This is something that I don’t really understand. As a fan of fantasy novels it seems that all the novels that I have read are stuck in a medieval European Fantasy setting. There are not that many fantasy works that have a native American setting, or a Chinese setting, or Arabian fantasy. I would like to know why is it that European Fantasy is so popular and why not the other cultures?
Power fantasy. Glory. Freedom. Free sex.
Native-American fantasy: No one really fantasizes about sitting in a birch bark wigwam, even as Chief. It’s just not glorious enough. Too much responsible communing with nature. That’s too grown-up!
Arabian fantasy probably was as prominent in pop culture as medieval-Europe fantasy, for several decades in the early 20th century. Check out any comprehensive list of Hollywood B-movies and you’ll find lots of guys in turbans and gals in diaphanous bikinis. But as the geo-political realities heated up, particularly beginning in the 1960s (Arab-Israeli war, etc), Arabian fantasies kind of went away.
Admittedly, it would be pretty glorious to be the Son of Heaven (Emperor of China). But it’s not really familiar enough, and also the Emperor didn’t have the freedom that we associate with riding around in armor and bashing people’s heads in and being called “your Grace” and tossing back goblets of wine and eating roasted turkey legs with your bare hands. Oh, and droit du seigneur. That’s important, too. You don’t get that stuff with China-set fantasy.
The primary reason you have more European-set fantasy than Chinese fantasy isn’t droit du seigneur. It’s that Chinese people aren’t white, and the Western audience for fantasy has a strong preference for white people in their stories. I could cite a very, very depressing list of examples if need be.
I’d like to see a cite.
My expectation is that the Western audience for fantasy has a strong preference for Western culture. In general, audiences prefer stories in a mostly familiar setting with only a few new elements. Fantasy stories tend to have fantastic elements, which leaves less scope for introducing unfamiliar cultures. That is, Western audiences prefer stories with a familiar Western culture and fantasy elements over stories with an unfamiliar culture and fantasy elements. There’s too much new stuff for them to grok the latter.
If my expectation is correct, stories about white people in a Chinese cultural setting will be less popular than stories about Asian people in a Western cultural setting. Race does not make a story–cultural settings do.
(On preview, I think I may be misinterpreting you. Sorry, if I am.)
Well Chinese people have made more than a couple of fantasy works that take place in a Chinese historical setting. I don’t find it all that remarkable that people of European descent would be more focused on European history.
I think a far more interesting question is why the Medieval Era has so much allure. Why don’t we see more fantasy works set in the Bronze Age or the Stone Age or in a world where people possess technology roughly analogous to 18th Century Britain instead of 14th Century Britain? There are fantasy works set in other historical periods, but Medieval is by far the most common setting.
I think part of the answer might be that the Middle Ages in Europe were followed by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The Middle Ages are sort of viewed as the last era before people started to unravel the scientific mysteries of the universe and usher in the Modern Age. Therefore Medieval settings seem the appropriate place for stories about magic and fantastic beasts.
Because “The Hobbit”/“The Lord of the Rings” and the Arthurian legend were huge influences on fantasy fiction and they are medieval-Europeanish.
I’d add fairy tales (e.g. Grimm’s).
And, LOTR is less medieval-European than some fantasies. No feudal system, no knights in armor, etc. Given Tolkien’s background, it’s no surprise that Middle Earth has a somewhat European feel, but to me it’s more timeless-European than medieval-European.
Personally, I prefer fantasy settings that aren’t really a copy of any existing historical culture, but rather an original creation.
Previous threads:
Thoughts on the medieval setting common to fantasy
Fantasy novels with an Asian setting or Asian theme
World building fantasy not inspired by medieval Europe?
Are there any good fantasy novels set in the USA?
Among several works set in European-style settings, Guy Gavriel Kay has also written The Lions of al-Rassan, set in a Moorish Spain-style setting; The Sarantine Mosaic, set in a Byzantine millieu; and Under Heaven and River of Stars, set in a pseudo-China.
Well, they aren’t, though the medieval setting is much more common because that’s what authors know about (you’d be surprised how many fantasy authors have Medieval Studies degrees) and also what readers like reading.
But you can find fantasy set in many other times and places.
I don’t read a lot of fantasy, but I don’t think they are, particularly. They’re set in *fantastical *settings.
I think with that too, it’s the last era before gunpowder weapons. Fighting a dragon or ogre with sword and lance is seen as more heroic and dashing than shooting it with a musket.
That WOULD be a fantasy, however…
There are more of this style coming out. The Iron Elves series and the Powder Mage books are set in worlds with magic, swords, archery and black-powder weapons existing side-by-side.
Personally, I don’t like those sort of books. I’m old-fashioned when it comes to fantasy. No gunpowder. And I think the existence of magic would tend to hold down the development of science and gunpowder weapons.
The Forgotten Realms setting, which boasts many novels and several popular video game series (Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and others) is kind of medieval European at first blush, but doesn’t really fit upon further scrutiny. The tech level ranges mostly from late bronze age to early Renaissance, but there are ways in which the societies of the setting differ vastly from medieval Europe. For one thing, religion plays a vastly different role in people’s lives, and there’s a sense of pluralism that allows dozens or even hundreds of religions to coexist with only sporadic violence (some of those religions are explicitly evil, after all). Women’s rights are more similar to those of a modern Western society than to what you’d have seen in medieval Europe. Technology doesn’t advance very quickly because the best and brightest mostly become clerics and wizards rather than doctors and engineers.
Sure, there are castles and swords and stuff, but the mindset of the people is very far from medieval Europe.
It isn’t that strong in fantasy elements, but check out Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor for an Africa based story.
I hate to say it, but it’s because most fantasy is imitative and not very good. They are pale copies of Tolkien.
Urslula LeGuin’s Earthsea feels very different. She lived for a time in Indonesia as a child and there are clearly influences from that time in her work.
English speaking authors write of English-inspired eras. There are many authors of other cultures that write about their own myths and histories.
But more recently this is no longer true, and there are a lot more deliberately cross-cultural influenced realms, as authors search for originality, for new myths to base their characters and creatures around, or for something that they just think is cool.
This.
That said, there are authors who create other settings.
My personal favorite fantasy novel is D’shai, by Joel Rosenberg. It’s set in a world strongly reminiscent of medieval Japan, though subtly different. There is one sequel, Hour of the Octopus.
Lois McMaster Bujold has written a four book series called The Sharing Knife. The protagonist’s culture, the “lakewalkers”, seem to me to resemble native American tribes in some ways.
There are undoubtedly other examples. But I don’t actually read a lot of fantasy, I prefer science fiction.
I just realized that no one has mentioned Dune. So, Dune.