When fantasy authors don't want to admit they write "fantasy"

[@TurtleofInterest]

Ok but did he really want a Nobel Prize or was it just a metaphor for fighting a dragon

[@adams13245]

I think it was a metaphor for fighting a space dragon. Those are really nasty, specially during meteor showers and I can imagine the honor and glory given to the brave warrior who could slay that beast. Only those with the greatest wisdom, courage, patience and skill at arms can defeat a space dragon, and live to tell the tale.

[@akari5145]

@@adams13245I would collect a space dragon egg, raise the hatchling, and train it to come back to me after it ventured into the unknown. In order to uncover its strength from eating the dark matter of space. And I would name her Quasar.

[@realdragon]

Reverse fantasy dream sequence. Book about struggles of ordinary man working minimum wage job who falls into alcoholism because therapy doesn't work. At the end it turns out to be a dream and knight after waking up from weird dream goes fighting a dragon with his wizard buddy

[@Lucat_the_Nerd]

@@akari5145I think that “Number 65: Galaxy-Eyes Prime Photon Dragon” is a much better name.

[@kaze8498]

I will defeat you in a duel and win your Number card. I have to. I need to do so in order to save ASTRAL!@@Lucat_the_Nerd

[@WasatchWind]

I still have a hard time understanding why fantasy of any kind is looked down upon. Grandad Tolkien was complaining about this nearly a hundred years ago, and the professor of my writing class still looks down on the genre as "just pop culture" all while vastly misrepresenting what actually happens in the most popular fantasy works.

[@Florkl]

Almost like popular culture enjoys things because they’re good. Kind of by definition, if you assume everyone has a valid opinion on art. Like, everyone is different, art is subjective, and different media caters to different tastes, but if people look past their desire to be unique and keep in mind when they’re not the target audience (see most reviews by adult men on books for teen girls), popular art tends to be popular for a reason. And disliking it *just* because it’s popular doesn’t make you cool or smart. It just makes you a prick who doesn’t want other people to have fun.

[@tayo_95]

I recomended GoT to someone and they refused to read it because they didnt want to read about "elves hunting artefacts or whatever"

[@WasatchWind]

@@tayo_95 YES. This is what these people think fantasy is. Even if it does have "gross, elves!" they act like it's so surface level. My fiction writing professor said something like "yeah in all the fantasy stuff you read, the conflict is pretty much just a light saber fight without any deeper emotion." Just... What? Did you even see Star Wars my dude? It seems like these people are going off of what fantasy was in the 80s, and even then only a basic understanding of those stories. Fantasy has evolved so much as a genre since then, GRR, Brandon Sanderson, so many others show that it can go far out of the "sword and sorcerery" archetype.

[@CAPyA]

It's not the content that gets fantasy, as a genre, looked down upon, it's how most of it is written. Let's face facts: fantasy, mostly, is not the best in terms of writing (as in the actual words on the page).

[@WasatchWind]

@@CAPyA And I think that literary fiction is needlessly long winded and stuffy in its writing.

[@ВікторКушнір-й8о]

Kinda reminds me of how Arthur Conan Doyle used to throw fits cause he had to write about Sherlock Holmes to pay the bills instead of being know as this great author of historic novels 😅

[@Piterdeveirs333]

Maybe he shouldn't have sucked at writing historic novels

[@BrightLord1823]

I mean he should have written more medieval adventure books, those were fun.

[@danielraath7722]

Dude White Company was lit

[@sylph8005]

He should have written more ghost stories

[@malinisinha5197]

​@@Piterdeveirs333It just didn't have a large audience like that if Sherlock Holmes

[@schwarzerritter5724]

Same reason why superhero movies can't stop joking about themselves. If they don't constantly joke, the audience might have an emotion and superhero movies are too ashamed of their own genre to allow that.

[@SeruggaRodneyWilliam]

Somebody send this to Taika Waititi Love and Thunder was some of the most cynical shit I've ever watched. Tessa Thompson literally said 'The only way you can be in these movies is if you put aside your dignity'. It's like... you're the problem. If you're not taking it seriously then what the hell do you expect from me. I'm sorry for the random rant, but I've been holding that one in for abit. Genre does not define the quality of an art piece. The artist does.

[@weareallbornmad410]

They do try to serve you an emotion every now and then. It just barely ever works, because you can't make a serious movie about fighting a giant purple alien with a magic glove. You _could_ make an EXTREMELY serious movie about half the world population turning to dust between one hour and the next, for no apparent reason, and leaving others behind to cope. Families torn. Workplaces empty. No enemy to fight, no viruses to study, no heros to save the day... no direction. A silent trauma. But that movie wouldn't earn billions.

