But from the description, I do recognize the subgenre you're referring to - about a sort-of isekai bringing technological uplift. I don't think it is the same genre, though it can definitely start out in a variant of the same setting before the setting's changed during the story. But then, the harder sci-fi can't use the same setting unless it waves its hands really fast about magic being simulated by nanotech - and even then I wouldn't really count it as hard.
There are a fairly small number of archetypes. What is a creature of light to be but an elf? A creature of darkness, but a goblin? A creature of fire but a dragon? A creature of earth but a dwarf? A creature of water but a mermaid? A creature of the air but an eagle? Who can be wise but a wizard, who brave but a knight, who fair but a princess, who virtuous but a prince, who dark but a dark lord? Who can rightfully rule but a king?
You can change the names, but the players remain the same. No one is fooled. The archetypes are too ancient and too primitive to be invented; they can only be dressed in the raiment of their offices according to some particular turn of fashion.
How then could the world they inhabit be any but the world they have always inhabited?
I disagree! Or rather, I half disagree and half think you're missing the question I was discussing.
Take Elves. You're right that on some level, they're defined by "creature of light." But, there're many degrees of freedom inside that definition. Consider Tolkien's Elves versus Shakespeare's Elves versus Lloyd Alexander's Fair Folk versus L. Frank Baum's Daughters of the Rainbow. They're all "creatures of light"; it isn't like one of them is more fully light than the others. But the Standard Fantasy Setting has clearly chosen Tolkien's version of them over the others.
Or, take kings. In my own abortive fantasy novel, I had a number of leaders who weren't properly kings. You could argue they were taking the same literary and symbolic role as a king even if they weren't called that, weren't chosen by hereditary right, and had limits on their power which most kings didn't have. You'd usually be right. But still, why does the Standard Fantasy Setting favor hereditary rulers called kings over other options?
Ah, so you were complaining not about a lack of variety of creatures but about a lack of variety of the standard creatures. I'm not current enough on contemporary fantasy to comment on that, though it does not surprise me. But perhaps it has to do with what we might call the great ennobling of which Tolkien is a major, if not the only culprit.
The legends from which these creatures come portray them largely as malevolent forces. They personify the dangers of life. Tolkien ennobled them, and in doing so made them more like men. Dragons have suffered the same fate, though not at the hands of Tolkien, and in being ennobled have become more like horses, or like men.
As for kings, they are a human universal. All societies are ruled by a king in council. We vary how we choose our kings and how they choose their councils, but the patterns in that track largely to the size and influence of the middle class. The rise of the middle class sucks the nobility out of men, and the dangers out of the natural world, so we turn to the creatures of legend and endown them with the nobility we no longer see in ourselves. And thus make them into a nobler version of ourselves.
But thus also you can't have a middle class in fantasy, or not very much of one, and that means you have a military/agricultural society in which kings rule by the assent of the great lords.
I'd say rather a lack of variety of creatures remixing the same themes, but I think we're talking about the same things?
You're right that most writers are following Tolkien's footsteps in describing these creatures, but I doubt that Tolkien was the one who made the fantasy creatures more like men. They are definitely personified like men in modern fantasy, more so than in old folktales, but I think that's more because of the genre difference. Look at my "The Short Fairy-Tale" from last year - no character in those fairy-tales was really personified! Conversely, the Elves in Dunsany's "King of Elfland's Daughter" are already feeling like humans long before Tolkien.
Good analysis, as always! I'm currently playing Metaphor: ReFantazio, a game which has been praised for eschewing standard fantasy races and creating new ones from scratch. Personally, I find it mostly confusing to be dropped into a setting with ten or twelve different new races, right in the middle of the capital where all of them are present, and no way to tell who's what or what their general social role is... (The game keeps telling me that four races are considered "lesser", but hardly ever shows it beyond over-the-top racist comments or preachy sermons.) Using standard races would have worked better, I think.
In one of my ventures into worldbuilding—not a novel but a campaign setting, Tela—I came up with seven humanoid races, each with a name taken from legend and often from fantasy fiction. But I also defined them by a preferred habitat (in GURPS terms, a "terrain") and by analogies to one or more mammalian species.
Dwarves: underground (caves and mines); naked mole rats.
Elves: jungle and woodlands; gibbons.
Ghouls: desert; hyenas and coyotes.
Men: plains; horses.
Nixies: rivers and swamplands; beavers and otters.
Selkies: islands, beaches, and lagoons; sea lions.
Trolls: arctic and mountains; bears.
This led to such things as different lifespans, different mating behavior and family structures, and different political institutions. And then I went on to make up at least three different cultural patterns for each race that represented different ways of dealing with their behavioral tendencies and ecological niches.
But, you know, they still came up fairly close fits to the fantasy races they were named for.
I'm sure you could've made them more different if you'd really tried - and I can see how animal analogies could help with that! But yes, the traditional tropes do exert their magnetic pull.
Do you include Jerry Pournelle's Tran in the standard setting? Sci-Fi fantasy is almost the same genre.
Haven't read it!
