Talk:Low fantasy

message: I reverted an unreferenced claim that the "original intent" was "a story lacking a clear cut dichotomy of good versus evil."  There have been a lot of original intents.  Without references -- and for the claim that this was the original intent, and whose intent it was, and why this person's intent trumps all other usages -- this is not a valid cliam.  Goldfritha 23:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Original intent

message: Although I agree the claim of that being its "original intent" oversteps its bounds, the ideas of what qualifies something as a Low Fantansy tale has only one overarching consistancy: the moral "greyness" of the setting or the main character (I refrain from using the term hero).
Some say its the lack of fantasic races and creatures, but you CAN have gritty, impure, self centered Elves/dwarves/whatever.
Some say its the use of magic, but like in Robert E. Howards Hyboria, magic is there, but its a horrible dark thing that corrups men and steals their soul.
But all agree that a hallmark of high fantasy is the Pure Good v. unredeamable Evil, and Low Fantasy ALWAYS lacks it...
So Harry Potter is clearly NOT low fantasy.
 --Who are your "some" that "say" and your "all" that "agree"?  I'm dying to know.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.155.177.155 (talk) 09:10, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see pure good and unredeemable evil in Middle Earth. Certainly Tolkien didn't. Solri (talk) 13:30, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moral Dichotomy and Low Fantasy 

message: I created the subpage which is necessary for the article to be peer reviewed.-gadfium 20:04, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer review

message: Could the Witcher be considered low fantasy- gimodon  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.204.160.88 (talk) 02:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Witcher

message: Some anon edits completely removed all references to the ambiguity of morality in Low Fantasy tales, this has been added back.
I see a lot of butchering going on on this page.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sturmrabe (talk • contribs) 19:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Massive Anonymous Edits 

message: I have an issue with the "morality definition" of low fantasy that seems so popular.  Actually, my issue is more with the claim that "a hallmark of high fantasy is the Pure Good v. unredeamable Evil."  This is quite simply not true, and is demonstrated by The Lord of the Rings itself, which this article claims possesses a "stark black and white separation of good and evil that locks it into the "High Fantasy" realm."  Lord of the Rings, in fact, has no "pure good" characters, and the question of redeemable evil is one Tolkien explores (Saruman, Gollum, Denethor, and even Frodo are called upon to repent and be redeemed, and succeed to varying degrees).  Even the orcs have moral sensibilities (Gorbag's disapproval of abandoning allies, a "regular elvish trick").  All this is quite apparent, and documented by Tolkien scholars (see: Tom Shippey).  Therefore, to claim a book with the moral complexities of The Lord of the Rings as a hallmark "Pure Good v. unredeemable evil" is A.) false, B.) absurd, and C.) horrendously unhelpful for defining "Low Fantasy."  There may indeed be serious moral differences between High and Low Fantasy, and LoTR may be interesting in revealing them, but as it stands, the article is exceedingly innacurate and unhelpful.  The first step toward fixing it may be to remove all references that patronize the moral sophistication of High Fantasy.  Agreed? Nurambar (talk) 16:23, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If having an epic battle between good and evil were a defining feature of high fantasy, then Buffy the Vampire Slayer would be high fantasy. Solri (talk) 17:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Morality Definition Issue 

message: I have added three references and changed the lead to fit the information given.  These all come from Google Books but there are some relevant books in my local libraries, which I will check and add to the article as time allows.  I haven't found anything so far about the morality of Low Fantasy and the examples section is just a start.  If any further examples are added, providing a valid reference will help to prevent original research creeping any further into the article. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:33, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As part of this, I have removed the following from the article.  All of this is currently unsourced.  I am placing this here so that it can more easily be returned ot the article as soon as citations become available.  This also allows me to remove the maintenance teplates from the article. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:55, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: The lord of the rings gets classed here as "primary world doesn't exist" (so only secondary world exists), while in the High Fantasy topic it gets classified as "alternative timeline in primary world" (so no secondary world exists). 94.169.249.202 (talk) 09:58, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's OR on the High Fantasy article.  The source material only has the first three classes; "alternative timeline" was added by a wikipedian. I'll try to fix it. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  LotR classification: contradiction 