[@schwarzerritter5724]

@@weareallbornmad410 Just because modern Disney can't do it does not mean it is impossible.

[@weareallbornmad410]

​@@schwarzerritter5724 Yeah, I'm sure. But they can't, and they're the ones doing it. So it doesn't really matter if it's technically possible or not.

[@schwarzerritter5724]

@@weareallbornmad410 It is not a technical possibility; everyone but Disney can do it.

[@saxongedriht1086]

“All novels are fantasies…some are just more honest about it.” -Gene Wolfe

[@sheolcodemonkey4027]

As a writer with a great love of fantasy AND a great love of stories with symbolic meaning, I don't even WANT to understand why people think they're mutually exclusive

[@ceinwenchandler4716]

...wait, aren't there entire subgenres of fantasy/many fantasy stories that rely heavily on symbolism?

[@sheolcodemonkey4027]

@@ceinwenchandler4716 there are indeed, but for some reason there's a not inconsiderable number of people who think that you can either write cartoonish fantasy nonsense for children or high-brow erudite literature for intellectuals, and don't seem to want to admit that you can tell a story with meaning AND dragons. Unfortunately a lot of them end up writing fantasy and refusing to admit that's what they're doing. Sidenote, this is why I raise an eyebrow every time I hear someone say "magical realism", because most of the time it seems to me like low fantasy in denial

[@GreenSeerManu]

@@sheolcodemonkey4027 I fully agree. I'm currently writing a book which includes many reflexions on power, identity, mental health issues, you name it. But it's litteraly about a city ruled by wizards so of course it's fantasy. I mean, creating a world of fantasy can allow you to explore so many themes in a variety of ways while injecting your own artistic sensitivity in a palpable way. Hell, fantasy itself has emerged as a reaction to modernity, so it has always been very political in nature.

[@margaretwordnerd5210]

I've met a very few stuffy science fiction fans who scorn fantasy while complaining that science fiction doesn't get enough respect. How funny is that?✌🖖

[@sheolcodemonkey4027]

@@margaretwordnerd5210Ugh, don't get me started on those people. I was friends with one for years who was always talking about how fantasy is all the same and just throws in magic to solve all its problems, meanwhile all the sci-fi they liked (and were writing) was just fantasy reskinned with spaceships and robots. The mental gymnastics are outlandish at times

[@ctom42]

Two of my favorite fiction series fall under the fantastical elements being symbolic of real world struggles so I feel a little attacked by this. Especially since neither of those get considered "literature" either. Honestly I find a lot of fantasy works to be more worthy of the term than the garbage we are forced to read in schools.

[@WasatchWind]

It especially ceases being literature if you have any kind of positive ending. Happiness isn't realistic you know.

[@bobfg3130]

What you're forced to read in schools isn't garbage. You don't know what that is. 😂 It's genre changing literature. Those pieces changed literature. Fantasy isn't garbage.

[@whalefall413]

@@WasatchWind exactly

[@whalefall413]

@@bobfg3130 yeah that was a bit of an exaggerated argument. These works are masterpieces or at minimum written by masters and we should all strive to learn from them. I can understand ctom's annoyance, but there's no need to drag other works through the dirt to prop up fantasy. There's good and bad to be found in every genre of fiction.

[@ZelphTheWebmancer]

@@bobfg3130 Agree that fantasy isn't garbage and neither is the stuff people are forced to read at schools, however the moment (way too young), the way (forced), and the reason (just to get a passing grade) is garbage.

[@alannatherson7721]

Ok Nobel Prizes are alright but have you seen the statuettes they give out for the World Fantasy Awards, that thing is majestic. Not to mention winning a Hugo Award is pretty epic.

[@danisob3633]

they give you a little coin?????? i didnt know that. time to change career

[@bronwynecg]

Why can I see Terry Goodkind TOTALLY behaving this way 🤣😂

[@angrychickengod3831]

that's because he did ☕

[@jayrose8869]

Because he did. Some people say he was brash and cocky. I disagree. I don’t think he was cocky enough. And it is a travesty that he passed without winning a Nobel prize for the priceless masterpiece that is the sword of truth series. 😂😂

[@Linklex7]

Because he has already acted like this

[@ericward8459]

He sure did. Hack that he was and ass he shall be remembered as

[@Ieremos]

You'd be wrong, at least about the awards part. "I could care less about awards. My award is a reader opening their wallet and giving up their hard-earned money to read my stories, and more than that, giving up their time. As I said, time is mankind's greatest value. It's the only thing you really have. When a reader gives up a part of their life to allow me to tell them a story, they're giving me something precious. That's my award. Doing my best to satisfy myself, and ultimately my readers-that's the only award I care about." - Terry Goodkind.

