Nice that sword and sorcery didn’t get ignored. It’s largely indie these days, though Baen recently published Lord of a Shattered Land by Howard Andrew Jones and Garth Nix’s Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz counts too (the latter being a sort of homage to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, a classic S&S series). Cheers!
When I was taught what urban fantasy was, one of the critical elements included in the definition was that the setting acts as its own character. This can come across in the mood, themes, or descriptions. A great example of this is the Kate Daniels series, a post-apocalyptic Atlanta where waves of magic and tech fight each other and only one can work at a time (ie guns work but spells don't when tech is up).
One sub genre that doesnt have too many authors writing it is horror/fantasy mix. There are a few but it is rarely mentioned by people. Mark Anthony’s Last Rune series, Tanith Lee’s Dark Castle and Buehlman’s Between Two Fires to name a few.
To an extent I don’t think subgenres mater to much, because so many of them can overlap. It’s good if you wanting a recommendation though. Like after reading a grim dark Abercrombie book it might be nice to read a cozy book. Or after a Brandon Sanderson epic to read an urban.
I'm starting to know these, but still a fun video. First time I heard about Hopepunk though. Also, you said you have a bunch of magical realism recommendations! Would love a video about that ☺
Great video! Got a couple of bits to add. I’ve been hearing noblebright more as a replacement for hopepunk (though still not a huge amount of uptake) and the Japanese term isekai has been slowly replacing portal fantasy. Moving forward through history, after flintlock you have weird west and gaslamp fantasy.
@@Bookborn More specifically, I do believe it(isekai) originates as portal fantasies from Japanese fiction/media; so it carries over a lot I think with fans of online-or-serialized novels/webcomics and manga/anime and other asian movies & tv series, or such. Kinda like LitRPG and Progression Fantasy carrying over from fans of Video Games and Massively-Multiplayer Online Games and Board/Tabletop/Roleplaying Games or such. (If I'm not mistaken.) 😊😅🤭💖😁
A quick glance at wikipedia just now, after this video itself had introduced me to the term "hopepunk" for the very first time myself, seems to suggest that Noblebright refers to a heroic main character with a noble quest/journey/cause[/etc.] that typical results in hope/honor/love/good triumphing over bad/evil and resulting in a happy ending-while Hopepunk, supposedly, can be characters striving for hopeful/positive things in the face of adversity even in an otherwise grimmer/grittier or more hopeless world and claims that a happy ending is not necessarily required because striving for or believing in or aspiring to these better things deemed worth fighting for or capable of forging a better world full of people trying to be their best selves is the point...not whether or not the characters succeed or die trying(?). The wiki pages probably explain it better than me summarizing the general concepts of what those pages said about it though, sorry!😂😊🤍
@@Bookborn isekai literally means "another world" in Japanese and hence technically it can be any portal fantasy (often involves the main character being reincarnated after getting hit by a truck). Similar to the fantasy genre, there are certain tropes and such as well as various sub genres that fit into it and this has morphed with time. Lately you get a lot of isekai involving stats like litRPG or it might be without stats but involves reincarnating as a character in a video game but there's a lot of different isekai (but a really fun and cozy one is Ascendance of a Bookworm where the main character loves reading but is reborn as a peasant girl with no access to books and is solely focused on creating her own books from scratch so she has something to read).
@@ramblingdad7764 Yeah, this is it. As manga/anime popularity continues to boom in the west, and with crossover of manga fans also reading fantasy books, etc. I've been seeing the term spread into general usage.
Its funny because in a lot of ways it almost makes more sense to label fantasy novels with other genre labels as sub-genres i.e. like fantasy adventure or fantasy thriller etc. I say this because although fantasy has its own culture with its own tropes and typical plot structures, the main thing that makes something fantasy is really the setting (specifically a setting involving some form of magic / fantastical elements). So for example Lord of the Rings is really a fantasy adventure (although you can also call it high fantasy since that's specifically describing the type of fantastical setting), Harry Potter is a fantasy action drama and so on.
Oh totally. It's also why I hate when people are like "Ugh I'd never try fantasy" or "I hate fantasy". I'm like...DO YOU?? Because fantasy is a HUGE GENRE with a LOT of different things to offer.
I suppose you can also look at a Fantasy Thriller as being something what is both Setting//Genre/ 'Fantasy' and thematically/[sub-]genre 'Thriller'-so the selling/shelving point is the Fantasy world/setting, but the more specific audience-base attraction point that decides which readers it might attract or appeal to more specifically is 'Thrillers'. And, technically, even "Fantasy" itself could be seen as a subset or subgenre of 'Fiction' as a whole. Lol (It's all just various/different circles in one big messy Venn Diagram, really!😊🤭🫣😂)
So, the high/low fantasy definition most commonly used actually isn't totally correct--at least, it isn't accurate to the original meaning. Common use is exactly what you said, but the original definition is just high fantasy=secondary world; low fantasy=Earth with fantasy elements. So that means that The First Law is high fantasy, while The Dresden Files is low fantasy. To me, this is the most useful way to use the terms because it is an objective way to classify things: any fantasy can be sorted into high fantasy, low fantasy, or portal fantasy. However, because so many people do not use the terms that way, they lose their utility in that regard.
For me, it's not that useful if it's used in that way though, because what other term is there for less magic oriented fantasy? Or more modernized[ technologically advanced] and less medieval style fantasy that's not set on Earth? 🤔🤔 (There might be some, but..I've not come across them before myself?.) Whereas, fantasy that's set on Earth has many other useful genre terms to use, like Urban Fantasy / Historical Fantasy[ / etc.]. But, still, it is interesting how the term's origins were there!!!😊😊💖 It'll be interesting to see how genre/terminology does or doesn't continue to evolve over the coming years, now. ^-^
@@rebeccabelle6301 It is not *my* definition; it is the objective historical definition of the term. "High Fantasy and Heroic Romance" by Lloyd Alexander is where it comes from. WoT would not be low fantasy--despite its (fairly tenuous) connections to Earth--because it is not set in the regular, everyday world, with fantasy elements intruding upon it. It isn't supposed to be trick question or anything--if you immediately recognize our own world, then it is low fantasy (or, potentially, portal fantasy). If it is set on another world, then it is high fantasy. There are gray areas, as with any genre definition, but this one is fairly cut-and-dry. The definition for high/low fantasy that a lot of people are using is conflating high and low fantasy with high- and low-magic fantasy. That is probably why one would react against the definition I presented: it seems inadequate. However, if one uses the historical definitions as intended, a complete definition is possible. To return to my previous examples, The First Law is low-magic high fantasy, while Dresden is high-magic low fantasy. Granted, the entire thing is complicated by some parties having (rather snobbishly) always considered sword & sorcery to be low fantasy, regardless. Which is kind of fair, in some cases, but not really. Conan, for example, is another WoT situation, where it's such a distant and hypothetical past that it's essentially a secondary world.
Great video! I enjoy understanding subgenres because as a reviewer, I think the general framework can help me direct a potential audience to what an author is doing. How, for example, a Conan story functions differently than a Stormlight Archive book. At the same time, I think a rigid adherence to any framework does a disservice to the book and potential reader. Many of my favorite fantasy books tend to be a blend of things. 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah exactly! And some things might stick out to you more of one subgenre than another. But agreed, it's been very helpful in the reviewing world (tbh I don't think I ever used a subgenre before then lol)
Yes sword & sorcery is definitely more classic low fantasy, but the magic elements are still VERY strong in it, just not very common. And another older term is comedic fantasy. The biggest example of that to more modern audiences is Discworld.
Yeah interesting, I don't usually hear that term thrown around anymore even though it obviously fits Pratchett. I usually just call it satirical fantasy.
A magical realism/historical fantasy I really enjoyed is Kingdom of Back. It's about Mozart and his older sister who was just as talented as he was. In real life they had a make believe world they would pretend to play in, and the author uses it as a way to symbolically show their relationship and maybe how it changes as she deals with the role effect of being a girl and not being valued for her skills. I actually very highly recommend it!
Arcane Ascension series is one of my favorite “progression fantasy” series. Your video just educated me that it was a sub-genre, so maybe I’m mistaken here😂
I just subbed to the channel after your video with Murphy and Cam, and I've been watching your older videos. I've noticed one thing that stands out across all of your videos, you have incredible enunciation. Actually related to the video: you named a lot of subgenres I never considered, but will need to explore further. I do think there's a difference between grimdark and dark fantasy. Grimdark I always equate to morally gray as you mentioned in the video. Dark fantasy I think can still have the black and white good vs evil, but good doesn't always win. In many cases dark fantasy also has horror elements to it. It's not so much about the good defeating evil, but more that they survive and escape.
Well, Dark Fantasy was the early precursor to Grimdark, before grimdark became a thing; I think of things like Anne Bishop's "Black Jewels" books or Laurell K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake" books, every time I hear 'Dark Fantasy'...unless the D is lowercase, and someone just means a Fantasy story with dark themes and or a grim ending or something, which is I suppose tangentially adjacent anyhow. I wouldn't say that Grimdark necessarily always has to be grey or lack a clear good-vs-evil set up-but I would say an overall victory in the end is probably less guaranteed in Grimdark than in Dark Fantasy, and moral grayness is probably more likely and more likely to be enveloping or encompassing the entire world and/or story and tone or such overall, and the detail with which things will or may be shown or described on page directly[ and how literally rather than figuratively worded] as opposed to only vaguely described or inferred off-page or such is sure to be much more in Grimdark than in Dark Fantasy[, possibly?]. But, maybe, that's just me. Before grimdark was coined, all Grimdark would have been shelved as Dark Fantasy, I'm sure-if it was ever even allowed to be published at all. Lol It's often difficult to reconcile Genres' terminology from different eras together entirely seamlessly, I think. ((Just think of the 'Paranormal' versus 'Supernatural' genres, and the Urban Fantasy genre of nowadays, for example. ~Or 'Romance', versus a 'Love-Story', versus 'Erotica' or 'Erotic Romance'.~ )) 😅🫣😁😁🤭😊 😂
You'll notice I have good enunciation but...terrible pronunciation 🤣😭 Intersting distinction between grimdark and dark fantasy! I, like the person below me, viewed dark fantasy more as a precursor to grimdark, only because I don't hear the term as much anymore.
