Important point: Tolkien was the first person to really popularize epic fantasy, so by default he cannot be criticized for not being "subversive" enough, obviously. However, it's been almost 70 years since LOTR first got published, so I expect new writers to at least try to come up with something new. Brandosando is also guilty of this to some extent (looking at you, Warbreaker).
Counterpoint, Adam needs better reading lists, off the top of my head: ursula le guin terry pratchett mao ni gene wolfe robin hobb carol berg None of those above succumb to the failings you mentioned, and many of their works not only feature interesting political fantasy structures, settings and stories, but also are themselves works of political literature. The first 3 in particular have written explicity humanist books, and le guin is also quite famous as a an anarchist author.
The fantasy genre has become watered down over the years into an aesthetic template. Fantasy is meant to contrast itself from reality for effect; it is not an excuse to mindlessly reject realism for the sake of flashy visuals. A great example is how Tolkien wrote a detailed and expansive wealth of lore for Middle Earth including linguistics, history, politics, economics, resource dynamics, etc, while the film adaptations of his works have swords puncturing steel armour to make the comically small armies fight in an apparently more gruesome manner
@@Kohanman Exceptions to an inclusive claim do not render the claim false. Since Adam did not claim *all* fantasy works in existence or *all* modern fantasy writers are exhibit the flaws he mentioned, finding exceptions does little. At most, you could suggest that he is overgeneralising or that his claim is exaggerated in scope. However, since the only exceptions are relatively obscure, this too seems unfair. Adam is clearly meaning to discuss mainstream fantasy media
Tolkien is a pioneer, therefore his works were original at the time. He himself stated that the universe was not centered around politics, but rather on a syncretism between Pagan and Christian mythology. I find the Tolkien universe, taken as a whole, to be truly impressive in terms of complexity. That being said, there are plenty of fantasy works that tackle politics pretty heavily.
Yeah, and it's worth remembering that he was deliberately creating a mythology, which by design has to have a rather simplistic vision of good or evil, because that's what he understood real mythologies to have. If he chose to wrote a 'realist' fantasy novel, he would have mad something different. It's when people try to simply copy Tolkien and pass it off as 'realistic' because, I don't know, characters swear or rape women because that's 'real behaviour', they're just being a hack.
Mmm, Tolkiens works collected are referred to as the Legendarium after all - he deserves all the credit for basically composing a coherent quazi completely original mythology.
My biggest pet peeve with most fantasy is its fixation on swords. Swords are a sidearm! A secondary weapon! They are not the end-all, be-all of melee combat, they're what you have at your side. This makes them good for walking around town to defend yourself from muggers/assassins, and it makes them good for if you drop your actual weapon on the battlefield.
It's a bit funny Adam singled out swords and armour as an area where authors do the research he wishes they put into politics. It could not be further from the truth.
Pardon my ill knowledge on anything else, but at least during the Finnish iron age swords were seen as a status symbol. You own a sword? Big flex mate. So yeah at least before metals were very available for everyone, real life was fixated on swords as well. Do you know how much metal those things require?
@@aurin_komak In certain periods sure, swords were used as status symbols. In fact that never really went away since swords could be embellished like heck and carried everywhere easily. But in the regions and time periods that most fantasy stories are based on-that is, 9th through 14th century Britain, France, and *maybe* Germany (inasmuch as it existed back then) that kind of quality metal wasn't nearly so scarce. Point is If you're building a setting modeled off LotR or D&D then swords really shouldn't be a fixture on battlefields, at peast if you're aiming for a grounded or realistic tone. Especially if there are monsters and such about. I mean come on, if you see a charging minotaur or werewolf or what have you, are you going to want to step into mauling/goring range and fight the beast one on one, or gather up a dozen or so of your mates to stab the blighter from afar with spears? I know what I'd pick.
The thing with Tolkin is that he didn't necessarily wanted to write a fantasy story. He was a linguistics professor fascinated with old English. What he wanted to do was create some hypothetical realm of legend for Britain which acted the same way as the mythical stories of the Norse, Greeks or Romans. This explained the king's part. Also, Gondor didn't fall in complete disarray just because the king died. As seen in the books a truchses took over until the heir of the throne came back.
In defence of Tolkien, first of all, he created the stereotypical races, so when he created them I don't see how that's a boring trope, since it was something new. Besides that, there are nuances between the races. Also there is little politics per se because Tolkien himself said, that the books were to be an escapist creation, and they were written during and after the war and published in 1954. I honestly don't think criticising a book for not being too political and being escapist in post-war torn Europe is a solid take. I do agree that some books that are typical fantasy clones are boring and more developed politics would do them good but a lot of fantasy in particular is written as escapist books. If you have a problem with escapism as a concept that's whole different topic I'd say.
Also, it was my interpretation that when he created "evil" races, it was more of a political statement that facism and militarism turn people into something less than human. I can see how that was twisted over time to mean that a fantasy race is "intrinsic" to being war-like, but I never got that sense from LOTR
Another thing that I find "off" by a lot of fantasy is that huge impressive cities, or even just towns, are just *plonk* out there in a field without the huge amount of connected smaller cities, farmland, industrial level trade routes, etc that is needed to support them. Some good media to explore if you want to see societal systems like politics and infrastructure at least look believeable: Tyranny (computer game), Discworld books, Queen's Wish and the other Spiderweb Software games.
I'll admit that i have never read the books, but one thing that always pulled me out of the LOTR movies was how empty the world seemed, there are no road, barely any farms if any. Everyone just lives in their city with no connectivity whatsover. Don't get me wrong, i love the movies, but on a worldbuilding level the movies aren''t very believable. Is that different in the books?
@@sonicdart3896 Very, yeah. Pelennor Fields around Minas Tirith, in the books, is surrounded by vast, rich villages and farmlands and orchards and vineyards within a massive wall around the fields, the Rammas Echor. In fact, when Theoden arrives, Tolkien describes the armies of Mordor are laying waste to these lands, and the widespread smoke actually at first demoralises him before he arrives nearer to the city and gives the big Rohan speech. While the infrastructure isn't fully laid out, as it is a story, there are descriptions of some more major roads in passing, both as the roads the characters take, avoid because of the Nazghul, or could take were it not for Saruman and other factors. Worldbuilding in Tolkien lore is very solid. Not always fully laid out, both because he's only one man and because he was mimicking the recording of a real history, and so sometimes the source don't exist or mention stuff. Love the movies too, but no adaptation is perfect :D
Give Wheel of Time a spin. They do this very well. As the characters move from bumfuck nowhere to the big city, the food they buy gets progressively more expensive.
Well, I'd say the Discworld novels deal pretty well with politics, even though they do not necessarily focus on the systems themselves, they do focus on ideologies.
I suppose you could writ a phd thesis about the political systems in discworld. Not only are there different systems, but they also function differently. And there are several political movements.
Most of the house politics in GOT is really good. There are problems with the timeline however. There is no way a society would stay in the Middle Ages for thousands of years.
I think Adam is a bit quick to judge the Tolkien universe. The movies are quite simplistic and manichéens but the books are more subtile, like there are extensive description of the shire political system with maire great electors, in Bilbo the hobbit, the lake city is a sort of merchant republic whith the estetic of novgorod or kievan rus. And almost all the plot of Bilbo the hobbit revolvers around "racial tension" with too proud elves, greedy and entitled dwarves that almost lose everything because of that. There's also a thing to be said about the gondorians that always want to get the ring as a weapon of mass destruction or the rohimir who almost refused to respond to the mutual défense agreement with gondor. And Gondor who also survived 500 years without a king with a stewart/intendant that is also relu tant to give it's power back. In the books there is even a bit of political intrigue between orc factions about who's better to serve under (saruman, sauron, indépendance in the mines of moria)
Its not really an issue with Tolkien's writing - he goes into an unfathomable amount of depth to do with the entire world history, and especially the origins of language. The issue is every Tolkien-esque author who came after him, took the bare bones of his ideas (dark lord, ethereal elves, scottish dwarves, etc) and made a book which is pretty much the basic premise of LOTR, but with a new coat of paint on it
@@johnroach9026Exactly, it's not really about Tolkien, it's about all the hack writers who churn out near-identical fantasy. Tolkien had another focus with the mythology, language etc. But when everyone just copy-pastes his ideas they became tropes. And with all the lazy politics of good kings, evil kings and princesses; it's either advocating autocracy or it's baby brains level view of history. BTW there were plenty of other political systems practiced on various scales throughout the Middle Ages in Europe and beyond, so there's no excuse to fall back on kings and kingdoms. And the complexity of kingdoms was far greater than characterized in most fantasy.
@@antiochus87 Simple stories aren't bad if they're enjoyable. Some people just want escapism. And not think too deeply about complicated things, or something hitting too close to the problems in real life. The classic and popular fairy tales have some simplicity to them. Some people like stories and fantasies about historical eras. And often in history they had royal rulers. Some people fantasize about being a royal for fun. Diverse genres are good, like what Adam talked about. And those exist. But don't knock down other stories that are more simplistic and enjoyed by other people. Not everything has to be about thinking deeply on complicated things and problems all the time.
Couldn't agree more. I'm at the point where I've gone off fantasy. I probably won't read any more for a good while unless it's by an author I trust and respect to tell a story and handle these things well. I'm a big fan of Tolkien, but that doesn't mean I accept bad rip-offs with no understanding of the politics of the setting they're inspired by. I find most fantasy I've tried reading recent at least one of the following: 1. Advocating far right politics - aka "monarchy is good!" 2. "Baby brains" dumb, "I'm going to make a story about themes of exploitation and war, told through the eyes of my badass waif princess savior and heir to the kingdom!" 3. Vapid and shallow, and still set in an unquestioned autocracy. There is no such thing as "a good king", as it's still an autocrat there based on blood. If anyone can recommend a book series that don't fall into these, (or critique a monarchy and feudalism meaningfully and represent alternatives) then I welcome suggestions 👍
Funny that you mention Sapkowski. His quite unique in his progressive views among polish fantasy authors. Who for the most part use the fantasy world as a metaphor for their right-wing views.
Yeah, but they still put A LOT OF politics in their books. It may not be that sophisticated, but it is there. And I am not talking about Dukaj or, let's say Grzendowicz, but even Pilipiuk can do that.
Oh, you haven't seen Russian fantasy books then!? A good but simple Ivan goes back in time (or to a fantasy world) and through his integrity, wits and of course violence (but only against injustice) wins the day, saves the world and goes back (or becomes ruler and stays). It would sound like a teenager written story, but making our hero Russian (or giving him all the qualities of a typical russian national hero) makes it "sophisticated and patriotic". And of course it's all packed with classical far-right staff and evil, cynical or greedy foreigners (who are always at owe how "Übermensch" te hero is) or petty traitors.
@@Astuar that’s the reason why I still like Russian literature. It just feels Russian unlike American stories who don’t feel like they come from any culture
I am fine with monarchies being standard in setting analogous to time period on Earth when monarchies were standards, but it should be more developed than "king is in charge and if he dies his oldest son replaces him". Frankish empire in 9th century wasn't same as England in 12th century, which wasn't same as Poland in 15th century.
Alao they half wrong monarchies were not really that fragile democracies are far more fragile historically Monarchies when a king dies if no replacment is their the nobles normaly have ability to hold up the system as its a decentralised system they also had people trained to know the family tree and know who is next in line even if its some nobody whos grand mother eas the daughter of a king five generations back who had an afair with the maid even those “covered up “ basteds have record of their existence geneologists know who has a child with who and who their children end uo being
@@demonic_myst4503 Maybe you should actually look at historical record. Specifically succession wars, usurpasitions and monarchs who sucked but were kept because they were rightful rulers...
@@martinsriber7760 nothing u said disProved my point my point is historicaly acurate Did u even reqd the coment or you high or somthing Sucession wars happens yes not as often as not tho your own poing comoletly contradicts itself when u add the fact somtimes they didnt even bother wars even if had a bad heir because rightful ruler we talking about stability as in suden uprisings and changes in power or complete compapse which is 80% of democracies 8n history and very few kingdoms The vast majority being a domino effect to alot of events in the 1800s
@@demonic_myst4503 I have degree in history, I know damn well history doesn't support your claim. Your point is ridiculous, your writing is attrocious, monarchies are moronic and so are their supporters. Farewell.