[@det.bullock4461]

There is also the Terry Goodkind way of writing shlocky pulpy fantasy but thinking you aren't because you have the characters stop and rant at length about your own political and philosophical beliefs for pages and pages instead of weaving them into the story, bonus points if said political opinions are poorly thought out and make the author seem like they lost their marbles (or never had them in the first place). Also the JK Rowling way of half-assing the world building, never thinking of the implication of certain aspects and somehow making them *worse* while addressing them because only real fantasy authors actually care about little details like wizards keeping an entire race of elves as slaves.

[@matebakk5187]

HP have much bigger problems considering plot holes than the briliantly abyssmal world building IMO. Rowling really should have written down the few "rules" of magic she had , added a few and read the previous books as the next books were written.

[@nephatrine]

I like Terry Goodkind's schlocky pulpy fantasy though...

[@cara-seyun]

HP is literally based on vibes, that’s it’s greatest strength and greatest weakness, and why it kinda peters out by book 5

[@antonioscendrategattico2302]

@@cara-seyun Yep. In the first books it seems like it's a huge world full of wonder and mystery, and like there's something new under every stone. After the fourth you quickly realize that JK was just making all that up as she went along and didn't even realize what she'd written.

[@flyingstapler1241]

JKR never intended to write a fantasy and said she wasn't a fan of the genre. She even said she didn't realize Harry Potter was fantasy story until she got to the middle of the first book. It's pretty obvious that her heart was in detective novels and not fantasy worldbuilding because the core of HP is the mystery

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

I remember people saying Game of Thrones was “fantasy for people who don’t like fantasy” which annoyed the hell otta me

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

How about my take on it? It's fantasy with all the cool stuff taken out...until the end. Or how about this? It's warrior cats but all the characters are boring humans. XP

[@normal_spirit_in_elysium]

@@kamikeserpentail3778now that you mention it it’s shockingly similar to warrior cats lmao

[@weareallbornmad410]

Why? It seems pretty accurate. Plenty of people who don't normally read fantasy read and admired Game of Thrones. And if for fantasy fans it has "all of the cool stuff taken out" and characters are "boring humans", then it sounds like it's pretty unique in the genre. More to the tastes of general audience than avid fantasy readers.

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

@@weareallbornmad410 because the average audience already loves fantasy. Wth was Harry Potter? Lord of the Rings? These were some of the biggest movies in history and they’re regular old fantasy with weird names and rules.

[@weareallbornmad410]

​​​​​@@Black_pearl_adrift They're both a bit of an outlier though. One is a children's book and a generational phenomenon that didn't really result in the same kind of hunger for reading non-Potter _anything._ And the other is the first fantasy book ever, hailed as a high-literature classic. Many people would tell you it's the only fantasy book that deserves acclaim. They'd be wrong, but it's not like it matters. Anyway, yeah, fantasy is popular. But there's a sizeable chunk of the population that doesn't actually like it. And many of them liked Game of Thrones. Where's the problem?

[@andrewshanks7053]

The "all a dream" tactic reminded me of something I'd heard of where someone had written a historical short story about life in a medieval monastery or something, and then had an alien spaceship show up right at the end, apparently just so it could be published in science fiction journals.

[@frick1926]

Stockholm requires you to deposit said coin into a slotted machine to enter the city. Then you can never leave. Leading to the aforementioned cities syndrome. Unless you win another Nobel Prize whilst in the city proper.

[@milicadiy]

I'm so proud to be a fantasy fan and author. Another great video, btw.

[@milicadiy]

@Dustage Yes, of course. Just look up Milicaorevi7.

[@lincolnyaco5626]

I'm proud to be a fan of Lifetime movies.😜

[@HOUROFPOW3R]

I'm always just left to wonder at what point a story is 'fantasy'. Is Cat's Cradle Fantasy? Are Steven King novels Fantasy? Isn't all sci-fi ultimately fantasy? It's annoying writing something and having someone say 'ah this is a wonderful fantasy story' because it feels like they're throwing you in the 'dragons n wizards n shit' bin for having a world that isn't within a different more specific subgenre. It's like an anti-genre.