But from the description, I do recognize the subgenre you're referring to - about a sort-of isekai bringing technological uplift. I don't think it is the same genre, though it can definitely start out in a variant of the same setting before the setting's changed during the story. But then, the harder sci-fi can't use the same setting unless it waves its hands really fast about magic being simulated by nanotech - and even then I wouldn't really count it as hard.
Ha. I wrote that book. Not published yet. Needs a good cover and an edit, then up on Amazon.
There are a fairly small number of archetypes. What is a creature of light to be but an elf? A creature of darkness, but a goblin? A creature of fire but a dragon? A creature of earth but a dwarf? A creature of water but a mermaid? A creature of the air but an eagle? Who can be wise but a wizard, who brave but a knight, who fair but a princess, who virtuous but a prince, who dark but a dark lord? Who can rightfully rule but a king?
You can change the names, but the players remain the same. No one is fooled. The archetypes are too ancient and too primitive to be invented; they can only be dressed in the raiment of their offices according to some particular turn of fashion.
How then could the world they inhabit be any but the world they have always inhabited?
I disagree! Or rather, I half disagree and half think you're missing the question I was discussing.
Take Elves. You're right that on some level, they're defined by "creature of light." But, there're many degrees of freedom inside that definition. Consider Tolkien's Elves versus Shakespeare's Elves versus Lloyd Alexander's Fair Folk versus L. Frank Baum's Daughters of the Rainbow. They're all "creatures of light"; it isn't like one of them is more fully light than the others. But the Standard Fantasy Setting has clearly chosen Tolkien's version of them over the others.
Or, take kings. In my own abortive fantasy novel, I had a number of leaders who weren't properly kings. You could argue they were taking the same literary and symbolic role as a king even if they weren't called that, weren't chosen by hereditary right, and had limits on their power which most kings didn't have. You'd usually be right. But still, why does the Standard Fantasy Setting favor hereditary rulers called kings over other options?
Ah, so you were complaining not about a lack of variety of creatures but about a lack of variety of the standard creatures. I'm not current enough on contemporary fantasy to comment on that, though it does not surprise me. But perhaps it has to do with what we might call the great ennobling of which Tolkien is a major, if not the only culprit.
The legends from which these creatures come portray them largely as malevolent forces. They personify the dangers of life. Tolkien ennobled them, and in doing so made them more like men. Dragons have suffered the same fate, though not at the hands of Tolkien, and in being ennobled have become more like horses, or like men.
As for kings, they are a human universal. All societies are ruled by a king in council. We vary how we choose our kings and how they choose their councils, but the patterns in that track largely to the size and influence of the middle class. The rise of the middle class sucks the nobility out of men, and the dangers out of the natural world, so we turn to the creatures of legend and endown them with the nobility we no longer see in ourselves. And thus make them into a nobler version of ourselves.
But thus also you can't have a middle class in fantasy, or not very much of one, and that means you have a military/agricultural society in which kings rule by the assent of the great lords.
I'd say rather a lack of variety of creatures remixing the same themes, but I think we're talking about the same things?
You're right that most writers are following Tolkien's footsteps in describing these creatures, but I doubt that Tolkien was the one who made the fantasy creatures more like men. They are definitely personified like men in modern fantasy, more so than in old folktales, but I think that's more because of the genre difference. Look at my "The Short Fairy-Tale" from last year - no character in those fairy-tales was really personified! Conversely, the Elves in Dunsany's "King of Elfland's Daughter" are already feeling like humans long before Tolkien.
*Discworld not Diskworld.
Good analysis, as always! I'm currently playing Metaphor: ReFantazio, a game which has been praised for eschewing standard fantasy races and creating new ones from scratch. Personally, I find it mostly confusing to be dropped into a setting with ten or twelve different new races, right in the middle of the capital where all of them are present, and no way to tell who's what or what their general social role is... (The game keeps telling me that four races are considered "lesser", but hardly ever shows it beyond over-the-top racist comments or preachy sermons.) Using standard races would have worked better, I think.
In one of my ventures into worldbuilding—not a novel but a campaign setting, Tela—I came up with seven humanoid races, each with a name taken from legend and often from fantasy fiction. But I also defined them by a preferred habitat (in GURPS terms, a "terrain") and by analogies to one or more mammalian species.
Dwarves: underground (caves and mines); naked mole rats.
Elves: jungle and woodlands; gibbons.
Ghouls: desert; hyenas and coyotes.
Men: plains; horses.
Nixies: rivers and swamplands; beavers and otters.
Selkies: islands, beaches, and lagoons; sea lions.
Trolls: arctic and mountains; bears.
This led to such things as different lifespans, different mating behavior and family structures, and different political institutions. And then I went on to make up at least three different cultural patterns for each race that represented different ways of dealing with their behavioral tendencies and ecological niches.
But, you know, they still came up fairly close fits to the fantasy races they were named for.
Interesting!
I'm sure you could've made them more different if you'd really tried - and I can see how animal analogies could help with that! But yes, the traditional tropes do exert their magnetic pull.