Here's a simple answer to your complaint; stop relying on mainstream titles and do more exploring. Seriously, there's a lot of fantasy out there that explore their in universe politics really well. You just have to some research.
Many years ago, back into the the realms of AD&D, I think in our Dragonlance campaign, we had to try and unite the various kingdoms to fight the Dragons because we needed as much firepower as we could. And of course they wanted some kind of token that we were genuine, like getting rid of some monster or minor lord causing issues, you know the usual questing stuff. Anyway, we got to the point that our little band of 4 plus companions could basically wipe any army off the face of the world. So we got to thinking "why are we doing favours to try and get them to ask them to side with us when we face the dragons, we should be demanding their fealty and demanding the resources we need to carry on the 'good' fight". So we changed tactics, nope we weren't going to get the "jewel of whatjamacallit", you are now part of our empire, submit or die. Quite a few of the leaders initially died. So DM had them learn not to let us in their castles. So it turned into, "open up the gates or we'll destroy your castle". Well that went well (for us, not for them). So they learned that was pointless too. Then the DM got really smart, obviously we couldn't stick around, we needed to build our empire. So our more distant lands started breaking off with new lords. So then we had to go back to re-exert our authority. Which is hard, when your entire army consists of less than 50 people most of whom are the supporting baggage train. The four adventurers could zip around the place, but not our companions. In the end it ended up being a game of politics, trying to keep people loyal, stopping rebellions, finding out the traitors etc. It was quite good fun, though I believe our DM was trying to get us back on track with the campaign rather than having to think of ways of stopping us building an empire. In the end school finished and we spread over the country never to meet again. I miss my druid, there was something to be said of single handedly demolishing a castle with "earthquake"
I once wrote an adventure that was entirely about navigating Drow politics and inter-house animosities. It was a lot of fun to write but it turned out I did a shit job of it because it totally went over the heads of my players and I had to constantly nudge them in the right direction. Oh well, maybe that's why I'm writing TH-cam comments today and not fantasy novels ;)
@@unvergebeneid yea. Writing adventures is hard. You have to be quite obvious with stuff, if you don't want your players just to use skill checks to know stuff, which ends up you just narrating a story to your players. Politics is a difficult subject to broach, you have to be immersed in the world to understand
The funny thing is, that's a natural way for things to play out given the mechanics of the world. When a few people can wipe out armies and make fortifications meaningless, the world responds to deal with it. Either they get their own big sticks, or they teach the lesson that you still need the poor bloody infantry to _hold_ anything. Plus it fits logically, sure they were combatants without peer, but that doesn't make them good diplomats, strategists or politicians. If that story had fully gone to it's conclusion, the whole 'do it or be stomped by we marry few' arc would be important character building while also addressing a reasonable narrative question of 'why are we doing these requests again?'.
this is why I like the Star Wars prequels so much, especially the Clone Wars. There is a strong political aspect to everything with several factions all having differing ideologies and goals. Too bad people saw that as boring, smh.
people saw that as boring the in prequels because it WAS boring. George had no idea how to write interesting dialog or political plotlines and instead of getting advice from his many many director friends he said fuck it what i have is good enough. the clone wars made politics interesting because the writers knew what the fuck they were doing.
@@exilestudios9546 I actually think his political plot lines were pretty good, like between the three films the political narrative is actually very clear, the problem is that all the Viewpoint characters are boring as shit, so most people don't remember all the little details. George Lucas is a great World Builder, he's just not good at character writing. I think the only reason he got away with the original trilogy is because he was literally following the hero's journey to the letter, although honestly Anakin's character Arc isn't that bad. Those films, especially Revenge of the Sith, are far better than people give them credit for
I think it really depends on the focus of the story. If the focus of the story is about the personal development of the characters, having big-bad vs big-good is basically just the setting. That's pretty much the case in LOTR, where the focus is more on the personal struggle of Frodo and his friends. Scope and scale and all that. Plenty of fantasy is basic, plenty is not. A lot of recently popular fantasy is strong on the political front. This video reads a bit like criticizing all romance novels as copies of Jane Austen or something based on the paperback romance books churned out for easy reading by the masses. It's a diverse genre full of diverse content of vastly different quality.
I have to say, as a non-hardcore fantasy reader, I was expecting to see more of R. R. Martin, Hobb, Sanderson or why not Brent Weeks or McCaffrey in that video. Fantasy is such a wide genre, way more than what the Lord of the rings is ; I don't follow you on this point and am not sure if you're up to date with fantasy because political systems are developed in this genre and in the stories of the authors I've cited.
Well, the video is barely 3 1/2 minutes long. But yeah, there are many authors nowadays who create fleshed out political systems and societies. But if you look at movies or video games, they're usually very flat.
Yeah, I mean while he does have a point, Game of Thrones is one of the most popular franchises in the fantasy genre and it is chiefly concerned with morally grey factions and politicking. I feel like the problems Adam is bringing up are kind of outdated.
@@comedy_goblin6378 they're not, you're just cherry picking the greatest works of fantasy, which of course do exist, out of a humongous pile of purely escapist tropesploitation. (To those great works I'd add Malazan Book of the Fallen)
Ádám, this is the first time i disagree with you. And I've watched your videos since you had about 10,000 subs. I am an avid fantasy reader, and this take was faulty even in the 90s. Epic fantasy tends to go deep into politics, and frequently quite expertly. Read Jordan, Feist, even Salvatore from the 90s, and later writers blossomed. Today, the big dogs, like Sanderson, Abercrombe or Jamisin invent political systems as diverse as magic systems. Light and YA fantasy concentrates less on politics, their stories have a more intimate setting, and they really don't need to spend time on politics. I think you might not be up to date on the Fantasy genre...
Naomi Novik is a standout here. Her Temeraire books are one part historical fiction (fueled by her hardcore research for Master and Commander fanfiction, I hear), one part Goddamn Dragons because it's unbelievably cool that way.
As a not avid fantasy reader (I don't read any fantasy, I like fantasy in moderation though), this video is 100% my experience outside of Dragon Age: Origins, which didn't do that much political innovation but did have proper characters, or GoT. What I've seen is basically like from the WoW expansion of Burning Crusade where the bad guys had articulated goals and purposeful actions (sure, like comic caricatures to some extent, but at least something that could be warped and twisted so that one can relate), to Cataclysm where the big bad "I've gone mad!!!" and that's it for motivation, literally. Then all the B-fantasy movies and stuff, and so on in other media as well, and don't get me started on Harry Potter, or the Japanese stuff. So, I think it's a fair criticism as such, but I think it's more broad than it just being fantasy that has this issue. I despise many horror movies, marvel movies and such, it's just so flat and basically "I'm evil so I have to kill you", and the protagonist just wants things to gets back to normal which is boring. Then movies seemingly get praised because the villain says something besides "I'm evil so I have to kill you", maybe, "My mom died so I'm sad".
Agreed some fantasy should, and others shouldn't. The only fantasy I'm well versed on is LoTR, and that story isn't meant to represent our own. It has many great quotes and ideas you could apply to our world, but others not so much. Orcs for example are too violent and simple minded to apply to our world, it would just imply essentialism. As these orcs are just built to destroy and conquer, and bend to the will of an evil and brutal lord.
WARNING This is a huge waste of time for beginners and intermediate story tellers. THE MOST COMMON MISTAKE they make is to create a really complex political system and populate it with 100 factions with minor differences. I cringe so hard every time someone says "and now a little back story of the politics, so you understand why everyone hates each other." It's fantasy. Showcase your hook first(Why your world is different and how it works). Politics are nice to have when there is room for it. When you have a Huge Tentacle monster living in the sea, NO will care about Authoritarian vs Libertarian vs Totalitarian regime.
Honestly if you look at the origin of Fantasy, which I consider to be Chivalric Romance and Folk/Fairytales, it all makes sense, after all Fantasy is at least partially inspired by the idealization of the Middle Ages during the Early Modern Period and by folktales, which were told by the common people, who probably didn't have a very deep understanding of politics. So both of these sort of romanticized monarchies, which lead directly into modern monarchies in fantasy works. Plus fantasy is usually viewed as escapism, thus we have the protagonists defeating what ever the bad guys throw at them, slaying dragons, whatever. After all there are very few people who would read about a debate on how much taxes to levy or something like that, as that is just to similar to our world full of annoying bureaucratic functionaries.
Not sure if comedy/satire counts, but gotta give Terry Pratchett's Discworld series a shout-out - it definitely breaks the typical fantasy politics mold (of course, being satire, that's in large part b/c it reflects the modern world).
I mean you can have a villain who is the head of state and irredeemably evil but it's a lot more interesting if they didn't just kill the previous king and just took power, but had to gradually build up popularity, give speeches in various towns, work as an advisor, etc... before completely taking over the state
2:57 I think the problem is that that is exactly the amount of research they do. After all, nothing makes a one-handed „longsword“ - naturally the standard-issue primary weapon in any field army - cut a grown adult in half quite as nicely as a full suit of „medieval“ plate armour on said adult, whose chances of wearing a helmet decrease exponentially with their increased political and military authority and importance.
I'd love fantasy or even historical genres to include more economics and logistics (at least implicitly show that things have been thought through): we are mostly taught History through the feats of the rulers, and it gives the illusion that greatness, cunning and willpower are all it takes to accomplish said feats. In fact, this is all very much constrained by what's physically feasible. An example: in Games of Thrones, little is written about how people cope with pluriannual winters, or how they manage to sustain so many armies when apparently every other inhabitant is killed at each episode.
Tbh I like both sorts, scheming and courtly intrigued and the long quest to battle evil. Ideally we would have a decent spread of the two. I don't think every story needs to hammer in 'monarchy bad' and I don't think authors should be constrained to never have a broader message that applies outside the text. Glad you shared this!
My pet peeve is having plate armor with swords as main weapon... despite era of such armor having cannons, pikes and muskets already. Also almost never any cavalry in videogames. Final Fantasy is like the only non-Musou or Mount & Blade series that has lancers and (chocobo) riders. Everyone else is footsoldiers in full armor with swords...
I am sixteen years old and I like the thing good versus evil. If do not like that that is oké But do not hate on good versus evil because it is just what you like and if you do not like it you can just read other book, right?
The problem with introducing politics into your fantasy story is that it will be subconsciously biased towards your own political beliefs, which turns everything into an allegory, and sometimes you just want to be entertaining
(late to the party but) exactly. GATE: Thus the JSDF Fought There (If you read the Manga and Light Novel) are pretty much the author rambling about "America, china and russia bad, japan can do everything by itself and is super stronk" -Also yes, it's not exactly a fantasy book, but still it's a good example of personal biases in a work.-
Exactly. You can practically hear the author like a voice just off stage, loudly whispering to the audience what we should think and how it must be in line with the great leap forward.
Disagree. I think you totally missed the point about Escapism. In short, many people are so tired after work and therefore don't want to read politics. Fantasy with deep politics in my opinion is only for nerdy people but not the general public. Thus the "mainstream" fantasy that you don't like has nothing wrong, it is just more-or-less market-oriented.
I would argue that one of the main benefits of fantasy is that it is just that - fantasy, an escape from reality. We're bombarded with dreadgrim politicking on what seems like a daily basis and its nice to fall back onto a world without the trappings of our own beaurocratic nightmare. Politics is often part of the background and in my opinion, is used more to define people and the place than go into any true detail. Unless you're writing a truly epic 7 book, 1000 page epr book series, leaving time to focus on adventure, relationships and excitement is much more engaging.
Not all fantasy should focus on politics, but having coherent, believable politics should be part of world building (especially in epic fantasy). If your world has a feudal system, it will affect culture differently than if it has a capitalist, communist or anarchist one. Especially if your story is filled with people with magical powers, or races with different abilities, an author should consider how this will affect power-relations between different people.
