as is earth, but Nowhen is a world full of magic, with a reasonable elaborated geography which should give it the status of high fantasy, although it is regarded low fantasy). Games of thrones feels like a cocktail of historical fiction and high fantasy. Etc. etc.
Well said. Other Middle Fantasy; Kathrine Kurtz Deryni Series. Placed in a middle ages setting, with Christianity, etc, but with an entirely different map of the world. Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover Series. Technically science fiction but set on a lost colony world where physic powers (basically magick) are cultivated in a feudal society where very different customs and ideas have emerged. The other one I can think of is the amazing Amber series by Zelazny that is set in a multiverse where the only true wold is Amber. The royalty of Amber can walk the shadows (worlds like our Earth) and travel through at the alternative possibilities.
I like how depending on the implementation of dragons, you can also kinda categorize the type of fantasy You have either the really whimsical fantasy world where dragons, are just these magic fantastical animals that exist (Zelda, Harry Potter, LoL, WoW.) Then you have the more grimdark or grounded worlds, where Dragons in lore either used to roam the world or even rule the world. Or have returned from a long absence and are these great beasts, that just terrorize everything and are like the pinnacle fantastical creature (God of War, Berserk, Dark Souls, Lotr, GoT, Skyrim.) It’s a pretty real thing in fantasy, I would say the way dragons are treated either as semi low level eldritch beings or as just oversized animals.
The thing with the MCU is that it shows that SF, especially Soft Science Fiction and Fantasy are basically the same thing just presented differently and the distinction between it is ultimately arbitrary.
I thought a pretty clear distinction is that high fantasy takes place in a non-Earth setting, which is pretty objective (although I guess there are weird gray lines like LotR)
I like to recommend the Riftwar Cycle by Raymond Feist. It keeps constantly shifting between middle fantasy (much of the story is very real war and politics) and high fantasy (powerful magic users, and demon hordes).
Awesome! I'll be sure to add that to my list! I've definitely got a lot of homework to do after this video hahaha There have been so many great recommendations
My favorite genre of modern novels is literary RPG. Don't know if it's a genre by itself or just a subgenre of fantasy. It combines classical fantasy with progression of RPG games. I think it started with Chinese web novels. These are mainly based on Taoism and Chinese mythology. The character starts young, usually 15 years old and grows and trains through the story, explores the world, fights for resources and gear, etc. Depending on the novel, by the end of the story the MC can be 30-50 years old, close to 100 or couple of thousand years old. Chinese novels usually feature brutal martial arts based world where strong rule with iron fist while weak are just stepping stones. The Taoist element is training through meditation, or "cultivation" of inner energy which is the foundation of magic system. Everything passively absorbs energy in these novels, so beasts and plants can become extremely strong over the centuries or millennia they survive. They feature hard magic system which differs from novel to novel. These novels are typically huge, thousands of pages long. My favorite among Chinese novels are Combat Continent aka Soul Land, some 4-5k pages long, which is overall quite good. It has a finished 3D anime. Its sequel Unrivaled Tang Sect, some 8k pages long, which is overall quite good too, but has some overdone love drama, and irrational extreme self-sacrifice for romance. It has a newly started ongoing 3D anime. Another good book is Martial World, 13k pages long. The sequel True Martial world I wouldn't recommend due to MC who is an arrogant prick. The series which is absolute best I read in this genre is Cradle by American author Will Wight. I wholeheartedly recommend it. It's a finished series of 12 books, about 1500 pages in total. It takes the best of Chinese Taoist fantasy, but without overlong descriptions of irrelevant characters and events. It features great writing (lost in fan translation of Chinese web novels), interesting story, and charming and memorable characters. Another good example are comic books, fully colored. Finished Chinese Wu Geng Ji, which has an ongoing 3D anime. And Korean Skeleton Soldier couldn't protect the dungeon. It's a great dark fantasy story, very interesting with heavy RPG mechanics.
Since you brought up a possible Middle Fantasy catergory I've been wondering where you would put "The Chronicles of Narnia" series by C.S. Lewis? *watches another 5 seconds of the video* Ok! Never mind! *facepalm*
I don't think Middle Fantasy should be a genre, it's multiple separate sub-genres such Grimdark, Sword and Sorcery and Portal Fantasy. Also A Song of Ice and Fire is not High Fantasy at all. It doesn't meet any of the aspects of High Fantasy except being in a fantasy world. It's Grimdark Sword and Sorcery. It meets all the requirements for both Grimdark and Sword and Sorcery.
Fantasy that I like: Discworld (but only if you have a sense of humor) The Belgariad series (and its successors) The Sparhawk universe series (not called that, but that's what they are, and you can find it this way) The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (mid-fantasy, but I can't tell if you'll like it or not. The MC believes he's hallucinating, and it's not even clear if he's _wrong_ about that, but he isn't making constant reference to the real world other than things like how he isn't used to walking long distances and such, which has nothing to do with the real world per se, and that MC is an interesting person who isn't a 'purely good guy', but instead someone who is deeply, deeply flawed and does some horrific things) One high-fantasy thing you don't mention: Star Wars. It's high-fantasy with nuts and bolts. You're literally walking around with _space wizards_ who can do... well, whatever the plot needs them to do (every movie the list of things they can do just gets longer and longer, until by the end of the sequel trilogy it's become _utterly_ ridiculous and actually has me no longer caring about the series). What I find interesting about high fantasy being disliked is how much almost all of us were willing to engage with it when we were young. Spongebob Squarepants. My Little Pony. He-Man. Transformers: Beast Wars. Avatar, The Last Airbender. One Piece. These were all _fantastically_ popular fantasy, and definitely _high_ fantasy as the worlds were either not connected _at all,_ or only superficially (like in Spongebob), and yet kids loved them. Maybe it's the split between animation and live-action which drives this idea that we're supposed to take the live action more seriously? Anyway, have a nice day!
I'd lump the Gentleman Bastard sequence in with the middle fantasy category for the same reason as ASOIAF. There's barely any magic in it, even when the story focuses on the wizards, but it is a completely fictional world.
I feel like you are making an equasion between Myth/ Legend(arium) and Fantasy, but it could be argued that they are not the same and have different goals, pourpouses. It also seems like you are equating Low Fantasy with what would be classically called "Fantastical" / "Fantastique" stories/ worldbuilding. (There is also a discussion of Soft vs. Hard Worldbuilding to be made here and their relations to what you call Low and High Fantasy.)
"I personally enjoy isekai and reincarnation tales like Mushoku Tensei and Moonlit Fantasy. The unique characters exploring a new world, their growth throughout the journey, and the diverse cultures and creatures encountered make it a captivating experience. Additionally, the strategic elements in overcoming challenges and the blend of humor and emotional depth keep me hooked. What's not to like? Maybe you just ran into too many generic copy cats, it's happened to a lot of stories including LOTR. Just look closely and I think you'll find the originals to be very enjoyable.
So I would shift both GOT and Chronicles of Narnia into High Fantasy, then add Star Wars as middle fantasy. The Force is Magic, Ben Kenobi is basically Gandolf the Grey and Lightsabers are Excaliber.
One key of Tolkien success is the fact that the hobbit society is very close to the English one of Tolkien’s time. The first chapters of LOTR are low fantasy in many ways as they mainly describe normal people lifes. And during all the story, Tolkien keep reminding us this normal life, from Merry and Pippin smoking in Isengard or Sam preparing rabbits not far from Minas Morgul. Tolkien was well aware of the effort needed to enter his world and made everything possible to help his readers. He opposed to the publication of the Silmarillon for that reason : the lack of hobbits of equivalent made it too hard to read to be published as a good story.