I always enjoy seeing how people break down the genres and how much I agree or disagree with them. Also interesting to see what they suggest for those categories.
I thought Magical Realism was when Magic or other Fantasy-elements which appear in the story is treated within that particular piece of fiction as if it is simply as normal or common and every day to those characters and the world as any other aspect of the story is...like eating breakfast, or passing their neighbors' house on a walk? The whole "is it even really happening, or is it just symbolic or a metaphor for something else[ and technically not-so-much even a Fantasy genre story at all]" type thing - I thought - was actually Surrealism or such instead and not necessarily Magical Realism at all? 🤔 Perhaps someone more familiar[ with the distinction between Magical Realism vs Surrealism / Surrealist Fantasy or whatever] can clarify for me better-neither is my own personal typical genre!😊 Have they just both been essentially combined together in one same genre now? ^-^
Magical Realism was first coined to refer to books written by South American authors that are set in our world, but there is some magic involved. Surrealism is what we are supposed to call similar books written by authors outside South American. The two terms have been conflated. We mostly hear Magical Realism these days, but that is technically incorrect unless the author is South American.
To go off what the other commenter said below, I don't believe it's "incorrect" to say something is Magical Realism if it isn't South American, it's just that the term originated in the literary world for South American works. I have often heard Murakami described a Magical Realism, as well as the other authors I listed, who aren't all South American (although Latin works of fantasy are often categorized as such even when I think they could be full-on fantasy, which is an interesting phenomenon).
@@angelamccollister I had heard that it originated in South America before... but I had also heard [I thought ]that they often had a specific way of portraying fantasy magic and such as if it was as totally normal or commonplace as cooking pancakes or something that is basically opposite of how most American Fantasy typically portrays magic which was more common there than here and that was supposedly why the term was starting to gain traction over here along with that style of telling magical/fantasy stories. It seemed like, when I first heard the term, people were conflating the terms mostly because "realism" is at the end of both, so people unfamiliar with them had trouble remembering both or which term referred to which thing. But I guess maybe I misunderstood, or wherever I heard that from might have been mistaken. idk! Disney's _Encanto_ is basically a perfect example of what I was under the impression that Magical Realism was(everybody in that story treats the magical/fantastical things as if they're totally normal and everyday and nobody is ever surprised that fantastical magical things exist or sometimes happen or such), but I wouldn't really call that movie Surrealist or ambiguous at all as to what is or isn't really happening or truly magical or not either? I first encountered the term a few years ago by now, though, so maybe general understanding or usage has shifted since then, too, or maybe I just misremembered it entirely. 🤷♀️🤷
IMO, the best way to describe Sword and Sorcery is that it’s basically a fantasy western. Replace cowboys with barbarians and rogues and there you have it. I think that having the different sub genres is useful to a point, but I definitely think that people get way too bogged down trying to pigeonhole everything to the point it can get a little ridiculous.
I also think Sword & Sorcery carries connotations of things not always present in other high magic fantasy subgenres. I'd argue that S&S tends to be more likely to include monsters, for example, and its interpretation of "dark" veers more towards horror or spooky elements than grimdark. In fact, despite its often dark setting, I find it tends to be one of the subgenres of fantasy that contains humour without necessarily being comedic, and isn't afraid to come across as a little bit silly at times.
Yes, and I also think it's why the subgenres definitions are a little confusing. As people keep trying to make them narrower and narrower...it's just not useful
I always think of like, Arthur or Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table and Merlin or something, whenever I hear "Sword & Sorcery" myself. 😂 But I don't think I'd ever actually looked up a specific definition of the genre or term before, until recently, so that's probably just a long-held carry-over from my younger child self basically just guessing at what things meant sometimes.🤣🤣🤣🤭🤭😁😆😹
@@Bookborn Agreed! I mean, on the one hand, I get it-not everyone has more diverse or eclectic tastes, sometimes a person truly can have fairly hyperspecific things they wanna read; but genre really wasn't originally meant to be a total prison, more of just a helpful guideline[ in the most general of senses], I think. 🙂 But I also[ kinda] suspect that Fan-Fiction tagging systems(among other things) may have somehow helped push things even further into this much more hyperspecific direction too. Lmao
So not quite with progression fantasy vs LitRPG, though props for including them. Progression Fantasy is where the magic has clearly defines realms of power and those realms of power have an impact on the world or drive of the character. Generally there are the 3 sub-subgenres of progression fantasy: LitRPGs (there are stats and levels. Most have other video game tropes like a quest system or the like, while others are more table top inspired. Some occur in video games, but others occur in worlds where these things are just part of the reality and other have the main character tapping into a power that gives them such abilities in the real world), GameLit (there is still power scaling but tends to be more vague and less math oriented than LitRPGs. So a person might say "I'm a lvl 2 enchanter." So we know they are more powerful than a level 1, but we wouldn't know that their charisma is low making it hard to use offensive enchantments or whatever mechanics the author creates), and cultivation (these ones usually use tropes from Asian mythologies so there aren't usually levels or stats, but realms of power. There is less likely to be xp and more likely to be meditation, alchemy, and the consumption of natural treasures. The realms of power aren't usually stat oriented, but states of being along a defined path to immortality). If the cultivation is written by someone Aisian in a more traditional style, it is often called Xianxia. There are also LitRPG / Cultivation hybrids.
Romantasy recs: Ledge by Stacey McEwan, Fortuna Sworn by KJ Sutton, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle Jensen, A Kingdom of Flame and Fury by Whitney Dean
LitRPG isn't always set in a digital setting. A good high fantasy LitRPG is "Sufficiently Advanced Magic" and then there's one of the best modern Fantasy series "Apocalypse in the North" by Tao Wong.
Agree that high and epic fantasy are often used interchangeably as labels. That is definitely my favourite sub genre of fantasy although i had a blast working through the books of David Gemmel, which i would describe as 'heroic fantasy'
For my favorite fantasy subgenre, I generally like fantasy that breaks the mold. Fantasy that challenges what fantasy could be as a genre and doesn't do the same old, same old. Books like American Gods, Perdido Street Station, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, The Vorrh. Those books are the ones that I find have impacted me But for subgenres, I have to say that I like my fantasy to have soft magic. I have a soft spot for the old sword and sorcery of guys like Howard and Leiber. The lower stakes of their adventures appeal to me more, much as I like the epic journeys. I also like flintlock fantasy...at least in concept, admittedly I haven't read as much of the genre as I'd like (funny since I've written a novel with flintlock weapons in it.) I also like a lot of the darker fantasy, grimdark and the like.
I wonder if anyone has read A Practical Guide to Evil, what it could be categorized as. It's very Hopepunk in that the characters feel good and they work towards a happy ending but man it does get quite dark at times. Also has some Progression elements where the main character has to develop her abilities in order to succeed.
Those ones are hard to classify. I think of dandelion dynasty, which ends hopeful but MAN does it get dark and depressing. The author himself told me though that he views his works as hopeful and wouldn't want them described as grim. So it gets complicated!
Genres always confuse me especially in metal music where there is Pagan-viking metal, pogressive suicidal black metal, stoner doom. In the end I just find listening to what people liked about a book a lot easier to judge whether or not I will like a book vs hearing a genre that I would like
Yeah and there are usually always exceptions. Like, in general, urban fantasy isn't my favorite. But then, Greenbone Saga, clearly an urban fantasy, is one of my top ten favorite series lol
I feel like we don't hear of Portal Fantasy so much anymore because it's essentially been supplanted by Urban or Hidden/Unseen-World and Magical School/Academy type stories instead. A ton of classic fantasy fiction might be portal fantasy, but most more modern fiction it seems to me actually isn't portal fantasy at all anymore. Rather than keeping the real and the fantastical a bit more separate like that, I feel like it's far more common that more modern fantasies tend to integrate or merge or combine the real with the fantastical together-rather than imagining escaping to a fantasy land, we now imagine what if our world itself were more like a fantasy land. And I feel like Portal Fantasy is a term that comes up largely more in retrospect or via contrast and comparison. But, yeah, lots of people know of portal fantasies-probably many know of them even without knowing that there is any specific term or label to apply to it at all!😊 Lol
One subgenre I rarely see mentioned is Political Fantasy, that would be a narrative with focus on political intrigue, courtly conflict and perhaps international diplomacy. Think ASoIaF if the only characters were those of King's Landing 😂. One recommendation of this type I've heard, but not read, is The Goblin King. There's so much potential here, and its a theme that fantasy authors gloss over in favor of warfare and adventure.
I'm working on ACOTAR at the moment. I do not have a lot of experience with the Romance genre, but I see it as Fantasy with Romance. I'd say the emotional intensity of the romance might overshadow what is complex world building and social dynamics, which are more prevalent page count wise. However, I'm only nearing the end of the first book, so I cannot say for certain yet. Also, I think self publishing needs subcategories now. I'm not certain I understand what that classification means at this point.
I love how Lloyd Alexander was the one to coin the term High Fantasy. Gaslamp fantasy vs Steampunk. Are we getting past the point of everyone trying to invent new -punk subgenres? Silkpunk, solarpunk. I used to hear slipstream a lot.
I share Liam's edification that you mentioned sword and sorcery. I will admit that grimdark has carried on the tradition of sword and sorcery, particularly the First Law. As for magical realism. The term's always bugged me in the same way 'graphic novel' bothers me. It's a term people use so they don't have to admit that they like fantasy (in my opinion) while I find that magical realism is undeniably fantastical. But that's just me. I will note that you forgot the New Weird subgenre of fantasy, guys like China Mieville and Jeff VanderMeer. Great video!
Ive been thinking about this quite a bit recently. I even get the urge to categorize genres themselves. Perhaps there are primary genres that are plot based. Romance, Mystery, Adventure. Secondary genres that are setting based. Fantasy, Contemporary. ?Tertiary Genres? that are additive to one of the other ones. Space-Opera for sci-fi, or Epic fantasy for fantasy. Im not sure if this makes sense, or is perhaps already a thing. I just think its an interesting way to think about it.
