The origins of the “Fortunately There Was…” heading stems from my early adventures in Sci Fi rather than Fantasy, so the original construction (coined by myself, as far as I know) was “Fortunately There Was A Wormhole.” 

The context was that of Faster Than Light travel, which is still (to the best of our knowledge) not possible. From a SF point of view this is problematic since it makes zipping around the galaxy, Star Wars and Star Trek style, impossible. And Slower Than Light travel is just so, well, slow, yanno…Fortunately for SF and space opera fun, however, there is usually a wormhole, or the leap to ‘hyperspace’, which neatly circumvents such anti-fun constraints as the laws of physics.

Getting places fast is not nearly so important in Fantasy, with its predilection for pre-industrial and/or medieval worlds. However,  magic is a, if not the, key ingredient of Fantasy. And if there’s going to be magic in the story,  it can be a lot of fun to have the magical characters able to to do stuff that normally wouldn’t be possible. Plus, covering large tracts of ground and getting from one place to another really quickly, if not quite in the twinkling of an eye, can still really help the plot along.

Enter “Gates”, aka “portal”s and/or “ways”, which are the Fantasy equivalents of wormholes and hyperspace.

I suspect the Gate may owe as much of a debt to SF as it does to the mythic and folklore origins of Fantasy—and in fact some of the more significant “Gate-use” Fantasy books also have SF-nal characteristics, e.g. Raymond E Feist’s Riftwar saga and CJ Cherryh’s Morgaine novels. (I shall return to these later.)

This is not to say that there are not gates and crossing points in myth and fairytale. There are, but they tend to be less a convenient means of getting around than pathways between life and death, and the mortal world and faerie. Such barriers can be rivers, such as the Styx and the Lethe in Greek myth; Norse myth has Bifrost, the rainbow bridge; while in the legend of Finn Mac Cool, Diarmuid O’Dyna dives into a well that brings him to the faerie realm.

In addition, fairytale abounds with fairy hills, in which the unwary, such as Tam Lin, Thomas the Rhymer, and Rip van Winkle, may end spending a far greater period of time than anticipated. So there are overlaps with the space-time bending properties of wormholes. There are also other bridges between realms, such as Jack’s beanstalk, not to mention useful ways of getting around, e.g. the Seven League Boots and flying carpets, which also tie into contemporary Fantasy.  The rather more recent lore of leylines has also influenced the genre.

Whatever their origins, gates/portals are by no means universal in Fantasy. The Lord of the Rings, for example, does not have any significant examples, that I can recall. Time flows differently in the land of Lorien, consistent with fairytale realms, but there is no magical crossing place in order to get there. Similarly, although the Paths of the Dead are terrifying and the realm is supernatural, they are accessed by normal physical means.

Interestingly, use of gates/portals in earlier Fantasy works are closer to the fairytale/folklore conventions of crossing points, whereas the SF-nal style portals appear in later books. One of the greatest early  examples would have to be Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, in which Alice accesses Wonderland via a rabbit hole (a prototype for the wormhole, perhaps) and the Looking Glass world through a mirror.

Interestingly, Wonderland is (arguably) also accessed via a dream, which merits a nod to the Dreams and Portents post in this series, while also serving as a precursor to gates and portals accessed through the dream realm: e.g Robert Jordan’s Tel’aran’rhiod; the Edge in Julie Czerneda’s Night’s Edge novels; the interdimensional transit to The Place in Elizabeth Knox’s Dreamhunter Duet; and the use of dreams in my own novels, both Thornspell and The Wall Of Night series.

In CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, the wardrobe is the classic gateway between worlds.

In other books in the Narnia series, though, Lewis uses pools (reminiscent of the Diarmuid O Dyna tale), together with magic rings, in The Magician’s Nephew, and a painting in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
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Alan Garner, another children’s Fantasy writer of the same era, also uses a gate between worlds—in several cases literally a door—in the eerie Dark Fantasy, Elidor.

Other significant uses of ways, gates, and portals, to transition between places, including worlds and realms of existence, occur in the following Fantasy works. (These are listed in order of publication dates, btw, rather than the somewhat more random approach to date; in the case of a series, publication of the first book.)