My rebuttle to that would be some things you just can't escape. Politics aren't pointless semantics, it's deciding what kind of leadership a group of people have. If people are tired of hearing about politics, then they're just gonna have to suck it up because it's an integral part of how societies function. But of course, I'm heavily biased on this opinion. I have somewhat of a hate-boner for Escapism and stuff related to it, as it somewhat ruins my immersion in most stories. Legend of Zelda as a popular fantasy example- Having grown up, I can't play those games without thinking about how much of overprivileged assholes the Royal Family of Hyrule are often depicted as being. That's why I like that series, because most games make it clear you're not trying to save the Monarchy, you're trying to save everyday people. The Momarchy is often depicted as wrong or dumb. The implications of committing warcrimes in Ocarina of Time, the King of Red Lions admitting that he was wrong at the end of Wind Waker, the Royal Family failing to prepare for the Calamity in Breath of the Wild. It's just such a subtle inclusion of realistic politics into Legend of Zelda that makes it more tolerable. My point being, Politics greatly improve most works of fiction, and if people don't like that then I see it as more their problem.
That's why I prefer sci-fi, as it almost always actually satirizes something real, on top of having some escapism. For example, Council in Mass Effect not believing Shepard than Saren is behind geth and then Reapers are behind Saren, is like UN and the West not believing Ukrainians that it's russia behind "Babmas Debels" and that they WILL INVADE EVERYONE FULLY SOON. In fantasy, I liked Monstrous Regiment. It actually explained well what people are fighting for (their close ones, not some vague notion of patriotism), and how you are dependent on a richer country sending you supplies and a lot of coffee too defeat the enemy.
Our political ideology is that orcs aren't human and there can be no normalization with them. I don't even need to write? xD I just wish we nuke mordor in real life soon.
@@st_420 Did you watch the last few seasons? When Weiss and Benioff overtook the books in season four, the show become a mess of fast travelling, confused and often boring plot points, and a sidelining of political intrigue for the sake of quicker plot advancement. I have no idea why you thought this was a good point to bring up.
@@henrysymes Can you even read? What does A Song Of Ice and Fire have to do with Games of Thrones? They aren't even the same story. It's like saying Judaism is bad because in the Quran Muhammad does something unrealistic.
That is a fair criticism, however on the other hand most authors are not trying to create some super nuanced and subversive work. Most of them are just trying to find a way to tell their fantasy story and theirs nothing wrong with that.
On another note, my friend and I have our own "pocket" universe. A small continent were things are a bit different from usual Halflings are the most civilised race, running a large city with Troll thralls. Humans are in the main nomadic hunter/gatherers. Dwarves are a myth in time, orcs live in small villages out on the wastes, and the once builders of great civilisations, until the the evil (non drow) Elves invaded from another dimension causing chaos. Illithids are reclusive intellectuals. Gnomes are completely absent (cause neither of us like gnomes)
The issue I see a lot is that people want a "high fantasy" story (or some variant), where everything is simple, you don't worry about complicated things, it's a simple storybook fantasy about killing the bad guy and saving the princess. There are plenty of variants, Warhammer stories are often just this but edgy. But then people lose focus and try to give their high fantasy story some verisimilitude by adding in a king, or a council, or whatever. And then you ask "hey why is this guy the king when his kingdom would almost certainly revolt almost immediately?" and they generally go into the old argument about bringing real politics into their fantasy setting. It's a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it. People want to play out a simple storybook fantasy, and then drop in structures or values they think are "right" because they believe they're as straightforward and undeniable as good vs evil. Then this clashes with reality and they're faced with the uncomfortable truth that they don't understand the things they hold on a pedestal and should probably rethink their views. Which is a realization that provokes angry kneejerk reactions from just about anyone. This issue is just that we have groups of people all telling one another that this kneejerk reaction is correct and they don't need to contemplate their believes and become better educated they just need to dive further down the rabbit hole and further convince themselves that monarchy or racial cleansing or whatever else they injected in their story is good and appropriate.
I agree with you but most people just don't care. Like, it's hilarious how many fantasy stories break the law of Thermodynamics with their magic. At some point you have to suspend your disbelief because there will be contradictions. Integrating a feudal system with all of its subtleties would be amazing but it would just be wayyy too complex. We also can't mathematically predict economic models with fewer than 50 people, so it would be difficult establishing a medieval economy with sufficient precision. Having a coherent feudal, economic AND magical system would take a long time :P.
Translation. You: "Be utterly condescending and talk about how kings are fascistic and how you hate trump" Other guy: "dude its escapism it has nothing to do with politics" You: "How dare you knee jerk your not smart!"
@@georgethompson1460 A year later... yeah I'd still stand by what I said. You seem to have completely missed my point though, which was "DON'T think too hard about shit just enjoy the escapism". The issues come when people try to justify their escapism when it's inherently flawed. Just enjoy it for what it is!
@@KoboldCommando But in the comment you mentioned even having a king seemed problematice, but if its the age old "slay the dragon and save the kingdom" you logically get a king alongside this.
That's the difference between fantasy written by people from (falling) empires (all Anglosaxon fantasy basically) and people from subjugated countries (Sapkowski and other Eastern European authors). Tolkien wrote about huge good empire losing power and falling. I wonder how he got the idea being from British South Africa and living through WW1, WW2 and decolonisation :) Sapkowski wrote in Poland just before and just after it got independent from USSR in 1989 after Poland lost 1/6th of population in WW2 and then was occupied by soviets for 50 years. The political situation was a clusterfuck of chaos and it shows :) For British (and American) authors the situation was simple - we are good and the rest are evil (possibly not their fault but still). The system is good and it's on our side. We just need to work selflessly for the Greater Good and if we're brave enough - it will work out fine. For people in Eastern Europe the situation is simple too - everybody has agenda and wants to use any ideological excuse they can to get more power. Good king is only good because he paid bards. Everybody is an asshole, the more power they have - the more chances they have to show how much of an asshole they really are. The only reason some groups are innocent in some conflicts is because they had no power to hurt others. So worrying about "who is the bad guys" is pointless. The best you can do is navigate the conflicts saving the people you care about and not dirtying yourself with the ugly political stuff. That's basically the Witcher series.
That's overly simplistic. Because it assumes all British authors were like Tolkein and CS Lewis and really they absolutely weren't. The problem is that's what exploded in popularity and what everyone decided to rip off. It's popularity, influence and simplicity made it easy to rip off as well. And something that in the west has taken decades to shake off and still people can't do it cause their tastes are super basic. Read Mervyn Peake - who if the world was fair would be considered the true progenitor of British adult fantasy. Titus Groan was published 8 years before The Fellowship of the Ring. And it's worlds better. And a world removed from any sort of generic crap fantasy nonsense. Set in a vast decaying castle in an isolated earldom where everything is stagnant and ruled by convention, ritual and tradition the meaning of which no one understands anymore, strict class distinctions etc etc and I don't really want to save more. But you know not only is the book is leagues above most other fantasy from the first chapter it's about something in a way so much fantasy conspicuously tries not to be.
For some reason there is no multiple kingdoms created by same race.One race can't have multiple countries in most of fantasies and usually don't fight eachother.
I’m an aspiring author myself and I want to play with the idea of a “good” monarchy vs a “bad” monarchy. Specifically I want to have a royal bloodline that was cursed by a demonic ancestor to gradually decline in leadership skills until a successor violently overthrows a predecessor, at which point they reset and are effective administrators. The current Queen (who killed her corrupt father) is getting old and is setting up a plan to have her granddaughter kill her to become a great ruler. Then, the characters in the “present” decide such a system is inherently flawed and change it over the series
My sibling & I spent a while devising the different political systems for the various nations in our D&D campaign that we were planning to co-DM. It's funny how an 18 year-old & a 13 year-old were able to express more political nuance than most fully-grown fantasy authors.
U know, that's why Witcher always was first off good material to build a giant franchise on, and second so fun to consume. Same goes for Game Of Thorne (if we forget the last season). Political stuff is boring sometimes, but it makes a story come alive, when you have to think about the intentions and obligations not only of the "enemy" but also perceived friends of the protagonist. Or maybe I just love to overthink relationships and motivs.
Many authors might find it difficult to imagine pre-modern systems which weren't complete autocracies, of course, if you go to a list of Republics in Wikipedia you can find quite a few examples of medieval republics and those from antiquity. It can be done, might take a bit of extra research.
Indeed - you might be interested to check out "Dawn of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow. It's a long book on anthropology and history but worth a read if you're interested (even just it's Wikipedia page)
I'm in the process of writing a political fantasy novel. There is a monarchy, but there are political parties too. I love pushing the boundaries of the genre.
Someone needs to write a fantasy set in the Late Holy Roman Empire era. The empire is dissolving and kingdoms and republics are trying to cope, consolidate, cooperate, and unite while trying, failing, and succeeding in industrializing. Different cultures, different races and species, just different everything. That would give another dimension to the story.
I dont agree with you on this one. While i do agree that fantasy shoulds just be a copy of Tolkien's ideas, i dont think there must be some system thats close to reality. Sure, it can be but it shouldn't be criticized for not being like reality. Thats why its called fantasy, its imaginary and i dont think that having politics put into it that much is a good thing. People dont view fantasy so they can hear more about politics, its usually just a way of entertainment. U dont have to be a 5 year old to not want to have politics shoved down your throat every time you read a book about Fantasy or watch a movie about it.
It frustrates me in RPGs that people create excruciatingly detailed mechanics for tiny weapon features that change a 1d6+1 sword to a 1d6+2 sword, but pay no mind to even the broad implications the political and economic situations. It’s not just fantasy. Some sci-fi settings have a setup in which the “runners” earn Uber driver money (sometimes less than the cost of their ammo) for taking on corporate assassin squads, and for no reason other than “it’s the job.” 🤷♂️
In "The Royal Assassin" by Robin Hobb, the five first books are about politics, tensions, and there are where the most big amount of people are being killed (well except at the very very last book where the daugher of the protaginist litteraly burns a whole cast with a whole civilisation living in there); there is a pivot point where the story becomes more and more focused on dragons and farseers, however the protagonist as a bastard prince interacts with the members of his family, grows alliance and make people disappear all the long; it's not about good vs bad but just about "you know what? someone tried something against us let's retaliate with discretion"
One thing I would like to touch on is how intertwined magic is with politics in The Witcher. Magic is an invaluable resource and considered scarce, so the noble class keeps at least one magically-inclined retainer on staff. The desire to use, limit, or extinguish magic comes from knowing it's capability and the dangers that lie therein.
I want someone to write a fantasy story based on the radical proto socialist factions in the English civil war. Or do fantasy in an industrialised setting instead of a caricature of medical Europe.
That’s a really good idea, maybe there should be an alternate history story where the Levellers (the proto-socialist faction you were talking about) wins the Civil War and turns England into a hippie commune/utopian socialist country
Considering the number of fantasy authors who confuse longswords for arming swords and broadswords they do spend as much time studying politics as weapons and armor.
gondor has a gluttonouse rueler whos pissed because hes not a king, the defences are weak and the realm is in disharmony because the hereditary rueller took too much time training and hasnt taken control inspite of being overqualified
This is why I struggle so much with fantasy! I have been trying to articulate this for like a year now; the DnD games I used to DM completely stopped cause the worlds all felt like bullshit.
This is one of the primary reasons i gave up fantasy a long time ago. Even in Asian versions of the genre, the politics are suss. It's like the whole genre exists to validate the status quo, with a fetish for feudalism in varying degrees.
@@nicolaim4275 Ankh-Morpork is literally UK. Though Ukraine doesn't have the backwardness or sexism of Borogrovia (or being the aggressor in past wars)... I think he based in on some Iberian wars, but it also applies to war in Bosnia. But the "your sovereignty doesn't matter because the treaties everyone signed are old and don't matter" hit right at home. The ending with blackmailing everyone to help is... nice. I still think we should get our own Mossad and take various Merkels hostage.
I think the problem is that Tolkien defined fantasy so hard that he made a whole new genre of Fantasy. fantasy just requires a lot of imagination, some out there ideas and keeping things very different from our current world. Fantasy is Elves, Dwarves, Orks and everything that comes with them. A lot of people say they like fantasy when in reality they want Fantasy and the market has definitely realised this.