I'm writing a series that takes place in a completely fictional world, on another planet in another galaxy in another time, but there are only a few fantastical elements (such as psychic communication with sapient whales and visions of the future). The world though is kind of like the real world at the turn of the 20th century in terms of technology, but all its nations and cultures are unanalagous to the real world. There's a British Empire type great power but they're bronze skinned people from the equator and militant atheists who revere science. All this to say, labeling my series' genre - especially for the purposes of querying literary agents - is a huge pain in the ass. If I call it high fantasy, people think dragons and elves. I can't call it urban fantasy because that's more "vampires in New York City". Most recently I've been going with "second-world fantasy." I have a feeling this genre problem with irk me for years to come though.
I admit I intuitively understand these definitions differently (but at the same time I don't claim my understanding to be the 'right one'). The Lord of the Rings feels to me relatively low fantasy because magic and other 'unworldly' events are rather subtle and spare. Yes, this is a completely fictional world with 'races' that don't really exist in the real world, but at the same time, this world is not that different to our world. Let us compare this to many computer games, like Skyrim, for example, where there is a plethora of magic scrolls probably every farmer knows a spell or two, and true magicians cast fireballs in all directions. This is what I would call high fantasy. From this perspective, Harry Potter is a higher fantasy to me, than Lord of the Rings, honestly.
GoT delivers elements of high fantasy in a Trojan horse disguised as middle or low fantasy. The further into the series, the more magic is brought back into the world, and before you know it you have wights and white walkers, dragons, blood magic, children of the forest, warging, warlocks at The House of the Undying, the Faceless Men, etc
I'd beg to differ. From my point of view, the level of fantasy is more about how grand and other worldly the magic system and creatures are, rather than whether or not it takes place in another world. Now, there's some merit to the idea of needing to learn a lot of history and lore and rules that apply to a different world, but I'd argue that something like Harry Potter, despite taking place on Earth, is actually a quite high level of fantasy, just because of how abundant and physics-defying the magic is. In a certain sense LOTR is actually more grounded in reality than Harry Potter
The Old warcraft books are some great fantasy books! you dont really need to play the games until you reach around book 14. personaly i would recommend "The war of the ancient" trilogy and "World of Warcraft: Chronicles of War".
I’ve often struggled with what genre a story with a world like that featured in the Mount & Blade games would be. Basically it’s a fictional world that has medieval institutions and technology, but lacking in fantasy races or magic. Would it be fantasy at all? If so, would it be low or middle? (I’m doubtful it would be high.) If not, what would it be? Medieval fiction set in another world? I’m particularly drawn to this type of world-building as I am a big fan of fantasy, but also of ancient and medieval history, so I find myself often being more drawn to stories that are more grounded in realistic political dynamics (not that magic and monsters necessarily take away from that) and human-driven conflicts. As such, I am also very interested in medieval and ancient historical fiction, which I find to be a vastly underrated genre of literature.
I would considere GoT aas high fantasy. Using magic less often makes it feel more powerfull and impactfull, in other stories its overused in my opinion. I still can understand why it doesnt "feel" like high fantasy, but I think we shouldnt compare everything to Lord of the Rings to determin if its high fantasy.
For a few years, I have been developing and writing some stories for a world that would have to be considered fantasy, but has less fantastical elements than low fantasy. There are no magic systems, or active deities, or fantastical races. It is based heavily on the real world but with entirely different geography which heavily influences cultures, and a very different history. Some plants and animals are real, others are extinct in real life, and others are made up, including dragons. Some of these differences are more realistic or fantastical than others. I can think of a few other fantasy series with similarly minimal fantastical elements apart from being in a different world, such as Redwall and Ranger's Apprentice. I read both of these from a rather young age. All the characters in Redwall are small animals, sure, but in the dozen or so books I read, I don't really remember anything explicitly magical or otherworldly on a different level. In the Ranger's Apprentice series, there are a couple of fantastical races in the first two books, but they never appear again and from that point on, the whole series scrupulously avoids anything fantastical. The realistic sense is even furthered in the eleventh book anthology, which contains a section following archeologists recovering centuries old documents pertaining to the lives of the series' main characters. I also read the Warriors series, which is set in an apparently contemporary world following cats, with some mythology, making it more like low fantasy, perhaps, though it is still very grounded feeling. I'm not sure what to call this kind of fantasy, perhaps just extra-low fantasy, or alternative universe fiction in a historically inspired setting, or fantasy by technicality. This is not to say that I don't like higher fantasy. I have long enjoyed Tolkien's works, had enjoyed Harry Potter, and more recently have read other fantasy series, including the Cosmere, the First Law, and ASoIaF. I developed a magic system some years ago, but haven't come up with a story to pair it with.
Iron Man, Spiderman, Ant man, and Batman are sci fi -- normal people augmented by futuristic technology. But the others are supernaturals in the fantasy genre.
ASOIAF doesn't fit nicely because it requires us to use one of the other categories. Technically all fantasy falls somewhere on the low to high spectrum but for a lot of settings this label isn't the most useful one. ASOIAF for example falls into Sword and Sorcery. Works in this category are not usually high fantasy, but tend to be higher than other non high fantasy works.
I found two definitions on low fantasy in Wikipedia. The first one, which you used for this video: "Low fantasy, or intrusion fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy fiction in which magical events intrude on an otherwise-normal world." The second one reads: "An alternative definition, rests on the story and characters being more realistic and less mythic in scope." I much more prefer the second one. By the first definition GoT, a world where the everyday life of mostly every inhabitant is like the life of a medieval person, is said to be high fantasy. And Harry Potter puts us in such a fantastical world where simple things like eating, reading the newspaper and transportation are magical, and that should be classified as magical? I find this distinction by the first definition not even corresponding with the name of the low/high fantasy genre. I prefer the term intrusion fantasy to describe the first and high/low to describe the second.
GoT as middle fantasy works just fine. Same could be said for any alternative timeline story like Man in a castle or Wolfenstein. Especially if they have supernatural elements or sci fi ones (middle sci fi?)
I honestly don't agree with your use of our world as the main distinguishing criterium. Imho it's much more important how much a world works like ours rather than being a version or extension thereof. In that regard I'd count Narnia very much as High and a Song of Ice and Fire as Low Fantasy. Also stakes of conflict a very important to me here. Narnia is a struggle between good and evil with the fate of a world often at stake, whereas Ice and Fire for the most part is about political intrigue and individuals ambitions.
Garth Nix's books in his "Abhorsen" or "North Kingdom" series are some of my favorite fantasy books of all time, they feel so different than any other piece of fantasy content. You should check out at least the first book in the series "Sabriel".
Where would real life mythology fall under? Most of them take place in a fantastical form of our world or involve our world but often, with loads of fantasy elements including magic and monsters.
My favorite Low fantasy genre is Skulduggery Pleasant which i highly recommend I find the magic system a lot better than harry potter and like the characters a lot more
The Dragonlance Chronicles are a favorite high fantasy series of mine. There are dozens of books set in that universe, but I think the original two trilogies (six books) are the best.
I wonder if there are any lessons for the Republican party from the dissolution of the Whig party, since the party has to undergo some kind of transition.
For a great modern fantasy series, I would recommend the Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. It is similar to Game of Thrones in that magic is limited and there aren't too many monsters in the series compared to other worlds like Lord of the Rings
There's the Rivers of London series, which is Low Fantasy (sort of what if Harry Potter became a London detective), and the roots of LOTR come from the Norse Sagas as well as the Prose and Poetic Eddas.
There's one high fantasy setting people forget to put into the genre: Star Wars. It's got -fantasy- alien races, -samurai templar space wizards- Jedi, -magical powers- the force and everything. It's not sci-fi, like the Interstellar, Star Trek or the Expanse, but high fantasy shoved into space. Another example of this genre would be Warhammer. It's a high fantasy setting, and when the authors put it in space, it became way more popular. Space fantasy definitely is a genre separate from sci-fi.
GoT is heavily rooted in European history. Martin draws a lot of the stories from real life events. The Red Wedding is Glencoe. The names of characters are just slight variations of English names like Robb, Caitlyn, Dany, Arya, Jon, etc. That's why it feels like Middle Fantasy, because there are so many touches of real world events and people in them even if they are barely disguised.