I would say that Genres come in two different types, honestly... and it's kinda like one of those boxcharts with the columns that go from left-to-right but also top-to-bottom. Side-to-side is Setting-based(Fantasy/Contemporary/Historical/etc.), while up-down is more Theme-based(Romance/Adventure/Comedy/Thriller/etc.); or something to that effect. 😊🤭😂💜 ((..so, one is the section or area of the library/store that you'd find it located in; while the other, is the specific shelf or section of a shelf where you'd locate it , within that particular area. But that's just me and my brain, maybe!🤷♀️🤷😆😁🤍)) Which genre/word gets listed first when naming off a particular story's genre(s), or which ones follows only after a separating comma precedes it, depends on how central to the main focus or "point"/purpose or function of that particular story that specific theme and/or setting actually is overall. ( For example, _'Fantasy Romance'_ would = a book where the Fantasy setting/world itself is extremely focal and important to the story/plot, but a Romantic plotline is also fairly central. But like _'Romance, fantasy'_ would = a book where the romantic plotline is the central focus of the plot/story overall, but it either also contains some scattering of fantastical elements or takes place in a totally fantastical setting rather than in a fictionalized version of a real-world locale. ) And if the central focus combines two or more different themes and/or settings[ with equal relevance or importance] in one same story, you either slash it together (like in 'Action/Adventure') OR you come up with a combination of both the words smooshed into one like for couple-names[ like Brangelina](such as 'Romantasy').😅🤣🤣🤣 But, again, maybe that's just me ? 🤔🫣😂🤭🤷🏻♂️👀😊 Genre/categories have always fascinated me, ever since I was a little kid, so I've been thinking about this on and off for years! 😅🙃😆🤣😂
EDIT: this is about magical realism. Please Latin Americans correct me where I’ve gotten it wrong. Magical realism is incredible. There’s a couple things: It’s TANGENTIAL to fantasy, in that it explains one’s own reality, usually in the context of their (typically historical) milieu. So, given that this is most famously about the Latin American experience, that’s what’s written about. It’s not something writers like to consider a “fantasy”, since they’re just translating their reality, whether personally experienced or learned about via hearing stories passed down through the ages, which is expressed through a lens of a certain skew. Another thing: yes, it is primarily in our world, but the magic within it is actually meant to be felt EVERYWHERE, in every page, if possible. On every line, ideally. The writing, the prose itself should evoke a strange sense within the reader’s mind. It should FEEL like a kind of magic, to read it. Thirdly, those magical elements, within the context of the story, are ABSOLUTELY UNAMBIGUOUSLY OCCURRING. They are not hallucinations of any kind. They also are not explained, but they ARE experienced by many characters. This is true because many characters need to be engaging with the magic in the same way those characters are each engaging in their environs, dealing with those issues put forward there. But the magic is utterly abundant. In fact, one of the stated tenets of the thing is “plenitude”. Meaning it’s almost impossible to separate from the realism as we objectively see it in this reality, outside of the books. I hope this helps.
Some more Romantasy recomendations are Maria V Snyder with her Study Series and Lynn Kurland's Nine Kingdom Series. Progression fantasy also reminded me of Terry Goodkind Wizards first Rule.
Is Wizards First Rule considered progression? I've never heard that before! I only read the first book, though, so maybe it gets more progression later on
@@Bookborn based on the description you gave I would say so, there are different times both of them have to level up in their magic to solve a problem. but again, it probably fits more than 1 category.
A "genre" is really just a marketing tool / shelving category; that's what I think is important to remember. 😊 Kinda like shelving all the kitchen cookware in one aisle, while shelving all the pet food in a completely different aisle.😅😂🤭💖
@@Bookborn Agreed! (I mean, unless you really do have a very particular shtick you prefer to read or watch, or prefer not to ...in which case, it can be slightly more relevant. Lol) ^-^
My faves are epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, and historical fantasy. My examples of historical fantasy would be The Mists of Avalon by MZB and everything by Juliet Marillier.
This was actually my first time hearing of 'Hopepunk', I think, rather than 'Noblebright' as opposite of Grimdark-So, I've learned something new[ to me], somehow(!).🙂💖
Ive alwasy lumped high and epic fantasy together, but i guess saying that more perspectives and length does make a bit of a difference. Also, if you have never read Wizards of EarthSea id give it a read. Ive come to start referring to star wars as Fanatsy Scifi, as it is basically, well, is knights in space. Where anything by Andy weir is scifi. But i also think we need a bridge between fantasy scifi and scifi, for stuff like Pandoras Star
it makes me laugh, my first introduction to earthsea was actually that anime movie. I liked it but thought the book was prob better. then i find out they basically made a movie about the last book! read the whole series since then and think that was a huge mistake. @@Bookborn
@@Beard_Hood I was introduced to it via the live-action...was it a movie, or a mini-series? (I forget-it's been a while since that came out!) Then the anime, after that.😂 Meant to read the books too, but then I basically just stopped reading at all for a while until recently, unfortunately; but, lord willing, I'll finally read those books one day in the near-ish future now.😊
Considering what’s going on on the world right now, it’s great for my mental health to focus on something else. Thanks for the video and great distraction
I would be interested to hear what genre you would put discworld into if only because Terry pratchett created the disc as a response to the over abundance of Tolkienesk fantasy in the early 80's although recognosably fantasy i don't think it fits into any subgenre and fits into quite a few at the same time
I haven't read it yet! I read Novik's Spinning Silver and LOVED it, but then read Uprooted and didn't like it lol so I wasn't sure if I should keep reading her
I'm just starting to dive into the broader world of fantasy, beyond the big ones like LOTR and Narnia, and a term I've seen a few times is "kingdom fantasy". Is this label one of those self explanatory ones, or does it carry more connotations than the obvious?
in Dark Tower roland brings this up when asking about earth fiction wondering why they have "horror" "action" "fantasy" etc and asks why people don't like stories with all those things
It is funny when you think about it. I often think of myself as not someone that reads fantasy but than I have read The Stand which is as horror and dark fantasy, I am reading Swan Song which is listed in the same two genres and I have all but the last two Dark Tower books. Oh and I loved Mexican Gothic which is the same as the others. To add to.the silliness all of them are put in the horror section in most book stores.
As far as I know.... Urban Fantasy kinda became *_PRIMARILY_* a catch-all term for any Fantasy that takes place in the real-world(i.e. = on our actual planet Earth) but set during then-current//'Modern'-times, specifically; as opposed to happening in a historical(or a then-past period of Former/previous/Olden Times) setting OR a more futuristic[ &/or dystopian] (Earth/Earthian) setting; at the very least, ever since the mid-to-late 2000s and early-to-mid 2010s. It actually does not have to be set literally in a city at all, because Urban(/Real-World) Fantasies set in those more rural or small-town settings were not so commonly done enough to ever really branch out in any way where truly independent terminology to refer to them(like 'Rural Fantasy' itself) was ever 'officially' recognized within a more mainstream consciousness. So, as far as I know, 'Urban Fantasy' = 'Real-World[/On-Earth] / modern Fantasy' is the most common and widely "known" or popularized and accepted definition; while 'Fantasy in a [specifically ]City-setting' is a more literal yet almost totally out-of-vogue definition. 🙂 ((Though it is distinguished somewhat from Magical-School/Academy Fantasies and or Hidden/Unseen-World Fantasies[ sometimes] and especially from Portal Fantasies too, particularly if all or the majority of a story's plot is spent functioning in that more magical/fantasy setting despite that setting itself fictionally existing allegedly somewhere in[ or adjacently connected-to] the real-world as we know it yet unbeknownst to us muggles/mundies/etcetera for whatever reasons. ...That just depends I suppose on if you're thinking of genre more as how the 'scene' or 'stage' of that story is 'set' or 'dressed'-OR if you think of genre more as being encompassing of the general/central 'themes' or focal 'points' of the story, overall.😹)) But maybe I'm wrong-maybe the city-fantasy definition of Urban Fantasy has made more of a resurgance in the last few years or so than I've realized or something; I have, admittedly, been a bit out of touch with the more recent trends. Lol (anyone more current with terminology usage/trends, please, feel free to correct me; I would welcome it, gladly^--^) Urban Fantasy was MY _jam_ back then, (my personally preferred genre) in my teen to early-adult years. But then unfortunately I pretty much stopped reading for a few years and only just started dipping my toes back into reading again just in the last 4-ish years or so; and I have paid far more attention simply to the books themselves coming out these days almost regardless of genre than to researching all the current genre labeling.😅😂🤭🫣😁😊
I think all the genre mash-ups/fusions or hybrid genres and such over the last several years have certainly made genre much blurrier and less distinct perhaps than it once was; Nevermind the way that time can redefine or separate or recombine things differently during one era of time than in another. Plus, the way many people don't seem to be aware that the word 'sub-genre' can refer EITHER to a more specific subset of a larger genre[ such as High Fantasy being a subset of Fantasy] OR to a secondary plot or genre within the same story[ like a Fantasy Quest or Adventure story with a Romantic subplot or secondary-storyline]. (Kinda like adding an extra 'aside' in parentheses that could be disregarded entirely without a huge loss - if in fact even any loss - of understanding the main or primary point, but may still contain further information which might matter a little bit more to some persons than it could to others. 😂 😊💖) Lol
Sword and Sorcery is a little more specific than that historically. Since it hasn't been a popular buzz-phrase people have taken to using it for anything with swords and sorcery. S&S has typically involved a strong (male, but not always) main character as the protagonist, but more important elements are: This protagonist is an outsider in some sense, probably has super strong wanderlust, usually doesn't like magic, and has a sort of mercenary-with-strong-personal-rules outlook. This leads to conflicts of a more personal nature to drive the story - not so much the "omg the world is going to end without this quest." That and the practical-to-mercenary attitude make the characters on the roguish side for sure. S&S historically had a few problems in embracing a shitload of bad baggage. Poor writing. Derivative stories and characters. The same thing over and over again, without the heart or style that Robert E. Howard gave his works, seemingly to satisfy people who wanted to read about big muscle men getting women with big boobs. Not surprisingly, that gas tank kind of ran dry. Modern authors (I think) are doing a much better job on S&S these days. S&S may be not quite as popular, but that's partly because other subgenres soaked up aspects of it. It's all over dark fantasy, grimdark, and fantasy that focuses on adventure. There are good authors who still write what you might call classical S&S, but because the term has become confused over time I think they have a rough time using it as a term to attract new readers. Flame and Crimson is a great book detailing the history of S&S. I'm largely summarizing from it in my above comments. My opinions not really reflected in Flame and Crimson: The history of this subgenre came out of the pulps, but I don't think it is bound to the short form. Nor do I think it (or high/low/epic) require a secondary world.
