{"id":35204,"date":"2018-04-30T06:30:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-29T18:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=35204"},"modified":"2018-04-29T19:03:16","modified_gmt":"2018-04-29T07:03:16","slug":"having-fun-with-epic-fantasy-meet-the-tropes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2018\/04\/30\/having-fun-with-epic-fantasy-meet-the-tropes\/","title":{"rendered":"Having Fun With Epic Fantasy — Meet The “Tropes”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tolkien’s Middle Earth & the classic epic tour<\/p><\/div>\n

Some years back, I posted a short guest series on SF Signal titled “Having Fun With Epic Fantasy”<\/strong> in which I explored a few of the characteristic features of epic fantasy literature. While by no means exhaustive, the entries included “Making the Grand Tour<\/a>” (aka the Road Journey), the “Band of Brothers<\/a>” and\u00a0 the “Soul-Sucking Sword<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Sadly, SF Signal closed its e-doors a few years back, but my love of epic fantasy has continued and there’s plenty more examples of its classic elements to consider, together with some of the books where they appear — my favourites that is, rather than an exhaustive list. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

A contemporary term for those classic elements is “tropes.” Originally “tropes” was a terms for figures of speech such as metaphor and irony (among many others.) Now, though, it has come to include “commonly recurring literary<\/a> and rhetorical devices<\/a>,[2]<\/a><\/sup> motifs<\/a> or clich\u00e9s<\/a> in creative works.” (Wikipedia) <\/sup><\/p>\n

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Barbara Hambly’s ‘The Ladies of Mandrigyn’ — a favourite “band of sisters”<\/p><\/div>\n

The epic “grand tour”, “band of brothers” and artefacts such as the “soul-sucking sword” are examples of such devices or —gasp!— cliches that characterize epic fantasy. But I’m sure I can find a few more to share with you. For me, they’re part of what I love about these kind of stories, which is why I’ve included a goodly amount in The Wall of Night<\/a> series. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

I would argue, of course, that it’s not the presence or absence of these classic elements that define the story, but what you do with them…<\/p>\n

But that is<\/em> another story! In the meantime, I’ll look forward to taking a closer look at elements, or tropes, such as the farmboy\/gal or prince\/princess with a destiny, portents and prophecies, wormholes and portals — to hint at just a few of the many. \ud83d\ude42 The first instalment will post next Monday!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Farmboys, princesses, destinies… \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some years back, I posted a short guest series on SF Signal titled “Having Fun With Epic Fantasy” in which I explored a few of the characteristic features of epic fantasy literature. While by no means exhaustive, the entries included “Making the Grand Tour” (aka the Road Journey), the “Band of Brothers” and\u00a0 the “Soul-Sucking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epicfantasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35204"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35212,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35204\/revisions\/35212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}