It can be debated whether dune is post technology Sci-Fi or actually phantasy. And politics there are beautifully done. The problem is not about an author not including politics in their story, the problem is an author not having the skill to create proper lore. It's an undertaking of a lifetime and not to be underestimated. Yours sincerely, A writer.
It bothers me so much when a fantasy world has a cool and intricate magic system, and a political system copied from 17th century Europe. When mages and adventurers exist, but most people just choose not to nearn/improve because it's dangerous. That is not how any group - of any race - would organise themselves.
I've been doing the whole working out how the political systems work in my fantasy book. I had this Empire called Valitica which in the point of its history that is shown has fallen under another empire via personal Union. The empire of Calitarith which has been losing its vast empire in the Isles due to it not being well designed for a large empire. Calitarith was originally just an island where the ruling class was the Black sand soldiers named after the volcanic sand of the islands beaches. It was mainly an isolated empire which only cared for its own island but with the personal union would gain round 5 large islands. Valitica, Naristas, Alista & Monada & I think Dobron. Anyway these islands where owned by the crown of Valitica which was the glue & figure head of the empire. The two main factions where the Merchant families with around 500 of them each being of around 20,000 members & then the equally sized Naval Barons. The Merchants do merchant things & are a rich hierarchical system with the family being situated around a city of the families name & the surrounding land for farming. their hierarchy is made of a six pointed star with the top being the ruling merchants of the family, then the equal Guards of the ships & city & any foreign ports they owned & the traders basically the merchants that went out on trading & such. Then below them is the equal crew which would be fishers & all the lay people & the Army which is the same thing as the crew just for the land warfare when needed (but under funded & trained). The lowest cast is the bottom point the Producers which are the farmers, holy people & the other land professions. then the Naval Barons use the same kind of hierarchy being the Naval barons inner group at the top the Marians an Ethnic group of elite soldiers trained from birth kinda like Spartans, they are basically the armed forces & only around 20 active members per family & only like 180 inactive members per family. Then equal to them is the Naval soldiers below them is the crew & I never did the other one for them well I guess I'll need to add this anyway the lowest is the ship builders. But see each of these are equal like cogs in a machine if one part fails the whole system two will. The people of Calitarith started to lose their territory to the Militaristic Moliti empire who basically conquered their whole islands & the last to fall was Valitica. Valitica fell due to the Emperor not acting as the uniting force making the Merchants & Naval barons work together. The war was almost won by the Marians but in the end the new moveable Arotana Cannons allowed Molit to win & with their destruction of the Crown ships (basically a hereditary capital ship like the one where it truly isn't the original cause its so old but still the spirits of the dead hold it together). The first war is more set up leading to an ethnically charge second war/ uprising where genocide & ethnic cleansing commence & in the end the Champion Jetrixha (xh - is a j sound) sacrifices himself to prevent the genocide of Valitica by a Warlock but in doing so is curse to never be able to return to his homeland in any future lives. Neither side is right or wrong but the reasons for what they do makes them not justified by understandable. I skimmed over the deep theology of the area & the rift & stuff but I've thought through the politics as you can see. Still need to get onto the second draft though. The ships are also personified heavily like if they well they are alive to the people. The people of Molit had swords with similar meaning but the soldiers of Valitica melt them down & so dies with the swords their militarism.
Just say you don't understand fantasy and want politics everywhere. The main focus of fantasy is the fantastic, the epic journey, not boring politics about which party or group of parties unite and takeover the system. I also guarantee you that most authors know some politics but they'd rather not mess around with political messages in their fantasy stories because it would harm the fantasy you know?
The Wandering Inn I feel like has a good balance of geopolitical long game stuff and your average fantasy. It's a trapped in another world story as well so adds another degree of modern humans getting stuck into the politics of the world.
I haven't read much Ursula K. LeGuin, but she seems like an omission here. Less well known are the Attolia books by Megan Whalen Turner, (starting with The Thief) which has interesting geopolitical problems and the kingmaker palace intrigue stuff. Yes, there's still the monarchic angle, but it's pretty good for YA. I would definitely be happy to read fantasy which draws more from the Wat Tyler/Levellers/Luddite/Peterloo side of history, though. Where's the Regency-era fantasy subgenre? Besides Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, I suppose.
This vid's a big oof. Tolkien overdid himself and eternally cucked his successors who honestly have no idea what they're doing. It's fine for LotR to be about good king vs bad king because it's founded on ancient myths, chivalric romance and fairy tales which all have this basic idea. The actual reasons why Aragorn and Theoden are good kings and Denethor is bad are complex and have genuine substance to them. Don't pretend it's more simple than it is, because this will leave interpretation to regressives who love Aragorn for sanctioning ethnic cleansing of orcs after the war. Next time, read some Fromm, Bachofen and Mbembe before claiming it's shallow.
If I wrote a fantasy story I would not invest that much time into developing politics because I would want to write an adventurous story. And for that there isn't a need for a deep dive into politics. Why should be? However a book series called "Game of Thrones" that would have a shallow view on politics would feel like a scam. So different stories have different kinds of focus. I think, what makes a story good, is tension and you can have that already on a personal level. No need to call someone a "baby brain", because politics is left out. Insertion of politics can also be misused to validate your own views and discredit others. So, before you implement it badly, write only about what is absolutely necessary.
I'm currently developing my own fantasy series project that focuses a lot on political philosophy. The story I'm writing takes place in a world that has been taken over by a corrupt, corporate-controlled country--a worldwide regime where your only freedom is the choice to work for a despotic maniac or be left out on the street to die. It centers around a young soldier who runs away from his militia due to disillusionment, meets other outcasts like him, and forms his own freedom fighting organization. It borrows elements from cyberpunk, Japanese folklore, Norse mythology, magical girls, pirate fiction, samurai fiction, and military sci-fi, but is primarily a coming-of-age story with elements of political thriller and science fiction--think "Metal Gear Solid meets Stand By Me".
Pratchett - for all his faults - was pretty good of telling non-fantasy stories in his fantasy setting. But then, he started out writing a parody of fantasy, when he created discworld...
I must confess that before I read LOTR I read other authors. Marion Zimmer Bradley, Ursula Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, Dave Duncan, David Eddings, Robin Hobb and so on. I still read fantasy and yes there is fantasy equivalent to LOTR in my opinion. I have a few authors from Germany who are very good. Sam Feuerbach, for example, or Cornelia Funke... Above all, fantasy doesn't always have to include swords and gnomes. And fantasy isn't always just Tolkien to me. It can play in so many places and diverse worlds, doesn't always have to be earth-like. Thank god the vampire time is over and there is a lot of fantasy.
I absolutely am tired of the samey boring landcapes, too. Why is every fantasy world a boring green field in the middle of Europe? Do they have steppe, deserts, savannah, prairies, rocky lands, goddamn beaches at least?
This is because you are new to fantasy as many fantasy worlds aren't in medieval era. There are even genres like urban fantasy, steampunk fantasy, gunpowder fantasy, western setting and sci-fi fantasy as well. Some fantasy that isn't medieval Star Wars is a fantasy but is more of a movie series. Books (novel series) to check out: Shadow and Bone Earthsea City of Bones Harry Potter The Dark Tower The Chronicles of Amber American Gods The Aeronaut's Windlass These are just a few to name but if you don't want medieval fantasy then they do exist. Medieval stuff is just popular but a lot of stuff is taking place in other settings.
The reason that Tolkien is so influential is because his works are a useful artistic reference point through which average readers can understand a new world. When creating a work entirely divorced from many of the tropes established by Tolkien, it requires a lot of effort. Writers take the easy route of simply repurposing the Tolkien framework because it reduces the burden of worldbuilding to allow authors to tell more character driven stories (Something Lord of the Rings most certainly isn't). Some writers are extra lazy of course, and their worlds are extremely basic I'll grant. But most aren't interested in politics primarily because fantasy, in a large way, exists to be beyond Earth and all its political baggage. Fantasy is frequently a form of escapism, so in fact deliberately eschews realistic political frameworks for its stories. This is another legacy of Tolkien.
Most of the fantasy stories I've written don't place in settings modeled after medieval Europe. More often, they're modeled after pre-colonial African civilizations, with maybe some dinosaurs and magic thrown in for that fantastical factor. That said, a lot of those cultures still had monarchic governments (one exception being the Igbo of Nigeria), as did many of those elsewhere in the world. For some reason, monarchy has been a very popular system of government for larger countries throughout ancient and medieval times.
Generally every group has some sort of leader, officially or not. The groups just got bigger - village, town, "kindgom". That in itself is not bad or even boring. And for a war ridden time, a central authority is way mroe likely to survive than a committee. Republics only survived fro long if they were also fiercly nationalistic and (for their frame) meritocratic (often money-meritocratic, like Venice).
@@steemlenn8797 TBH republic and monarchy aren't that simple. For example, Nordic European countries are constitutional monarchies, and tons of dictatorships are either technically republics, or actually ARE ones with people just electing Orban and Erdogan over and over. Anyone things Hungary or Turkey are more democratic and free than Netherlands or Sweden?
Important point: Tolkien was the first person to really popularize epic fantasy, so by default he cannot be criticized for not being "subversive" enough, obviously. However, it's been almost 70 years since LOTR first got published, so I expect new writers to at least try to come up with something new.
Brandosando is also guilty of this to some extent (looking at you, Warbreaker).
Have you read berserk
Counterpoint, Adam needs better reading lists, off the top of my head:
ursula le guin
terry pratchett
mao ni
gene wolfe
robin hobb
carol berg
None of those above succumb to the failings you mentioned, and many of their works not only feature interesting political fantasy structures, settings and stories, but also are themselves works of political literature. The first 3 in particular have written explicity humanist books, and le guin is also quite famous as a an anarchist author.
The fantasy genre has become watered down over the years into an aesthetic template. Fantasy is meant to contrast itself from reality for effect; it is not an excuse to mindlessly reject realism for the sake of flashy visuals. A great example is how Tolkien wrote a detailed and expansive wealth of lore for Middle Earth including linguistics, history, politics, economics, resource dynamics, etc, while the film adaptations of his works have swords puncturing steel armour to make the comically small armies fight in an apparently more gruesome manner
@@Kohanman Exceptions to an inclusive claim do not render the claim false. Since Adam did not claim *all* fantasy works in existence or *all* modern fantasy writers are exhibit the flaws he mentioned, finding exceptions does little. At most, you could suggest that he is overgeneralising or that his claim is exaggerated in scope. However, since the only exceptions are relatively obscure, this too seems unfair. Adam is clearly meaning to discuss mainstream fantasy media
I was gonna say, how you gonna trash talk about fantasy without mentioning how good the witcher was.
Tolkien is a pioneer, therefore his works were original at the time. He himself stated that the universe was not centered around politics, but rather on a syncretism between Pagan and Christian mythology. I find the Tolkien universe, taken as a whole, to be truly impressive in terms of complexity.
That being said, there are plenty of fantasy works that tackle politics pretty heavily.
Yeah, and it's worth remembering that he was deliberately creating a mythology, which by design has to have a rather simplistic vision of good or evil, because that's what he understood real mythologies to have. If he chose to wrote a 'realist' fantasy novel, he would have mad something different. It's when people try to simply copy Tolkien and pass it off as 'realistic' because, I don't know, characters swear or rape women because that's 'real behaviour', they're just being a hack.
Hot take: Lord of the Rings is the original Sekaikei novel.
Mmm, Tolkiens works collected are referred to as the Legendarium after all - he deserves all the credit for basically composing a coherent quazi completely original mythology.
it's boring as shit though.
@@mytimetravellingdog I mean, the movies are fun though.
My biggest pet peeve with most fantasy is its fixation on swords. Swords are a sidearm! A secondary weapon! They are not the end-all, be-all of melee combat, they're what you have at your side. This makes them good for walking around town to defend yourself from muggers/assassins, and it makes them good for if you drop your actual weapon on the battlefield.
I am a believer of polearm supremacy
It's a bit funny Adam singled out swords and armour as an area where authors do the research he wishes they put into politics. It could not be further from the truth.
Pardon my ill knowledge on anything else, but at least during the Finnish iron age swords were seen as a status symbol. You own a sword? Big flex mate.