message: It is common for "low fantasy" to be used online to refer to fiction that is grimmer and grittier than average.  This is not the technical definition of low fantasy and may have come from gaming.  The English language is ever-changing and I think this definition should be mentioned even if it isn't technically correct.  I would like to add something about this to the article but I cannot find a reference for it that wouldn't be original research.  If someone can find a suitable reference for the grim and gritty definition, please add it to the article or list it here for someone else to use.  It would be especially helpful if it describes where this new definition came from (gaming as the source is just my impression, or original research, after trying to find such a reference myself). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:41, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It probably occurs because there is a large overlap between low fantasy and dark fantasy. They are, however, different sub-genres, or, more importantly, different types of sub-genre. Low fantasy is a genre of matter, dark fantasy of mood. Solri (talk) 14:57, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Low fantasy as grim and gritty 

message: This entire thing is completely nonsense.  "High fantasy" refers to a setting in which only the elite have magic/power.  "Low fantasy" refers to a setting where everyone has magic/power.  Middle fantasy, obviously, is where it falls in between.  Allow me to explain why the current asinine definition is worthless.
Consider Xanth.  Xanth is unabashedly based on Florida, and is a world where everybody has magical abilities.  By both the correct and the stupid definitions, this is low fantasy.  But there is absolutely no reason why this needs to be the case.  Xanth could just as easily have been based in a theoretical world that happens to have a large peninsula, and there would be no difference at all in the stories.  By the stupid definition, this would mysteriously become high fantasy, a distinction which therefore would be absolutely worthless.
Similarly, consider the Lord of the Rings, which is often considered the epitome of high fantasy.  Unfortunately, Middle Earth is England.  (Valinor is the Isle of Wight.)  Stupid people might never have realized that, but no proper Englishman would write about anything else.  So by this retarded definition, LotR is low fantasy, while by the proper definition, it is high fantasy.  Again, arbitrarily changing this setting in insignificant ways would change the distinction.  In what fucking way does that make any sense?
Now consider fantasy role playing.  If you have a gaming session, and you say, "This is high fantasy" it should tell your players that magic is rare and special, and they shouldn't expect to find magic items in every dungeon and village they encounter.  Likewise, if you specify that it is low fantasy, they know that magic is easy to find, and they shouldn't be surprised if the random farmhand they encounter has some magical ability.  This is a useful thing to understand, and has a consistent and meaningful definition across settings.
I hope you will all consider this, and pull your collective heads out of your asses.
:While you could argue that this ought to be the difference between high and low fantasy, I've never come across the terms used this way. BTW, insulting the writers doesn't any good in getting your opinions accepted. Solri (talk) 08:39, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologize for using inflammatory language; I shouldn't have done that. But I'm not going to change it now.  You have in fact always heard these definitions being used this way, you just haven't realized it.  It's the reason that when someone calls some settings high or low fantasy, it just seems wrong.  The definition people have come up with and placed here just doesn't always fit with what people really mean.  Just review the fantasy settings you know, and you'll see how the correct definitions just make more sense.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.17.244.46 (talk) 22:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: To date I have only seen low fantasy defined in two (contradictory) ways: as fantasy taking place in the real world, and as a synonym for sword and sorcery. If you have examples of other definitions, feel free to cite them. Solri (talk) 13:08, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Absolutely, completely wrong 

message: Could someone explain what is meant by "a fictional but rational world" in the opening section? Solri (talk) 08:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fictional but rational world? 

message: I notice dark fantasy is conspicuous by its absence here. Not all dark fantasy is low fantasy, of course, but many of its most popular examples are. In particular, the vampire romance (Stephanie Meyer, Charlaine Harriss) and supernatural investigation (Jim Butcher, Kim Harrison) sub-genres are low fantasy. Solri (talk) 15:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dark Fantasy 

