Oddly enough for Isekai it's not usually a teenager or not just a teenager, unless that teen is Average Mctoastman, they are often lonely old men who have nothing and who's death wouldn't do that much to disturb their neighborhood.
Your Vampires control the stock market should unironically be the standard for modern urban fantasy like that. The arch type of the vampire is to represent the distant and aloof old powers, such as the nobility of the old world. In a modern fantasy, a Gilded Age vampire in a manor who owns a Rockefeller style cooperate empire, and massive stock portfolio is the perfect representation of them. Bound by weird archaic rules that no one understands, but likewise in their immortality they don't understand the world either.
@@nobody4248world of darkness took this concept further and had an equal amount of vampires as crazy homeless people or seemingly normal humans. That's because the point of that franchise was blurring the lines between fictional monster and real mortal. They turned vampire courts into corporate rat-races. They turned werewolf packs into angry serial killing terrorists.
My problem with isekai (or power fantasy webnovels in general really), is that they concentrate all the specialness in the setting onto the main character and then there's no other character that's allowed to be cool. It doesn't matter how many badass scenes the main character gets when all the other characters are pathetic. The more cool characters there are in the story, the cooler the story as a whole becomes. I don't understand why this mistake gets made so often, because if you read the shonen manga that inspire these stories, all of them have a memorable scene or two where a side character becomes beloved for doing something badass that the main character couldn't do
Asuna Syndrome: where a highly competent character gets lobotomised when they become the main character's friend, since we can't have anyone upstaging the hero!
Just look at the MCU and the character of Bucky Barnes. He kicks ass in the Winter Soldier. Then is watered down to "good, but not great" in the later movies.
The magic people are oppressed because OBVIOUSLY our main character needs to be one of the genetically superior group, but they also have to be an underdog. You can call this the undergod: a character who is inexplicably both gifted and ostracised. Let's see, stuff I don't like: - Big armies of unnamed characters dying, as though we're going to care just because they put a big number on it. One guy we know dying is more emotionally resonant than a million guys we don't. - Worldbuilding elements that ought to significantly affect the structure of society that just don't. If there are giants in your world that breaks almost everything, please stop putting them in as an afterthought. If there's a spell to unlock doors then people wouldn't bother with locks. Don't just copy stuff over from our world without thinking. - Trying to do eldritch horror but instead just doing fish monsters and kaiju. It's actually not an unknowable horror if you can kill it with bullets.
The thing is,yeah you can make anything kaiju, it is even not bad to go ham on kaiju, but you really are going ham with using gigantic,what the hell, be creative. And eldrich horror, yeah, is not a kaiju. kaiju are ham now, not scary. Unless of course the society lacks means to have modern weaponry. Also why not a gigant tigr or cat or rat, .. And the affect on the world, monster hunter did that right. Or if that kaiju iss there, they just get out of the way and move elsewherre and stay moile in the region and it shaped the socity topartly normads.
“Uh so in my world, because lockpicking spells exist, right? So like, people just don’t lock up anything, because, like, why would they even bother?” If you unironically believe that would happen then you’re a fucking moron. You talk about lazy worldbuilding, but that is lazy AND stupid. If you actually included that in a story, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Anybody can buy a lockpicking kit online and spend 30 minutes learning to pick the simple lock on your door. Unless everyone can do magic, people would still use locks.
That was one thing that bugged me about "Children of Blood and Bone", too. I guess the author wanted to draw parallels to anti-Black racism, or alternatively the stigmatization of people with albinism in many African countries, but I agree that magic users would be more likely to dominate a hierarchy than be oppressed.
To develop the spell to unlock doors you'd first have to *need* to unlock doors. If no one had locks, no one would learn the spell- And so it would be forgotten, and locks would be useful again. To add to this, does everyone know this spell? Because a lot of locks IRL are very pickable by someone who knows what they're doing, but you're not specifically trying to keep them out- You're trying to keep as many people out as possible. If everyone, literally everyone, can get past any lock then, yeah, it's not a good investment. If you're keeping out even just 60% of people? That sure as hell works.
I’m writing a dystopian fantasy series where the magic used is channeled through the person’s nervous system. This would grant the user magical abilities but using too much too often would result in nerve damage, migraines, mood swings, decreased motor and bodily functions as well as an increased likelihood of developing severe cognitive and mental disorders later in life such as dementia and Alzheimer’s and in extreme cases, using too much can even result in either brain damage or brain death.
I love this idea, great way to explore disability and also trauma with its many effects on the nervous system. You could even have characters with neurological damage/illness be pre disposed to being able to channel that magic.
I want isekai to work harder to justify the isekai. WHY does this world need to summon a hero from Earth? Don't they have local options? WHY does Joe Middle Management get special reincarnation privileges? "The bad guys screwed up a summoning ritual" is the most effort I usually see. I didn't watch it, but I remember reading about an anime where somebody assassinates all the isekai dudes because they cause more trouble than they solve. That's how I feel about it most of the time.