The Morgaine novels by CJ Cherryh

These are perhaps the most SF-nal of all my examples, with Morgaine’s quest (as you’ll perhaps recall from earlier posts in this series) being to find and destroy a series of “gates” that have allowed travel between worlds, and by implication across space-time,  that was inherently destructive. The first novel was titled Gate of Ivrel.

The Riddlemaster Trilogy by Patricia McKillip

I um-ed and ah-ed over whether to include this trilogy, but although there are not portals that I can recall, Morgan (the eponymous Riddlemaster) and by reputation earthmasters and wizards, can translocate, which is a way of crossing distance at speed. I leave you to decide whether it ‘counts’ sufficiently to be included. 😉

The Many-Coloured Land by Julian May

No post on interdimensional and time-space-crossing portals would be complete without Julian May’s The Many-Coloured Land (and sequels in the four-book Saga of the Exiles) in which adventurers, misfits, and miscreants from humanity’s not-too-distant future can opt to take a one-way trip to the earth of the Pliocene Era. Some may argue that the series is SF, but I have always felt that it is essentially SF-nal Fantasy, in much the same way as the Morgaine novels. Whichever genre you opt for, though, travel to the Pliocene, which is found to have a pre-established (to-all-intents-and-purposes) Sidhe population, is via a Time Gate / portal.

Magician and the Riftwar Saga by Raymond E Feist

This is another classic series where the opening book is based on the invasion of the world Midkemia by armies from the world of Kelewan—an invasion facilitated by the discovery of ‘rifts’, effectively gates between worlds. In A Darkness At Sethanon, the third book in the initial trilogy, the rifts (not unlike Morgaine’s gates) come to represent a danger to both worlds when their opening provides the opportunity for a powerful and feared space-and-world-traveling race to return. (Note: They ride dragons, so this is definitely still Fantasy, not SF.)

The Eye Of The World and the Wheel Of Time Series by Robert Jordan (Completed by Brandon Sanderson.)

Magic systems and worldbuilding are among the most outstanding aspects of Robert Jordan’s Wheel Of Time series (imho.) The magic systems include several magical means of getting around (challenged only by Harry Potter, I believe, when it comes to numbers.) Through the massive fourteen-volume series, the characters—and their accompanying readers—encounter ways (magical tunnels across considerable distances); portals between places that can be opened and closed; the ability to cross between places by means of Tel’aran’rhiod, the dream realm; and flying discs that can transport armies. A read/re-read of the entire fourteen books may uncover more but that’ll do to be going on with, I feel. 😉

The Golden Compass & The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (‘His Dark Materials’ Series)

In The Golden Compass, readers don’t encounter portals until the very last, when Lord Asriel opens a bridge between worlds. The sequel, The Subtle Knife, however, is all about portals, with the knife being a device to cut doorways between alternate universes, including the alternate Oxfords of Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, as well as the world of Cittagaze, where the knife is discovered.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

This is a story that is all about gateways and openings. It even centres around a character whose name is “Door”, which is in fact a key to the story. Suffice it to say that the Big Bad is seeking to use her to open a door into heaven—and a number of other crossings between the overlapping ‘worlds’ of London Above and London Below must be made before the story comes to its end.

Harry Potter and The Philospher’s Stone and the ‘Harry Potter’ Series by JK Rowling

As indicated above, the only series I’ve read that can compare with the Wheel Of Time for portals and multiple “Fortunately There Was…” means of getting around, is JK Rowling’s marvelous Harry Potter books—starting with Platform 9³/₄ , which is a portal between the mundane and magical worlds at King’s Cross railway station.

As the series progresses, Harry and friends (including the series’ avid readers) encounter floo powder (to access a portal network); disapparation (similar to Morgon of Hed’s translocation); and portkeys, magical objects that are enchanted to bring the person touching them to a predetermined location. Let’s not forget the time-turner either, a magical device specifically created to facilitate wizardly time travel.

Gardens of the Moon and the ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen’ Series by Steven Erikson

Steven Erikson’s ten-book Malazan series is another triumph of epic-fantasy worldbuilding (imho), one aspect of which is the use of ‘warrens’ as a source of magic but also of translocating between places. As with all things Malazan there are multiple types of warren and their functions are complex, but travel is definitely one of them—or even their primary use in the case of the Abyss and the Imperial Warren.