message: The recently-added paragraph on sword and sorcery is problematic, not because it's necessarily wrong (some people do describe sword and sorcery as "low fantasy") but because it uses a different definition to the rest of the article. We need to indicate this ambiguity of the term "low fantasy" somewhere in the introductory paragraphs. It's clear that there are two definitions of low fantasy going around: 1. fantasy set in the real world or a familiar variation of it; 2. fantasy about "low-level" characters. This parallels the ambiguity in the term "high fantasy" which means 1. fantasy set in a secondary world, or 2. fantasy with epic themes. As far as I can tell, definition #1 is dominant in literary/academic circles, while #2 has some traction in fandom, and in particular in the RPG community. Both are thus worthy of mention, but they need to be kept separate. By definition #1, Conan the Barbarian is high fantasy and Supernatural is low fantasy; by definition #2, Conan is low fantasy and Supernatural would logically though counter-intuitively be high fantasy, given all those archangels. Solri (talk) 12:19, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed it. I found a book that actually gives an RPG definition of low fantasy, GURPS Fantasy, and used that for a separate section.  I've also adapted this example for the lead. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:32, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sword and Sorcery 

message: By the primary discriminating factor between high and low fantasy--primary world vrs. second world--laid out in this article, then the Marvel and DC comic universes, and the shows Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are all low fantasy.
The Marvel comic universe takes place in the real world, with some additions (such as non-terrestrial inhabited planets). Several of the best known characters inhabit New York City. A setting with Norse gods, nigh-omnipotent pyrokineticists, entities who can recover from as little as a single unharmed cell and literally unstoppable literal juggernauts is somehow low-fantasy because it uses our real world and geography with bits tacked on. Ditto DC, save that it uses fewer real cities.
Supernatural doesn't even have inhabited alien planets, just a couple of extra metaphysical realms. And yet it has invisible hellhounds, angels, demons, and monstrous things which take human form and are only susceptible to borax in water. Which is to say nothing of the first couple of seasons worth of Monster of the Week.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and it's spinoff, Angel, has Heaven, multiple hell realms, all manner of demons, witchs, werewolves, vampires (which are demons possessing corpses), and technomancy. And it's low fantasy because a place called California exists?
The way this article tells it, I could write a story where every person on earth can call fire from the sky and carries a sword capable of felling mountains in a single stroke, and so long as I didn't create my own world, it'd be low fantasy.
76.250.3.254 (talk) 11:41, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Supernatural and Buffy are definitely Low Fantasy.  DC and Marvel I'm not sure about; you could say that they have diverged so far from the real world that they no longer count (and fictional places like Gotham, Metropolis, Latveria, etc may add to that). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:50, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

text: The Marvel and DC universes are special cases that don't fit very well into genre taxonomies. Classic superhero stories tend to be on the fantastic end of SF, but the addition of frankly supernatural elements has resulted in an inconsistent "universe" which doesn't fit any genre categories. This is what happens when membership in a world is determined by your publisher! Buffy and Supernaturtal, though, are definitely fantasy, and definitely low fantasy. The fact that they contain some other worlds is irrelevant because very little of the action occurs in those worlds. Something is low fantasy, in the sense of primary world fanasy, if most of the events occur in something like the primary world (obviously it can't really be the primary world because vampires etc. can't exist in the primary world). Solri (talk) 13:12, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marvel, DC, Supernatural, Buffy are low fantasy, now? 

message: I've had a look at this page several times and every time I have thought the definition presented is utterly incorrect. As I have always understood it, Low Fantasy and High Fantasy are (somewhat obviously) opposite poles. Allow me to expand on this.
High Fantasy is (according to the Wikipedia page), defined by the epic stature of its themes, characters and plot. Okay. I'd expand on that: High Fantasy is also definable by the inclusion of elves and dwarves and magic (often in liberal amounts and without explanation) - corroborating with the above citation of Lord of the Rings as a quintessential example of High Fantasy.
So if we view the level of 'fantastical-ness' as a spectrum, and place Low Fantasy at the other end (as its nomenclature would suggest), then logically Low Fantasy should be defined by the exclusion of dragons and orcs and magic and all the stuff that comes with it. Perhaps view it as a question of 'how far from reality' the fantasy is - is it 'high' above the ground level that is reality, or low?
So, for example, stories like Eragon or The Lord of the Rings or the aforementioned story where "every person on earth can call fire from the sky and carries a sword capable of felling mountains in a single stroke", would be 'High Fantasy', versus stories like A Song of Ice and Fire, which would be infinitely lower (off the top of my head I can't think of a story other than my own work which completely does away with elves and magic and so on, but if you guys can please do enlighten me).
Make sense? Sound worth using? Let me know what ya'll think.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.252.216.120 (talk) 09:58, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Low Fantasy is 'low' on the fantasy spectrum