Just my opinion, but dark fantasy should be distinct from grimdark because dark fantasy utilizes horror elements, i.e., dark fantasy is shorthand for horror/fantasy. Grimdark, on the other hand, is really just super-gritty fantasy. It doesn't really have anything to do with horror. Agree/disagree?
legit Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods, which i consider the least violent book that Rick Riordan with no character casualties, than all of the other book series he has written.
Oh I totally agree haha. I think "epic fantasy" is used pretty commonly, but other than that, only the book community. Which is why I made the video tbh - when I first got online I was like...what are these terms??
Hmm I suppose my "non-earth" is a bit too focused, but in general, even though LOTR *is* earth...it's also not earth lol. Like that's never an earth that COULD exist. It's a *fantasy* earth, which makes it very different than magical realism. I'm not familiar with Conan so can't speak for that one.
I guess, I never realized that LotR was actually meant to be set on Earth at all? Simply, based on a fictionalized or imagined version of what an Early Earth might have possibly been like, through a lens that treats higher entities/gods/angels/etcetera as actual and existing things. (Like, maybe not necessarily literally Earth, despite the fantasy land also having 'Earth' in its name; but possibly modeled after Earth, similarly to how an airplane is modeled after a bird.) And I've always kind of seen Epic and High Fantasy as relatively interchangeable, unless maybe if we're specifically talking something modeled in a style after the Epics of olde, or such; as opposed to Comedies, or Tragedies, or Dramas, and such. Lol But I suppose this could just go all the further toward the point that breaking any genre/category down too far can get a bit pedantic, maybe. Lol 🤷🤷♀️🙂
Everything that's got teenagers and love triangles is YA for me. 😏 Gamelit / Progression Fantasy and LitRPG is picking up speed lately, thanks to the isekai fandom. I'm a grimdark person myself, but I've been reading a lot of gamelit/litrpg the past few years.
Love-Triangles definitely, definitely pre-date the transition of the Teen/Youth fiction of my younger-years[ or even longer ago] into the YA genre we know now-and certainly existed first outside of YA, simply in the Romance(an originally Adult-centric) genre as a whole. ((At least, so long as we don't go so far back in time to when _Treasure Planet_ was counted as a 'Romance' novel, because 'Romance' basically just meant fanciful or impressionistic rather than pragmatic and realistic.)) There is also plenty of YA that has no such triangles at all!. 🤣🤣 Although, I suppose if it has teenagers who are specifically the central focus of the plot and are themselves the individual parties involved in said triangle specifically, then-yeah, it might be YA. Lol
Though you used other terms that kind of include what it typically is, you forgot the term “Isekai” which is typically used in many but not all fantasy leaning Manga.
@@Bookborn Yeah, it’s a fantasy manga subgenre that’s sometimes kind of like a portal fantasy but sometimes also has elements of the RPG one you mentioned. I quite enjoyed the video.
Oh, man, Star Wars is an oft debated choice! It's definitely science fantasy! And not "fairy tale" as someone prominent on a hellsite once asserted to which I replied there is no conditional turn key aspect, so no it's not a fairy tale. A wizard really should know better! And the gall to suggest a remake of Casablanca? What plastic world are you living in? Tangent rant aside, my ambition is to combine all the different subgenres into one feat that works! Some of the labels are thematic and some are situational. I'm here to squeeze in other mediums. There's Planescape Torment RPG of this liminal world of portals to other planes, novelized. There's the comic book hero genre outside of fantasy that is the Marvel Comics' Infinity saga. There is yet a similar villain in fantasy novels. You forget the sub-subgenre of portal fantasy: faun-tasy, featuring Mr Tumnus. I started with the wordplay and ended up somewhere I dunno, overbaked?
Was it(Star Wars) always intended to contain purely fanciful elements, though? Or have certain elements simply become more obviously fanciful because scientific knowledge has advanced so much since then and much of its theoretical science was 'soft' and inspecifically explained rather thab 'hard' and as rigidly realistic or plausible as possible? I mean, psychic powers(like The Force) after all, are considered theoretically possible-though, as of yet, equally unconfirmed/unproven as ever proven. Not to mention George Lucas' unrealized plans to make The Force come from The Wills(or whatever he was calling it) which was nanotech or some-such, if I remember it correctly?? 👀 🤔🤔😮🙃🫣😂
@@jaginaiaelectrizs6341 well the nanotech midichlorians is I think the extended hand toward a kind of science in the world, from a certain point of view...and they did refer to Jedi in Mando as "space wizards" so this is the way! To describe it in the world!
@@Bookborn I mean.. it could be?? 🫣👀 I don't entirely know for absolutely certain either. Buut, as I understand it, Romantasy books might be spicy ... but they still have slightly more of a plot[ that isn't quite as exclusively JUST about facilitating or setting-the-stage for the spice] than Ice Planet Barbarians? ((Whereas, from what I've heard, with Ice Planet Barbarians .. the spice itself is basically the plot or whole entire point/purpose of what plot there is? If that makes sense?)) But I could very easily be wrong too because it's not my most familiar genre(s) either! 🤣🤣
I'd say romance in general is based on the relationship, so that could include sex and be spicy but doesn't always. Smut or Erotica is going to focus heavily on those sex scenes (less on the development of the relationship).
@@kirstendickinson1361 Yep, I agree(!). 😊 As far as I understand it, ideally, good Erotica will focus on the development of the sexual relationship too-it's just not required(though also not disallowed) for there to also be a romantic relationship developed alongside that as well and/or for the two[ or more] partners to end up coupled together longterm in the end rather than only for the duration of their sexual encounter or sexual journey or such together as it's featured within the book/story itself. There is still meant to be a story there, but the story is the sex[, so even if the characters did not also fall in love the majority of that story would still exist just as well without the romantic-love as it does with it]. Whereas, with Romance, the story is the romantic-love[ with or without sex also included but the majority of the story would exist just as well without the sex as it stands with it]; with Erotic Romance, it's kind of a marriage between both the romantic-love & the sex with both things creating the story together, equally[ so that if either the sex or the romantic-love were removed the story would fall apart and without either one of both of those things would lose most of the substance or coherence that it had with that thing included]; and with just Smut, there doesn't even need to be a story at all, there only needs to be sex[ either with a story too or not]. (But, in either case, you could also choose to create something about insta-love or insta-attraction too, in which case, the story would more just be simply about being in love or being attracted than specifically about becoming in love or becoming attracted.) But...I'm not the most well-read in any of these genres myself, so I'm unclear if Ice Planet Barbarians[ in particular] is more Erotic Romance or Erotica(or what), and I am also personally unclear if Romantasy[ as a subgenre] is purely Erotic Romance in a Fantasy backdrop or if Erotica in a Fantasy world/setting would also count(or if a clean/non-spicy Romance in a Fantasy setting would also count either) OR if Romantasy also needs to include some other Fantasy story/plot-line in addition to it[ like saving a kingdom from a big-bad antagonist or something] right along with the romantic and/or sexual one too; that's all I was saying, before. ((If that makes any sense.😅🫣🤔😁 Lol 🙂))
I am so tired of hearing about "cozy" fantasy. Hope punk sounds completely stupid. And romantasy is just the worst. Just call it romantic fantasy or romance.
I have always considered Star Wars as a fantasy that take place in space. I didn't know there was an actual genre catagory for that. Great Video!
Nice that sword and sorcery didn’t get ignored. It’s largely indie these days, though Baen recently published Lord of a Shattered Land by Howard Andrew Jones and Garth Nix’s Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz counts too (the latter being a sort of homage to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, a classic S&S series). Cheers!
Yes, S&S had def fallen "out of vogue" these days. I loved Garth Nix as a kid but never read that series/book!
When I was taught what urban fantasy was, one of the critical elements included in the definition was that the setting acts as its own character. This can come across in the mood, themes, or descriptions. A great example of this is the Kate Daniels series, a post-apocalyptic Atlanta where waves of magic and tech fight each other and only one can work at a time (ie guns work but spells don't when tech is up).
One sub genre that doesnt have too many authors writing it is horror/fantasy mix. There are a few but it is rarely mentioned by people. Mark Anthony’s Last Rune series, Tanith Lee’s Dark Castle and Buehlman’s Between Two Fires to name a few.
Actually horror itself should classify as a sub genre of fantasy.
To an extent I don’t think subgenres mater to much, because so many of them can overlap. It’s good if you wanting a recommendation though. Like after reading a grim dark Abercrombie book it might be nice to read a cozy book. Or after a Brandon Sanderson epic to read an urban.
True!
For some reason, I find this video very soothing.
I'm starting to know these, but still a fun video. First time I heard about Hopepunk though. Also, you said you have a bunch of magical realism recommendations! Would love a video about that ☺
Great video! Got a couple of bits to add. I’ve been hearing noblebright more as a replacement for hopepunk (though still not a huge amount of uptake) and the Japanese term isekai has been slowly replacing portal fantasy.
Moving forward through history, after flintlock you have weird west and gaslamp fantasy.
Ooh I have literally never heard of noblebright or Isekai yet! Is Isekai used only in certain circumstances or for any portal fantasy?