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy by Laini Taylor

Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy is another story that is all about doors that are gateways between worlds, one of which is Earth as we currently know it. The series begins with handprints being scorched into doors all over our world by angel-like beings (seraphim) that are slipping in through a rift in the sky. The doors are tied to a magician called Brimstone and the chimaera who are fighting a desperate war against the seraphim. The rifts are portals between universes—and therein lies the complete tale…

Meanwhile, Returning To My Own Books…

In Thornspell, dreams are potent and include the means to shift between the magical and physical realms, as when Sigismund returns from the forest of Thorn. And because Thornspell, is a fairytale retelling, the story does include faerie hills with the traditional twists of reality and time associated with them.  Overall, however, while dream magic is an important element in the story, gates and portals are not.

 

The Wall Of Night series, on the other hand, is high epic fantasy and includes a number of means of traversing space, but also space-time—the latter because it’s written in the tradition of fantasy with SF-nal elements. The terms ‘gate’ and ‘portal’ are used interchangeably, by the way, and this is deliberate: they mean and are the same thing.

Probably the most significant ‘gate’ is the “great gate” that brought the Derai and their (age-old, of course!) enemy, the Swarm, to the world of Haarth. I’m not sure if it’s a new element as regards the trope, but in the WALL series the magnitude of the working, which basically forces apart space-time (though it’s not expressed in those terms in the book), has cataclysmic effects for the destination world. (Whereas in Cherryh, Feist, and Taylor it’s more what comes through the opening that’s potentially catastrophic, rather than the opening itself—although I do recall instability being a concern in Cherryh.)

Gates are also part of the magic of the book in a smaller scale way, with some of those with magical ability able to open portals between places in the physical world. In the WALL ‘verse this ability is significant and those who possess it are relatively rare. Because all magic use draws on the reserves/strength of the individual, in the same way physical activities do with muscle strength, gates are limited in size, scope, and the numbers they can accommodate.

An individual’s strength can be bolstered by a team or cadre of supporting adepts, but the same limitations apply to the collective at some point, depending on the numbers and extent of power and strength of those involved.

On the Derai side of the “war without end” as it is resumed in the WALL series (to explore the “war without end” trope further, see Post #6), only the main character, Malian, has the ability to open gates in the physical world. Both she and Kalan (the series’ second lead and Malian’s ally and friend) can enter the Gate of Dreams in their physical bodies, but so far only Malian has opened a gate out of the Gate of Dreams—which is a distinct plane of existence in its own right—to somewhere other than where she (physically) entered.

In Daughter of Blood, Malian created a ‘way’ through the Gate of Dreams that allowed a much larger body of people to cross from one part of the world to the other. A ‘way’ is not a portal, which functions as a door (aka gate) that opens directly out of one place and into another. In the WALL ‘verse, a ‘way’ resembles a corridor or tunnel through the dream realm—which must be persuaded to allow the way’s creation—that those using it must enter and physically traverse before exiting, but in a significantly shorter time than completing the same journey in the physical world.

If I return to our starting point with the Alice stories, the ‘way’ resembles the rabbit hole in conceptualisation, while gates are more like the looking glass—or the picture in CS Lewis’s The Voyage of The Dawn Treader.

Interestingly, the only other known instance of traversing space-time through the Gate of Dreams, was undertaken by one of the three ascendants from the Swarm side of the conflict. So that suggests Malian is pretty special, but then again, readers already know that since she is the “chosen of prophecy.” (For more on that trope, see Post #1 and Post #2 in this series.)

Limiting the ability to use gates/portals was a deliberate choice, as opposed to making their use as ubiquitous as elevators or bullet trains in our world. There is no right or wrong about either option: it depends on the story you’re telling. In the case of the WALL series though, I felt relative rarity suited the story better.

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Next Time:  On Monday 23 July we’ll all be going on a MacGuffin hunt. Yep, that’s trope and Instalment #8 of this series. 😉 

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Previously In This Series:

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

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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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© Helen Lowe