I feel it's at its best when the protagonist isn't summoned in particular, but either their actions by accident or the actions of someone else put them in that situation. Though maybe studio ghibli films don't count, that's mostly what I'm thinking of
Althought the _Chronicles of Thomas Covenant_ books are very bad, their justification for why the fantasy world needs a regular human from our world as their chosen one is interesting. In the fantasy world of those novels, free will is very limited because everybody is either born alligned to the light or to the darkness, so after centuries of war good and evil are at an stalemate and the only one who can break it is a person from another, more morally gray world
How about an isekai where they actually recruit the guy who beats the crap out of the drippy otaku kids to help them because shota-kun who tugs it in 7-11 to the girly mags he can't afford is legitimately not gonna save the kingdom and princess.
The "cut your arm off to do magic" is pretty close to Dorohedoro, where magic runs on "smoke", which comes from the blood of magic users. So to access it many magic users make holes in their bodies. One character cut his fingers off and stitched them back on. Dorohedoro is absolutely nuts.
You are forgetting that Shin is the only guy who had to do that because he is halfblood. Every other mage can use smoke just fine without any modifications.
Considering the Middle Ages lasted 1000 years, that's a huge chunk of Europe's written history. It's not that surprising that so many stories have such a setting, since it covers so much time. And even when some stories are set just after the Middle Ages, sometimes it can be hard to tell unless you're a historian. ASOIAF, for example, has a lot of post-medieval features, but most people will call it medieval just because there are knights and kings, even though those classically medieval aspects also exist after the Middle Ages.
It's "medieval" because it doesn't have any guns, which is by far the most telling trait. The reason stories are set in that period is because of Romanticism, which came about in reaction to the industrial revolution. Guns are not magical. Swords are magical.
@@PlatinumAltaria But thre iss plenty before that, and most of the time its not from history anyways. A lot would be more interesting if authors took a lot from history and do history research, And probably the not so common too, and not the big man history would help. How did pople live, what weird events did happen, And not that you have slavish adhere to tht, but thats would add a lot that usually isnt there. And a lot sources ar lost or partly, but the partly like copuld have imagination filled in. i mean the manga kingdom does that and its good. And yeah you could steal weird but defining characteristics, from history. GRR martin like didnt only took from fantasy but also history.
The trouble is it's very generic medieval fantasy. If the writer researches a specific region of Europe and specific time period, it's going to be cooler and more unique feeling. Many medieval fantasy stories feel like the author only knows the setting from other medieval fantasy books.
@@PlatinumAltariaguns... Existed long before the industrial revolution- and frankly you can make guns magical It just takes some work and creative planning.
One thing i especially hate about the 'the magic people are oppressed' is because it kind of garbles the entire metaphor. Like, the whole thing with real world racism is that it's pointless, baseless, and wrong; people of different races are different in phenotype and culture, but not in capabilities. if the oppressed class in your fantasy world can turn into bears and maul people randomly, or can accidentally shoot fireballs that explode crowds of people, there's actually a reason for others to fear them. This is why stuff like zootopia or Bright or that awful show about the zombies doesn't really work. if the other side has a point in your racism metaphor, you did a bad job.
Yeah, in a world where, lets say, humans have to study for years to cast magic while generic fantasy elves can do so from birth, discrimination makes a lot more sense than real world racism, which as you say is baseless. But we also shouldnt compare apples and oranges. We shouldnt call discrimination based on 'innate magical talent' racism, unless the author speciffically wrote a story of oppression as an analogy to real world racism and just messed it up.
while I do somewhat agree with you, I also think the idea that "you did a bad job if the other side has a point in it's racism is wrong", like recently I think attack on titan did this really well, where you could say the eldians are oppressed because of the sins of their ancestors, you can tell their is a reason for the marleyans to fear the eldians, but instead of them being scared of eldians they actually use them for there own gain. Even if their is a danger of an eldian turning into a titan(there usually wasn't), marley was never justified in it's oppression of eldians due to the sins of their ancestors. I think as long as it shows that their reasoning is wrong and that you can't hate a group of people for it, I think the idea is not inherently bad.
@@kabirarya5381 Attack on Titan is deeply fascist, antisemitic (aren't titans mentioned to be made from jewish people at one point?), and written by an anti-Korean Japanese nationalist, so I don’t really think it has a good racism metaphor
One interesting way I've seen it done is using the fact that they actually are different to highlight how minorities excelling at anything is seen as a threat because minorities existing is seen as a threat in general. Like, I think the story was about African American Super-powered kids, but it was a metaphor for like how tons of kids are pushed into athletics just to have the slimmest chance at going to college or even rarer going pro, and people love them being stronger and faster than everyone else, but if they just saw a athletic looking minority without knowing they're an athlete or anything, tons of those very same "fans" would treat them as a dangerous threat. I think the trope can work, it just needs to move past the "everyone is the same" message and take up the message "minorities excelling isn't a threat and people are different but no one, not even people so radically different from you should have to live with a target on their back for trying to walk the fine line between being the successful and model minority they have to act like to survive and avoiding doing too well and getting dehumanized or treated like a inherently dangerous being"
TheLuckOfTheClaws: I kind of agree and disagree at the same time. Like I agree that a world like that would make it more understandable for people to fear them, but it wouldn't make it morally okay to oppress them, as long as you're writing the characters as actual human beings. So I think there is something interesting that can be done there with the conflict between fearing these people because they have powers, while on the flip side many of them might have done nothing wrong and are being oppressed for something they can't control, it's an interesting theme that I don't think I've seen done justice before.
