Fantasy. Why is fantasy always in a dark-ages European setting? This is what I don’t like about fantasy as a genre, it always goes straight for the ye olde thing but because it’s ‘fantasy’ they don’t have to be historically accurate or anything; it’s sort of camp in a way.
That is also what I…
oops! meant to reblog instead of reply. i’m not arguing with you, i’m just kind of guessing at what the sociological reasonings are.
to some degree this isn’t true. it’s just that that setting is what people think of as ‘fantasy’. star wars is only “science fiction” because it is in space, but it is as much or more of a fantasy story than anything. in fact, there is almost no science, but tons of mysticism. harry potter is fantasy too. there are a lot of fantasy stories written in modern times, but they are not what people think of as fantasy. the living blood series by tananarive due, i don’t know what to call that if it isn’t just fantasy.
but i’d posit the number one reason so many fantasy stories are in european type places, is that european and european americans are writing them, and they are drawing on the myths and traditions of those cultures. i’d bet there is a lot of asian fantasy literature that is set in asian type places with asian dragons instead of european ones, but those books are not in english. what bothers me is why don’t they just set it in europe, instead of a veiled version of europe? it’s fantasy anyway.
as for the setting being medieval, i think it’s because to modern folks, that is the time when we think people generally believed in all the fantastical things being written about. we think that medieval europeans believed in dragons, and so far as i know, there were a lot of stories about dragons created at that time. so it’s almost believable that dragons existed in that fictional historical period.
and now that i think about it, aside form being set in a place and possibly a time that didn’t/doesn’t exist, in game of thrones, there isn’t really anything terribly fantastical except at the very beginning and very end. (i mean the book game of thrones, not the whole fire and ice series. i’ve only read the one). it’s not historical fiction only because the setting isn’t real.
i don’t like the game of thrones tv series, but i am picky.