So yeah at least before metals were very available for everyone, real life was fixated on swords as well. Do you know how much metal those things require?
@@aurin_komak In certain periods sure, swords were used as status symbols. In fact that never really went away since swords could be embellished like heck and carried everywhere easily. But in the regions and time periods that most fantasy stories are based on-that is, 9th through 14th century Britain, France, and *maybe* Germany (inasmuch as it existed back then) that kind of quality metal wasn't nearly so scarce.
Point is If you're building a setting modeled off LotR or D&D then swords really shouldn't be a fixture on battlefields, at peast if you're aiming for a grounded or realistic tone. Especially if there are monsters and such about. I mean come on, if you see a charging minotaur or werewolf or what have you, are you going to want to step into mauling/goring range and fight the beast one on one, or gather up a dozen or so of your mates to stab the blighter from afar with spears? I know what I'd pick.
@@angusmuir6180 good point
The thing with Tolkin is that he didn't necessarily wanted to write a fantasy story. He was a linguistics professor fascinated with old English. What he wanted to do was create some hypothetical realm of legend for Britain which acted the same way as the mythical stories of the Norse, Greeks or Romans. This explained the king's part. Also, Gondor didn't fall in complete disarray just because the king died. As seen in the books a truchses took over until the heir of the throne came back.
In defence of Tolkien, first of all, he created the stereotypical races, so when he created them I don't see how that's a boring trope, since it was something new. Besides that, there are nuances between the races. Also there is little politics per se because Tolkien himself said, that the books were to be an escapist creation, and they were written during and after the war and published in 1954. I honestly don't think criticising a book for not being too political and being escapist in post-war torn Europe is a solid take. I do agree that some books that are typical fantasy clones are boring and more developed politics would do them good but a lot of fantasy in particular is written as escapist books. If you have a problem with escapism as a concept that's whole different topic I'd say.
theres a pratchett quote about it
i commented it
Also Tolkien based and stylised his books on old nordic tales. They were supposed to be manichaeic by their nature.
At that point Adam would just be saying fiction is dumb because it's not real, if he disagreed with this take.
numenor is colonialist lmao then they got sunk
Also, it was my interpretation that when he created "evil" races, it was more of a political statement that facism and militarism turn people into something less than human. I can see how that was twisted over time to mean that a fantasy race is "intrinsic" to being war-like, but I never got that sense from LOTR
Another thing that I find "off" by a lot of fantasy is that huge impressive cities, or even just towns, are just *plonk* out there in a field without the huge amount of connected smaller cities, farmland, industrial level trade routes, etc that is needed to support them. Some good media to explore if you want to see societal systems like politics and infrastructure at least look believeable: Tyranny (computer game), Discworld books, Queen's Wish and the other Spiderweb Software games.
I just saw that Tyranny is already in my Steam library so thanks for the recommendation, will check it out =)
I'll admit that i have never read the books, but one thing that always pulled me out of the LOTR movies was how empty the world seemed, there are no road, barely any farms if any. Everyone just lives in their city with no connectivity whatsover. Don't get me wrong, i love the movies, but on a worldbuilding level the movies aren''t very believable. Is that different in the books?
@@sonicdart3896 Very, yeah. Pelennor Fields around Minas Tirith, in the books, is surrounded by vast, rich villages and farmlands and orchards and vineyards within a massive wall around the fields, the Rammas Echor. In fact, when Theoden arrives, Tolkien describes the armies of Mordor are laying waste to these lands, and the widespread smoke actually at first demoralises him before he arrives nearer to the city and gives the big Rohan speech.
While the infrastructure isn't fully laid out, as it is a story, there are descriptions of some more major roads in passing, both as the roads the characters take, avoid because of the Nazghul, or could take were it not for Saruman and other factors.
Worldbuilding in Tolkien lore is very solid. Not always fully laid out, both because he's only one man and because he was mimicking the recording of a real history, and so sometimes the source don't exist or mention stuff. Love the movies too, but no adaptation is perfect :D
Tyranny is really good, I wish we had a chance to see how the broader continent was set up but the chunk we see is pretty well laid out
Give Wheel of Time a spin. They do this very well. As the characters move from bumfuck nowhere to the big city, the food they buy gets progressively more expensive.
Well, I'd say the Discworld novels deal pretty well with politics, even though they do not necessarily focus on the systems themselves, they do focus on ideologies.
Yes, Adam needs to read some Discworld.
I suppose you could writ a phd thesis about the political systems in discworld. Not only are there different systems, but they also function differently. And there are several political movements.
According to me, George RR Martin has written his series "A Song of Ice & Fire' pretty well, even the politics were good.
Much of the story is literally just politics.
As most POV's are from the perspective of well off people in high positions. Ex. Catelyn, Tyrion, Daenerys, Jon Snow
@@someguy7819 Yeah
Most of the house politics in GOT is really good. There are problems with the timeline however. There is no way a society would stay in the Middle Ages for thousands of years.
@@pogo8050 Based on what?
I think Adam is a bit quick to judge the Tolkien universe. The movies are quite simplistic and manichéens but the books are more subtile, like there are extensive description of the shire political system with maire great electors, in Bilbo the hobbit, the lake city is a sort of merchant republic whith the estetic of novgorod or kievan rus. And almost all the plot of Bilbo the hobbit revolvers around "racial tension" with too proud elves, greedy and entitled dwarves that almost lose everything because of that. There's also a thing to be said about the gondorians that always want to get the ring as a weapon of mass destruction or the rohimir who almost refused to respond to the mutual défense agreement with gondor. And Gondor who also survived 500 years without a king with a stewart/intendant that is also relu tant to give it's power back.
In the books there is even a bit of political intrigue between orc factions about who's better to serve under (saruman, sauron, indépendance in the mines of moria)
Its not really an issue with Tolkien's writing - he goes into an unfathomable amount of depth to do with the entire world history, and especially the origins of language. The issue is every Tolkien-esque author who came after him, took the bare bones of his ideas (dark lord, ethereal elves, scottish dwarves, etc) and made a book which is pretty much the basic premise of LOTR, but with a new coat of paint on it
@@johnroach9026Exactly, it's not really about Tolkien, it's about all the hack writers who churn out near-identical fantasy. Tolkien had another focus with the mythology, language etc. But when everyone just copy-pastes his ideas they became tropes. And with all the lazy politics of good kings, evil kings and princesses; it's either advocating autocracy or it's baby brains level view of history.
BTW there were plenty of other political systems practiced on various scales throughout the Middle Ages in Europe and beyond, so there's no excuse to fall back on kings and kingdoms. And the complexity of kingdoms was far greater than characterized in most fantasy.
@@antiochus87 Simple stories aren't bad if they're enjoyable. Some people just want escapism. And not think too deeply about complicated things, or something hitting too close to the problems in real life. The classic and popular fairy tales have some simplicity to them. Some people like stories and fantasies about historical eras. And often in history they had royal rulers. Some people fantasize about being a royal for fun.
Diverse genres are good, like what Adam talked about. And those exist. But don't knock down other stories that are more simplistic and enjoyed by other people. Not everything has to be about thinking deeply on complicated things and problems all the time.
Couldn't agree more. I'm at the point where I've gone off fantasy. I probably won't read any more for a good while unless it's by an author I trust and respect to tell a story and handle these things well. I'm a big fan of Tolkien, but that doesn't mean I accept bad rip-offs with no understanding of the politics of the setting they're inspired by.
I find most fantasy I've tried reading recent at least one of the following:
1. Advocating far right politics - aka "monarchy is good!"
2. "Baby brains" dumb, "I'm going to make a story about themes of exploitation and war, told through the eyes of my badass waif princess savior and heir to the kingdom!"
3. Vapid and shallow, and still set in an unquestioned autocracy.
There is no such thing as "a good king", as it's still an autocrat there based on blood.
If anyone can recommend a book series that don't fall into these, (or critique a monarchy and feudalism meaningfully and represent alternatives) then I welcome suggestions 👍
Funny that you mention Sapkowski. His quite unique in his progressive views among polish fantasy authors. Who for the most part use the fantasy world as a metaphor for their right-wing views.
Yeah, but they still put A LOT OF politics in their books. It may not be that sophisticated, but it is there. And I am not talking about Dukaj or, let's say Grzendowicz, but even Pilipiuk can do that.
Oh, you haven't seen Russian fantasy books then!? A good but simple Ivan goes back in time (or to a fantasy world) and through his integrity, wits and of course violence (but only against injustice) wins the day, saves the world and goes back (or becomes ruler and stays). It would sound like a teenager written story, but making our hero Russian (or giving him all the qualities of a typical russian national hero) makes it "sophisticated and patriotic". And of course it's all packed with classical far-right staff and evil, cynical or greedy foreigners (who are always at owe how "Übermensch" te hero is) or petty traitors.
Tbf any story will always have a rightwing bias by default
@@Astuar that’s the reason why I still like Russian literature. It just feels Russian unlike American stories who don’t feel like they come from any culture
@@luisandrade2254 stop using lead to sweeten your cereal pls
I am fine with monarchies being standard in setting analogous to time period on Earth when monarchies were standards, but it should be more developed than "king is in charge and if he dies his oldest son replaces him". Frankish empire in 9th century wasn't same as England in 12th century, which wasn't same as Poland in 15th century.
lol i was gonna mention polish... king elect is very different to oldest-inherits-the-crown
Alao they half wrong monarchies were not really that fragile democracies are far more fragile historically
Monarchies when a king dies if no replacment is their the nobles normaly have ability to hold up the system as its a decentralised system they also had people trained to know the family tree and know who is next in line even if its some nobody whos grand mother eas the daughter of a king five generations back who had an afair with the maid even those “covered up “ basteds have record of their existence geneologists know who has a child with who and who their children end uo being
@@demonic_myst4503 Maybe you should actually look at historical record. Specifically succession wars, usurpasitions and monarchs who sucked but were kept because they were rightful rulers...
@@martinsriber7760 nothing u said disProved my point my point is historicaly acurate Did u even reqd the coment or you high or somthing
Sucession wars happens yes not as often as not tho your own poing comoletly contradicts itself when u add the fact somtimes they didnt even bother wars even if had a bad heir because rightful ruler we talking about stability as in suden uprisings and changes in power or complete compapse which is 80% of democracies 8n history and very few kingdoms The vast majority being a domino effect to alot of events in the 1800s
@@demonic_myst4503 I have degree in history, I know damn well history doesn't support your claim. Your point is ridiculous, your writing is attrocious, monarchies are moronic and so are their supporters. Farewell.
"Most fantasy Authors have no fxxking idea how political systems work.."
*Ursula K Leguin has entered the chat*
Here's a simple answer to your complaint; stop relying on mainstream titles and do more exploring.
Seriously, there's a lot of fantasy out there that explore their in universe politics really well. You just have to some research.
Many years ago, back into the the realms of AD&D, I think in our Dragonlance campaign, we had to try and unite the various kingdoms to fight the Dragons because we needed as much firepower as we could. And of course they wanted some kind of token that we were genuine, like getting rid of some monster or minor lord causing issues, you know the usual questing stuff.
Anyway, we got to the point that our little band of 4 plus companions could basically wipe any army off the face of the world. So we got to thinking "why are we doing favours to try and get them to ask them to side with us when we face the dragons, we should be demanding their fealty and demanding the resources we need to carry on the 'good' fight".
So we changed tactics, nope we weren't going to get the "jewel of whatjamacallit", you are now part of our empire, submit or die. Quite a few of the leaders initially died. So DM had them learn not to let us in their castles.
So it turned into, "open up the gates or we'll destroy your castle". Well that went well (for us, not for them). So they learned that was pointless too. Then the DM got really smart, obviously we couldn't stick around, we needed to build our empire. So our more distant lands started breaking off with new lords. So then we had to go back to re-exert our authority. Which is hard, when your entire army consists of less than 50 people most of whom are the supporting baggage train. The four adventurers could zip around the place, but not our companions.
In the end it ended up being a game of politics, trying to keep people loyal, stopping rebellions, finding out the traitors etc. It was quite good fun, though I believe our DM was trying to get us back on track with the campaign rather than having to think of ways of stopping us building an empire. In the end school finished and we spread over the country never to meet again.