8:00 similar to how ASOIAF and Stormlight will introduce a character for a single chapter to fill us in on a plot point that none of the main characters could be there for, before leaving them alone and going back to the original story. Sometimes even just killing them off so the story doesnt get hung up on giving "right place right time merchant" a whole wikipedia page
E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroborous does this. Arguably the best chapter in the book is a recount of a large battle by a young soldier who was there. He's only in that one chapter.
I'd like to see more fantasy stuff tackle 1800s Europe-style settings. Not on the technological side but rather politically, a really unstable setting with constant rebellions and revolutions and changing territory and such. Where the nobility are scared and desperately clinging onto their power amidst their cousin-brother-uncles overseas being overthrown. At most you get, like, one revolution, and it's the main character doing it (or putting a stop to it). On the isekai side, the main problem I'd say is how all the settings just work like a videogame. Even in the better ones there's rarely any attempt whatsoever to actually make a world or setting rules or anything, they always just are about literal measurable stats and levels and adventurer's guild ranks and all that rubbish.
Perhaps the manga "Requiem of the Rose King" by Aya Kanno might interest you. It's dark fantasy but takes place around 1400s during Wars of the Roses. The plot pretty much revolves around how the main character (and their political opponents) rises in power to the throne with the good old royal back-stabbing routine. I must warn you though it's also explores romance and sexuality here and there, in case you're only interested in the politics. I wouldn't say those parts weren't necessary or out of place just for the sake of being there because it actually contributed to the whole plot.
My biggest problem with isekai is that if you fix a lot of the common flaws, add a plot, interesting world building, character development wtc, u run into the question of why wasn't this just a fantasy series. Why'd the mc have to be from another world
Try Mushoku Tensei. It's actually pretty important that the main character is from another world, not only to the world setting and plot, but also to the character and a theme of the story.
The reason Isekai stories are popular in Japan is because they are bought, read and enjoyed by salarymen, who work dead end jobs with unpaid overtime, requirement of going for drinks with bosses after that unpaid overtime, long commute times and all of it boils to no social life for friends, no time for hobbies and no love life. They don't really live outside working. So isekai stories offer a distraction, an imitation of a happy life, they get all the freedom to do what they could not in their old life, be respected, valued, socialize with new friends, meet girls and build a love life with them in a form of harem, even when it's just dangled in front of the MC and us readers until the very end of story, become the OP hero to save a town/nation/world from generic bad guys. Also why would they want to return to their original world where they just work with no end in sight, aren't desirable by women, so no love later family life. In another world they get their wish - a happy life with no hardship.
An important note about unique magic systems is to focus in on exploring the logical results of the base concept before you add more stuff. If your magic relies on self-harm, what does that mean, not just for wizards, but for society? Guards check newcomers for scars, cause most mages cut themselves on the arms. An order of assassins has mastered the art of invisible harm. They take a simple pill that causes gradual internal bleeding with no exterior side affects. None of them live past thirty, but they always get their target. Old wizards live as mentors alone, as even simple spellcasting risks a horrible death from infection with their weakened immune systems. An order of monks believes self-harm to be a sin, but are master wizards. No one dares lay a finger on them, for if you cut them they can unleash the power of your own strike back upon you tenfold. An old warrior teaches the main character a useful trick. If you exert yourself for extended periods you can wield the burning of your muscles as magical power. It might be a tiny trickle, but you can reinvest it back into moving your body to grant you unimaginable endurance.
I once had a silly idea about a story set in a fantasy world based on the mid to late 1920s where an 800 year old vampire who has been a soldier most of her life must, under orders from her superiors in the army, infiltrate a high school to protect a boy suspected of having special powers from enemy espionage rings, organized crime groups and shadowy cults. The POV would be mainly split between the Vampire and the boy's best friend. Feel free to use this idea.
Fantasy doesn't have to be a continent-wide epic. It can be set in a single city, or even better, one district of a city. There needs to be more domestic fantasy in general. Idk why there aren't more stories about, say, an orc and a human genuinely falling in love and having their own generational story about their children and grandchildren and their trials and tribulations. If you must have magic, you can have it as simple as using a spell to help churn butter, or light a hearth fire.
i'm not very familiar with the original WoD, but I was super into Changeling the Lost for a while, and I thought the way it made the division between the fantasy world and the 'real' world into part of the abuse metaphor was really great. Because you are Irrevocably Changed, you have been Fucked Up by Something You Were Powerless To Stop....... and nobody can even tell. You look normal. It's convenient to be able to move through the human world without looking like a monster -- but the damage you suffered is invisible to everyone even though it is affecting you constantly in really intense ways
A good example of urban fantasy, would be the World of Darkness, where vampires, werewolves, ghosts, wizards and whatever else move and scheme in the shadows of mortal society.
@@Mykye More like an entire transmedia franchise that spun out of it's debut TTRPG, _Vampire: The Masquerade,_ followed up by _Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Wraith: The Oblivion, Changeling: The Dreaming_ and _Mage: The Ascension._ The transmedia arm of the franchise includes *_books,_* comics, PC and Console Games (the most infamous of which is 2004's _Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines_ which is soon about it recieive it's long awaited sequel _Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2_), TTRPG Long/Actual plays that you can watch _*_right here_*_ on RUclips (the most well known of them being _Vampire: The Masquerade - LA by Night_ of which is a _soft_ sequel to the original Bloodlines game) and there was talk of 'World of Darkness Live Action projects' being in the works back in 2021 but it remains to be seen as to whether or not such things will come to fruition. But it seems like you're more interested in books. There's a collection of short stories in audiobook form called _Vampire: The Masquerade - Walk Among Us_ and there's also a visual novel called _Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York_ and it's DLC _Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York_ if that is more your sort of thing. But yea, simply saying that WoD is a TTRPG is selling it *_extremely_* short!