@@Bookborn More specifically, I do believe it(isekai) originates as portal fantasies from Japanese fiction/media; so it carries over a lot I think with fans of online-or-serialized novels/webcomics and manga/anime and other asian movies & tv series, or such. Kinda like LitRPG and Progression Fantasy carrying over from fans of Video Games and Massively-Multiplayer Online Games and Board/Tabletop/Roleplaying Games or such. (If I'm not mistaken.) 😊😅🤭💖😁
A quick glance at wikipedia just now, after this video itself had introduced me to the term "hopepunk" for the very first time myself, seems to suggest that Noblebright refers to a heroic main character with a noble quest/journey/cause[/etc.] that typical results in hope/honor/love/good triumphing over bad/evil and resulting in a happy ending-while Hopepunk, supposedly, can be characters striving for hopeful/positive things in the face of adversity even in an otherwise grimmer/grittier or more hopeless world and claims that a happy ending is not necessarily required because striving for or believing in or aspiring to these better things deemed worth fighting for or capable of forging a better world full of people trying to be their best selves is the point...not whether or not the characters succeed or die trying(?). The wiki pages probably explain it better than me summarizing the general concepts of what those pages said about it though, sorry!😂😊🤍
@@Bookborn isekai literally means "another world" in Japanese and hence technically it can be any portal fantasy (often involves the main character being reincarnated after getting hit by a truck). Similar to the fantasy genre, there are certain tropes and such as well as various sub genres that fit into it and this has morphed with time. Lately you get a lot of isekai involving stats like litRPG or it might be without stats but involves reincarnating as a character in a video game but there's a lot of different isekai (but a really fun and cozy one is Ascendance of a Bookworm where the main character loves reading but is reborn as a peasant girl with no access to books and is solely focused on creating her own books from scratch so she has something to read).
@@ramblingdad7764 Yeah, this is it. As manga/anime popularity continues to boom in the west, and with crossover of manga fans also reading fantasy books, etc. I've been seeing the term spread into general usage.
I really like Flintlock Fantasy, I feel like it is really one of the most niche subgenres though.
Great video as always!
It definitely is: I hadn't heard of it until getting on booktube haha
I need to find more of this genre. Powdermage is one of my all time favorite series
Its funny because in a lot of ways it almost makes more sense to label fantasy novels with other genre labels as sub-genres i.e. like fantasy adventure or fantasy thriller etc.
I say this because although fantasy has its own culture with its own tropes and typical plot structures, the main thing that makes something fantasy is really the setting (specifically a setting involving some form of magic / fantastical elements). So for example Lord of the Rings is really a fantasy adventure (although you can also call it high fantasy since that's specifically describing the type of fantastical setting), Harry Potter is a fantasy action drama and so on.
Oh totally. It's also why I hate when people are like "Ugh I'd never try fantasy" or "I hate fantasy". I'm like...DO YOU?? Because fantasy is a HUGE GENRE with a LOT of different things to offer.
I suppose you can also look at a Fantasy Thriller as being something what is both Setting//Genre/ 'Fantasy' and thematically/[sub-]genre 'Thriller'-so the selling/shelving point is the Fantasy world/setting, but the more specific audience-base attraction point that decides which readers it might attract or appeal to more specifically is 'Thrillers'.
And, technically, even "Fantasy" itself could be seen as a subset or subgenre of 'Fiction' as a whole. Lol
(It's all just various/different circles in one big messy Venn Diagram, really!😊🤭🫣😂)
I'm currently writing a fantasy murder mystery.
So, the high/low fantasy definition most commonly used actually isn't totally correct--at least, it isn't accurate to the original meaning. Common use is exactly what you said, but the original definition is just high fantasy=secondary world; low fantasy=Earth with fantasy elements. So that means that The First Law is high fantasy, while The Dresden Files is low fantasy. To me, this is the most useful way to use the terms because it is an objective way to classify things: any fantasy can be sorted into high fantasy, low fantasy, or portal fantasy. However, because so many people do not use the terms that way, they lose their utility in that regard.
Yeah, that was my understanding of the terms. Our world vs not our world.
Oohh SUPER interesting. That's definitely not the way they are used now, but it does make more sense since the lines aren't as fuzzy.
For me, it's not that useful if it's used in that way though, because what other term is there for less magic oriented fantasy? Or more modernized[ technologically advanced] and less medieval style fantasy that's not set on Earth? 🤔🤔 (There might be some, but..I've not come across them before myself?.)
Whereas, fantasy that's set on Earth has many other useful genre terms to use, like Urban Fantasy / Historical Fantasy[ / etc.].
But, still, it is interesting how the term's origins were there!!!😊😊💖
It'll be interesting to see how genre/terminology does or doesn't continue to evolve over the coming years, now. ^-^
So Wheel of Time is low fantasy because it’s based on Earth according to your definition? Yeah don’t think so. Her definition is the right one.
@@rebeccabelle6301 It is not *my* definition; it is the objective historical definition of the term. "High Fantasy and Heroic Romance" by Lloyd Alexander is where it comes from.
WoT would not be low fantasy--despite its (fairly tenuous) connections to Earth--because it is not set in the regular, everyday world, with fantasy elements intruding upon it. It isn't supposed to be trick question or anything--if you immediately recognize our own world, then it is low fantasy (or, potentially, portal fantasy). If it is set on another world, then it is high fantasy. There are gray areas, as with any genre definition, but this one is fairly cut-and-dry.
The definition for high/low fantasy that a lot of people are using is conflating high and low fantasy with high- and low-magic fantasy. That is probably why one would react against the definition I presented: it seems inadequate. However, if one uses the historical definitions as intended, a complete definition is possible. To return to my previous examples, The First Law is low-magic high fantasy, while Dresden is high-magic low fantasy.
Granted, the entire thing is complicated by some parties having (rather snobbishly) always considered sword & sorcery to be low fantasy, regardless. Which is kind of fair, in some cases, but not really. Conan, for example, is another WoT situation, where it's such a distant and hypothetical past that it's essentially a secondary world.
Great video! I enjoy understanding subgenres because as a reviewer, I think the general framework can help me direct a potential audience to what an author is doing. How, for example, a Conan story functions differently than a Stormlight Archive book. At the same time, I think a rigid adherence to any framework does a disservice to the book and potential reader. Many of my favorite fantasy books tend to be a blend of things. 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah exactly! And some things might stick out to you more of one subgenre than another. But agreed, it's been very helpful in the reviewing world (tbh I don't think I ever used a subgenre before then lol)
Yes sword & sorcery is definitely more classic low fantasy, but the magic elements are still VERY strong in it, just not very common. And another older term is comedic fantasy. The biggest example of that to more modern audiences is Discworld.
Yeah interesting, I don't usually hear that term thrown around anymore even though it obviously fits Pratchett. I usually just call it satirical fantasy.
A magical realism/historical fantasy I really enjoyed is Kingdom of Back. It's about Mozart and his older sister who was just as talented as he was. In real life they had a make believe world they would pretend to play in, and the author uses it as a way to symbolically show their relationship and maybe how it changes as she deals with the role effect of being a girl and not being valued for her skills. I actually very highly recommend it!
Arcane Ascension series is one of my favorite “progression fantasy” series. Your video just educated me that it was a sub-genre, so maybe I’m mistaken here😂
Love arcane ascension.
I just subbed to the channel after your video with Murphy and Cam, and I've been watching your older videos. I've noticed one thing that stands out across all of your videos, you have incredible enunciation.
Actually related to the video: you named a lot of subgenres I never considered, but will need to explore further. I do think there's a difference between grimdark and dark fantasy. Grimdark I always equate to morally gray as you mentioned in the video. Dark fantasy I think can still have the black and white good vs evil, but good doesn't always win. In many cases dark fantasy also has horror elements to it. It's not so much about the good defeating evil, but more that they survive and escape.
Well, Dark Fantasy was the early precursor to Grimdark, before grimdark became a thing; I think of things like Anne Bishop's "Black Jewels" books or Laurell K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake" books, every time I hear 'Dark Fantasy'...unless the D is lowercase, and someone just means a Fantasy story with dark themes and or a grim ending or something, which is I suppose tangentially adjacent anyhow. I wouldn't say that Grimdark necessarily always has to be grey or lack a clear good-vs-evil set up-but I would say an overall victory in the end is probably less guaranteed in Grimdark than in Dark Fantasy, and moral grayness is probably more likely and more likely to be enveloping or encompassing the entire world and/or story and tone or such overall, and the detail with which things will or may be shown or described on page directly[ and how literally rather than figuratively worded] as opposed to only vaguely described or inferred off-page or such is sure to be much more in Grimdark than in Dark Fantasy[, possibly?]. But, maybe, that's just me. Before grimdark was coined, all Grimdark would have been shelved as Dark Fantasy, I'm sure-if it was ever even allowed to be published at all. Lol
It's often difficult to reconcile Genres' terminology from different eras together entirely seamlessly, I think. ((Just think of the 'Paranormal' versus 'Supernatural' genres, and the Urban Fantasy genre of nowadays, for example. ~Or 'Romance', versus a 'Love-Story', versus 'Erotica' or 'Erotic Romance'.~ )) 😅🫣😁😁🤭😊 😂
You'll notice I have good enunciation but...terrible pronunciation 🤣😭
Intersting distinction between grimdark and dark fantasy! I, like the person below me, viewed dark fantasy more as a precursor to grimdark, only because I don't hear the term as much anymore.
I always enjoy seeing how people break down the genres and how much I agree or disagree with them. Also interesting to see what they suggest for those categories.
I thought Magical Realism was when Magic or other Fantasy-elements which appear in the story is treated within that particular piece of fiction as if it is simply as normal or common and every day to those characters and the world as any other aspect of the story is...like eating breakfast, or passing their neighbors' house on a walk?
The whole "is it even really happening, or is it just symbolic or a metaphor for something else[ and technically not-so-much even a Fantasy genre story at all]" type thing - I thought - was actually Surrealism or such instead and not necessarily Magical Realism at all? 🤔
Perhaps someone more familiar[ with the distinction between Magical Realism vs Surrealism / Surrealist Fantasy or whatever] can clarify for me better-neither is my own personal typical genre!😊
Have they just both been essentially combined together in one same genre now? ^-^
Magical Realism was first coined to refer to books written by South American authors that are set in our world, but there is some magic involved.
Surrealism is what we are supposed to call similar books written by authors outside South American.
The two terms have been conflated. We mostly hear Magical Realism these days, but that is technically incorrect unless the author is South American.