The War of the Roses is basically just GoT without dragons and snow zombies. The intrigue is insane! And it's real.
The war of the roses is crazy, and I agree, I think that inspiration is what leads to GoT feeling so grounded. It's a very human conflict.@@gabriellynch2764
@@aidanpocock Being inspired heavily by the Wars of the Roses has nothing to do with it. It's down to the fact that it's a drama and not an adventure. I think it's high fantasy despite our preconceived ideas
@@jamesalexander958I think the world is high fantasy because of the depth of the story. Similar to Tolkien, Martin was able to build up a rich myth and lord of his world which makes it high fantasy to me.
@@Catherine.Dorian. agreed
I agreed with your division of high and low fantasy and then immediately went wait what about Narnia then and you introduced a solution to the problem right away. Very well thought out definitely liking this and looking into your account more
That's incredibly kind of you! I've been having a blast making content and engaging with the fantasy community, I'm excited to keep making more videos!
@@aidanpocock please do so, I subscribed and am looking forward to seeing more from you!
Yeah I usually call the Cosmere secondary world high fantasy, ASOIAF is secondary world low fantasy, LOTR is high primary world fantasy, Harry Potter is primary/intrusive low fantasy, Narnia is secondary world high portal fantasy.
I do agree with your points on Isekai/people transported to the fantasy world issue despite being a big fan of the trope. Personally unless you are making a comedy where the point is making fun of the absurdity of the world, its important for immersion for the characters to get used to the world and accept what is happening to them. Basically be shocked and confused by the world at first but be accepting of the new reality by the end of the prologue with the only questioning of it being for explanation of material that the reader needs exposition for.
AN interesting discussion I have seen with this type of story telling is whether it is even necessary in some stories. there are many stories, especially in manga or JRPGs, where the person is reincarnated or transported to the new world but after the "prologue" the character barely acknowledges the fact that they have been transported to a new world or anything about their old life. Leading to some feeling that the story could have just been written with the character being a normal denizen of the world and the writer is just using this as a crutch to explain why the character needs exposition dumps in the beginning of the story.
Never heard of this kind of terminology, but this was interesting.
Great video. Agree with your stances. Thanks for the book recommendations! A favorite high fantasy book series of mine has always been Deltora Quest. Read the series way back in elementary school 25 years ago and it’s stuck with me since.
Thanks for the recommendation! And I'm glad you enjoyed the video! I'll add that book to my list!
I love both types of fantasy but I find myself leaning towards low fantasy more often. I find high fantasy tends to feel very samey. The worlds follow all the same tropes just with different names and faces. Low fantasy might always use more of the real world but the fantasy twist is always unique to that series.
That's a good point! And it can really be fun to see how magic would integrate with the world we know. Plus, I think the mere concept that our mundane world could be hiding magical secrets behind every corner, is a really fun way to look at life
Well, that’s one way of classifying fantasies, and I suppose it makes sense. I wonder what you’d think of the World of the Five Gods series from Lois McMaster Bujold, which is a relatively modern and award-winning series: starting in 2001 with “The Curse of Chalion”, and now consisting of four novels and eleven novellas. It’s definitely set on another world with no connection to ours; but the other world is similar to Earth (in mediæval times). There are the five gods (who appear quite rarely), humans, demons, saints, and shamans, but no other fantastic elements (no dragons or other fantastic creatures). A demon can live only by inhabiting some other living creature; a human inhabited by a demon is known as a sorcerer if he/she manages to control the demon. He/she can then learn to perform magic, with the aid of the demon. Demons don’t die of old age; when their host dies, they choose another host (who has to be nearby at the time). But they can be killed by a god in some circumstances.
I suppose you’d have to call this high fantasy, but it’s moderate high fantasy. There are relatively few fantastic elements, and the magic is fairly low-key: there are limits to what sorcerers can do. Although the author doesn’t tie herself down by specifying what the limits are. One definite limit is that, if a sorcerer kills anyone by magic, the demon dies; so they have to be careful!
I wrote a high fantasy book. Although it’s incredibly difficult to get a literary agent so it’s not published yet.
I feel that, I haven't even tried looking for one. But one day I plan on pursuing it with more effort. Good luck! I hope you find one!
A fantasy book series I really enjoyed ist The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott. I'm not sure though whether it is low or mid fantasy according to your scale, however I recommend to read those 6 books.
I'll definitely add it to the list! Thanks for recommending it!
@@aidanpocock I'm very interested to hear in what category it fits on your scale.
Is no one going to mention Star Wars?? It’s one of the most in depth High Fantasy stories ever. Hands down
I did fail to mention it in this video. But I'm going to be bringing it up in this weeks upcoming video.
World of Warcraft is also a masterful example of High Fantasy with great lore and great universe-building.
World of Warcraft is sick
This is an interesting perspective. What is called low fantasy here, is often referred to as urban fantasy, which is fantasy elements in a modern setting. Although low fantasy is often simply only a few fantastic elements in general. A sword and sorcery story with barbarians fighting monstrous beasts is also often called low fantasy, because there may be some magic in the background, and it takes place on a different world, but the thrust of the story is at a human level.
That is very interesting. Like I mentioned I think there are lots of different ways people categorize fantasy, and I’m still surprised id never heard of urban fantasy before.
@@aidanpocockif you‘re keen on checking out urban fantasy, I can highly recommend the Rivers of London series, it‘s a great series with a very interesting magic system
6:06 the thing with the elves is in German there is a difference between "Elfen" and "Elben" both are in most cases translated to "elves" in English. I know Tolkien wrote his books in English, but he had many parts of Germanic/Nordic tales in mind while doing so. For the German translation he insisted to use "Elben" and not "Elfen". And Elben are in old German or Nordic tales far more humanlike in appearence and Elfen are still more like the small creatures. So in German he never redefined what the word Elb in a Fantasy book means. But of course because it was redefined in English often lower quality translations of newer fantasy books from English to German use Elfen where in my opinion Elben would be far more appropriate.
EDIT: some spelling mistakes
I would personally call a Song of Ice and Fire high fantasy with low magic (I'd call LOTR high-high and Harry Potter low-high for reference)
I like that distinction, maybe i’ll have to make a tier list or something where I label every project accordingly hahaha
Wouldn’t call the book series low magic exactly with all the stuff that has been shown so far with all the warging, dead coming back to life, dragons, euron stuff and everything else . Tv show def is though
I agree with what you said with ASOIAF. I wouldn't class that as high fantasy either. There is a reason why it's so popular. The world feels real and grounded, the magic isn't over the top, the characters are realistic and are always at risk of dying. The world of Game of Thrones is one of the best out there, alongside Middle-Earth.
When people bash fantasy, it usually just tells you they lack any kind of imagination. Fantasy is amazing, and is so much more diverse than the same bland thing we see in every day life.
I completely agree, I wish there wasn't such a stigma around fantasy content. It does seem like it's gotten slightly more mainstream in recent years, but it's still one of the lesser appreciated genres.
I think that while tv series is exactly what you say the books have so much more to them if you really delve deep into them. Mystery of azor ahai mellisandre doing weird shit and other characters like patches or qouthe have much more then meets the eye. Ofc it is grounded and very similar to our world yet so diffrent i think that when its finished it will deserve place in high fantasy
I would still classify it as high fantasy. For me, the level of "grounded" doesn't matter, what matters is that it is an entirely new fantastic world different from ours. If it was for the "grounded" feeling, then the Harry Potter series should be classified as high fantasy because it has more over the top magic than ASOIAF, yet, I would still place Harry Potter as low fantasy because it still happens in England.
ITs Like G.R.R.M didn;t want magic but felt like he needed to have it .
@@aleximalmgren5301Nah. Grrm has a bunch of magic. Asoiaf is inherently magical.