Honestly, you REALLY need to read more Young Adult Fantasy. While I agree about the more "big name" examples, there are plenty of other stories that don't fit that mold. Six of Crows, Cinder, We Hunt the Flame, Cemetery Boys, and plenty more. You just to need to seek out the lesser known shit.
Six of Crows is very well known and I think he wouldn't like it as it's basically fantasy Peaky Blinders with a lil Locke Lamora in the mix James is a very critical reader and SoC has a lot of tropes wouldn't surprise me if he rips it to shreds
Totally agree. To say they all have toxic romance is just not true if you try things like clockwork angel, Graceling, the lunar chronicles etc. And to say that all of the main characters are OP and one dimensional as “the chosen one” is also not taking into account a lot of YA fantasy like Poppy war and the Cruel Prince, angelfall, Steelheart and The rest of us just live here etc. it’s not a super unique or deep take to hate on YA for the books that have problems and ignore the rest
The young adult genre problem is the same problem I have with video games. I rapidly lose the ability to take a narrative seriously when the player is the only competent or relevant character in the setting. Skyrim is a great example of this. The player becomes the leader of the Companions, the Mages College, the Thieves Guild, the Dark Brotherhood, the Blades, and becomes Thane of every hold. And you can achieve these lofty titles with basically zero effort. You can become head of the College of Winterhold with no magical skills, provided you can find some way to bullshit your way through the "cast babies first spell" check at the gate.
Sorry for responding on a 4 month old commnet, but I would highly reccomend the older Elder Scrolls games (If you can get over the graphics and them being less user friendly). Because they do make the factions feel like they aren't just there to satisfy the player. The example I use is how to enter the factions in Skyrim vs Oblivion. In Skyrim to join the secret assassins club you just talk to any tavern owner who points you to the first quest, or just walk into windhelm and someone will point you to the first quest. In Obilivion you need to kill somone...anyone. Just murder an NPC (not sure on the specifics but Bandits or villians in quests won't cut it. It has to be an innocent). And then you are contacted and sent on the first mission. In Morrowind, the fighters guild and the theieves guild are muturally exclusive. They are hostile factions with each other and thus you can't just become the ruler of the world, but have to tailor the factions you join based on your character. Also random fact, the 'cast babies first spell' check at the start can be skipped without magic but it is literally the ONLY level 100 Speech check in the entire game!
"what if there was a power system that was built around damaging yourself" NO BUT I HAD THIS IDEA LIKE A COUPLE YEARS AGO BUT I HAVENT BEEN ABLE TO FIT IT INTO ONE OF MY STORIES YET ty for also thinking of it that's awesome c:
Me too 😢 but I'm re-reading A Feast For Crows now and Cersei giving the Sparrow power is going to take a book or two to wrap up. GRRM created way too many plots to wrap them all up in two books. You have: - Greyjoy plot - Stannis and The North - Jon/The Wall/Willing/Whitewalkers - Dany’s Plot - Dorne Plot - Aegon/Varys Plot - Lady Stoneheart - Arya - Sansa - Bran
The magic people are oppressed makes sense if you want to be like the special people and view what pains they have to go through by the mindless hoard. Escapism at its finest. I've read a lot of fantasy (no YA) and there seems to be a lot of youngsters going off to some kind of school where they are trained by a teacher that hates them, with a teacher that likes them and there is always a bully with his pack. Her pack in the case of the Red Sister. Then the flip side is the contest books. People seem to either want to rewrite Harry Potter or the Hunger Games. This is why a book like The Traitor Baru Cormorant is so great. It is something you don't see very often.
On the magic system idea, there is an anime (Darker than Black) which does something similar. After using your power one has to injure themselves in a specific way (breaking your finger or smoking, for example). So that might interest you.
The character with the cigaretts didn't have to smoke, he (I believe) had to *eat* cigaretts everytime he used his powers, which is a lot more damaging than regular smoking.
If I may toot my own horn for a moment, the fantasy novel I've started working on this year has tribal humans coexisting with (non-avian) dinosaurs, with the main antagonist being a shaman possessed by a malevolent god of extraterrestrial origin. The protagonist's mission is to summon another god from a nearby volcano to counter the antagonist's god. I haven't really thought about what established subgenre of fantasy it would fit into, but I guess the "save the world from an evil god" theme makes it closer to epic fantasy than anything else.
Loved all your points, James. Fantasy is my favorite genre and it definitely needs some fresh ideas. Oh, and when you were discussing how to improve Isekai stories, it brought to mind this Chinese series "Scum Villain Self-Saving System" by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu that I read recently and is definitely worth checking out. It counts as an Isekai because, obviously, the protagonist is someone from the modern world who gets transported into a fantasy world of a book series (a series he, himself, had been furiously ranting about and deriding as power fantasy BS). When he arrives, a thing referred to as the "System" guides his actions with video game rules as he tries to improve the story, as well as avoid dying because he incarnated into the body of the most hated villain who is supposed to get his arms and legs ripped off at the end. It's honestly a bit of a trip and it's so weird and crazy that I half-thought I was having a fever dream at times. Also, it subverts the harem trope hard, which is always a plus.
