On Supernatural Underground Now: Celebrating The “Band of Brothers” in Fantasy #1
Well, I mulled (as per my Happy New Year post) and I have decided on a theme for 2023 on Supernatural Underground (SU) — which as the title has doubtless already conveyed, is a closer look at the “band of brothers” in fantasy fiction.
Unfortunately I wasn’t in a good spot for loading blog posts on February 1, so postponed the initial post until Monday 6, but it’s definitely at the top o’ the SU masthead currently:
Honing In On 2023 — & Celebrating the “Band of Brothers” in Fantasy.
I suspect the “happy few, we band of brothers” is a trope that could rightly be included in the Having Fun With Epic Fantasy post series — but its sibling, the “Scooby gang” is equally entrenched in the wider genre so a dedicated post series is probably justified. 😀
Anyway, to find out more, just click on the link above and dive in. Enjoy!
Ooh this looks like a fun theme for 2023! I’ve just finished reading T.H. White’s The Once and Future King for the first time, which is another example (though you did mention Arthur in the post) of a fantasy epic with this “band of brothers” at its heart. I would have to say that the most heartbreaking fantasy is watching these bands decay and come apart.
On a side note, Tom Hiddlestone as Henry V was absolutely fantastic; so many quotable lines in that play.
On the quotability of Shakespeare, I recall have exactly that sensation as I watched the recent Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand film of MacBeth — those oh-so-so familiar, because ubiquitous, quotes just kept on coming!
You’re right about the bands and the brotherhoods breaking up: it’s one of epic’s enduring themes. One of the reasons I enjoyed the TV series Band of Brothers was because that didn’t happen in the tragic sense, but only in the more bittersweet one of the war ending and the surviving brotherhood with it.