I miss my druid, there was something to be said of single handedly demolishing a castle with "earthquake"
I once wrote an adventure that was entirely about navigating Drow politics and inter-house animosities. It was a lot of fun to write but it turned out I did a shit job of it because it totally went over the heads of my players and I had to constantly nudge them in the right direction. Oh well, maybe that's why I'm writing TH-cam comments today and not fantasy novels ;)
@@unvergebeneid yea. Writing adventures is hard. You have to be quite obvious with stuff, if you don't want your players just to use skill checks to know stuff, which ends up you just narrating a story to your players. Politics is a difficult subject to broach, you have to be immersed in the world to understand
The funny thing is, that's a natural way for things to play out given the mechanics of the world. When a few people can wipe out armies and make fortifications meaningless, the world responds to deal with it. Either they get their own big sticks, or they teach the lesson that you still need the poor bloody infantry to _hold_ anything. Plus it fits logically, sure they were combatants without peer, but that doesn't make them good diplomats, strategists or politicians. If that story had fully gone to it's conclusion, the whole 'do it or be stomped by we marry few' arc would be important character building while also addressing a reasonable narrative question of 'why are we doing these requests again?'.
this is why I like the Star Wars prequels so much, especially the Clone Wars. There is a strong political aspect to everything with several factions all having differing ideologies and goals.
Too bad people saw that as boring, smh.
Me too
people saw that as boring the in prequels because it WAS boring. George had no idea how to write interesting dialog or political plotlines and instead of getting advice from his many many director friends he said fuck it what i have is good enough. the clone wars made politics interesting because the writers knew what the fuck they were doing.
@@exilestudios9546
As a kid I thought it was it was interesting and as I grew-up I thought it was more and more interesting. I disagree
*gags*
@@exilestudios9546 I actually think his political plot lines were pretty good, like between the three films the political narrative is actually very clear, the problem is that all the Viewpoint characters are boring as shit, so most people don't remember all the little details.
George Lucas is a great World Builder, he's just not good at character writing. I think the only reason he got away with the original trilogy is because he was literally following the hero's journey to the letter, although honestly Anakin's character Arc isn't that bad.
Those films, especially Revenge of the Sith, are far better than people give them credit for
I think it really depends on the focus of the story. If the focus of the story is about the personal development of the characters, having big-bad vs big-good is basically just the setting. That's pretty much the case in LOTR, where the focus is more on the personal struggle of Frodo and his friends. Scope and scale and all that.
Plenty of fantasy is basic, plenty is not. A lot of recently popular fantasy is strong on the political front. This video reads a bit like criticizing all romance novels as copies of Jane Austen or something based on the paperback romance books churned out for easy reading by the masses. It's a diverse genre full of diverse content of vastly different quality.
I have to say, as a non-hardcore fantasy reader, I was expecting to see more of R. R. Martin, Hobb, Sanderson or why not Brent Weeks or McCaffrey in that video. Fantasy is such a wide genre, way more than what the Lord of the rings is ; I don't follow you on this point and am not sure if you're up to date with fantasy because political systems are developed in this genre and in the stories of the authors I've cited.
Well, the video is barely 3 1/2 minutes long. But yeah, there are many authors nowadays who create fleshed out political systems and societies. But if you look at movies or video games, they're usually very flat.
Yeah, I mean while he does have a point, Game of Thrones is one of the most popular franchises in the fantasy genre and it is chiefly concerned with morally grey factions and politicking. I feel like the problems Adam is bringing up are kind of outdated.
@@comedy_goblin6378 they're not, you're just cherry picking the greatest works of fantasy, which of course do exist, out of a humongous pile of purely escapist tropesploitation. (To those great works I'd add Malazan Book of the Fallen)
Author A: Only writes monarchies because he can't think of other government systems.
Author B: "I think they're neat."
Ádám, this is the first time i disagree with you. And I've watched your videos since you had about 10,000 subs. I am an avid fantasy reader, and this take was faulty even in the 90s. Epic fantasy tends to go deep into politics, and frequently quite expertly. Read Jordan, Feist, even Salvatore from the 90s, and later writers blossomed. Today, the big dogs, like Sanderson, Abercrombe or Jamisin invent political systems as diverse as magic systems. Light and YA fantasy concentrates less on politics, their stories have a more intimate setting, and they really don't need to spend time on politics. I think you might not be up to date on the Fantasy genre...
Naomi Novik is a standout here. Her Temeraire books are one part historical fiction (fueled by her hardcore research for Master and Commander fanfiction, I hear), one part Goddamn Dragons because it's unbelievably cool that way.
As a not avid fantasy reader (I don't read any fantasy, I like fantasy in moderation though), this video is 100% my experience outside of Dragon Age: Origins, which didn't do that much political innovation but did have proper characters, or GoT. What I've seen is basically like from the WoW expansion of Burning Crusade where the bad guys had articulated goals and purposeful actions (sure, like comic caricatures to some extent, but at least something that could be warped and twisted so that one can relate), to Cataclysm where the big bad "I've gone mad!!!" and that's it for motivation, literally. Then all the B-fantasy movies and stuff, and so on in other media as well, and don't get me started on Harry Potter, or the Japanese stuff.
So, I think it's a fair criticism as such, but I think it's more broad than it just being fantasy that has this issue. I despise many horror movies, marvel movies and such, it's just so flat and basically "I'm evil so I have to kill you", and the protagonist just wants things to gets back to normal which is boring. Then movies seemingly get praised because the villain says something besides "I'm evil so I have to kill you", maybe, "My mom died so I'm sad".
Agreed some fantasy should, and others shouldn't. The only fantasy I'm well versed on is LoTR, and that story isn't meant to represent our own. It has many great quotes and ideas you could apply to our world, but others not so much. Orcs for example are too violent and simple minded to apply to our world, it would just imply essentialism. As these orcs are just built to destroy and conquer, and bend to the will of an evil and brutal lord.
@@Ingu.z Yeah, outside of books, the political side of the worldbuilding is usually very flat.
I don't think he meant 'literally nobody does it'
I love how so much modern thinking is added into some fantasy but they still hardcore monarchists.
Because they are Renaissance monarchists
As someone who DMs a D&D group, I feel called out by this. 🤣
WARNING
This is a huge waste of time for beginners and intermediate story tellers.
THE MOST COMMON MISTAKE they make is to create a really complex political system and populate it with 100 factions with minor differences. I cringe so hard every time someone says "and now a little back story of the politics, so you understand why everyone hates each other."
It's fantasy. Showcase your hook first(Why your world is different and how it works). Politics are nice to have when there is room for it. When you have a Huge Tentacle monster living in the sea, NO will care about Authoritarian vs Libertarian vs Totalitarian regime.
Cool video tho.
Honestly if you look at the origin of Fantasy, which I consider to be Chivalric Romance and Folk/Fairytales, it all makes sense, after all Fantasy is at least partially inspired by the idealization of the Middle Ages during the Early Modern Period and by folktales, which were told by the common people, who probably didn't have a very deep understanding of politics. So both of these sort of romanticized monarchies, which lead directly into modern monarchies in fantasy works. Plus fantasy is usually viewed as escapism, thus we have the protagonists defeating what ever the bad guys throw at them, slaying dragons, whatever. After all there are very few people who would read about a debate on how much taxes to levy or something like that, as that is just to similar to our world full of annoying bureaucratic functionaries.
Not sure if comedy/satire counts, but gotta give Terry Pratchett's Discworld series a shout-out - it definitely breaks the typical fantasy politics mold (of course, being satire, that's in large part b/c it reflects the modern world).
I mean you can have a villain who is the head of state and irredeemably evil but it's a lot more interesting if they didn't just kill the previous king and just took power, but had to gradually build up popularity, give speeches in various towns, work as an advisor, etc... before completely taking over the state
2:57 I think the problem is that that is exactly the amount of research they do. After all, nothing makes a one-handed „longsword“ - naturally the standard-issue primary weapon in any field army - cut a grown adult in half quite as nicely as a full suit of „medieval“ plate armour on said adult, whose chances of wearing a helmet decrease exponentially with their increased political and military authority and importance.
I'd love fantasy or even historical genres to include more economics and logistics (at least implicitly show that things have been thought through): we are mostly taught History through the feats of the rulers, and it gives the illusion that greatness, cunning and willpower are all it takes to accomplish said feats. In fact, this is all very much constrained by what's physically feasible.
An example: in Games of Thrones, little is written about how people cope with pluriannual winters, or how they manage to sustain so many armies when apparently every other inhabitant is killed at each episode.
Tbh I like both sorts, scheming and courtly intrigued and the long quest to battle evil. Ideally we would have a decent spread of the two. I don't think every story needs to hammer in 'monarchy bad' and I don't think authors should be constrained to never have a broader message that applies outside the text. Glad you shared this!
Also sadly enough, most fantasy authors have asolutely no idea how swords work or are used. Kind of like video games and guns.
My pet peeve is having plate armor with swords as main weapon... despite era of such armor having cannons, pikes and muskets already. Also almost never any cavalry in videogames. Final Fantasy is like the only non-Musou or Mount & Blade series that has lancers and (chocobo) riders. Everyone else is footsoldiers in full armor with swords...
I am sixteen years old and I like the thing good versus evil. If do not like that that is oké But do not hate on good versus evil because it is just what you like and if you do not like it you can just read other book, right?
The problem with introducing politics into your fantasy story is that it will be subconsciously biased towards your own political beliefs, which turns everything into an allegory, and sometimes you just want to be entertaining
(late to the party but) exactly. GATE: Thus the JSDF Fought There (If you read the Manga and Light Novel) are pretty much the author rambling about "America, china and russia bad, japan can do everything by itself and is super stronk"
-Also yes, it's not exactly a fantasy book, but still it's a good example of personal biases in a work.-
Real world is just like that, evil is against trains, good is pro trains
There is literally nothing, NOTHING more cringeworthy than fantasy that is anti-monarchy.
Exactly. You can practically hear the author like a voice just off stage, loudly whispering to the audience what we should think and how it must be in line with the great leap forward.
Disagree. I think you totally missed the point about Escapism. In short, many people are so tired after work and therefore don't want to read politics. Fantasy with deep politics in my opinion is only for nerdy people but not the general public. Thus the "mainstream" fantasy that you don't like has nothing wrong, it is just more-or-less market-oriented.
I would argue that one of the main benefits of fantasy is that it is just that - fantasy, an escape from reality. We're bombarded with dreadgrim politicking on what seems like a daily basis and its nice to fall back onto a world without the trappings of our own beaurocratic nightmare. Politics is often part of the background and in my opinion, is used more to define people and the place than go into any true detail. Unless you're writing a truly epic 7 book, 1000 page epr book series, leaving time to focus on adventure, relationships and excitement is much more engaging.
Not all fantasy should focus on politics, but having coherent, believable politics should be part of world building (especially in epic fantasy). If your world has a feudal system, it will affect culture differently than if it has a capitalist, communist or anarchist one. Especially if your story is filled with people with magical powers, or races with different abilities, an author should consider how this will affect power-relations between different people.
@@KarlSnarks Fair enough. Just not my sort of fantasy. Politics bores me.
@@Z3noparadox That's fine too, art is subjective and it can certainly be nice to escape politics sometimes.
My rebuttle to that would be some things you just can't escape. Politics aren't pointless semantics, it's deciding what kind of leadership a group of people have. If people are tired of hearing about politics, then they're just gonna have to suck it up because it's an integral part of how societies function.
But of course, I'm heavily biased on this opinion. I have somewhat of a hate-boner for Escapism and stuff related to it, as it somewhat ruins my immersion in most stories. Legend of Zelda as a popular fantasy example- Having grown up, I can't play those games without thinking about how much of overprivileged assholes the Royal Family of Hyrule are often depicted as being. That's why I like that series, because most games make it clear you're not trying to save the Monarchy, you're trying to save everyday people. The Momarchy is often depicted as wrong or dumb.