A solution to Isekai: Don't have the main character buy slaves! None of that "Yes I'm buying people but I will be a good slave owner!" It's so annoying that some of the main character's first companions of those he bought and have no choice but to follow him.
When it comes to Epic Fantasy bloat I think Malazan manages it the best. It is 10 long books with hundreds of characters and several continents. Yet Erikson never makes it feel like he is dragging his feet. Plot points are constantly happening then being addressed, new ideas are established quickly and with as much fanfare as the setting would deem. All while making all the main cast feel real and active in the story. He does more in one chapter than what most authors would take 300 pages to set up.
Similar to the injuring yourself magic system, after thinking about and doing very small amounts of research on the history of human and blood sacrifices, I created a magic system that involved life energy that's in all living things that can be converted into different effects depending on rituals that a lot of the time are tied to secret family lineages. Fun examples of things I thought of, any time someone was no longer capable of supporting their village they could sacrifice their life force to the village protector, strengthening him to defend against monsters A lineage of actual vampires and ghouls and stuff that were created through a long history of doing blood specific rituals Demons created through a long life of stealing life from those unwilling A church that takes care of orphans only to have them sacrifice all but 5 years of their lifespan to gain unimaginable strength. Except that the priests take a lot of this life force for themselves to keep control over these paladins.
there was an odd little romance book i read last year called Must Love Fangs by Jessica Sims. i thought it was one of those like $5 books that middle-aged moms get at like the supermarket or whatever, but this one was surprisingly fun because of the concept. The main character is a human who works in a supernatural dating service, but she gets diagnosed with Fatal familial insomnia (FFI) which is the inability to sleep which would eventually lead to an early death. To cure this, she decides to set herself up on dates with some of her workplace's supernatural clients, because she thinks that becoming supernatural would enable her to escape her illness (and death, if she gets bitten by a vampire). The characters are pretty interesting and funny, too, and it was a fun read for me overall. I liked that the plot wasn't about some big world-threatening thing, and I liked that even though it's technically part of a series I could read it as a one-off just fine.
This reminds me of a (probably) similar book called "How to marry a millionaire Vampire" (iirc). Great title btw. Definetly not a spoiler. The main plot is basically: 'Vampire looses a fang and has to get a dentist to fix it before the night is over.'
With Urban Fantasy, it'd be fun to read one where the magic world isn't hidden. Like, Aw dude, you got bit by a werewolf? That sucks man. Or, I saw a dragon, just hope it isnt flying to the bank, seen that way too many times. Or, Wow! This eldritch beast is so much more terrifying than they say!
What I'd like to add about Isekai: A lot of the time, there's no good reason why protagonist-kun has to come from earth to the other world. Also the the fact that they have been isekai'd is barely relevant to the plot. It seems the isekai is just to facilitate the reader's wish fulfilment and self-insert. It's gotten old. Also, whenever being from the other world actually IS relevant, it's usually because the protagonist is unusually obsessed with a specific technology or field of science and reinvents that technology in the other world, giving him a great advantage. This is cool, but I don't like how no one in the other world seems to adapt with or come up with ways to counter this technology. You hardly ever feel there's a challenge for the protagonist. Here's an Isekai setup I came up with (and feel free to use this): A group of junior army officers and their subordinates during WWI are retreating on a supply barge across the lake. An artillery shell was about to hit them when it was struck by lightning. Somehow it resulted in the barge being isekai'd along with everyone and everything in it. They woke up in an unfamiliar shore. They slowly understand their situation. Their "Multiversal Transportation" as they call it, was the result of a magical experiment gone wrong. Even worse, a group of inquisitors from the dominant religion of the other world is hunting them down because of their otherwordly origin to "maintain cosmic order", they specialize in this and can quickly adapt to whatever surprises otherworlders bring with them. Now the officers must find a way to go back home. Learning and researching about magic relevant to multiversal transportation however they can. All the while living on the run from the inquisitors. They also have to manage scarce resources to maintain the technology they happen to have with them because it's not readily available in the magic-oriented and non-industrialized otherworld. With this: - The plot is driven by the fact that they want to go home - There's a sense of urgency because they're being hunted - There's pressure because their modern technology can only help so much when they're outnumbered or outpowered by magic. So they have to use it sparingly and as effectively as possible. Edit: - The inquisitors are also well experienced in dealing with otherworlders, so they know to be careful and adapt quickly with whatever otherworlders bring to the table. So our heroes must also be careful not to reveal their tricks too early, too often, or too recklessly
Well tanya rhe tale of evil is good it he isekai by god to 1914 europe yep it swapgender. In this world every nation have mage and war tactic very mixture with ww1 and ww2
There are a few book series like that with magic and mundane together in urban fantasy. There is also Shadowrun, a very old cyberpunk + magic RPG that came out in the late eighties/early nineties. Both have super integrated magic/mundane worlds. In Shadowrun, magic has even been corportized. Outside of those, it is annoyingly rare to see magic and mundane together.
