Do you see Donaldson as an influential writer? He certainly shifted some units in the 80s, but his writing gets a lot of stick (well-deserved in terms of his prose). Hard to see other writers looking to emulate that, and I can’t think of any off hand.
I’m a fan myself of the chronicles - partly sentimental because I read them quite young, but also because they’re very different. Quite overwrought and melodramatic IIRC, but there’s room for that in the fantasy / SF canon.
Slightly different take on orcs and elves: they match up to stereotypes of non-Europeans. Orcs are brutal savages who use low technology, who lack civilized ways, who can be killed with aplomb. Elves are members of an exotic civilization with a refined but foreign aesthetic whose time is, sadly, passed, and who are being replaced by humans (er, Brits) in the coming age.
Orcus is Latin for death.
Richard Wagner was good at this fantasy thing.
Being German, everyone who counts, dies.
OK, under this reading Orcs were a stand-in for Americans and/or Rus; but which would have been the fay delicate Elves in the late 1900s to late 2000s ? The French were notoriously brutal, the Italians heirs to the Romans and still ingenious and the Germans always a great people to be reckoned with.
Chinese/Japanese, most likely; the tendency to exoticize “Orientals” as graceful, inscrutable, highly cultured, wise, and other fits reasonably well with elves.
A different strand of elves show up as noble savages.
I can see Japanese: both races had ( separate ) stupendous art traditions, each of which were dotingly admired by British and Europeans [ sometimes almost to the detriment of their own native traditions ], and the Japanese people were less known. Chinese were known and are many of them not unearthy. In 19th century California they could see them everyday, and whilst the opium dens and brothels may have had a lingering allure, I doubt the immensely hard-working and… pragmatic… labouring workers evoked much romance.
What we can only imagine has more tenuous romance than what we can actually grasp. Sometimes it’s best to not go over the hills to far away…
Could you go on about the comic relief aspect of orks in WH40K? I can think of a few elements but I’d like to hear your take.
How do the other WH40K factions fit in?
So,
Orks=swarthy people
Elves= East Asians and Jews
?
Would there be something more expendable than Nazi zombie orks?
Jews had an exotic civilization ? Down on the shtetl ?
I would say the BEST influences on the genre were mythology first and then folklore/legend/fairy tales.
In a biography of Tolkein, I read that he became conscious of the fact that England/Britain had no native mythology of its own and, even while borrowing tropes and themes from the other languages and cultures (and mythologies) he had studied, wanted LoTR to be his gift to his country as a stand-in for what they lacked.
Although the Fantasy genre as we know it is heavily laden with creatures and tropes from Norse, Celtic, and monotheistic scriptural mythologies, that may be largely because we in this discussion are descendants of Western Europeans, or dwelling in lands formerly dominated by Western European cultures or, at least, are consuming literature rooted in Western literature. But there are other elements of the Fantasy genre that come from other cultures, mythologies, and religions: Sumerian and Babylonian mythos, Egyptian, Indian, Central American, and many variants of East Asian mythologies, and Eastern European myths and folklore are all ripe orchards with plenty of fruit for the picking. [One of the reasons I like the original Dieties and Demigods tome from TSR for AD&D is that it includes the mythologies of Lovecraft, Leiber, Moorcock, as well as the Arthurian tales and the pantheons of many cultures around the world.]
I suggest (and perhaps this would be better in a separate thread of discussion) that the bias in our consumption and resulting perception is a byproduct of the fact that the printing press was invented in Western Europe and, as the technology spread, so did the cultural literature of Western Europe. And then, since the moving picture industry settled in Hollywood, California, United States (a former British Colony) the stories chosen for adaptation to film came from that long-established treasure trove of Western literature and/or authors and directors whose literary roots were in Western European tropes and themes. In contrast, there is swords & magic Wuxia material out of Korea (Bichunmon, Legend of the Shadowless Sword) as well as tales from Japan (Onmyoji 1 and 2) and China. All are comfortably rooted in their respective histories and mythologies so the intended audiences could be comfortable with the stories without having to sit through a 2-hour introductory lecture before they can watch the film.