Funny, these terms are used differently in my country (Czech Republic) or at least I have always understand them differently (I basically grew up on fantasy and sci-fi books). Figh fantasy always meant for me fantasy story focusing on promoting great ideals, moral black and white, etc. example would be LotR where bad characters are pure evil wanting world domination and good characters want's to selflessly save the world. And low fantasy meaning more realistic approach, where all characters have understandable motivations, sometimes intentionally doing bad things to fulfill them, sometimes doing good. Example would be The Witcher.
Amazing way on putting it
Odd. Gollum is neither good nor evil. A lot of the elves, Feanor to name one, are not black or white either. The general setting may be ine of good vs evil, but the characters populating middle earth rarely are 100% of any flavour. Think of boromir too…
One of Tolkien's main themes is that nothing is truly evil in the beginning. Not even Morgoth or Sauron, so I completely agree. I think that almost everyone in Tolkien's works have some level of "grayness"@@stoned3225
I think it is somewhat bold to say "my own scale, which is basically on par with how most people divide them up", especially considering that you put the Marvel Cinematic universe in there with dimension travelling world ending magic powers, time travel and spacefaring cyber-wizardry using gods. I think this could potentially work as an alternative scale to the classic dual level scale, but could use a bit more criteria than intuition. Also your particular scale creates a very big overlap between low and urban fantasy, which regardless of whether that's good, bad, intentional or unintentional might be something you want to keep in mind or expand upon at some point.
Great video on the technical side from audio to visuals over script! Well done!
Thank you! And yeah, the more I’m learning about urban fantasy, the more I suppose I would just consider it apart of low fantasy as a whole. But it is a good distinction to make. I do think it would be interesting to take every marvel movie and rank where it lies on the scale from sci-fi to fantasy
@@aidanpocock If you work out a couple rigorous criteria for a Low/Mid/High scale, that would make for a banger tier list like video with opportunity for community engagement - definitely a great idea! Hope you keep up the videos
@@omen5000to be fair high fantasy effectively does fit marvel more so then low I think. It is earth but a almost entirely different earth, science is completely different, there's magic, gods, the only thing that it really fits low fantasy wise is in being based off of modern earth, but realistically it's so generally different that I think it can't be considered low. A case for middle could be made, but when you think low fantasy you think Harry Potter in that it's just the real world but there's some magic, there's sooo much more to marvel that makes it impossible to say it's low fantasy
This is a great video, with useful information, well done dude! Don't forget that George Lucas considers his Star Wars as fantasy! And what tthe author says is the only thing that defines it. People often misrepresent it as sci-fi, and it has minimal ties to sci-fi, Star Wars is a space fairy tale - a high fantasy. A great genre, old as the human civilisation itself!
Thank you! That's very kind!
I agree, Star Wars has always felt a bit fantasy to me. It was one of my favorite series growing up
Yea, it's hard to really call it sci-fi when there's barely any science in it. Instead we have old monk orders feuding with magic, which is pretty fantasy.
First trilogy only.
Star Wars is a combined genre of sci fi and fantasy except in recent years they have focused on the sci fi part
Star Wars ended in 2005. There are no recent years- that Disney joke and excrement is not Star Wars. @@seriousnesstv7902
bro, vid is so professionally made, got shocked that u have 28 subs. u gained a new one brother, glad to be here from the beginning ❤💪🏽
Thank you! That’s extremely kind of you to say! I’ve been super bored job hunting lately and have decided to make some TH-cam videos to keep myself busy and practice my editing skills. It’s been a ton of fun and I’m really enjoying it!
@@aidanpocock keep up the good work. hope that one day when ure famous, i will proudly say that i was there from the beginning 🔥🔥
I was sure while watching this is one of those professional Channels going deep into Geek Theory about different fantasy Universes, which I just love. Seeing that is not the case surprised me a lot. So you get a new subscriber today.
I'd consider the Abhorsen series of books to be a good example of Middle Fantasy.
Two bordering nations, one like England between the wars, and the other is a High Fantasy world, but both the worlds do have some impact on each other.
Magic system is easy enough to understand.
Fun series to read.
Those books are great! Good example
Will always stand by the opinion that star wars is high fantasy.
40k would probably the highest of high fantasy/sci-fi
I have yet to explore 40k, but it sounds pretty cool so I’d love to check it out. It also seems pretty daunting, what’s the best way you recommend approaching it?
40k is high on coke my man
@@aidanpocock There's a huge amount of 40k lore-based content on YT, and with that many creators have at least one video where they recommend a starting point for delving into the lore (usually by way of the novels/novellas put out by Black Library). They mostly suggest starting small with some short story collections to see if you enjoy the setting and then working your way up to the novels and novel series. I personally jumped in face-first and started with book 1 (of more than 50) of The Horus Heresy series, because I was given a set of models when I was much younger and became obsessed with reading the rulebook (which is lore-rich in its own right) so knew I was already interested in the universe and lore.
On the YT side, I highly recommend Leutin09 who resparked my interest in 40k lore after over a decade of putting it to the side.
@@hectorsilva4599 totally {sniffs}
Alright, wish me luck hahaha@@caradders
I would personally also put Star Wars into the fantasy category, but in its own subgenre of space fantasy.
While many people would label Star Wars as sci-fi after taking a cursory glance, I would argue that the universe has far more fantasy elements (magical wizards, various sapient species, massive lore and history, disregard for scientific laws and realism, epic good vs evil battles, and complex character relationships) than sci-fi ones. After all, Star Wars is set "a long time ago," and the technology acts more like the magical constructs of Lord of the Rings than the scientifically realistic tech of Star Trek. Hell, Star Wars never even explains why gravity exists in their spaceships, and the ships themselves are designed not with practical spaceship design principles in mind, but rather following the rule of cool.
IMO, only two Star Wars pieces break from the fantasy genre, and those are Andor and Resistance; however, every other piece falls somewhere along the fantasy spectrum. The Original Trilogy, Rebels, The Bad Batch, and the Book of Boba Fett feel more Middle Fantasy, while the Prequels, the Sequels, The Clone Wars, the Obi-Wan series, The Mandalorian, and ESPECIALLY the Ahsoka series all feel more High Fantasy except mediæval earthlike society is replaced with multiple worlds of a galaxy far far away
I would have to agree with you here. I'd love to make a video exploring Star Wars someday, it's one of my favorite works!
Although im a big Lotr fan, i gotta say that low fantasy can be pretty awesome as well, as my second favorite saga is the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver. An extremely realistic prehistoric setting with just a little shamanism and otherwordly entities, and she managed to write a story that literally changed my life
I’m a pretty big fan of low fantasy as well, I’d love to check out that series! It sounds cool!
@@aidanpocock do it when you can, It might surprise you🔥
Do, I read them a few years ago and I really like the Stone Age setting which sets it out against almost everything else which is either modern or medieval and as a result it’s much more memorable than most other series
@@person-hq2xq well said mate
Whoa, big fan of Wolf Brothers (as the series was translated in my language) and recognised Michelle Paver's name, never knew the series was originally named that! Was a huge fan of the books growing up, haven't read them in over a decade now, but all books are still on my bookshelf right next to me. I agree that it's a very good series (the first two books in particular are favourites of mine), and like someone else said here, the setting in particular really is a standout.
4:14 That is such a shallow description though. If you were to ask me why I like Harry Potter, I would probably say the overarching story is good, the characters are really well-written, the mystery writing is gripping, and the themes are good. I think most Harry Potter fans would agree with my opinion.
Malazan Book of the Fallen is the greatest fantasy world and story ever developed and I’m a big fantasy geek. Highly recommend
This is also my favorite series together with the other novels from Erikson in the same world and even the novels from his high school friend Esslemont are good. As they build the world together, though Erikson is the better writer.