Taking notes as I go: 4:32 I think indulgence in writing can be cool, sometimes. Malazan pulled it off pretty well, but I kind of get James' frustration here, too. Sometimes you make it 2/3 of the way through MGS V and just want it to end... 6:52 Ward by Wildbow might've done something like this, I think... a lot of named characters from Worm just kind of don't show up again, leading us to assume that they died or just aren't around. Either way, it benefitted the more character-focused sequel. 14:30 While I ultimately agree (all of the crazy fantasy locations I can think of are firmly outside the realm of YA), I'm of the opinion that it's a better indicator of writing skill to have a normal-ish location and flesh it out; make it more interesting over time. Brockton Bay from Worm (probably not YA but bear with me) is just a normal northeastern US city, but gains character, features and damage as the story progresses. 20:50 I think a lot of fantasy that does this excuse it better than James is giving it credit for. In Fate, for example, magic is only as strong as the amount of Mystery remaining in the world, so if magic became widely public and more people learned about it, Mystery would weaken and magic would become useless. 28:55 GoT, First Law, Age of Madness, Malazan, etc.... I dunno, I feel like at least the big names in this category handle themselves pretty well in this regard.
One Piece is also a great example of a magic system where there's risk-reward. In a world where it's like 10% land 90% water, mostly it being the sea, if you want the crazy devil fruit powers you become a hammer in the ocean. I do wish or hope Oda flips this though, it isn't because the Devil of the Sea or Sea hates Devil Fruit users, in fact its what led to their creation and is just trying to accept its children back into its arms. I'm thinking to doing such a thing, where my Sorrcerers tend to be attracted to coastlines and islands because their bound to the sea if you will, sorta like magnetically drawn there.
I like the concept of multiple chosen ones with some just unironically dragged into it one way or another, One Piece has this and its kinda hilarious. But I think a big issue for Fantasy at times is not are the casts often too off-balanced is a way to put it, but the world itself. What do I mean you say? Look at Westeros vs. Essos, one feels like this weird bloated version of the British Isles while the rest of Eurasia is treated like filler stuff. And I get Essos wasn't the main focus, Westeros was, but its like...weird how empty it feels at times. If George made it more even handed like bringing in more HRE or France or the like, and maybe had one represent Northern Europe/Eurasia and one Southern Eurasia it wouldn't be so bad but man idk.
bedides one picesharing that dragging fantasy oproblem and bein absurdist fantasy. And yah buggy is ons i guess XD Also luffy does maybe but he reaally wants to do his thing that aligns but, he wants his thing.
Ok here's a concept: start in a generic medieval fantasy world and then have it invaded from across the sea by a technologically superior empire they'd never heard of. Reverse Columbian exchange.
The Low Fantasy vs. High Fantasy Definition I'm used to is Low Fantasy = our world with a secret magical world/community (e.g. Harry Potter) and High Fantasy = different world, though I guess Low/ High Fantasy as a shorthand for little/ high magic(-al elements) is easier
Yeah High/Low fantasy does not mean the same thing as High/Low magic. The dresden files or harry potter are low fantasy, as in the real world exists and magic is hidden, but like magic is everywhere and used all the time by the protagonists etc. Meanwhile LOTR or Game of Thrones is high fantasy and low magic. A fictional world, but magic is rarely used except in a few instances. Urban fantasy is almost all low-fantasy, by this definition.
@@mrvoltem9379 I know and agree, which is kind of why I was surprised by James Tullos definition of the terms. Wikipedia has the low fantasy = magical elements in an otherwise normal world, which I think is kind of ambigous. I guess it depends on how you interpret "normal world"
The thing I hate about any type of Fantasy is basically the same thing I hate about writing in general but it seems to affect Sci-Fi and Fantasy the most. Escalation and Retconning. By escalation, I mean when they have to increase the stakes for each major conflict, or each book... This time we are trying to save the kingdom but then we have to save the world and then we have to save the universe and then the multiverse and then Time itself... Blech. You don't need to constantly escalate the size of the stakes. You can save Grandma's vegetable patch as long as you write a compelling story. Retconning, to me, happens in the worst way when you have a wwriter who let the Bad Guy die at the end of Book 1 and then they get asked to write a book 2. Now they either Bring Back their bad guy (Stop, Don't do that without a super good reason AND you meant to do it all along, AND you foreshadowed it in the first book) OR They decide they have to come up with the newer and even worse bad guy... but it doesn't make sense for a new bad guy to be worse.. so they retroactively make the new bad guy the old bad guy's teacher / Boss. They didn't write that in before, so they are rewriting history. Then they have to jam in all kinds of BS to make the new one mysterious and more powerful (escalation again) but if this more powerful bad guy was in league with the first one, why didn't he help his boy out in the last story? Why didn't he hero have to fight both of them? I see it in stories all the time, TV series are the worst for it. At the end of a season, the season long antagonist gets defeated. Then the series gets picked up fror antoher season and they come up with something new... but the characters or the enemies that that toss into the new season have been around forever... but they didn't get involved when you were tearing their world apart in the previous season... why? In the old Marvel Comics, if you had a Super Vilain that was threatening the world in New York while Spider Man was talking to him, trying to get him to put down the Remote Control to the Super-Nova cannon, the Avengers came flying in from three different cities, The X-Men were airdropped in by Quinjets, the Fantastic Four arrived, Doctor Strange teleported in.... because they all live on that same world, so when you threaten it, they all come out to defend it. ... But then you have the Marvel TV shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. where they had a guy threatening to destroy the world with Gravitonium ... but where were the avengers? Iron Man is a local hero, he'd have been involved... Doctor Strange? Thor maybe wanna come protect the Earth since he said he would aand his girlfriend lives here?? Nope, onlly the cast of that show gets involved. Even in the streets of NYC you didn't see any cameos from Daredevil, Luke Cage, or Iron Fist... I realize that different studios were doing it, but they were doing it on the same MCU world... It's like retconning but its worse, it's neglect. Hmmm... looking up at my wall of text, I guess I had some feelings about this issue :)
One very good example of a minor character doing what he is supposed is Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, from lord of the rings. The absolute chad showed up, defended minas tirith and was just helpful. The same thing can be said about Eladan, Elohir, Glorfindel, Echtelion, Grima and the other hobbits
Last but not least, its weird to me not to see more classically set fantasies, give me some ancient or palaic (I so butchered that but super ancient) or heck more books inspired by Byzantium and exploring interesting what ifs! Imagine a fantasy world where Constantinople was able to broker peace and in a sense fuse with the Ottoman Turks after the Seljeks and Bulgarians began to fade away or cause the Mongols coming, and the plot is an ancient sect of warriors inspired by the Varangian Guard trying to track down treasures lost during their Sacking of the City? I mean come on that be much more interesting and could have Corsairs and make it a weird "what if the Marines were the heroes and pirates the villains" twist on One Piece?!