[@Zivilin]

Fantasy and scifi are just sub-genres of the adventure genre.

[@montetiger866]

@@Zivilin Oh wow I never thought of it like that. Thank you

[@tbotalpha8133]

As a rule, genre is determined by *focus.* By the things a story chooses to focus on, rather than any specific elements that the story contains. A story can contain a mystery, without being a Mystery story. A story can contain a romance, without being a Romance story. A story can contain laser guns and spaceships, without being Sci-Fi. And a story can contain wizards and dragons, without being a Fantasy story. Fantasy is generally defined by its focus on magical, supernatural or mythological elements, over scientific or technological concepts (real or speculative). So, yes, wizards and dragons over lasers and robots. But works in the Fantasy genre also tend to gloss over a lot of the logical, material consequences of magical phenomena, and instead focus on how they affect the characters as people. This is also why Fantasy and Sci-fi can blend together in Soft Sci-Fi, which approaches speculative science and technology primarily from a character lens, instead of a mechanical one. And in recent years I've also seen an interest in "Hard Fantasy", which attempts to seriously explore the mechanical ramifications of magical/supernatural phenomena, the same way Hard Sci-Fi does with speculative science and technology. I've seen Fantasy and Sci-Fi lumped together under the label "Speculative Fiction", which I think is a very apt grouping. It's the one thing they have in common: not themes, or tone, or content, but a focus on the imaginary and the unreal. Remove the unreality, and you're back to writing literary fiction.

[@Patrickballhater]

Hard scifi I think is seperated from fantasy well but not soft scifi which overlaps a lot.

[@magea2926]

The more an adventure include non realistic stuff, the more high its level of fantasy will be. For exemple, Turning red by Disney is a low fantasy since it is mostly realistic, but have one unrealistic thing. On the other hand, Tolkien univers is a high fantasy since it have almost no similarities to our reality. I like to think that you can't identify fantasy by only it is or it is not, but you can mesure how much it is fantastic with what I previously said.

[@corbanbausch9049]

Man, Tolkien would have some words to say to this guy...

[@billyalarie929]

This was surprisingly well acted, well written, and well edited. I think you might have a Nobel prize winning KZbin video on your hands.

[@HexatheonRPG]

a story where the main character thinks he's fighting inner demons through metaphorical battle, but he's actually single handedly wiping the floor with the forces of evil, and any time someone asks how he's doing it he thinks they've fallen for his facade of being happy

[@Speed001]

Genius

[@celine_2084]

I like your sarcasm! The story is just a story and a fantasy story is just for our imagination to be satisfied. We don't need them to fit into any serious modern literature theories. It's ridiculous for writers to neglect the essence of writing, which is to write a story that readers enjoy .

[@Pedro-u1n3l]

I appreciate how fast this man can talk

[@omarandrescelis405]

Kazuo Ishiguro has joined the conversation

[@isitsweet9567]

I read Never Let Me Go for a school project and was really annoyed that it was never properly explained why getting a bunch of organ transplants cures cancer and heart disease and makes you live longer 😆 I proposed that Ishiguro could have fixed it by saying that everyone ruins their lungs and livers by smoking and drinking. It would be interesting if we could see a juxtaposition between their world and the sanitized one of the clones. I would still say it was a good book, though

[@cheydinal5401]

I think critics look down on fantasy novels because they sado-masochistically look down on fans of fantasy novels, feeling like they're something better than them

[@liamcampbell3721]

I feel like every fantasy publisher has had to have this conversation with their authors at least once.

[@Denizu]

Sometimes I wonder if the recent *extreme* popularization of D&D (I know it was popular before, but it undeniably reached a new height) has distorted the view on fantasy in general among a lot of modern audiences. Naturally fantasy has always been looked down upon by certain echelons of the literary circles, but I think in recent times that D&D has made some think that fantasy is essentially that, condemning a genre based on factors outside of it. Back during the Peter Jackson LOTR films, there was a similar situation, a growing perception that all fantasy (and therefore also fantasy literature) had dwarfs, orcs and elves. Hell, that notion still stands strong in some places.

[@isoldam]

There were tons of those Dungeons and Dragons and Tolkien knockoffs around when I was a kid, way before the 2000s.

[@weareallbornmad410]

I mean, they pretty much do. Not all I'm sure, but it's undeniably present in the overwhelming majority of them.

[@JJWolford]

Denizu, you have given me a realization.