message: As a retired old man, I struggle with technology. I have tried to add Alan Garner's The Owl Service to the list of examples here (I only came to this page through a link on the article about the novel), but can't see how to make use of the refname that I was told to put. There are many possible links on the The Owl Service page. Please can someone make my addition safe - or tell me how to do it?
MacAuslan (talk) 16:24, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference names 

message: The article claim that Conan the Barbarian is high fantasy, but by this article's very own "literary" definitions shouldn't it be low fantasy? It happens in our (primary) world. In a highly speculative version of the distant past yes, but unlike Tolkien Howard has made an effort to try to make it work with what was available to him of the (if now highly outdated) science of the time he wrote it. No secondary world exists. Furthermore magic and other "fantasy elements" are considered abnormal and supernatural occurrences within the setting and is treated much in the same way they are in H. P. Lovecraft's works.--Painocus (talk) 13:09, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a secondary world in the same way Tolkien's Middle Earth is a secondary world setting.  Both are explicitly intended as the prehistory of the real, primary world.  Tolkien's intent was the same in that regard.  As for magic, it's rare and dangerous in Howard's work but not that rare or an intrusion from elsewhere.  The high/low definition isn't really the best way to subdivide fantasy fiction but within its terms Conan is high fantasy.  Solomon Kane and works like Skull-Face are more low fantasy. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 14:17, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conan is High Fantasy? 

message: Mount and Blade is given as an example of a low fantasy video game in this article. But is this truly low fantasy? It seems like it has absolutely no magic in it. It's just a medieval world approximately how it was in our Middle Ages, just with different kingdoms and continents. I'm pretty sure low fantasy requires magic. KarstenO (talk) 18:49, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mount and Blade 

message: I have reverted the recent anonymous edit to the initial definitions. The editor says "there are no circumstances in which reproducing someone else's definition instead of writing our own is acceptable" but I know of no WP policy on this. nor do I see any logical reason for it (in academic writing, it is quite normal to quote definitions). If there is such a policy , then we do indeed need to come up with a definition.Pengliujian (talk) 05:30, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is a free encyclopaedia. Use of non-free text is governed by strict rules. Copying and passing someone else's definition of a topic instead of writing your own violates those rules as well as the whole basic aim of this encyclopaedia. See WP:Non-free content.2.25.45.242 (talk) 12:54, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  The quotations here do not violate WP policy: "Articles and other Wikipedia pages may, in accordance with the guideline, use brief verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author (as described by the citation guideline), and specifically indicated as direct quotations via quotation marks, or a similar method." Pengliujian (talk) 14:38, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  They do. We use quotations only when nothing other than the exact words of the source can make the point. If you need to quote the exact words that someone said, then quote them. That is obviously not the case here. 2.25.45.242 (talk) 14:43, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  A definition is one case where the author's exact words are important. The paraphrase presented here  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pengliujian (talk • contribs) 19:12, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, it isn't. We write articles in our own words and not by assembling bits of text copied from non-free sources. 2.25.45.242 (talk) 21:01, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  I beg to differ. Quotation is not the same as plagiarism; in fact, it is the opposite. Half-paraphrasing a quotation does not make the writing original. Pengliujian (talk) 10:52, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