Funny enough a few episodes of the Chackie Chan Adventures had the villains win the race to reach a magic book that controls reality, and rewrites history so that they and their demon buddies ruled humans from the beginning. It takes several episodes of one character who retains their memories re recruiting all the heroes and setting off to fix reality. There were some cool plotlines in that show
You've grown into an intelligent, attractive young man. You've always been intelligent with a lot of insight, but you were a bit more awkward some years ago. No shame, literally everyone has an awkward phase of their growth and development. You look so handsome and confident now. I'm just commenting because I'm impressed and hoping to compliment you without seeming weird. I've watched ur videos from way back up to your recent videos and the transformation was not what I expected! Anyway. Sorry if this is weird or accidentally insulting. I am not good with words. But my heart is in the right place! Edit; I am not trying to hit on you, I'm in my mid thirties, married, with 3 kids, just wanted to give u kudos
My main gripe with very high fantasy settings is that the magic feels so separated from the lives of people. Even if not everyone can do magic, a lot of stuff would be very different. Just take infrastructure for example: If you got tens of thousands of mages running around in your kingdom, think of how much easier it would be to dig canals and irrigation channels for fields and farms. Heck, if you got that many mages you can probably dig a tunnel through the alps in half the time and manpower it takes *us* with our current technology to do that. So even if you do not have any direct communication or teleportation magic, travel in your setting would be drastically faster than travel was in say 15th century Europe: More and better roads, tunnels, and canals. And rivers would be easily kept straight and deep for boats as well. And that is just the boring stuff you can do with brute force type magic.
Could you please do a review of the Red Queen series? I like it but I don't think it's very well written, and I'm curious to see if you have the same criticisms that I do. Great video btw!
Which Isekai have you been watching? This is the part where I type out a bloviated essay no one asked for on the subject. Instead, my TL;DR would be not that Isekai Anime suffers from a lack of plot, it is that it is ruled over by a specific series of tropes and remixes which uses the visual storytelling version of steroids to compensate for a lack of talent and technique by the author of the source material it was adapted from. Much less the limits put on it by expectations of those who consume the genre. Not unlike the criticisms of the Western Publishing Market and how it's all paint by numbers trope constructed reworkings.
Yeah probably risk aversion, publishrs trying to go on a tred no matter if a more out there ida, would be better. And i guesss capitalism, as like authors still want to sell to live. They will go there somewhat at minimum. Like character developement, would do a lot. If there is one thing you ccan be realistic-y is character developement. Take course and then settle. and maybe youcan kill but ten, dont undo it. Like why i like grimgar and fromthe summaries the bookss seem good too with them being in a weird world tht , who knows, but it deals with chracters bing realistic and growing throgh trumatic but bonding events. And its not a power fantasy. At the start, they suck. which helps feel the slowerish growth earned
I've read a few super long chinese isekai (or not necessarily going to other worlds, but still that "style") light novels. Suffering from a lack of a plot isn't entirely wrong, but I've found that for these it's more that the plot isn't very well connected. Some do have a connected plot, and good for them. But many sort of just make it all up as they go along and the plot & (and worldbuilding) suffers. "/.../ visual storytelling version of steroids to compensate for a lack of talent and technique by the author of the source material it was adapted from." Not sure about anime (I don't watch anime), but this happens in the light novels. This style of light novel absolutely just turn up the "grand (=read BIG, not cool) visuals" to get by bad writing. As for the characters JT mentioned, yeah that's a thing. The harem as well. They exist. OP MC. They absolutely need to have more relevant side characters. However: "Much less the limits put on it by expectations of those who consume the genre." I've found this as well among many fans of the mangas adapted from these light novels. It's very restricted because these people (typically sort of incel-ish, except they don't really fall into the "hate women" category, but more delusional) really don't like it when the MC isn't OP/whatever.