[@ElMarcoh]

"magical realism" ppl writting long ass essays about how it's not fantasy while trying to look intellectual

[@QueenBonus1]

“The ending WILL be changed.” “And I will not publish your book anymore.”

[@catlovingtrio]

My dad doesn't want to admit he likes sci-fi, so any sci-fi story that he enjoys that has any mystical or unexplained elements, he calls a space fantasy.

[@domv9225]

Generic should get an Oscar for that performance

[@thismakesnosense]

*Nobel price in acting

[@conker690]

Honestly what’s he’s describing could become the next Neverneding Story. And if it’s unhinged enough, the next Infinite Jest.

[@TalkingWeirdStuff24]

An unexpected positive of your favorite genre being Weird Fiction and your favorite medium being Graphic Novels is that even a lot of Fantasy Nerds think you are a Basement-Dwelling Loser! And when even the guy who writes about Elf orgies taking place on the back of a Dragon thinks you are an Uncouth Deviant, it makes it that much harder to become pretentious!

[@corrinflakes9659]

Yeah, it is sad how a genre that uses the abstract to make commentary on the human condition has to get treated as too lesser to be “literary fiction”. Like with Lord of the Rings, despite allegory being disliked by Tolkien, you can still peel back how much his perspective and philosophy was reflected on the pages. Fantasy is actually a really good genre to tackle deeper philosophy while maintaining a level of relatability. Sauron was even meant to be Tolkien's stand-in for Nietsche's übermansch, so he could give deeper critique against it.

[@kahaterein7084]

Damn 🤔, this is genius commentary on contempt with fantasy and science-fiction are faced.

[@slycwby2478]

I really hate genres They’re a necessary evil to more specifically look at the kinds of things you enjoy more, but also people go out and define things very staunchly by genre when genre doesn’t really matter… A lot of my favorite things are combos of many genres at once, and I love them, and I’d hate to try and squeeze them into one box or even just mutilate them into a bunch of boxes

[@CoracaoAcidental98]

And then you look at manga and anime genres and realize how much worse everything can be. I get it you need to tell to your audience what specifically is that you are selling, but honestly most of the time is just stupid and generates pointless discussions and separations.

[@mariatorres-by6du]

I like Sanderson's take that fantasy (and sci-fi) are not generes, are settings.

[@darknessinside9518]

Just wanted to point that a few fantasy novels (yes) have indeed won giant prizes, including the Nobel, just not the super pop ones like HP ;)

[@android19willpwn]

it is always annoying when either an author or analysis decides "no, these fantastical elements can't just *thematically* represent the mundane and relatable struggles of the protagonist! They must *literally* represent those struggles within the story's canon as well!"

[@huskybaiano3994]

Wait, is magical realism not fantasy? Bc magical realism books have won literature nobel prizes. At least one: Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

[@melvinshaw7574]

I had a similar argument with a professor over Toni Morrison's Beloved. Apparently the difference between fantasy and magical realism is that if you identify the thing using fantastic titles, it's fantasy. That is, if you call a ghost a ghost, it's fantasy. But if you call a ghost an abstract representation a child-loss, it's magical realism. Basically, in her view, if you don't fill in the blank with a recognizable name, it's magical realism. I wonder where she would stand on Kafka on the Shore.

[@Tsinibor]

Dude can go to Stockholm with the sales of the book. He'll probably do book signing in Stockholm!

[@realdragon]

Meanwhile me: Is it really fantasy if the only piece of magic that exists is ability the protagonist have? Eh I will mark it as low fantasy

[@MiaM-kb4kf]

That's just early superheroes

[@callibor3119]

Anatole France, 1921, Revolt of the Angels Nobel Prize winner. Hermann Hesse, 1946, The Glass Bead Game or Magister Ludi, and various short fantasy, Nobel Prize winner. Harry Martinson, 1956, Aniara, Nobel Prize winner. Reddit has it listed. And one of them is public domain in the US. Public domain has way more than just Nobel Prize books of any genre, though.

[@project-gladiator]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 Years of Solitude, if you consider Magical Realism fantasy.

[@callibor3119]

@@project-gladiator RIP. Fr. He died in 2014. I was in 8th grade when he died.

[@TheKnoxvicious]

Dude it’s been that long ago??? Also if anyone deserves one it should be Tolkien.

[@milicadiy]

​​@@project-gladiatorIt's been 42 years?! (he won the Nobel Prize in 1982)

[@the_third_edition]

2:07 I learned so much here.

