Way back on April 30, I said that I might write a few posts on Having Fun With Epic Fantasy Tropes, building on a mini-series of three that were featured on SF Signal in December of 2011.

(Close on seven years now —gulp!—but seven: the alchemy of numbers would suggest there’s something significant in that! 😉 )

I can tell you now that I had no idea that it would turn into a marathon ten posts, spanning over a third of the year. As I said at the beginning, though, the tropes are “part of what I love about these kind of stories” so I had quite a bit of fun along the way, not least of which was calling up cherished memories of “all the books I’ve loved before.” (With apologies to Willie Nelson.)

My muster of tropes in Posts 1 to 10 is not exhaustive: I’m aware there’s still a reasonable number of others out there, as yet unexplored (at least by me), such as “the lovable rogue” and “the sidekick”, which are sometimes one and the same person (Han Solo, anyone?)  I may return to them later, but for the moment I feel that ten posts is a nice round number and a reasonable place to hang up my hat.

Also, all exploration of tropes need not be on my blog alone. Aside from those initial three posts on SF Signal, I also post on the Supernatural Underground (on the first day of every month.) My current post there is checking out Fantastic Creatures and Companion Animals. The latter, at least (or so I strongly suspect), qualify as another trope.

As I said last week, we’re not quite done yet, because I want to take a look at a few examples of when the tropes have been deliberately inverted or undermined.  And then there’s that final post, also promised last week, which harks back to one of my opening remarks:

“I would argue, of course, that it’s not the presence or absence of these classic elements…[aka tropes]…that define the story, but what you do with them…But that is another story!”

A story we will come to yet, all going well.

In the meantime, here is the Compleat List of the Having Fun With Epic Fantasy Tropes posts #1 – 10 (including the introductory post):

Introduction: Having Fun With Epic Fantasy—Meet the Tropes

Instalment 1: Having Fun With Epic Fantasy Tropes: A Farm Boy/Gal Goes On A Journey…

Instalment  2: A Prince/Princess Finds A Destiny

Instalment 3: Dreams and Portents, Prophecy and Destiny

Instalment 4: “Apocalypse Now”

Instalment 5: Meet The Big Bad

Instalment 6: The Sweep Of Time & Its Twin, War Without End

Instalment 7: Fortunately There was A Portal

Instalment 8: We’re All Going On A MacGuffin Hunt

Instalment 9: Artefacts of Power—And Doom—And Where To Find Them

Instalment 10: The Alchemy Of Numbers
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On SF Signal: The “Having Fun With Epic Fantasy” Series

1. “Making the Grand Tour” (aka the Road Journey);

2. “The “Band of Brothers”; and the

3. “Soul-Sucking Sword.”

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All © Helen Lowe