I would also venture to suggest that, even though they were called Science Fiction at the time, Burroughs’ John Carter and even his Tarzan series were a set of stories (perhaps episodic rather than epic) with the protagonist using swordsmanship (Carter) and/or brawn (Tarzan) as part of his arsenal (along with experience and cleverness) against magic- (technology-) -using evil-doers to save the girl (DT/Jane) and make things right. Like Star Wars, these are Fantasy stories in the literary genre of Romance (not necessarily about love) in a SciFi wrapper (extra-terrestrial Carter and unfamiliar jungle Tarzan).
—G!
For those who might be interested, see if the Dictionary of Imaginary Places is still available. It was a Harcourt Brace product way back when I worked there (a couple decades ago) and might still be published by Elsevier.
Not exactly arguing, but I’m not sure I’d call Donaldson “influential.” Popular, yes. Bestselling, sure. But I’m trying to think of anything I’ve seen since that I’d call “Donaldsonesque.” He did turn some tropes on their head and took some new turns, but I’m still not convinced I’d say he was all that influential on later writers.
@MichaelEMouse: Since the beginning, the whole Warhammer universe has been slipping into more and more grimdark territory, and I’m not the first nor the only to notice this. The Empire is doing their damndest to hold Chaos at bay, the Dwarves are a dying race, the Elves are not only dying but locked in a death duel with their Dark brethren, and Chaos… well, they’re Chaos, totally devoted to nihilism and the worship of the Chaos gods.
Orcs and Goblins started out as generic fantasy transfers from Tolkien, but as soon as they started with the Cockney accents, it began to get a tad silly. This transferred over to WH40K, which began as simply Space Warhammer, but began to fill out as more writers and fans added fluff to the setting.
A thing that was at first never explained: how does a race of green space barbarians build weaponry, spacecraft, and technology that can put them on an even field with Space Marines?
The original answer was, “Well, sometimes they scavenge battlefiends… and otherwise, they just DO.”
Then Gorkamorka came out, and we’re suddenly retconning Tolkien’s orcs into a race of fungus-based ultimate warriors, genetically engineered by Ancient Aliens as a race of foot soldiers. At first, this seemed like a reasonable idea to explain the transfer. It also explained their insane aggressiveness, their violence-based society, and their ability to build technology… it was “encoded in their genes.” Okay, maybe not the BEST explanation, but certainly a step up.
And then we stop a minute and look at the rest of the setting:
SPACE MARINES: Dogmatic religious-based megahumans devoted to exterminating all nonhumans and preserving the status quo.
IMPERIAL GUARD: Same as above, but with less armor, worse weapons, and way more reserves.
ELDAR: Mary Sue race, now in decline and dying, and prepared to sacrifice anyone else to stave off their eventual extinction.
DARK ELDAR: As above, but much worse.
SQUATS: Wiped out, although I’m told they’re making a comeback.
TYRANIDS: Aliens on steroids. They’re here to eat you and make more Tyranids and move on! No culture, no angst, just voracity.
TAU: Space dictatorship, upstarts challenging the Imperium.
CHAOS: See previous entry, above. Nearly nothing has changed with this bunch.
NECRONS: Merch driven Terminator ripoffs with enough backstory to avoid legal action.
…the point being that ALL of these cultures/factions… are darker’n all hell. They’re fighting to survive in a hostile universe, or they’re fighting to consume you, in some form or fashion. Except the Necrons, who just want to kill you. For no apparent reason.
And then we have the Orks: “Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go, WAAAAAUGH!” They are fighting for no apparent reason than that it pleases them. It’s FUN to murder strangers! Hell, it’s fun to murder the guy next to you, for that matter! Wahoo! Let’s go blow something up! Whenever you have a flavor quote from an Ork, it will invariably be rather lighthearted, in a bloodthirsty kind of way. Hell, Ork Heaven is a place where the battles never STOP!
In any OTHER setting, this would be quite dark. In WH40K, it’s downright CHEERFUL!
Gary Gygax. Way, way unacknowledged.
In fact I’d wager Gary Gygax helped to democratise the fantasy genre and make people realise they could do something with it themselves. Just guessing.