@@thomasamsler3842 Well said, although my opinion is that Esslemont is enjoyable for reasons separate from Erikson. They do different things w their part of the world and they do those things expertly
Omg omg my absolute favorite books! I’m obsessed lol. Hard read but even better as a reread and fun to research. Liked Esslemont’s books but not as much. But any world building in the malazan world is a win win!!
Nice video - my understanding is you mean the more fully immersed we are in the alternate reality, the higher the fantasy - this seems a very consistent and straightforward approach, and useful - for my part, I do make a distinction between fantasy and myth - myth seems like us just framing reality as a society in a way to draw out underlying meaning - I think it has something to do w how our minds work, how we use storytelling and metaphor in our thought process - but I think Tolkien was a pioneer in fantasy, a newer genre where the goal is precisely to escape into such a different world
- Tolkien was wishing that England had a different mythos than it did, in a way that would tie into England's national identity, and so he set out to create one, like Dr Frankenstein setting out to create his own artificial life form, that would correspond w his ideals
- myth and legend are dipping into a shared communal pool, like Mallory and TH White each tapping the Arthurian legends for their own respective generations, or Dante and Milton each feeding into our shared ideas of Heaven and Hell
- Tolkien tried this, but seemed unsatisfied, and so instead he constructed his own cosmos from scratch, to bring the readers into a world entirely inside his own mind, informed by his own cosmic rules and lore, modeled on his vast scholarship re how such rules work, which also tied to his language background and his creation of new languages - he created synthetic myths to go w his fictitious languages, and set up a giant frame to house them
- I think this is what's different about fantasy as a genre, in a way that intersects w both myth and religion, but is also set apart from them - it frames its reality in mythic terms, but within a context that's cut off from the legacy of heritage, and exists in the mind of its respective author (all the better to copyright? I would also actually include certain space operas like Star Wars among your high fantasy category, since they seem less interested in science, and more in the metaphysical forces that inform fantasy)
- and your categorization seems a fine way to consider fantasy on its own terms -
I'd love to make a video talking about Tolkien's approach to creating Middle Earth, since I think it's one of the coolest stories
The show absolutely of ASoIAF is middle fantasy cause they toned down the magic and dumb and dumber were embarrassed they were making a fantasy show. The books tho are totally high fantasy
Yes I agree. I should’ve brought up the distinctions between the book and the tv show. That’s a really good point.
4:07 in reality, those people usually don’t understand Harry Potter on propuse bc they don’t share the same political opinions as the author so they can insult her even more, it’s more about they previously hating Harry Potter for their political opinions and the hating it in order to insult the author.
The Belgariad by David Eddings is by far and away the most underrated fantasy series that very few people know about
Thanks for letting me know! I’ll add that to my list of books to check out!
Why is it underrated
I started with the Belgariad. It isn't my favourite fantasy (LOTR) but is my second favourite and I've read a lot of fantasy. I highly recommend the audiobooks as well. Also there is a sequel series while not quite as good is still welcome because of how enjoyable the world and the characters are. The Elenium books are a fun ride as well.
Adore that series. Guy Gavriel Kays books are also incredible. the lloyd alexander books where also fun when I was young
The Chronicles of Prydain were some of my favorite books growing up. I would kill to see a new adaptation after the tragedy that was the Disney animated film. @@lpvrooom6714
I'm sorry but, Marvel is high fantasy. It's have a lot of rules and world building, etc.
Yeah, I remember when someone told me Harry Potter is fantasy and I was like "nah, for me Fantasy is like tolkien-fantasy with dragons and orcs, elfs, wizards and.... oh, wait...." Because I tried watching the original Lord of the Rings trilogy like 2 times and both times it didn't click for me. The movies felt very long with little plot, they were just traveling, being chased, traveling, being chased, traveling ect. I wanted more battle tactics or mysteries being investigated or more flashy action with special moves. So I associated that with fantasy, but the seperation to different style of fantasy really clears things up for me.
Turns out in the end I ended up liking eastern fantasy the most, which is often less indeph and more inspired by fantasy RPGs and MMOs instead of novels.
While Harry Potter is often held up as the typical low-fantasy, and LotR as the typical high-fantasy, I don't think that they're as low/high as people make out. This distinction is usually made purely on the basis that some of the locations of HP are our real-world, while LotR locations are made-up. But locations are not the only aspect of what makes something fantasy.
LotR is fairly limited in how much magic it involves. The number of people who can do magic is very small, and even then they use it sparingly. Most of the stuff that is going on in LotR involves things which we are familiar with from the real-world; people fight with swords and travel on horses, they farm fields and smith metal and wear real-world medieval clothing. Meanwhile, in Harry Potter magic is being used constantly, we're constantly being introduced to new magical abilities/objectes/creatures and navigating non-real-world rules of how stuff works or how people behave. I don't think the fact that a small number of chapters happen in real-world locations is enough to definitively make something low-fantasy.
It's not difficult to think of stories/IPs which are much much "higher" fantasy than LotR, and much much "lower" than Harry Potter.
Great video! Missed hearing about Star Wars or Star Treks role in the fantasy genre.
The Raven’s Shadow Trilogy by Anthony Ryan and The Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan are current favorites of mine. I would classify them as high fantasy and they’re the kind of books that I consider old friends and will go back and reread over and over again. I would also give the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire a look. These are a series of novellas that would fall under Isekai however they approach it in a different way. There is a school/home for children who have traveled to other worlds and found themselves back in our world. The problem is that they were happier and more suited to the other worlds and never wanted to come back to ours. The worlds are unique and not always nice but the one thing they have in common is that to someone they were more home than our world could ever be.
What's the name of the song playing in the background?
Ever heard about DragonLance?
hmmm, I feel like I've heard it mentioned before, but I don't know much about it, I'll have to check it out!
Nice vid mate, really well broken down. Subbed 🫵🏼
The name of the wind is a good high fantasy series
I like to believe that J.R.R Tolkien's world, the world of Arda (Middle earth referes to only a certain region of it) is above high fantay. He created a world with a functional timeline that is full of events from the creation to now (look in his letters.) His world had multiple lanhuaged full of complexity that rivals modern day languages. Almost ALLL fantasy stories wouldn't exist if not for Tolkien's world.
Not a lot of people know that the world is Arda, so props to you! I usually just refer to it as Middle Earth because it's more recognizable and easier to explain hahaha. And yes, it is absolutely the most fleshed out world in all of fiction. How many authors create a fantasy world based around fictional languages? It's so freaking cool.
You should check out Terry Pratchett's Discworld Series if you haven't read it yet. The series can be read in any order. I would suggest a book like _Hogfather_ to start with. My favorite, though, is _The Fifth Elephant_ .
That is high up on my list! I've heard endless good things about it!
@@aidanpocock I suppose you’d have to call the Discworld series high fantasy because it’s definitely set on another world with no connection to ours; there are wizards, witches, dwarfs, vampires, werewolves, golems, Death, the Auditors, and so on and so forth. And yet there’s a rather down-to-earth feel about it; the characters speak and behave much like normal people from our own world. It also tends to be funny; although Pratchett has his serious side, the books are not pure comedy, and some of them are relatively serious.
I love terry pratchet high fantasy
I get what you are saying, but I am not so sure its true. I think when people say they dont like high fantasy - or just fantasy, in general - its more that they would just prefer to read a different genre, rather than they dont actually like it. Few would argue with calling the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the ultimate high fantasy series. Those four books have sold more copies than almost every other book, in all of time. You just cannot reach those numbers with only fantasy readers.
I think there is still a massive fan base for fantasy, but that is just due to how many people there are in the world. I do feel like it's one of the less mainstream genres out there, and maybe it's just my personal experience, but I've met so many people who have no interest in it, or just straight up hate it.
You classified Avatar: The Last Airbender as being High Fantasy, and I wholeheartedly agree with that, but what about Legend of Korra? It is obviously set on the same planet as ATLA, but its 1920s-inspired aesthetic brings in many more elements that make it feel more similar to the real world-cars, radios, movies, telephones, etc. Would that maybe be another example of Middle Fantasy?