To go off what the other commenter said below, I don't believe it's "incorrect" to say something is Magical Realism if it isn't South American, it's just that the term originated in the literary world for South American works. I have often heard Murakami described a Magical Realism, as well as the other authors I listed, who aren't all South American (although Latin works of fantasy are often categorized as such even when I think they could be full-on fantasy, which is an interesting phenomenon).
@@Bookborn Hm.. interesting! 🙂
@@angelamccollister I had heard that it originated in South America before... but I had also heard [I thought ]that they often had a specific way of portraying fantasy magic and such as if it was as totally normal or commonplace as cooking pancakes or something that is basically opposite of how most American Fantasy typically portrays magic which was more common there than here and that was supposedly why the term was starting to gain traction over here along with that style of telling magical/fantasy stories. It seemed like, when I first heard the term, people were conflating the terms mostly because "realism" is at the end of both, so people unfamiliar with them had trouble remembering both or which term referred to which thing. But I guess maybe I misunderstood, or wherever I heard that from might have been mistaken. idk!
Disney's _Encanto_ is basically a perfect example of what I was under the impression that Magical Realism was(everybody in that story treats the magical/fantastical things as if they're totally normal and everyday and nobody is ever surprised that fantastical magical things exist or sometimes happen or such), but I wouldn't really call that movie Surrealist or ambiguous at all as to what is or isn't really happening or truly magical or not either?
I first encountered the term a few years ago by now, though, so maybe general understanding or usage has shifted since then, too, or maybe I just misremembered it entirely. 🤷♀️🤷
IMO, the best way to describe Sword and Sorcery is that it’s basically a fantasy western. Replace cowboys with barbarians and rogues and there you have it.
I think that having the different sub genres is useful to a point, but I definitely think that people get way too bogged down trying to pigeonhole everything to the point it can get a little ridiculous.
I also think Sword & Sorcery carries connotations of things not always present in other high magic fantasy subgenres. I'd argue that S&S tends to be more likely to include monsters, for example, and its interpretation of "dark" veers more towards horror or spooky elements than grimdark. In fact, despite its often dark setting, I find it tends to be one of the subgenres of fantasy that contains humour without necessarily being comedic, and isn't afraid to come across as a little bit silly at times.
Yes, and I also think it's why the subgenres definitions are a little confusing. As people keep trying to make them narrower and narrower...it's just not useful
I always think of like, Arthur or Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table and Merlin or something, whenever I hear "Sword & Sorcery" myself. 😂
But I don't think I'd ever actually looked up a specific definition of the genre or term before, until recently, so that's probably just a long-held carry-over from my younger child self basically just guessing at what things meant sometimes.🤣🤣🤣🤭🤭😁😆😹
@@Bookborn Agreed! I mean, on the one hand, I get it-not everyone has more diverse or eclectic tastes, sometimes a person truly can have fairly hyperspecific things they wanna read; but genre really wasn't originally meant to be a total prison, more of just a helpful guideline[ in the most general of senses], I think. 🙂
But I also[ kinda] suspect that Fan-Fiction tagging systems(among other things) may have somehow helped push things even further into this much more hyperspecific direction too. Lmao
Great breakdown Bookborn!
So not quite with progression fantasy vs LitRPG, though props for including them. Progression Fantasy is where the magic has clearly defines realms of power and those realms of power have an impact on the world or drive of the character. Generally there are the 3 sub-subgenres of progression fantasy: LitRPGs (there are stats and levels. Most have other video game tropes like a quest system or the like, while others are more table top inspired. Some occur in video games, but others occur in worlds where these things are just part of the reality and other have the main character tapping into a power that gives them such abilities in the real world), GameLit (there is still power scaling but tends to be more vague and less math oriented than LitRPGs. So a person might say "I'm a lvl 2 enchanter." So we know they are more powerful than a level 1, but we wouldn't know that their charisma is low making it hard to use offensive enchantments or whatever mechanics the author creates), and cultivation (these ones usually use tropes from Asian mythologies so there aren't usually levels or stats, but realms of power. There is less likely to be xp and more likely to be meditation, alchemy, and the consumption of natural treasures. The realms of power aren't usually stat oriented, but states of being along a defined path to immortality). If the cultivation is written by someone Aisian in a more traditional style, it is often called Xianxia. There are also LitRPG / Cultivation hybrids.
So fun! Love the breakdown.
Romantasy recs: Ledge by Stacey McEwan, Fortuna Sworn by KJ Sutton, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle Jensen, A Kingdom of Flame and Fury by Whitney Dean
Oh and anything by Charlie N Holmberg (she’s fantastic)
Thoroughly enjoyable. Reminded me of lots of types of books I used to enjoy!
LitRPG isn't always set in a digital setting. A good high fantasy LitRPG is "Sufficiently Advanced Magic" and then there's one of the best modern Fantasy series "Apocalypse in the North" by Tao Wong.
Agree that high and epic fantasy are often used interchangeably as labels. That is definitely my favourite sub genre of fantasy although i had a blast working through the books of David Gemmel, which i would describe as 'heroic fantasy'
For my favorite fantasy subgenre, I generally like fantasy that breaks the mold. Fantasy that challenges what fantasy could be as a genre and doesn't do the same old, same old. Books like American Gods, Perdido Street Station, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, The Vorrh. Those books are the ones that I find have impacted me
But for subgenres, I have to say that I like my fantasy to have soft magic. I have a soft spot for the old sword and sorcery of guys like Howard and Leiber. The lower stakes of their adventures appeal to me more, much as I like the epic journeys. I also like flintlock fantasy...at least in concept, admittedly I haven't read as much of the genre as I'd like (funny since I've written a novel with flintlock weapons in it.) I also like a lot of the darker fantasy, grimdark and the like.
I wonder if anyone has read A Practical Guide to Evil, what it could be categorized as. It's very Hopepunk in that the characters feel good and they work towards a happy ending but man it does get quite dark at times. Also has some Progression elements where the main character has to develop her abilities in order to succeed.
Those ones are hard to classify. I think of dandelion dynasty, which ends hopeful but MAN does it get dark and depressing. The author himself told me though that he views his works as hopeful and wouldn't want them described as grim. So it gets complicated!
Genres always confuse me especially in metal music where there is Pagan-viking metal, pogressive suicidal black metal, stoner doom. In the end I just find listening to what people liked about a book a lot easier to judge whether or not I will like a book vs hearing a genre that I would like
Yeah and there are usually always exceptions. Like, in general, urban fantasy isn't my favorite. But then, Greenbone Saga, clearly an urban fantasy, is one of my top ten favorite series lol
And then there’s The Body, which….. ?????????? Lmao
I feel like we don't hear of Portal Fantasy so much anymore because it's essentially been supplanted by Urban or Hidden/Unseen-World and Magical School/Academy type stories instead. A ton of classic fantasy fiction might be portal fantasy, but most more modern fiction it seems to me actually isn't portal fantasy at all anymore. Rather than keeping the real and the fantastical a bit more separate like that, I feel like it's far more common that more modern fantasies tend to integrate or merge or combine the real with the fantastical together-rather than imagining escaping to a fantasy land, we now imagine what if our world itself were more like a fantasy land. And I feel like Portal Fantasy is a term that comes up largely more in retrospect or via contrast and comparison. But, yeah, lots of people know of portal fantasies-probably many know of them even without knowing that there is any specific term or label to apply to it at all!😊 Lol
One subgenre I rarely see mentioned is Political Fantasy, that would be a narrative with focus on political intrigue, courtly conflict and perhaps international diplomacy. Think ASoIaF if the only characters were those of King's Landing 😂. One recommendation of this type I've heard, but not read, is The Goblin King.
There's so much potential here, and its a theme that fantasy authors gloss over in favor of warfare and adventure.
I'm working on ACOTAR at the moment. I do not have a lot of experience with the Romance genre, but I see it as Fantasy with Romance. I'd say the emotional intensity of the romance might overshadow what is complex world building and social dynamics, which are more prevalent page count wise. However, I'm only nearing the end of the first book, so I cannot say for certain yet. Also, I think self publishing needs subcategories now. I'm not certain I understand what that classification means at this point.
I love how Lloyd Alexander was the one to coin the term High Fantasy.
Gaslamp fantasy vs Steampunk.
Are we getting past the point of everyone trying to invent new -punk subgenres? Silkpunk, solarpunk. I used to hear slipstream a lot.
I share Liam's edification that you mentioned sword and sorcery. I will admit that grimdark has carried on the tradition of sword and sorcery, particularly the First Law.
As for magical realism. The term's always bugged me in the same way 'graphic novel' bothers me. It's a term people use so they don't have to admit that they like fantasy (in my opinion) while I find that magical realism is undeniably fantastical. But that's just me.
I will note that you forgot the New Weird subgenre of fantasy, guys like China Mieville and Jeff VanderMeer.
Great video!
Ive been thinking about this quite a bit recently. I even get the urge to categorize genres themselves. Perhaps there are primary genres that are plot based. Romance, Mystery, Adventure. Secondary genres that are setting based. Fantasy, Contemporary. ?Tertiary Genres? that are additive to one of the other ones. Space-Opera for sci-fi, or Epic fantasy for fantasy.
Im not sure if this makes sense, or is perhaps already a thing. I just think its an interesting way to think about it.
I would say that Genres come in two different types, honestly... and it's kinda like one of those boxcharts with the columns that go from left-to-right but also top-to-bottom. Side-to-side is Setting-based(Fantasy/Contemporary/Historical/etc.), while up-down is more Theme-based(Romance/Adventure/Comedy/Thriller/etc.); or something to that effect. 😊🤭😂💜
((..so, one is the section or area of the library/store that you'd find it located in; while the other, is the specific shelf or section of a shelf where you'd locate it , within that particular area. But that's just me and my brain, maybe!🤷♀️🤷😆😁🤍))
Which genre/word gets listed first when naming off a particular story's genre(s), or which ones follows only after a separating comma precedes it, depends on how central to the main focus or "point"/purpose or function of that particular story that specific theme and/or setting actually is overall.