The implications of committing warcrimes in Ocarina of Time, the King of Red Lions admitting that he was wrong at the end of Wind Waker, the Royal Family failing to prepare for the Calamity in Breath of the Wild. It's just such a subtle inclusion of realistic politics into Legend of Zelda that makes it more tolerable. My point being, Politics greatly improve most works of fiction, and if people don't like that then I see it as more their problem.
That's why I prefer sci-fi, as it almost always actually satirizes something real, on top of having some escapism. For example, Council in Mass Effect not believing Shepard than Saren is behind geth and then Reapers are behind Saren, is like UN and the West not believing Ukrainians that it's russia behind "Babmas Debels" and that they WILL INVADE EVERYONE FULLY SOON. In fantasy, I liked Monstrous Regiment. It actually explained well what people are fighting for (their close ones, not some vague notion of patriotism), and how you are dependent on a richer country sending you supplies and a lot of coffee too defeat the enemy.
Me: "I want to write about my political ideology in a fantasy novel!"
Also Me: "Crap I'm a terrible writer"
Our political ideology is that orcs aren't human and there can be no normalization with them.
I don't even need to write? xD I just wish we nuke mordor in real life soon.
That's exactly why i prefer Sci-fi over fantasy
The song of Ice and Fire has the best politics ever...
@@st_420 Did you watch the last few seasons? When Weiss and Benioff overtook the books in season four, the show become a mess of fast travelling, confused and often boring plot points, and a sidelining of political intrigue for the sake of quicker plot advancement. I have no idea why you thought this was a good point to bring up.
I wish there was more space or futuristic fantasy.
Sci-fi is just as guilty of this though.
Like even luminaries like Dune which are very "political" don't really explore the politics that much.
@@henrysymes Can you even read? What does A Song Of Ice and Fire have to do with Games of Thrones? They aren't even the same story. It's like saying Judaism is bad because in the Quran Muhammad does something unrealistic.
They don’t even have to throw out monarchical drama, if an author really wants it. It’s not hard to right well if you actually do research
That is a fair criticism, however on the other hand most authors are not trying to create some super nuanced and subversive work. Most of them are just trying to find a way to tell their fantasy story and theirs nothing wrong with that.
On another note, my friend and I have our own "pocket" universe. A small continent were things are a bit different from usual
Halflings are the most civilised race, running a large city with Troll thralls. Humans are in the main nomadic hunter/gatherers. Dwarves are a myth in time, orcs live in small villages out on the wastes, and the once builders of great civilisations, until the the evil (non drow) Elves invaded from another dimension causing chaos. Illithids are reclusive intellectuals. Gnomes are completely absent (cause neither of us like gnomes)
Seriously, fuck gnomes! xD
The issue I see a lot is that people want a "high fantasy" story (or some variant), where everything is simple, you don't worry about complicated things, it's a simple storybook fantasy about killing the bad guy and saving the princess. There are plenty of variants, Warhammer stories are often just this but edgy.
But then people lose focus and try to give their high fantasy story some verisimilitude by adding in a king, or a council, or whatever. And then you ask "hey why is this guy the king when his kingdom would almost certainly revolt almost immediately?" and they generally go into the old argument about bringing real politics into their fantasy setting.
It's a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it. People want to play out a simple storybook fantasy, and then drop in structures or values they think are "right" because they believe they're as straightforward and undeniable as good vs evil. Then this clashes with reality and they're faced with the uncomfortable truth that they don't understand the things they hold on a pedestal and should probably rethink their views. Which is a realization that provokes angry kneejerk reactions from just about anyone. This issue is just that we have groups of people all telling one another that this kneejerk reaction is correct and they don't need to contemplate their believes and become better educated they just need to dive further down the rabbit hole and further convince themselves that monarchy or racial cleansing or whatever else they injected in their story is good and appropriate.
I agree with you but most people just don't care. Like, it's hilarious how many fantasy stories break the law of Thermodynamics with their magic. At some point you have to suspend your disbelief because there will be contradictions. Integrating a feudal system with all of its subtleties would be amazing but it would just be wayyy too complex.
We also can't mathematically predict economic models with fewer than 50 people, so it would be difficult establishing a medieval economy with sufficient precision. Having a coherent feudal, economic AND magical system would take a long time :P.
That's why best fantasy is tongue in cheek, like Hajime Kanzaka's Slayers or Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
Translation.
You: "Be utterly condescending and talk about how kings are fascistic and how you hate trump"
Other guy: "dude its escapism it has nothing to do with politics"
You: "How dare you knee jerk your not smart!"
@@georgethompson1460 A year later... yeah I'd still stand by what I said. You seem to have completely missed my point though, which was "DON'T think too hard about shit just enjoy the escapism". The issues come when people try to justify their escapism when it's inherently flawed. Just enjoy it for what it is!
@@KoboldCommando But in the comment you mentioned even having a king seemed problematice, but if its the age old "slay the dragon and save the kingdom" you logically get a king alongside this.
That's the difference between fantasy written by people from (falling) empires (all Anglosaxon fantasy basically) and people from subjugated countries (Sapkowski and other Eastern European authors). Tolkien wrote about huge good empire losing power and falling. I wonder how he got the idea being from British South Africa and living through WW1, WW2 and decolonisation :)
Sapkowski wrote in Poland just before and just after it got independent from USSR in 1989 after Poland lost 1/6th of population in WW2 and then was occupied by soviets for 50 years. The political situation was a clusterfuck of chaos and it shows :)
For British (and American) authors the situation was simple - we are good and the rest are evil (possibly not their fault but still). The system is good and it's on our side. We just need to work selflessly for the Greater Good and if we're brave enough - it will work out fine.
For people in Eastern Europe the situation is simple too - everybody has agenda and wants to use any ideological excuse they can to get more power. Good king is only good because he paid bards. Everybody is an asshole, the more power they have - the more chances they have to show how much of an asshole they really are. The only reason some groups are innocent in some conflicts is because they had no power to hurt others. So worrying about "who is the bad guys" is pointless. The best you can do is navigate the conflicts saving the people you care about and not dirtying yourself with the ugly political stuff. That's basically the Witcher series.
That's overly simplistic. Because it assumes all British authors were like Tolkein and CS Lewis and really they absolutely weren't. The problem is that's what exploded in popularity and what everyone decided to rip off. It's popularity, influence and simplicity made it easy to rip off as well. And something that in the west has taken decades to shake off and still people can't do it cause their tastes are super basic.
Read Mervyn Peake - who if the world was fair would be considered the true progenitor of British adult fantasy. Titus Groan was published 8 years before The Fellowship of the Ring. And it's worlds better. And a world removed from any sort of generic crap fantasy nonsense.
Set in a vast decaying castle in an isolated earldom where everything is stagnant and ruled by convention, ritual and tradition the meaning of which no one understands anymore, strict class distinctions etc etc and I don't really want to save more. But you know not only is the book is leagues above most other fantasy from the first chapter it's about something in a way so much fantasy conspicuously tries not to be.
and that is why you should love dune. because science fiction tends to handle politics significintly better then fantasy.
More elaboration of this please so I can blatenly steal it for my Tabletop RPG Settings
For some reason there is no multiple kingdoms created by same race.One race can't have multiple countries in most of fantasies and usually don't fight eachother.
okay. i'll take your thumbnail bait. instead of evil king vs good king it's going to be evil democracy vs good king.
Dude I didn't know you have a second channel! Looks like this will be more focused on media analysis. Really looking forward to what comes next.
I’m an aspiring author myself and I want to play with the idea of a “good” monarchy vs a “bad” monarchy. Specifically I want to have a royal bloodline that was cursed by a demonic ancestor to gradually decline in leadership skills until a successor violently overthrows a predecessor, at which point they reset and are effective administrators. The current Queen (who killed her corrupt father) is getting old and is setting up a plan to have her granddaughter kill her to become a great ruler. Then, the characters in the “present” decide such a system is inherently flawed and change it over the series
Fun fact: dwarfs are actually supposed to be Jews. No I'm not making this up. Tolkien is very explicit about this in a recently unearthed interview.
My sibling & I spent a while devising the different political systems for the various nations in our D&D campaign that we were planning to co-DM. It's funny how an 18 year-old & a 13 year-old were able to express more political nuance than most fully-grown fantasy authors.
U know, that's why Witcher always was first off good material to build a giant franchise on, and second so fun to consume.
Same goes for Game Of Thorne (if we forget the last season).
Political stuff is boring sometimes, but it makes a story come alive, when you have to think about the intentions and obligations not only of the "enemy" but also perceived friends of the protagonist.
Or maybe I just love to overthink relationships and motivs.
Many authors might find it difficult to imagine pre-modern systems which weren't complete autocracies, of course, if you go to a list of Republics in Wikipedia you can find quite a few examples of medieval republics and those from antiquity. It can be done, might take a bit of extra research.
Indeed - you might be interested to check out "Dawn of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow. It's a long book on anthropology and history but worth a read if you're interested (even just it's Wikipedia page)
Also there IS barely any true autocracies in the middle ages
I would argue that Terry Pratchett does a fantastic job at creating amazing politics that are neither pro-monarchic nor dull.
Yes, the patrician for example is a great believer in the principle of "One Man, One Vote". He is the man, he has the vote.
Exactly, he also knows how to write excellent characters.
I'm in the process of writing a political fantasy novel. There is a monarchy, but there are political parties too. I love pushing the boundaries of the genre.
Which good politics-war fantasy/scifi books do you recomend?
It’s good to see that I don’t have to make these videos, thanks for sharing your thoughts
Someone needs to write a fantasy set in the Late Holy Roman Empire era. The empire is dissolving and kingdoms and republics are trying to cope, consolidate, cooperate, and unite while trying, failing, and succeeding in industrializing. Different cultures, different races and species, just different everything. That would give another dimension to the story.
I dont agree with you on this one. While i do agree that fantasy shoulds just be a copy of Tolkien's ideas, i dont think there must be some system thats close to reality. Sure, it can be but it shouldn't be criticized for not being like reality. Thats why its called fantasy, its imaginary and i dont think that having politics put into it that much is a good thing. People dont view fantasy so they can hear more about politics, its usually just a way of entertainment. U dont have to be a 5 year old to not want to have politics shoved down your throat every time you read a book about Fantasy or watch a movie about it.
It frustrates me in RPGs that people create excruciatingly detailed mechanics for tiny weapon features that change a 1d6+1 sword to a 1d6+2 sword, but pay no mind to even the broad implications the political and economic situations. It’s not just fantasy. Some sci-fi settings have a setup in which the “runners” earn Uber driver money (sometimes less than the cost of their ammo) for taking on corporate assassin squads, and for no reason other than “it’s the job.” 🤷♂️
In "The Royal Assassin" by Robin Hobb, the five first books are about politics, tensions, and there are where the most big amount of people are being killed (well except at the very very last book where the daugher of the protaginist litteraly burns a whole cast with a whole civilisation living in there); there is a pivot point where the story becomes more and more focused on dragons and farseers, however the protagonist as a bastard prince interacts with the members of his family, grows alliance and make people disappear all the long; it's not about good vs bad but just about "you know what? someone tried something against us let's retaliate with discretion"
One thing I would like to touch on is how intertwined magic is with politics in The Witcher. Magic is an invaluable resource and considered scarce, so the noble class keeps at least one magically-inclined retainer on staff. The desire to use, limit, or extinguish magic comes from knowing it's capability and the dangers that lie therein.
I want someone to write a fantasy story based on the radical proto socialist factions in the English civil war.
Or do fantasy in an industrialised setting instead of a caricature of medical Europe.
That’s a really good idea, maybe there should be an alternate history story where the Levellers (the proto-socialist faction you were talking about) wins the Civil War and turns England into a hippie commune/utopian socialist country
Maybe YOU could write it! If it interests you then who's better? Everyone has their own tastes my friend.
@@dylanc9174 I'll keep that in mind
Have a read of Perdido Street Station by China Meiville. It is EXACTLY what you are after.
Watch Arcane. Criminally underappreciated.