Hmmm, that's an interesting question, I hadn't thought of that. I do think that Legend of Korra might start dipping into middle fantasy. Not because the world itself has necessarily lost any of its fantastical foundation, (the spirit world is a huge part of that series) but because the story itself seems to lean away from magical elements and focus more on industrialization and tech powered antagonists as the driving forces for the narrative. To me, industry and fantasy don't always mix super well. I know some people tend to disagree, but in my personal opinion, there is a threshold before a show becomes middle or low fantasy. Even the original ATLA pushes the boundaries a little bit with the inclusion of war balloons and submarines. Everyone has different opinions and tastes for fantasy genres, but I do know that I myself struggle with steampunk content, and prefer shows set in a pre-modern society. So I did struggle with Korra a little bit because of that.
Pirates of the carrabian is the best low fantasy.
I have found some high fantasy set during the industrial revolution time period dnd's world of eberron which has all the characteristics of high fantasy but it is just set during the industrial revolution era
That's really cool! I haven't seen a lot of high fantasy like that! I guess the legend of Korra could count for that, as could Mistborn era 2, and I enjoyed those both. So maybe I should check out some more
Would the dark tower series be both?
You don’t seem to know what you’re talking about at all. There isn’t even a term “low fantasy” and “high fantasy” doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of “fantasy-ness”. Moreover, asserting something like the Wizarding World, definite _Urban Fantasy_ , is “lower” in fantasy is silly. It has high levels of magic, where there are also fantasy settings with little magic, like Middle Earth or Westeros, and even no magic, like Gor.
Further, LotR and GoT aren’t High Fantasy. They’re _Epic Fantasy_ like Shannara, Dragonlance, the Belgariad, etc. High Fantasy usually consists of one or two adventuring protagonists, rarely involves saving the world, and are exemplified by the likes of Conan, Kull, Elric, and Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser. Their closest relatives are Planetary Romance (John Carter of Barsoom, Adam Strange, Flash Gordon), and Dying Earth (mostly Jack Vance’s stories, but crossing over to D&D’s Dark Sun setting). I don’t know why. I didn’t name it.
This stuff isn’t a matter of opinion. These terms have definite definitions. There’s no “to me, high fantasy means…”. You can have opinions as to what label or labels a work falls under, but what they _are_ is a prescriptive reality, otherwise you may as well just be speaking another language.
I think a lot of definitions can fit into one another sort of like Russian nesting dolls. And also I disagree, there are numerous definitions of fantasy that people can't seem to settle on. But the main thing used to categorize high fantasy is whether it takes place on our world or another. Saying Lord of the Rings is low fantasy is something that many people often assume due to it's involvement of magic but I don't think that's entirely the determining factor there. Moreover, the Lord of the Rings universe is brimming with magic, regardless of whether the story we are told with Frodo personally observes all that much.
I think the distinction I could make if you are arguing for Lotr to be included in Low fantasy, would be to agree that perhaps the third age is on a lower fantastical scale, but everything that came before that is absolutely brimming with magic and wonder. The first age of middle earth is on a whole other level.
i can't stand the bland self-insert characters in children's fantasy. their only purpose is for the reader to immerse themselves into a new world, but that almost never translates well into film
I've felt the same way with many projects. I feel like the new Percy Jackson series struggled with that.
Six of Crows and its sequel and spinoffs and An Ember in the Ashes, and its sequels are good examples of modern high fantasy.
I've heard of Six of Crows, I just might have to check it out!
How would you classify something like Mount & Blade or Ace Combat, where there there are no supernatural elements, but the world it takes place on isn't Earth, with different landmasses and countries and history? An extreme version of low fantasy, or something else entirely?
In which catagory would you say does Terry Pratchet's Discworld series belong? Or games like The Witcher or Skyrim? 🙂
Yeah, I was expecting Discworld to be listed in the "Middle Fantasy" category.
If I can go ahead and make myself look foolish, I'll admit that I haven't read discworld, so I apologize that it wasn't included. It is on my list of things to do. Skyrim I would consider high fantasy, and if you want more of an explanation why, I just posted a new video going over Skyrim in detail
::Rubs eyes::
"Asian Peacock?"
::Squints::
"Oh! It's a name! Aidan Pocock!"
Hahaha yeah, sounds like what happens every time someone tries to spell my name with auto correct turned on.
Another reference of Middle Fantasy could be Patrick Rothfuss' book series Kingkiller : a stro,gly built world, but explored step by step through the chronicles of a protagonist. And of course Robin Hobb's Farsseer Trilogy and its sequels
Great reccomendations! I'll add them to the list!
Moatly with you but eye od the world is juat the title of book one for the wheel of time
You are totally correct, and I had that written in my script that way. I apologize for misspeaking
I'm personally rather fond of portal fantasy stories (or "isekai" if you will) since they practically always feature fish-out-of-water type main characters. That gives you a reason to explain stuff without blatantly info-dumping a lot of exposition, as the protagonist will be just as clueless about the setting as the reader. That way they can both learn everything they need to know together in a way that seems natural.
That's true, and it is a benefit of the genre. Though there are many other classic tropes authors use to convey the same thing. Oftentimes having a main character come from a backwater town and having little to no knowledge about the outside world ie, the Hobbits in the shire. Can help avoid all that needless exposition dumping that feels out of place
Mentions low fantasy. Show Harry Potter. Hahahahahahahahahahaha. Hah. Stops watching.
Do you not consider Harry Potter low fantasy? I'd love to hear you opinion on the matter!
I respect your opinion but I absolutely love isekai. Or at least, the concept of it.
When it’s done right (which is unfortunately not very often) it’s one of my favorite genres.
Btw if you want a really good isekai, Ascendance of a Bookworm is superb. Highly recommend
Agree 100% and its quite sad that Isekais/Portal fantasy are usually just not done right when it has literally infinite potential to be good.
There is some isekai that isn't too bad, but most of it just isn't really my cup of tea. Though I acknowledge there are really fun stories to be told in that genre!
Hold on... Isn't Low Fantasy primarily defined by not having a lot of explicitly unrealistic elements? Usually set in a pseudohistorical medieval setting? In which case, isn't Harry Potter about as far from Low Fantasy as it is possible to get? I mean explicit spellcasting with very poorly defined rules is pretty much classic High Fantasy fare. A Song of Ice & Fire is mostly Low Fantasy, though it differs from one character focus to another (Bran & Dany have more High Fantasy focus because their stories are more explicitly magical, while most of the rest is Low Fantasy). Heck, even the Lord of the Rings is lower fantasy than Harry Potter, as most of the magic is still "special". As in only specific individuals can command it while most are limited to purely physical means of going about their lives.
Maybe we think less linear and instead think of something like the political compass or the alignment chart of D & D. It is difficult to fit every story with fantastic elements in this low fantasy - high fantasy scheme, even if we introduce a middle state . Where does Stephen KIngs horror fit in? In IT you are in the real world, but there is a malignant supernatural present. We start in what we consider reality and suddenly reality is not what it we thought it was. There is science fiction that feels like fantasy, like Dune and Starwars. As you said, the superhero genre has it rules of its own and blends low fantasy with soft sf. Where to put the sword and sorcery stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser on the world Nowhen (part of a multiverse, as is earth, but Nowhen is a world full of magic, with a reasonable elaborated geography which should give it the status of high fantasy, although it is regarded low fantasy). Games of thrones feels like a cocktail of historical fiction and high fantasy. Etc. etc.