[@spaceybun]

Always love the skits!

[@WetDreamer7]

Love your vids man keep up the good work 🎉 I’m glad your doing well

[@timothygates3349]

I was really hoping that you would wake up at the end to show the commentary on overvaluing themes in youtube videos haha

[@brightwatcher3757]

This made me laugh the entire time. Bravo.👌🏻

[@Nocturnimancer]

Horror is, for whatever reason, seen as low entertainment as well. S'fucked up.

[@inolienkiki]

The lampshading is strong with this one.

[@Yesica1993]

I want to read about the Dark Jellyfish!

[@milicadiy]

Same here.

[@adams13245]

@@milicadiy Third here.

[@valtsuri501]

imagine wanting to go to stockholm

[@JJWolford]

This reminds me of how people refer to my works as horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, but I would adamantly hate to refer to them that way. They are far better that any of those genre titles. Now to call specific parts of specific works to be similar to and reminiscent of a particular genre would be acceptable, but I will personally, as well as will allow no other to label any of my work as such.

[@kosmosvanhartland747]

Going from fantasy to fiction was an experience, But i do miss some of the advantages of fantasy though.

[@tyrant-den884]

This is why the fiction section is full of fantasy books. All the books with "Witch" in the title: fantasy. INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE: is in the fiction section.

[@leirumf5476]

Hilarious that they had Terry Pratchett in the thumbnail given his stance on this topic. Edit: I'm just dumb, it's Terry Goodkind in the thumbnail! Thanks Hotelmario for the correction For anyone who's unaware, there was once an interview where the interviewer said that he was too talented as an author to write mere fantasy, to which he absolutely destroyed her in the most gentleman way possible because Terry Pratchett embraced his fantasy and was classy af.

[@hughconnolly-gq5vv]

Can I have a link to that interview?

[@leirumf5476]

@@hughconnolly-gq5vv I don't think KZbin allows links on comments, but you can probably find it by using this query in Google "terry Pratchett on being too talented for fantasy". It's a treat how Terry responded, he really had an amazing way with words

[@adroitws1367]

dude just give us the quote. what exactly he said? now im super curious

[@leirumf5476]

O: You’re quite a writer. You’ve a gift for language, you’re a deft hand at plotting, and your books seem to have an enormous amount of attention to detail put into them. You’re so good you could write anything. Why write fantasy? Pratchett: I had a decent lunch, and I’m feeling quite amiable. That’s why you’re still alive. I think you’d have to explain to me why you’ve asked that question. O: It’s a rather ghettoized genre. P: This is true. I cannot speak for the US, where I merely sort of sell okay. But in the UK I think every book- I think I’ve done twenty in the series- since the fourth book, every one has been one the top ten national bestsellers, either as hardcover or paperback, and quite often as both. Twelve or thirteen have been number one. I’ve done six juveniles, all of those have nevertheless crossed over to the adult bestseller list. On one occasion I had the adult best seller, the paperback best-seller in a different title, and a third book on the juvenile bestseller list. Now tell me again that this is a ghettoized genre. O: It’s certainly regarded as less than serious fiction. P: (Sighs) Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy. Guys sitting around the campfire- Was it you who wrote the review? I thought I recognized it- Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus. Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown. Up to a few hundred years ago no one would have disagreed with this, because most stories were, in some sense, fantasy. Back in the middle ages, people wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing in Death as a character who would have a role to play in the story. Echoes of this can be seen in Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, which hark back to a much earlier type of storytelling. The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest works of literature, and by the standard we would apply now- a big muscular guys with swords and certain godlike connections- That’s fantasy. The national literature of Finland, the Kalevala. Beowulf in England. I cannot pronounce Bahaghvad-Gita but the Indian one, you know what I mean. The national literature, the one that underpins everything else, is by the standards that we apply now, a work of fantasy. Now I don’t know what you’d consider the national literature of America, but if the words Moby Dick are inching their way towards this conversation, whatever else it was, it was also a work of fantasy. Fantasy is kind of a plasma in which other things can be carried. I don’t think this is a ghetto. This is, fantasy is, almost a sea in which other genres swim. Now it may be that there has developed in the last couple of hundred years a subset of fantasy which merely uses a different icongraphy, and that is, if you like, the serious literature, the Booker Prize contender. Fantasy can be serious literature. Fantasy has often been serious literature. You have to fairly dense to think that Gulliver’s Travels is only a story about a guy having a real fun time among big people and little people and horses and stuff like that. What the book was about was something else. Fantasy can carry quite a serious burden, and so can humor. So what you’re saying is, strip away the trolls and the dwarves and things and put everyone into modern dress, get them to agonize a bit, mention Virginia Woolf a few times, and there! Hey! I’ve got a serious novel. But you don’t actually have to do that. (Pauses) That was a bloody good answer, though I say it myself.