Considering the number of fantasy authors who confuse longswords for arming swords and broadswords they do spend as much time studying politics as weapons and armor.
gondor has a gluttonouse rueler whos pissed because hes not a king, the defences are weak and the realm is in disharmony because the hereditary rueller took too much time training and hasnt taken control inspite of being overqualified
This is why I struggle so much with fantasy! I have been trying to articulate this for like a year now; the DnD games I used to DM completely stopped cause the worlds all felt like bullshit.
Thanks for mentioning Sapkowski. Greetings from Poland 😙😙😙🇵🇱🇵🇱
This is one of the primary reasons i gave up fantasy a long time ago. Even in Asian versions of the genre, the politics are suss. It's like the whole genre exists to validate the status quo, with a fetish for feudalism in varying degrees.
Terry Pratchett always felt like a good subversion of this trope. Monstrous Regiment for example seems nicely fitting to the Ukraine situation.
So... feudalism is the status quo, now?
@@nicolaim4275 Ankh-Morpork is literally UK. Though Ukraine doesn't have the backwardness or sexism of Borogrovia (or being the aggressor in past wars)... I think he based in on some Iberian wars, but it also applies to war in Bosnia.
But the "your sovereignty doesn't matter because the treaties everyone signed are old and don't matter" hit right at home. The ending with blackmailing everyone to help is... nice. I still think we should get our own Mossad and take various Merkels hostage.
Sinple: build a train!
I think the problem is that Tolkien defined fantasy so hard that he made a whole new genre of Fantasy.
fantasy just requires a lot of imagination, some out there ideas and keeping things very different from our current world.
Fantasy is Elves, Dwarves, Orks and everything that comes with them.
A lot of people say they like fantasy when in reality they want Fantasy and the market has definitely realised this.
It can be debated whether dune is post technology Sci-Fi or actually phantasy. And politics there are beautifully done.
The problem is not about an author not including politics in their story, the problem is an author not having the skill to create proper lore. It's an undertaking of a lifetime and not to be underestimated.
Yours sincerely,
A writer.
It bothers me so much when a fantasy world has a cool and intricate magic system, and a political system copied from 17th century Europe.
When mages and adventurers exist, but most people just choose not to nearn/improve because it's dangerous.
That is not how any group - of any race - would organise themselves.
I've been doing the whole working out how the political systems work in my fantasy book. I had this Empire called Valitica which in the point of its history that is shown has fallen under another empire via personal Union. The empire of Calitarith which has been losing its vast empire in the Isles due to it not being well designed for a large empire. Calitarith was originally just an island where the ruling class was the Black sand soldiers named after the volcanic sand of the islands beaches. It was mainly an isolated empire which only cared for its own island but with the personal union would gain round 5 large islands. Valitica, Naristas, Alista & Monada & I think Dobron. Anyway these islands where owned by the crown of Valitica which was the glue & figure head of the empire. The two main factions where the Merchant families with around 500 of them each being of around 20,000 members & then the equally sized Naval Barons. The Merchants do merchant things & are a rich hierarchical system with the family being situated around a city of the families name & the surrounding land for farming. their hierarchy is made of a six pointed star with the top being the ruling merchants of the family, then the equal Guards of the ships & city & any foreign ports they owned & the traders basically the merchants that went out on trading & such. Then below them is the equal crew which would be fishers & all the lay people & the Army which is the same thing as the crew just for the land warfare when needed (but under funded & trained). The lowest cast is the bottom point the Producers which are the farmers, holy people & the other land professions. then the Naval Barons use the same kind of hierarchy being the Naval barons inner group at the top the Marians an Ethnic group of elite soldiers trained from birth kinda like Spartans, they are basically the armed forces & only around 20 active members per family & only like 180 inactive members per family. Then equal to them is the Naval soldiers below them is the crew & I never did the other one for them well I guess I'll need to add this anyway the lowest is the ship builders. But see each of these are equal like cogs in a machine if one part fails the whole system two will. The people of Calitarith started to lose their territory to the Militaristic Moliti empire who basically conquered their whole islands & the last to fall was Valitica. Valitica fell due to the Emperor not acting as the uniting force making the Merchants & Naval barons work together. The war was almost won by the Marians but in the end the new moveable Arotana Cannons allowed Molit to win & with their destruction of the Crown ships (basically a hereditary capital ship like the one where it truly isn't the original cause its so old but still the spirits of the dead hold it together). The first war is more set up leading to an ethnically charge second war/ uprising where genocide & ethnic cleansing commence & in the end the Champion Jetrixha (xh - is a j sound) sacrifices himself to prevent the genocide of Valitica by a Warlock but in doing so is curse to never be able to return to his homeland in any future lives. Neither side is right or wrong but the reasons for what they do makes them not justified by understandable. I skimmed over the deep theology of the area & the rift & stuff but I've thought through the politics as you can see. Still need to get onto the second draft though. The ships are also personified heavily like if they well they are alive to the people. The people of Molit had swords with similar meaning but the soldiers of Valitica melt them down & so dies with the swords their militarism.
cool
now i want see story about prince saving princess from dragon, but with with all hre wars and politics
Just say you don't understand fantasy and want politics everywhere.
The main focus of fantasy is the fantastic, the epic journey, not boring politics about which party or group of parties unite and takeover the system.
I also guarantee you that most authors know some politics but they'd rather not mess around with political messages in their fantasy stories because it would harm the fantasy you know?
The Wandering Inn I feel like has a good balance of geopolitical long game stuff and your average fantasy. It's a trapped in another world story as well so adds another degree of modern humans getting stuck into the politics of the world.
That's partly why I appreciated the setup in Dragon Age Inquisition. They did a GOOD job of showing how political machinations can work (or not).
I haven't read much Ursula K. LeGuin, but she seems like an omission here.
Less well known are the Attolia books by Megan Whalen Turner, (starting with The Thief) which has interesting geopolitical problems and the kingmaker palace intrigue stuff. Yes, there's still the monarchic angle, but it's pretty good for YA.
I would definitely be happy to read fantasy which draws more from the Wat Tyler/Levellers/Luddite/Peterloo side of history, though. Where's the Regency-era fantasy subgenre? Besides Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, I suppose.
This vid's a big oof. Tolkien overdid himself and eternally cucked his successors who honestly have no idea what they're doing.
It's fine for LotR to be about good king vs bad king because it's founded on ancient myths, chivalric romance and fairy tales which all have this basic idea. The actual reasons why Aragorn and Theoden are good kings and Denethor is bad are complex and have genuine substance to them. Don't pretend it's more simple than it is, because this will leave interpretation to regressives who love Aragorn for sanctioning ethnic cleansing of orcs after the war. Next time, read some Fromm, Bachofen and Mbembe before claiming it's shallow.
If I wrote a fantasy story I would not invest that much time into developing politics because I would want to write an adventurous story. And for that there isn't a need for a deep dive into politics. Why should be?
However a book series called "Game of Thrones" that would have a shallow view on politics would feel like a scam. So different stories have different kinds of focus. I think, what makes a story good, is tension and you can have that already on a personal level. No need to call someone a "baby brain", because politics is left out.
Insertion of politics can also be misused to validate your own views and discredit others. So, before you implement it badly, write only about what is absolutely necessary.
I'm currently developing my own fantasy series project that focuses a lot on political philosophy. The story I'm writing takes place in a world that has been taken over by a corrupt, corporate-controlled country--a worldwide regime where your only freedom is the choice to work for a despotic maniac or be left out on the street to die. It centers around a young soldier who runs away from his militia due to disillusionment, meets other outcasts like him, and forms his own freedom fighting organization. It borrows elements from cyberpunk, Japanese folklore, Norse mythology, magical girls, pirate fiction, samurai fiction, and military sci-fi, but is primarily a coming-of-age story with elements of political thriller and science fiction--think "Metal Gear Solid meets Stand By Me".
PLEASE make a video or a series about different political systems and where they are/were used! That would be super helpful!
I often crack political jokes when watching fantasies. Weirdly most of them actually don’t match my political beliefs.
read the Barimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
I was really tempted to just post the "Critically Acclaimed MMORPG" meme since that's what I feel Adam wants in this video.
The possible transformation of Westeros into a republic was an exciting prospect, but then TV showrunners happened... :-/
Pratchett - for all his faults - was pretty good of telling non-fantasy stories in his fantasy setting. But then, he started out writing a parody of fantasy, when he created discworld...
I must confess that before I read LOTR I read other authors. Marion Zimmer Bradley, Ursula Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, Dave Duncan, David Eddings, Robin Hobb and so on. I still read fantasy and yes there is fantasy equivalent to LOTR in my opinion. I have a few authors from Germany who are very good. Sam Feuerbach, for example, or Cornelia Funke... Above all, fantasy doesn't always have to include swords and gnomes. And fantasy isn't always just Tolkien to me. It can play in so many places and diverse worlds, doesn't always have to be earth-like. Thank god the vampire time is over and there is a lot of fantasy.
Best Contra Argument: Star Wars Episode 1-3
Game of Thrones is actually a very good example of politics in fantasy without falling short of all the other cool stuff like dragons and epic battles
The fact that all fantasy happens in 1400s Germany definitely takes the fun out of it
Yeah, if wanted politics, you would have to place it in 1800s Germany, with it's 365 realms.
So, warhammer fantasy's empire?
I absolutely am tired of the samey boring landcapes, too. Why is every fantasy world a boring green field in the middle of Europe? Do they have steppe, deserts, savannah, prairies, rocky lands, goddamn beaches at least?
This is because you are new to fantasy as many fantasy worlds aren't in medieval era. There are even genres like urban fantasy, steampunk fantasy, gunpowder fantasy, western setting and sci-fi fantasy as well.
Some fantasy that isn't medieval
Star Wars is a fantasy but is more of a movie series.
Books (novel series) to check out:
Shadow and Bone
Earthsea
City of Bones
Harry Potter
The Dark Tower
The Chronicles of Amber
American Gods
The Aeronaut's Windlass
These are just a few to name but if you don't want medieval fantasy then they do exist. Medieval stuff is just popular but a lot of stuff is taking place in other settings.
This sounds like a take of a person who learned about fantasy from a family guy parody episode
Star Wars tried and got nuked. After that, it kinda turned people off of putting much political stuff in their fun fantasy romp.
Wunderbar, bitte mache mehr von dieser Art Videos.
Didn't he gave the lesson that greed is the destruction itself in by giving example of Thorin? Greed is the foundation of politics .
Ever since I learned a modicum of political workings I literally watched my world building fucking explode in quality.
The 2nd most interesting thing about Star Wars, after its vehicles, is the politics.
The reason that Tolkien is so influential is because his works are a useful artistic reference point through which average readers can understand a new world. When creating a work entirely divorced from many of the tropes established by Tolkien, it requires a lot of effort. Writers take the easy route of simply repurposing the Tolkien framework because it reduces the burden of worldbuilding to allow authors to tell more character driven stories (Something Lord of the Rings most certainly isn't).
Some writers are extra lazy of course, and their worlds are extremely basic I'll grant. But most aren't interested in politics primarily because fantasy, in a large way, exists to be beyond Earth and all its political baggage. Fantasy is frequently a form of escapism, so in fact deliberately eschews realistic political frameworks for its stories. This is another legacy of Tolkien.
When I write my book I will run it by you. Thank you in advance.
Most of the fantasy stories I've written don't place in settings modeled after medieval Europe. More often, they're modeled after pre-colonial African civilizations, with maybe some dinosaurs and magic thrown in for that fantastical factor. That said, a lot of those cultures still had monarchic governments (one exception being the Igbo of Nigeria), as did many of those elsewhere in the world. For some reason, monarchy has been a very popular system of government for larger countries throughout ancient and medieval times.
Generally every group has some sort of leader, officially or not. The groups just got bigger - village, town, "kindgom".
That in itself is not bad or even boring. And for a war ridden time, a central authority is way mroe likely to survive than a committee. Republics only survived fro long if they were also fiercly nationalistic and (for their frame) meritocratic (often money-meritocratic, like Venice).
@@steemlenn8797 TBH republic and monarchy aren't that simple. For example, Nordic European countries are constitutional monarchies, and tons of dictatorships are either technically republics, or actually ARE ones with people just electing Orban and Erdogan over and over. Anyone things Hungary or Turkey are more democratic and free than Netherlands or Sweden?