Well said. Other Middle Fantasy; Kathrine Kurtz Deryni Series. Placed in a middle ages setting, with Christianity, etc, but with an entirely different map of the world. Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover Series. Technically science fiction but set on a lost colony world where physic powers (basically magick) are cultivated in a feudal society where very different customs and ideas have emerged. The other one I can think of is the amazing Amber series by Zelazny that is set in a multiverse where the only true wold is Amber. The royalty of Amber can walk the shadows (worlds like our Earth) and travel through at the alternative possibilities.
damn bro got blessed by the algo keep it up man
Dude I know hahaha. I had like 14 views in the first 24 hours. I don’t know how this video popped off
I like how depending on the implementation of dragons, you can also kinda categorize the type of fantasy
You have either the really whimsical fantasy world where dragons, are just these magic fantastical animals that exist (Zelda, Harry Potter, LoL, WoW.)
Then you have the more grimdark or grounded worlds, where Dragons in lore either used to roam the world or even rule the world. Or have returned from a long absence and are these great beasts, that just terrorize everything and are like the pinnacle fantastical creature (God of War, Berserk, Dark Souls, Lotr, GoT, Skyrim.)
It’s a pretty real thing in fantasy, I would say the way dragons are treated either as semi low level eldritch beings or as just oversized animals.
The thing with the MCU is that it shows that SF, especially Soft Science Fiction and Fantasy are basically the same thing just presented differently and the distinction between it is ultimately arbitrary.
I thought a pretty clear distinction is that high fantasy takes place in a non-Earth setting, which is pretty objective (although I guess there are weird gray lines like LotR)
I like to recommend the Riftwar Cycle by Raymond Feist. It keeps constantly shifting between middle fantasy (much of the story is very real war and politics) and high fantasy (powerful magic users, and demon hordes).
Could not agree more with you
Awesome! I'll be sure to add that to my list! I've definitely got a lot of homework to do after this video hahaha There have been so many great recommendations
I would also like to add that it has long character arcs, it is not just a snapshot of one adventure.
One of my favourites…
My favorite genre of modern novels is literary RPG. Don't know if it's a genre by itself or just a subgenre of fantasy. It combines classical fantasy with progression of RPG games. I think it started with Chinese web novels. These are mainly based on Taoism and Chinese mythology. The character starts young, usually 15 years old and grows and trains through the story, explores the world, fights for resources and gear, etc. Depending on the novel, by the end of the story the MC can be 30-50 years old, close to 100 or couple of thousand years old. Chinese novels usually feature brutal martial arts based world where strong rule with iron fist while weak are just stepping stones. The Taoist element is training through meditation, or "cultivation" of inner energy which is the foundation of magic system. Everything passively absorbs energy in these novels, so beasts and plants can become extremely strong over the centuries or millennia they survive. They feature hard magic system which differs from novel to novel. These novels are typically huge, thousands of pages long.
My favorite among Chinese novels are Combat Continent aka Soul Land, some 4-5k pages long, which is overall quite good. It has a finished 3D anime. Its sequel Unrivaled Tang Sect, some 8k pages long, which is overall quite good too, but has some overdone love drama, and irrational extreme self-sacrifice for romance. It has a newly started ongoing 3D anime.
Another good book is Martial World, 13k pages long. The sequel True Martial world I wouldn't recommend due to MC who is an arrogant prick.
The series which is absolute best I read in this genre is Cradle by American author Will Wight. I wholeheartedly recommend it. It's a finished series of 12 books, about 1500 pages in total. It takes the best of Chinese Taoist fantasy, but without overlong descriptions of irrelevant characters and events. It features great writing (lost in fan translation of Chinese web novels), interesting story, and charming and memorable characters.
Another good example are comic books, fully colored. Finished Chinese Wu Geng Ji, which has an ongoing 3D anime. And Korean Skeleton Soldier couldn't protect the dungeon. It's a great dark fantasy story, very interesting with heavy RPG mechanics.
Since you brought up a possible Middle Fantasy catergory I've been wondering where you would put "The Chronicles of Narnia" series by C.S. Lewis?
*watches another 5 seconds of the video*
Ok! Never mind!
*facepalm*
I don't think Middle Fantasy should be a genre, it's multiple separate sub-genres such Grimdark, Sword and Sorcery and Portal Fantasy.
Also A Song of Ice and Fire is not High Fantasy at all. It doesn't meet any of the aspects of High Fantasy except being in a fantasy world. It's Grimdark Sword and Sorcery. It meets all the requirements for both Grimdark and Sword and Sorcery.
Fantasy that I like:
Discworld (but only if you have a sense of humor)
The Belgariad series (and its successors)
The Sparhawk universe series (not called that, but that's what they are, and you can find it this way)
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (mid-fantasy, but I can't tell if you'll like it or not. The MC believes he's hallucinating, and it's not even clear if he's _wrong_ about that, but he isn't making constant reference to the real world other than things like how he isn't used to walking long distances and such, which has nothing to do with the real world per se, and that MC is an interesting person who isn't a 'purely good guy', but instead someone who is deeply, deeply flawed and does some horrific things)
One high-fantasy thing you don't mention: Star Wars. It's high-fantasy with nuts and bolts. You're literally walking around with _space wizards_ who can do... well, whatever the plot needs them to do (every movie the list of things they can do just gets longer and longer, until by the end of the sequel trilogy it's become _utterly_ ridiculous and actually has me no longer caring about the series).
What I find interesting about high fantasy being disliked is how much almost all of us were willing to engage with it when we were young. Spongebob Squarepants. My Little Pony. He-Man. Transformers: Beast Wars. Avatar, The Last Airbender. One Piece. These were all _fantastically_ popular fantasy, and definitely _high_ fantasy as the worlds were either not connected _at all,_ or only superficially (like in Spongebob), and yet kids loved them. Maybe it's the split between animation and live-action which drives this idea that we're supposed to take the live action more seriously?
Anyway, have a nice day!
I'd lump the Gentleman Bastard sequence in with the middle fantasy category for the same reason as ASOIAF. There's barely any magic in it, even when the story focuses on the wizards, but it is a completely fictional world.
I feel like you are making an equasion between Myth/ Legend(arium) and Fantasy, but it could be argued that they are not the same and have different goals, pourpouses. It also seems like you are equating Low Fantasy with what would be classically called "Fantastical" / "Fantastique" stories/ worldbuilding. (There is also a discussion of Soft vs. Hard Worldbuilding to be made here and their relations to what you call Low and High Fantasy.)
"I personally enjoy isekai and reincarnation tales like Mushoku Tensei and Moonlit Fantasy. The unique characters exploring a new world, their growth throughout the journey, and the diverse cultures and creatures encountered make it a captivating experience. Additionally, the strategic elements in overcoming challenges and the blend of humor and emotional depth keep me hooked. What's not to like? Maybe you just ran into too many generic copy cats, it's happened to a lot of stories including LOTR. Just look closely and I think you'll find the originals to be very enjoyable.
So I would shift both GOT and Chronicles of Narnia into High Fantasy, then add Star Wars as middle fantasy. The Force is Magic, Ben Kenobi is basically Gandolf the Grey and Lightsabers are Excaliber.
One key of Tolkien success is the fact that the hobbit society is very close to the English one of Tolkien’s time.
The first chapters of LOTR are low fantasy in many ways as they mainly describe normal people lifes. And during all the story, Tolkien keep reminding us this normal life, from Merry and Pippin smoking in Isengard or Sam preparing rabbits not far from Minas Morgul.
Tolkien was well aware of the effort needed to enter his world and made everything possible to help his readers.
He opposed to the publication of the Silmarillon for that reason : the lack of hobbits of equivalent made it too hard to read to be published as a good story.
I'm writing a series that takes place in a completely fictional world, on another planet in another galaxy in another time, but there are only a few fantastical elements (such as psychic communication with sapient whales and visions of the future). The world though is kind of like the real world at the turn of the 20th century in terms of technology, but all its nations and cultures are unanalagous to the real world. There's a British Empire type great power but they're bronze skinned people from the equator and militant atheists who revere science.