( For example, _'Fantasy Romance'_ would = a book where the Fantasy setting/world itself is extremely focal and important to the story/plot, but a Romantic plotline is also fairly central. But like _'Romance, fantasy'_ would = a book where the romantic plotline is the central focus of the plot/story overall, but it either also contains some scattering of fantastical elements or takes place in a totally fantastical setting rather than in a fictionalized version of a real-world locale. )
And if the central focus combines two or more different themes and/or settings[ with equal relevance or importance] in one same story, you either slash it together (like in 'Action/Adventure') OR you come up with a combination of both the words smooshed into one like for couple-names[ like Brangelina](such as 'Romantasy').😅🤣🤣🤣
But, again, maybe that's just me ? 🤔🫣😂🤭🤷🏻♂️👀😊
Genre/categories have always fascinated me, ever since I was a little kid, so I've been thinking about this on and off for years! 😅🙃😆🤣😂
EDIT: this is about magical realism. Please Latin Americans correct me where I’ve gotten it wrong.
Magical realism is incredible. There’s a couple things:
It’s TANGENTIAL to fantasy, in that it explains one’s own reality, usually in the context of their (typically historical) milieu. So, given that this is most famously about the Latin American experience, that’s what’s written about. It’s not something writers like to consider a “fantasy”, since they’re just translating their reality, whether personally experienced or learned about via hearing stories passed down through the ages, which is expressed through a lens of a certain skew.
Another thing: yes, it is primarily in our world, but the magic within it is actually meant to be felt EVERYWHERE, in every page, if possible. On every line, ideally. The writing, the prose itself should evoke a strange sense within the reader’s mind. It should FEEL like a kind of magic, to read it.
Thirdly, those magical elements, within the context of the story, are ABSOLUTELY UNAMBIGUOUSLY OCCURRING. They are not hallucinations of any kind. They also are not explained, but they ARE experienced by many characters. This is true because many characters need to be engaging with the magic in the same way those characters are each engaging in their environs, dealing with those issues put forward there. But the magic is utterly abundant. In fact, one of the stated tenets of the thing is “plenitude”. Meaning it’s almost impossible to separate from the realism as we objectively see it in this reality, outside of the books.
I hope this helps.
Some more Romantasy recomendations are Maria V Snyder with her Study Series and Lynn Kurland's Nine Kingdom Series.
Progression fantasy also reminded me of Terry Goodkind Wizards first Rule.
Is Wizards First Rule considered progression? I've never heard that before! I only read the first book, though, so maybe it gets more progression later on
@@Bookborn based on the description you gave I would say so, there are different times both of them have to level up in their magic to solve a problem. but again, it probably fits more than 1 category.
A "genre" is really just a marketing tool / shelving category; that's what I think is important to remember. 😊
Kinda like shelving all the kitchen cookware in one aisle, while shelving all the pet food in a completely different aisle.😅😂🤭💖
yes TOTALLY. It's a marketing tool that can be useful sometimes but overall isn't THAT important.
@@Bookborn Agreed! (I mean, unless you really do have a very particular shtick you prefer to read or watch, or prefer not to ...in which case, it can be slightly more relevant. Lol) ^-^
My faves are epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, and historical fantasy. My examples of historical fantasy would be The Mists of Avalon by MZB and everything by Juliet Marillier.
I'm especially interested in anything that isn't easily stuffed into one fantasy category. But admittedly, that may cover quite a bit of ground.
This was actually my first time hearing of 'Hopepunk', I think, rather than 'Noblebright' as opposite of Grimdark-So, I've learned something new[ to me], somehow(!).🙂💖
You're the second person to mention Noblebright but I hadn't ever heard it before! So that's new to me lol
@@Bookborn 😆 Gotta love how these things happen sometimes~ 🤭😊💜
Ive alwasy lumped high and epic fantasy together, but i guess saying that more perspectives and length does make a bit of a difference. Also, if you have never read Wizards of EarthSea id give it a read.
Ive come to start referring to star wars as Fanatsy Scifi, as it is basically, well, is knights in space. Where anything by Andy weir is scifi. But i also think we need a bridge between fantasy scifi and scifi, for stuff like Pandoras Star
I've read the first two earthsea books! I keep meaning to finish the series, I love LeGuin.
it makes me laugh, my first introduction to earthsea was actually that anime movie. I liked it but thought the book was prob better. then i find out they basically made a movie about the last book! read the whole series since then and think that was a huge mistake. @@Bookborn
@@Beard_Hood I was introduced to it via the live-action...was it a movie, or a mini-series? (I forget-it's been a while since that came out!) Then the anime, after that.😂 Meant to read the books too, but then I basically just stopped reading at all for a while until recently, unfortunately; but, lord willing, I'll finally read those books one day in the near-ish future now.😊
it was the one done by the son of miyazaki i believe. @@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
Considering what’s going on on the world right now, it’s great for my mental health to focus on something else. Thanks for the video and great distraction
And another great historical fantasy author is Harry turtledove who has done dozens of historical books with fantasy or sci-fi elements
I would be interested to hear what genre you would put discworld into if only because Terry pratchett created the disc as a response to the over abundance of Tolkienesk fantasy in the early 80's although recognosably fantasy i don't think it fits into any subgenre and fits into quite a few at the same time
I find the subgenres useful if I’m searching for a book by feel, but I’m doing that less now that I can prompt AI with more specific criteria.
A Deadly Education bangs so hard
I haven't read it yet! I read Novik's Spinning Silver and LOVED it, but then read Uprooted and didn't like it lol so I wasn't sure if I should keep reading her
@@Bookborn it's short if that helps!!
I'm just starting to dive into the broader world of fantasy, beyond the big ones like LOTR and Narnia, and a term I've seen a few times is "kingdom fantasy". Is this label one of those self explanatory ones, or does it carry more connotations than the obvious?
in Dark Tower roland brings this up when asking about earth fiction wondering why they have "horror" "action" "fantasy" etc and asks why people don't like stories with all those things
It is funny when you think about it. I often think of myself as not someone that reads fantasy but than I have read The Stand which is as horror and dark fantasy, I am reading Swan Song which is listed in the same two genres and I have all but the last two Dark Tower books. Oh and I loved Mexican Gothic which is the same as the others. To add to.the silliness all of them are put in the horror section in most book stores.
King is a very meta author, so that tracks
I was wondering if Pendragon would be classified, with the flumes, since they are portals commonly used by the characters in the series.
The biggest litRPG would be The Wandering Inn I think? It's a lot bigger than DCC?
I haven't heard of that one! But admittedly I'm not in the LitRPG scene.
The Wandering Inn is really good, but insanely long & deep, it's longer than Wheel of Time (over double atm).
As far as I know.... Urban Fantasy kinda became *_PRIMARILY_* a catch-all term for any Fantasy that takes place in the real-world(i.e. = on our actual planet Earth) but set during then-current//'Modern'-times, specifically; as opposed to happening in a historical(or a then-past period of Former/previous/Olden Times) setting OR a more futuristic[ &/or dystopian] (Earth/Earthian) setting; at the very least, ever since the mid-to-late 2000s and early-to-mid 2010s. It actually does not have to be set literally in a city at all, because Urban(/Real-World) Fantasies set in those more rural or small-town settings were not so commonly done enough to ever really branch out in any way where truly independent terminology to refer to them(like 'Rural Fantasy' itself) was ever 'officially' recognized within a more mainstream consciousness. So, as far as I know, 'Urban Fantasy' = 'Real-World[/On-Earth] / modern Fantasy' is the most common and widely "known" or popularized and accepted definition; while 'Fantasy in a [specifically ]City-setting' is a more literal yet almost totally out-of-vogue definition. 🙂
((Though it is distinguished somewhat from Magical-School/Academy Fantasies and or Hidden/Unseen-World Fantasies[ sometimes] and especially from Portal Fantasies too, particularly if all or the majority of a story's plot is spent functioning in that more magical/fantasy setting despite that setting itself fictionally existing allegedly somewhere in[ or adjacently connected-to] the real-world as we know it yet unbeknownst to us muggles/mundies/etcetera for whatever reasons. ...That just depends I suppose on if you're thinking of genre more as how the 'scene' or 'stage' of that story is 'set' or 'dressed'-OR if you think of genre more as being encompassing of the general/central 'themes' or focal 'points' of the story, overall.😹))
But maybe I'm wrong-maybe the city-fantasy definition of Urban Fantasy has made more of a resurgance in the last few years or so than I've realized or something; I have, admittedly, been a bit out of touch with the more recent trends. Lol
(anyone more current with terminology usage/trends, please, feel free to correct me; I would welcome it, gladly^--^)
Urban Fantasy was MY _jam_ back then, (my personally preferred genre) in my teen to early-adult years. But then unfortunately I pretty much stopped reading for a few years and only just started dipping my toes back into reading again just in the last 4-ish years or so; and I have paid far more attention simply to the books themselves coming out these days almost regardless of genre than to researching all the current genre labeling.😅😂🤭🫣😁😊
I think all the genre mash-ups/fusions or hybrid genres and such over the last several years have certainly made genre much blurrier and less distinct perhaps than it once was; Nevermind the way that time can redefine or separate or recombine things differently during one era of time than in another.
Plus, the way many people don't seem to be aware that the word 'sub-genre' can refer EITHER to a more specific subset of a larger genre[ such as High Fantasy being a subset of Fantasy] OR to a secondary plot or genre within the same story[ like a Fantasy Quest or Adventure story with a Romantic subplot or secondary-storyline]. (Kinda like adding an extra 'aside' in parentheses that could be disregarded entirely without a huge loss - if in fact even any loss - of understanding the main or primary point, but may still contain further information which might matter a little bit more to some persons than it could to others. 😂 😊💖) Lol
Sword and Sorcery is a little more specific than that historically. Since it hasn't been a popular buzz-phrase people have taken to using it for anything with swords and sorcery.
S&S has typically involved a strong (male, but not always) main character as the protagonist, but more important elements are: This protagonist is an outsider in some sense, probably has super strong wanderlust, usually doesn't like magic, and has a sort of mercenary-with-strong-personal-rules outlook. This leads to conflicts of a more personal nature to drive the story - not so much the "omg the world is going to end without this quest." That and the practical-to-mercenary attitude make the characters on the roguish side for sure.