text:  BTW, please sign your posts and edits. Pengliujian (talk) 14:38, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  What are you talking about? 2.25.45.242 (talk) 14:43, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  Edits and talk posts should preferably be signed by the author. The easy way to do this is to type four tildes (~) after the post. Pengliujian (talk) 15:27, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  Edits, no, definitely not. Talk posts, yes, and you can see that I know that by the fact that I sign them all. Why are you telling me something untrue and something that I already know? 2.25.45.242 (talk) 15:55, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  Edits do not need to be signed with tildes, as they will automatically be signed when you are logged in. However, you do not seem to be logged in, as all I see is an IP number, not a user name. Anonymous editing is welcome, of course, but I think if you're going to do more than minor edits - and certainly if you're going to make controversial edits - it's worth logging in with your user name. Pengliujian (talk) 19:17, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Edits are never signed. The point of your unnecessary and incorrect "advice" remains unclear. 2.25.45.242 (talk) 21:01, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: We're talking at cross-purposes about the meaning of "sign". What I mean is that it is a good idea (though not compulsory) to sign in with your Wikipedia account when editing, so people know which edit comes from which author. This is particularly useful when the edit is controversial. The same applies a fortiori to talk posts, which you actually need to sign with tildes. It's not an absolute rule, just basic politeness. If you have a personal reason why you can't use your Wikipedia account, I have no problem with that (I had to change my own WP name for security reasons once), but please explain that this is what you are doing. Pengliujian (talk) 10:52, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Only one of us has failed to sign a talk page post in this discussion. Your pestering about signing is hypocritical and unnecessary. Drop it. 2.25.45.242 (talk) 21:54, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It was a polite request. When I said "sign" I meant "use your user name, not an IP address." I just think you'll get a better reception here and elsewhere if people associate the comments and edits with a person rather than a machine, but it's not that important; as I said, if you want to stay anonymous, you have a perfect to do so. .  Pengliujian (talk) 19:00, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quoted definitions 

message: It is used in completely different ways depending on which definition is preferred by the user, and as a result, it can't meaningfully distinguish any fantasy work from another.  As it stands, no one can decide whether it means "low-level fantasy" (focus on non-epic characters and events in a high fantasy setting); "lowlife fantasy" (a fantasy setting wherein "high" ideals like "good" and "evil" are of little to no relevance and which concerns the lives of morally ambiguous characters); "low level of fantasy" (a fantasy setting that is considerably less "fantastic" than LOTR or most D&D settings), or "intrusion fantasy"; as the article claims as its primary meaning. Surely there are sources out there which deprecate usage of the term altogether. WP Ludicer (talk) 17:41, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I feel like the definition of low and high fantasy became more and more confusing with the mixture of all aspects of opinions... TheeChEese (talk) 23:33, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

text: Agreed, and this is a consequence of violating the fundamental principles of WP:NOTDIC and WP:NOTNEO. An encyclopedic article must define its subject & describe it. It's a dictionary's role to describe the evolving use of terms. Strictly speaking, while the term remains in flux (or "useless") it's coverage in Wikipedia should be split across articles (each of which should discuss one & only one of the subjects that the term is used for). Strategically, we need separate articles for: Intrusion Fantasy, Lowlife fantasy, Slice-of-life fantasy, Portal low fantasy, Inconsequential fantasy, Low-magic fantasy, etc. This article's contradictions & low-quality stasis are (classic) symptoms of ignoring WP:REFERS. In summary: "Encyclopedia articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic [...] An encyclopedic definition is more concerned with encyclopedic knowledge (facts) than linguistic concerns." (per WP:Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary#The_dictionary_definition_trap). Only by distinguishing and writing distinct articles on the various strands can progress occur here. Let's leave Wiktionary the job of tracking term usage. --Wragge (talk) 01:47, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Having spent a long time trying to improve this article a few years back, I heartily agree. Let's have a disambiguation page for "Low fantasy" pointing to the kind of pages you mention. Pengliujian (talk) 13:10, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is probably a completely useless term 

message: The article states that "A few high fantasy series do not easily fit into Gamble's categories" giving the example of Lord of The Rings which is set in a different time period. As already mentioned Connan the Barbarian and The Wheel of Time do not meet this definition, a list to which I will add The History of The Runestaff (whose author was named by the UK's paper of record as one of the 50 most significant authors since the second world war). These are not insignificant works, I can think of maybe 15 with similar levels of importance. To see so many of these works suggests that it is not just "a few". ~ El D. (talk to me) 00:20, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "A few high fantasy series"? 

message: I googled Light Fantasy but couldn't find an article on the topic here at Wikipedia (the Google result directed me here to Low fantasy). Does light fantasy even count as Low fantasy or should those two genres of fantasy fiction be considered separate?--46.59.69.157 (talk) 12:31, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Light fantasy