All this to say, labeling my series' genre - especially for the purposes of querying literary agents - is a huge pain in the ass. If I call it high fantasy, people think dragons and elves. I can't call it urban fantasy because that's more "vampires in New York City". Most recently I've been going with "second-world fantasy." I have a feeling this genre problem with irk me for years to come though.
I admit I intuitively understand these definitions differently (but at the same time I don't claim my understanding to be the 'right one'). The Lord of the Rings feels to me relatively low fantasy because magic and other 'unworldly' events are rather subtle and spare. Yes, this is a completely fictional world with 'races' that don't really exist in the real world, but at the same time, this world is not that different to our world. Let us compare this to many computer games, like Skyrim, for example, where there is a plethora of magic scrolls probably every farmer knows a spell or two, and true magicians cast fireballs in all directions. This is what I would call high fantasy. From this perspective, Harry Potter is a higher fantasy to me, than Lord of the Rings, honestly.
GoT delivers elements of high fantasy in a Trojan horse disguised as middle or low fantasy. The further into the series, the more magic is brought back into the world, and before you know it you have wights and white walkers, dragons, blood magic, children of the forest, warging, warlocks at The House of the Undying, the Faceless Men, etc
I'd beg to differ. From my point of view, the level of fantasy is more about how grand and other worldly the magic system and creatures are, rather than whether or not it takes place in another world. Now, there's some merit to the idea of needing to learn a lot of history and lore and rules that apply to a different world, but I'd argue that something like Harry Potter, despite taking place on Earth, is actually a quite high level of fantasy, just because of how abundant and physics-defying the magic is. In a certain sense LOTR is actually more grounded in reality than Harry Potter
The Old warcraft books are some great fantasy books! you dont really need to play the games until you reach around book 14. personaly i would recommend "The war of the ancient" trilogy and "World of Warcraft: Chronicles of War".
I’ve often struggled with what genre a story with a world like that featured in the Mount & Blade games would be. Basically it’s a fictional world that has medieval institutions and technology, but lacking in fantasy races or magic. Would it be fantasy at all? If so, would it be low or middle? (I’m doubtful it would be high.) If not, what would it be? Medieval fiction set in another world? I’m particularly drawn to this type of world-building as I am a big fan of fantasy, but also of ancient and medieval history, so I find myself often being more drawn to stories that are more grounded in realistic political dynamics (not that magic and monsters necessarily take away from that) and human-driven conflicts. As such, I am also very interested in medieval and ancient historical fiction, which I find to be a vastly underrated genre of literature.
I would considere GoT aas high fantasy. Using magic less often makes it feel more powerfull and impactfull, in other stories its overused in my opinion. I still can understand why it doesnt "feel" like high fantasy, but I think we shouldnt compare everything to Lord of the Rings to determin if its high fantasy.
For a few years, I have been developing and writing some stories for a world that would have to be considered fantasy, but has less fantastical elements than low fantasy. There are no magic systems, or active deities, or fantastical races. It is based heavily on the real world but with entirely different geography which heavily influences cultures, and a very different history. Some plants and animals are real, others are extinct in real life, and others are made up, including dragons. Some of these differences are more realistic or fantastical than others.
I can think of a few other fantasy series with similarly minimal fantastical elements apart from being in a different world, such as Redwall and Ranger's Apprentice. I read both of these from a rather young age. All the characters in Redwall are small animals, sure, but in the dozen or so books I read, I don't really remember anything explicitly magical or otherworldly on a different level. In the Ranger's Apprentice series, there are a couple of fantastical races in the first two books, but they never appear again and from that point on, the whole series scrupulously avoids anything fantastical. The realistic sense is even furthered in the eleventh book anthology, which contains a section following archeologists recovering centuries old documents pertaining to the lives of the series' main characters.
I also read the Warriors series, which is set in an apparently contemporary world following cats, with some mythology, making it more like low fantasy, perhaps, though it is still very grounded feeling.
I'm not sure what to call this kind of fantasy, perhaps just extra-low fantasy, or alternative universe fiction in a historically inspired setting, or fantasy by technicality.
This is not to say that I don't like higher fantasy. I have long enjoyed Tolkien's works, had enjoyed Harry Potter, and more recently have read other fantasy series, including the Cosmere, the First Law, and ASoIaF. I developed a magic system some years ago, but haven't come up with a story to pair it with.
Iron Man, Spiderman, Ant man, and Batman are sci fi -- normal people augmented by futuristic technology. But the others are supernaturals in the fantasy genre.
ASOIAF doesn't fit nicely because it requires us to use one of the other categories. Technically all fantasy falls somewhere on the low to high spectrum but for a lot of settings this label isn't the most useful one. ASOIAF for example falls into Sword and Sorcery. Works in this category are not usually high fantasy, but tend to be higher than other non high fantasy works.
I found two definitions on low fantasy in Wikipedia.
The first one, which you used for this video:
"Low fantasy, or intrusion fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy fiction in which magical events intrude on an otherwise-normal world."
The second one reads:
"An alternative definition, rests on the story and characters being more realistic and less mythic in scope."
I much more prefer the second one. By the first definition GoT, a world where the everyday life of mostly every inhabitant is like the life of a medieval person, is said to be high fantasy. And Harry Potter puts us in such a fantastical world where simple things like eating, reading the newspaper and transportation are magical, and that should be classified as magical? I find this distinction by the first definition not even corresponding with the name of the low/high fantasy genre.
I prefer the term intrusion fantasy to describe the first and high/low to describe the second.
GoT as middle fantasy works just fine. Same could be said for any alternative timeline story like Man in a castle or Wolfenstein. Especially if they have supernatural elements or sci fi ones (middle sci fi?)
I honestly don't agree with your use of our world as the main distinguishing criterium. Imho it's much more important how much a world works like ours rather than being a version or extension thereof. In that regard I'd count Narnia very much as High and a Song of Ice and Fire as Low Fantasy. Also stakes of conflict a very important to me here. Narnia is a struggle between good and evil with the fate of a world often at stake, whereas Ice and Fire for the most part is about political intrigue and individuals ambitions.
Garth Nix's books in his "Abhorsen" or "North Kingdom" series are some of my favorite fantasy books of all time, they feel so different than any other piece of fantasy content. You should check out at least the first book in the series "Sabriel".
I think Star Wars could be considered high fantasy. Fantasy can have technology.
Where would real life mythology fall under? Most of them take place in a fantastical form of our world or involve our world but often, with loads of fantasy elements including magic and monsters.
My favorite Low fantasy genre is Skulduggery Pleasant which i highly recommend
I find the magic system a lot better than harry potter and like the characters a lot more
The Dragonlance Chronicles are a favorite high fantasy series of mine. There are dozens of books set in that universe, but I think the original two trilogies (six books) are the best.
I wonder if there are any lessons for the Republican party from the dissolution of the Whig party, since the party has to undergo some kind of transition.
For a great modern fantasy series, I would recommend the Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. It is similar to Game of Thrones in that magic is limited and there aren't too many monsters in the series compared to other worlds like Lord of the Rings
Low fantasy is by far the easiest for most people to like
It seems like a lot of western portal or “middle” fantasy is geared toward middle grade audiences
There's the Rivers of London series, which is Low Fantasy (sort of what if Harry Potter became a London detective), and the roots of LOTR come from the Norse Sagas as well as the Prose and Poetic Eddas.
Agree. Criminally underrated series imo
There's one high fantasy setting people forget to put into the genre: Star Wars. It's got -fantasy- alien races, -samurai templar space wizards- Jedi, -magical powers- the force and everything. It's not sci-fi, like the Interstellar, Star Trek or the Expanse, but high fantasy shoved into space. Another example of this genre would be Warhammer. It's a high fantasy setting, and when the authors put it in space, it became way more popular.
Space fantasy definitely is a genre separate from sci-fi.
GoT tv show is smaller in scale and more low magic.
But the books are waaay crazier and high magic in comparison.