S&S historically had a few problems in embracing a shitload of bad baggage. Poor writing. Derivative stories and characters. The same thing over and over again, without the heart or style that Robert E. Howard gave his works, seemingly to satisfy people who wanted to read about big muscle men getting women with big boobs. Not surprisingly, that gas tank kind of ran dry. Modern authors (I think) are doing a much better job on S&S these days. S&S may be not quite as popular, but that's partly because other subgenres soaked up aspects of it. It's all over dark fantasy, grimdark, and fantasy that focuses on adventure. There are good authors who still write what you might call classical S&S, but because the term has become confused over time I think they have a rough time using it as a term to attract new readers.
Flame and Crimson is a great book detailing the history of S&S. I'm largely summarizing from it in my above comments.
My opinions not really reflected in Flame and Crimson: The history of this subgenre came out of the pulps, but I don't think it is bound to the short form. Nor do I think it (or high/low/epic) require a secondary world.
Pendragon is a great portal series as well as Narnia.
Just my opinion, but dark fantasy should be distinct from grimdark because dark fantasy utilizes horror elements, i.e., dark fantasy is shorthand for horror/fantasy. Grimdark, on the other hand, is really just super-gritty fantasy. It doesn't really have anything to do with horror. Agree/disagree?
legit Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods, which i consider the least violent book that Rick Riordan with no character casualties, than all of the other book series he has written.
Great video
Bro you didn't even get time to finish the video.
I don't know about you but for me outside of the online book comunity I hardly ever see any book being labeled with a fantasy subgenere
Oh I totally agree haha. I think "epic fantasy" is used pretty commonly, but other than that, only the book community. Which is why I made the video tbh - when I first got online I was like...what are these terms??
Fantasy subgenres are definitely more commonly relevant amongst Fantasy fans themselves than to the general public at large, for better or for worse.
Thank u so much 🎉
I think a great non-traditional progression fantasy is Dragonball. Goku know he needs to train to get better to beat the next big bad guy.
I would say a lot of fantasy anime falls under the progression label!
I always thought of LOTR as high fantasy and Conan the Barbarian as low fantasy. And both are on earth at different times, not another planet.
Hmm I suppose my "non-earth" is a bit too focused, but in general, even though LOTR *is* earth...it's also not earth lol. Like that's never an earth that COULD exist. It's a *fantasy* earth, which makes it very different than magical realism. I'm not familiar with Conan so can't speak for that one.
I guess, I never realized that LotR was actually meant to be set on Earth at all? Simply, based on a fictionalized or imagined version of what an Early Earth might have possibly been like, through a lens that treats higher entities/gods/angels/etcetera as actual and existing things. (Like, maybe not necessarily literally Earth, despite the fantasy land also having 'Earth' in its name; but possibly modeled after Earth, similarly to how an airplane is modeled after a bird.) And I've always kind of seen Epic and High Fantasy as relatively interchangeable, unless maybe if we're specifically talking something modeled in a style after the Epics of olde, or such; as opposed to Comedies, or Tragedies, or Dramas, and such. Lol
But I suppose this could just go all the further toward the point that breaking any genre/category down too far can get a bit pedantic, maybe. Lol 🤷🤷♀️🙂
@@BookbornTolkien wrote in one of his letters that he was creating a mythology for England since the only true English mythology was King Arthur.
Thank you for helping me to finally understand what the heck "dark academia" is! 🤣
Loved it
Everything that's got teenagers and love triangles is YA for me. 😏
Gamelit / Progression Fantasy and LitRPG is picking up speed lately, thanks to the isekai fandom.
I'm a grimdark person myself, but I've been reading a lot of gamelit/litrpg the past few years.
lots of people hate those types of things.
Oh man I'd disagree sooo hard on everything with teenagers is YA haha! Game of thrones has 11 year olds! It's def not YA 🤣
lol. game of thrones still a masterpiece tho.@@Bookborn
Love-Triangles definitely, definitely pre-date the transition of the Teen/Youth fiction of my younger-years[ or even longer ago] into the YA genre we know now-and certainly existed first outside of YA, simply in the Romance(an originally Adult-centric) genre as a whole. ((At least, so long as we don't go so far back in time to when _Treasure Planet_ was counted as a 'Romance' novel, because 'Romance' basically just meant fanciful or impressionistic rather than pragmatic and realistic.))
There is also plenty of YA that has no such triangles at all!.
🤣🤣
Although, I suppose if it has teenagers who are specifically the central focus of the plot and are themselves the individual parties involved in said triangle specifically, then-yeah, it might be YA. Lol
@@Bookborn GoT has no love triangles though so my point stands 😉
Isn't dystopian fantasy a thing too?
Though you used other terms that kind of include what it typically is, you forgot the term “Isekai” which is typically used in many but not all fantasy leaning Manga.
I haven't heard that term before my comment section today! So that was a new one I learned!
@@Bookborn Yeah, it’s a fantasy manga subgenre that’s sometimes kind of like a portal fantasy but sometimes also has elements of the RPG one you mentioned. I quite enjoyed the video.
Oh, man, Star Wars is an oft debated choice! It's definitely science fantasy! And not "fairy tale" as someone prominent on a hellsite once asserted to which I replied there is no conditional turn key aspect, so no it's not a fairy tale. A wizard really should know better! And the gall to suggest a remake of Casablanca? What plastic world are you living in? Tangent rant aside, my ambition is to combine all the different subgenres into one feat that works! Some of the labels are thematic and some are situational. I'm here to squeeze in other mediums. There's Planescape Torment RPG of this liminal world of portals to other planes, novelized. There's the comic book hero genre outside of fantasy that is the Marvel Comics' Infinity saga. There is yet a similar villain in fantasy novels.
You forget the sub-subgenre of portal fantasy: faun-tasy, featuring Mr Tumnus. I started with the wordplay and ended up somewhere I dunno, overbaked?
Was it(Star Wars) always intended to contain purely fanciful elements, though? Or have certain elements simply become more obviously fanciful because scientific knowledge has advanced so much since then and much of its theoretical science was 'soft' and inspecifically explained rather thab 'hard' and as rigidly realistic or plausible as possible? I mean, psychic powers(like The Force) after all, are considered theoretically possible-though, as of yet, equally unconfirmed/unproven as ever proven. Not to mention George Lucas' unrealized plans to make The Force come from The Wills(or whatever he was calling it) which was nanotech or some-such, if I remember it correctly?? 👀 🤔🤔😮🙃🫣😂
@@jaginaiaelectrizs6341 well the nanotech midichlorians is I think the extended hand toward a kind of science in the world, from a certain point of view...and they did refer to Jedi in Mando as "space wizards" so this is the way! To describe it in the world!
From what I've heard, Ice Planet Barbarians would probably be considered fantasy smut, not romantacy.
A growing percentage of romance can be catalogue a smut these days.
I'm not sure if Ice Planet Barbarians counts as Romantasy or Fantasy Erotica (or Erotic Fantasy, or something more like that) 🤔 🤔🤔🤭🤣 Lol
LOL SEEEE I DON'T KNOWWW!! I guess I assumed all Romantasy was spicy. That's my ignorance coming through lolll
@@Bookborn I mean.. it could be?? 🫣👀 I don't entirely know for absolutely certain either. Buut, as I understand it, Romantasy books might be spicy ... but they still have slightly more of a plot[ that isn't quite as exclusively JUST about facilitating or setting-the-stage for the spice] than Ice Planet Barbarians? ((Whereas, from what I've heard, with Ice Planet Barbarians .. the spice itself is basically the plot or whole entire point/purpose of what plot there is? If that makes sense?)) But I could very easily be wrong too because it's not my most familiar genre(s) either! 🤣🤣
I'd say romance in general is based on the relationship, so that could include sex and be spicy but doesn't always. Smut or Erotica is going to focus heavily on those sex scenes (less on the development of the relationship).
@@kirstendickinson1361 Yep, I agree(!). 😊
As far as I understand it, ideally, good Erotica will focus on the development of the sexual relationship too-it's just not required(though also not disallowed) for there to also be a romantic relationship developed alongside that as well and/or for the two[ or more] partners to end up coupled together longterm in the end rather than only for the duration of their sexual encounter or sexual journey or such together as it's featured within the book/story itself. There is still meant to be a story there, but the story is the sex[, so even if the characters did not also fall in love the majority of that story would still exist just as well without the romantic-love as it does with it].
Whereas, with Romance, the story is the romantic-love[ with or without sex also included but the majority of the story would exist just as well without the sex as it stands with it]; with Erotic Romance, it's kind of a marriage between both the romantic-love & the sex with both things creating the story together, equally[ so that if either the sex or the romantic-love were removed the story would fall apart and without either one of both of those things would lose most of the substance or coherence that it had with that thing included]; and with just Smut, there doesn't even need to be a story at all, there only needs to be sex[ either with a story too or not].
(But, in either case, you could also choose to create something about insta-love or insta-attraction too, in which case, the story would more just be simply about being in love or being attracted than specifically about becoming in love or becoming attracted.)
But...I'm not the most well-read in any of these genres myself, so I'm unclear if Ice Planet Barbarians[ in particular] is more Erotic Romance or Erotica(or what), and I am also personally unclear if Romantasy[ as a subgenre] is purely Erotic Romance in a Fantasy backdrop or if Erotica in a Fantasy world/setting would also count(or if a clean/non-spicy Romance in a Fantasy setting would also count either) OR if Romantasy also needs to include some other Fantasy story/plot-line in addition to it[ like saving a kingdom from a big-bad antagonist or something] right along with the romantic and/or sexual one too; that's all I was saying, before. ((If that makes any sense.😅🫣🤔😁 Lol 🙂))
there were a couple I'd never heard about, interesting :)
How could you talk about science fantasy without mentioning Dune?
Interesting. Now I’ve only read the first one, but generally Dune is considered just sci-fi
I am so tired of hearing about "cozy" fantasy. Hope punk sounds completely stupid. And romantasy is just the worst. Just call it romantic fantasy or romance.
You don't know what your talking about.