[@adroitws1367]

@@leirumf5476 damn, that was amazing answer! thanks mate!

[@MorgottofLeyendell]

It's not enough. *Me complaining when I only write five pages a week*

[@DaughterofPersephone0630]

As someone who's gone down the rabbit hole of MBTI and cognitive functions, I can say that this world is full of Sensing type who is more concerned about practicalities (esp those with less developed tertiary and inferior functions). Thus, we have a community that looks down on fantasy because "magic isn't real, therefore it is childish" Meanwhile the intuitive type is challenging the notion of reality itself

[@justinhowe3878]

pulp fiction keeps me coming back for more

[@squamish4244]

Dungeons & Dragons said THIS IS FANTASY without apologies, was very funny and also meant something. It's okay, fantasy authors. It's okay.

[@geordiejones5618]

The Nobel is such a weird prize. McCarthy never got one and I thought he deserved it more than any other writer I've read.

[@Kk-fj5tn]

Stockholm IS a really nice city!!!

[@Rockmanbalboa]

Maybe if authors could care more for their writing and readers than winning a prize they wouldn't need to have fits.

[@bobfg3130]

Not wanting to publish something because it's "fantasy" is something that someone that DOESN'T HAVE TO WORK ANYMORE would do. The Nobel prize in literature is political.

[@mickaylao.9744]

I'm being personally attacked lol

[@guidovanthaar3761]

If we recontextualize the author as someone who longs to be Eco or Rushdie, but is a Salvatore or Hobb, than he has a point.

[@sealboi444]

I’m a proud fantasy writer!!

[@thegeekinpink6135]

2:43 Yes that's why we need fantasy

[@Taracinablue]

Rob may need, ironically, a reality check

[@matityaloran9157]

2:46, Franz Kafka vibes

[@The2012Aceman]

Well, you're clearly insane. But you're also onto something... I'm subbed.

[@MrCmon113]

The entire attitude that "profound" literature must be some comment on mundane problems is deeply confused.

[@weareallbornmad410]

What makes literature "profound" in your view, then?

[@KarlKristofferJohnsson]

I'm actually going to Stockholm in a couple of weeks.

[@HENTAIsamus06]

This video proved what kind of joke the Nobel prize truly is xD

[@emmettadair4015]

Duuude these are so good 2:15 made me cackle

[@cynthialouliuzzi1188]

laughed so hard, I scared my cats.

[@TheOfficialBlueJay]

No, no, no, I'm an action, adventure, fiction, science fiction, weird west, contemporary, romance...fantasy writer

[@dirtydeedsdirtcheep3007]

Good thing I don't have to dream of Stockholm thanks to living next to it, surely I'll be immune to this

[@thismakesnosense]

But the little coins they give you ARE really shiny

[@dirtydeedsdirtcheep3007]

@@thismakesnosense true, they really are

[@paulcourtemanche3549]

This is when the publishers publish the book before the author changed the ending and don’t tell the author.

[@peaceofcrap]

Based? Based on what?

[@switchprocontrollersplatoo7240]

This video is just about generic entertainment denying that he’s a comedy KZbinr

[@robertdullnig3625]

Nobel prizes are for bodies of work, not individual novels.

[@weareallbornmad410]

They're often for a specific novel.

[@robertdullnig3625]

@weareallbornmad410 Sometimes individual works are cited (though not as much recently) but the award is for a body of work, as opposed to something like the Pulitzer.

[@Sir_Charles007]

​@@weareallbornmad410no, they are for a body of work.

[@nyarparablepsis872]

>magical realism has entered the chat

[@Alresu]

The prize also comes with a bit of money!^^

[@DianaW3431]

LOL! This had me laughing the whole time.

[@99Gara99]

Too broad labels like "fantasy" will end up in an inacurate way to describe a book, like calling 2 complete different books the same name, which I think is not interesting. That's why if somone asked me to recommend fantasy books, I probably would avoid saying "harry potter" specially if by fantasy this person is thinking of lords of the rings, which usually is the case.

