My year of Fantasy

What do I do with this blog now that I live in New Zealand and I can't go anywhere interesting (thanks COVID) and then be sarcastic and witty about how uncomfortable I am constantly à la my Japan posts? It just seems depressing if I bitch about my 'real life' in New Zealand because I am used to everything at home. That would not be about the strange differences between what I am used to and the foreign culture I find myself in, but the frustrating things I find about my home culture. Which I feel would be unproductive. But yet I miss this weird little blog of mine, so I need to find a new angle.

Therefore, today, I will try my hand writing about the places I've been to in my mind thanks to the books I've read this past year and be sarcastic and witty about them. I'm not a book blogger nor have I ever done more than high-school literature, but I do like to read. I also feel it's a bit cheesy to write about books outside of a paragraph of recommendation, but let's give it a whirl anyway:

I have spend a fair section of my year in various fantasy worlds or universes, most of which are quite well known. I am "cosmere complete" (I have read all the books and novellas in the cosmere universe books written by Brandon Sanderson, or 'Brando Sando'), have read the first two books of the King Killer Chronicles (and am now mad that the author has taken 10!!! years and counting to finish the third book and has said now that the third won't even be the end, god help us all), and have read the Lightbringer series (plus one other random book which I thought was Lightbringer, but was actually Amazon books tricking me). I have experienced magic systems based around light, colour, metal, runes, plus your standard alchemy+hocus-pocus magic. 

It was a refreshing break from my usual feminist modern lit books that I read that can be so emotionally heavy that I used to take months between reading books to give my poor little brain a break. The fantasy I have read has been fast-paced, intriguing, and opened up my imagination to a world unlike our own. I have grown to value the skill it takes to build a world, the consistency it requires, and really enjoy a good 'Sander-lanche' (an 'avalanche' of reveals at points in a series that answer ALL YOUR QUESTIONS which is characteristic of Brandon Sanderson's style, and is really extremely gratifying). It was fascinating to get into the heads of kings or heads of state in worlds where whole worlds were in peril, and had to deal with the very real dichotomy of 'good' versus 'evil' while contending with the other-worldly influence of magic.

From the Aesthetics Fandom wiki; Politeopals Posted in Fantasy

However, so much fantasy has exhausted me. The characters are often so cookie-cutter and the scenes of other places so similar that I felt like after the final fantasy book I read, all the plot lines from various stories and universes had merged into one weird mutated multi-headed hydra. I know that this is from reading so much of the same genre, but I feel apart from reading books from the same author (Sally Rooney is a big offender here) I have never had an experience where everything in a plot feels so same to another book or series. Same male main characters, same battles against the enemy, same living up to the prophetic visions of a great warrior and bringer of peace, just a different type of magic to fling around and there may or may not be guns (a point that seems to be often highlighted in wiki pages of various fantasy series I have read "this setting departs from the typical fantasy genre by employing guns and them being a valid weapon of choice").

Of course there is the male hegemonic viewpoint and often archaic values systems that accompany this sameness. Women are behest to marry, be subservient, and it is a point of extraordinary-ness that they break those bounds to go adventuring or whatever have you like their male counterparts. These male counterparts on the other hand, are just extraordinary on their own, if not inconvenienced by these 'women they must marry'. Nothing novel comes from employing common literary tropes based in centuries old gendered expectations. These expectations still exist in our modern day in their own form; expectations of marriage, childbearing, the way women must interact with society to 'break the glass ceiling' are still very much with us. So it is not that the way gender is employed in fantasy is commenting on the way things were, but actually just reinforce how things can still be. Why can't fantasy settings be reminiscent of medieval and early-modern periods without bringing along their value systems? 

I posit that this lack of diversity in cultural and social norms in fantasy comes from the fact that most fantasy writers are male. They are also mostly white, and, by being famous fantasy writers, rich (at least now they're famous). Not that that's a bad thing, as I don't have anything against white men who are fairly well off as people (in fact I can like them, my boyfriend and my dad being two of them) but obviously when these two (three?) attributes dominate a massively popular genre, well that can have an effect on the way they portray issues as well as the relationships between characters that enforces a patriarchal viewpoint. Many fantasy writers it seems also come from an American Christian background; Brandon Sanderson is a practicing Mormon to name one example.

Though the influences of writers' personal backgrounds and identity markers on their have been litigated and re-litigated constantly, and not just in the realm of fantasy but popular literature more generally. However, it seems especially stark in fantasy with its plot lines and themes focusing on male main characters, lots of battles, and the general archaic values systems I talked about. I am not sure if white men get drawn to writing fantasy more and so are more likely to be successful, or if it is fairly equal between races and genders and all other identity markers but men are more successful. However, if the former is true, it then begs the question is this because aspiring male/white writers see themselves in the author's name and biography and think 'hey he's like me and he did that, I could too!' and so the cycle perpetuates itself.

The escapism of reading fantasy is fun though, in a year of where COVID went from being novel and strangely exciting to 'oh god, when is this going to end?'. Being immersed in a world different to our own took my brain away from the reality of not being able to see family and friends in Auckland for a whole year, the fear of an outbreak in Wellington (which there has not been one yet - yes, I am touching wood right now), the weird arrangements and rules around being around other people due to spacing. Because that is the thing, most modern novels set in the present day I have read recently were (I assume) mostly written pre-COVID; an assumption I make due to the re-writing, editing and publishing process taking sometimes years. So those modern-day storylines sans-COVID can bring to the fore of your mind 'what things used to be like' and how much we miss it and hope constantly for this stupid virus to fuck off. Whereas in fantasy, you are literally buying into a story and experience in a completely different world and universe where COVID is not a thing.

I never thought I would get into reading fantasy books. I always saw them as nerdy and not 'on-brand' for me as a quirky gal into fashion and feminism. Which is obviously completely short-sighted, as reading can and should open your mind to new experiences and viewpoints other than your own. There are good points and bad to reading fantasy, and as you can tell I have a fair bit if criticism of it as a genre. Does it mean I dislike fantasy? No, but will I read as many as I did last year in 2022? Probably not, as I have detailed my frustrations with the similar themes and characters, I surmise in part due to the hegemony of the authors and their perspectives. That is not to say I won't read fantasy at all, but intend to read widely and more varied, and when I do read fantasy I will do so with a heavy dose of scepticism on the way the plot-lines develop and the characters relate. Reading widely does not mean going back to just my feminist lit books, but to broaden my horizons and not let my preconceptions of what a genre is hold me back. 

My year of fantasy bought me new stories and experiences to read and experience unlike other books I had read before, but as a genre it is not without its drawbacks. It was a way to escape in our COVID world, and I am thankful for that. Here's to reading widely and experiencing new stories no matter the genre in 2022.