[@lincolnyaco5626]

Fantasy can be fine literature. Tolkien (perhaps unknowingly) wrote a complex and superb metaphor for fascism and morality. His Gollum character was a great metaphor for addiction--to drugs... or power. HOWEVER, IMHO most of it is lacking any unsophisticated moral core.

[@tbotalpha8133]

Yeah, this is my take on the matter, too. While it's true that 90% of all art is crap, the most common flaw with bad Fantasy stories is that they're just surface-level shlock, that think the presence of dragons and wizards and elves is "good enough". These stories forget to *say anything* with these elements. As you say, Lord of the Rings is an exploration of heroism and sacrifice. The books probe what a true "hero" might actually look like. Frodo isn't a hero because he's strong and powerful and fearless. He is weak and fearful, for damn good reasons. But he's a hero because he stepped up and tried to help, no matter the cost to himself. Lord of the RIngs *says something* about heroism. It's not just about gallivanting through the countryside and killing orcs. Lord of the Rings bothers to think deeper than the surface level of its own narrative. That's what elevates it to the level of "literature".

[@lincolnyaco5626]

- well said - @@tbotalpha8133

[@corbanbausch9049]

@@tbotalpha8133 yeah…but what you said about LOTR here can be claimed any number of modern fantasy. Take Stormlight Archives for example. The character of Kaladin is a look at ptsd and depression and how those things affect him, but also about how he can still stand and fight despite it. Plenty of fantasy books actually have poignant and prevalent themes, if you actually bother to read them.

[@tbotalpha8133]

@@corbanbausch9049 I never said that ALL Fantasy stories are bad. But that BAD Fantasy stories tend to be bad in the same way. For someone who claims to read a lot, I would have expected better reading comprehension than this.

[@MrCmon113]

When I tell you about my day is that a metaphor about other days? Not every story needs to be "about" sth else.

[@symbolguy3609]

You actually can win the Nobel in literature.

[@vincenttorrijos9680]

Damn, i didn't know that

[@UltimateKyuubiFox]

Oh, this hit.

[@grodesby3422]

"Real" literature, at least in my book, has more realistic descriptions of people's inner thoughts, and interactions between people and the world, and therefore is more directly useful in understanding humanity. Ironic symbolism doesn't float the boat.

[@chrisoneill3999]

Pearl S Buck won a Nobel Prize for Literature. There are very few fantasy authors quite *that* bad.

[@amongruins4661]

I’ve never read any of her other works besides The Good Earth, but that book became one of the standards of writing by which I use to judge my own work. So… I honestly don’t understand what you are talking about? Her writing style in that novel was perfect for the story she was setting out to tell. Is it because her characters suffer a bit in the likability department? That is the only thing I can assume you are talking about.

[@Geyser39]

She didn't win for fantasy novels, though, she won for her historical and contemporary fiction.

[@tripwire202]

Wheezing in amusement XD

[@mix-jk3ys]

Hugo prize >>> noble prize

[@RavenLotz]

Bridge to terabithia be like

[@morbid333]

I mean, thats still fantasy, it's just pre-tolkein fantasy

[@railgap]

There is an awful lot of basic human nature which you seem to think are really big deals. This is because you are young and experienced. If you care about SF or any other form of spec-lit, try going to conventions a few times, meet fans and authors and talk to them. You need socialization, srsly.

[@JustanotherYoutuber771]

I feel like when you say “fantasy” people envision something like Lord of the Rings (which is an amazing story don’t get me wrong) but it’s so different from what I’m writing. Like yes, I’m writing about a different world and yes there’s magic but…idk it just doesn’t have the same vibe at all man😭

[@RDrawzDragonz]

fantasy is the best genre just cuz of dragons tbh, ((PS does anyone have some extra fantasy w slot of dragons in them books I need recommendations (((have read; Httyd + Wof alr BTW)))))

[@keiyakins]

Being fantasy isn't even the biggest hurdle. The nobel committee has a serious bias against stuff originally written in English, *especially* if its American.

[@symmetricasymmetric9154]

Not really. English has the biggest number winner by language and US is tied for second place with UK by number of winners per country.

[@Sir_Charles007]

Mmm, no, most winners are from the USA.

[@symmetricasymmetric9154]

@@Sir_Charles007 that for Nobel overall, but for literature alone US is below France and tied with UK

[@isitsweet9567]

What about magical realism? Are we pretentious?

[@Balinux756]

Who are these critics who think fantasy isn't real literature? The most sold book in the world is fantasy! They literally change people's outlook on life!

[@Nickdeaugustine]

aka When fantasy authors need a dose of reality.