One of the few pieces of anime that's I've seen is the first 2, or is it 3? seasons of Bleach that were on Netflix. The main character has little personality and just moves along going from battle to battle working his way up a chain of bad guys. There's the beautiful spirit girl that is with him the whole time but they never have a relationship.
a young adult series with a very unique and interesting world to me would be the edge chronicles. there are about a dozen really cool locations, including a large balloon city, a forest that puts everything in it to sleep, a huge bottomless marsh controlled by mechanical birds, and the whole place is on the edge of a cliff so high nobody can see the bottom
Maybe it’s there because the salarymen who have no freedom at work and no life outside of work want to inflict the same thing on others in a power fantasy? (I don’t read isekai, though, so I’m not sure if it’s usually the MC doing the slaving. This is an extrapolation.)
about the magic sistems, thats why i like the magic sistem of heavens officials blessing so much, the amout of power you have is based of how many followers you have, and the main character doest not have any and have to build a temple to himself to try atract followers
Question for everybody here (James and the viewers): What if George Martin die before ending A Song of Ice and Fire, and Brandon Sanderson enter the game, the same way he done in Wheel of Time, after Jordan's death? I know that is unlikable to happen, but take your time to think about it.
I think Sanderson has gone on record as saying he doesn't like A Song of Ice and Fire very much. Also I feel that him and Martin have worldviews that are too different for either of them to accurately preserve the themes of each other's work.
While I'm a big Sanderson fan, I don't think he would be the correct writer to finish Martin's work in this fictional scenario. Their styles are just too different. The authors of The Blade Itself or Malaz are a better choice imo.
17:47 the locked tomb series is a space opera, but they have a similar magic system through necromancy !! through the essence of death essentially, necromancers are able to use their powers, and the more death present the stronger their abilities can be; what determines a person's ability to wield necromancy is their predisposition to prepetual death :))
Well, urban fantasy needs the magic to be hidden, because that's just a basic trope for the genre. Our world, but once you peel away the top layer, all the dark secrets and magic comes up. Good urban fantasy typically has at least a flimsy excuse for why it is that way, so we know the author thougth about it, but felt it wasn't too important to go deeper into, which I can respect. But if there's absoltuely no explanation, yes, the world should look and work vastly different to ours. Typically, I think it's explained by "if you piss humans off too much, they come with fire and pointy sticks", which is fair game for me.
Integrating the normal world and magical world in an Urban Fantasy story can be quite easy. The authors just have to ask themselves "what if superstitions are real?"... Ronald Reagan used astrology to plan his travel scheludes, in some parts of Europe places that allegedly have conections to the Fae world have similar goverment protections as nature reservations, all over the world hauntings affect the property value of houses and apartments, in Brazil there are Voodoo priests that charge hundreds or millions of dollars for their services and claim to have world leaders and billionaire CEOs among their clientele. Organized crime in South America is full of people who believe in pacts with the Grim Reaper. In New Orleands taxicabs are forbidden to enter certain areas because ghosts allegedly get into the cars ask to go somewhere else and dissapear without paying... there's already a world of weirdness under the surface of everyday life just waiting for an author to take it and turn it even weirder Also, watch _Trese,_ is an Urban Fantasy anime from the Fillipines were the corrupt mayor is a warlock and there's a vampire mafia and its awesome
The only isekai I've ever truly been able to get behind is Juuni Kokki (or Twelve Kingdoms) which, unfortunately, was never finished. But it wiped out most of the problems I've had with isekai. Children in the other world are grown on trees and occasionally the 'fruit' is blown into our world, and sometimes magical beings come to bring them back. Our protagonist is painfully shy, insecure, and cowardly and resists her destiny: she's the leader of a country in this other world, and without her, the land will perish. The world building is wonderfully thought out
If you think about it, the Warhammer setting is dark fantasy (grimdark fantasy, if you will) but also high fantasy because magic and elves and orks and dwarves and stuff are central, prominent parts of the setting.
One way of looking at some of the complaints that you list here could be as problems with the publishing industry: - Genres stagnating due to only a slim selection criteria for manuscripts - SJM being published under YA when that was not the target demographic, yet publishing didn't have New Adult as a genre. I don't agree that SJM was the start of YA Fantasy though. Tamora Pierce was certainly published well before any Maas works. Other big series from the 90s-2010s would be Percy Jackson, Eragon, Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games. Works by Garth Nix, Diana Wynne Jones, Eoin Colfer, Terry Pratchett, Phillip Pullman. I think YA Fantasy currently has two genres in one label, because the publishing industry has spent too-much-to-change-now in advertising smut under the wrong banner. Also, filler/bloat happens outside of fantasy. While I might understand it happening in self pub'd works (author has the final say in those, after all), I don't understand why it's happening in trad pub. I have heard one author say to combat this, he cuts 10% of his draft to ensure that it's JUST what it needs to be. If he thinks it's needed, he'll do it again. Your magic system suggestion just made me think of the main character in My Hero Academia. If you want an urban fantasy where the fantasy element is interacting with the "real world", I would recommend Holly Lisle's Devil's Point series. It's a trilogy, it's short, it's funny and the fantasy element causes much chaos for the protagonist and may others.
i don't like that in the isekais i've seen/read, they barely think about their past life. they keep pushing that the mc is just an ordinary person, but an ordinary person has family that would be devastated by their death, and that they would surely miss. they would have serious regrets about things they wish they'd done or done differently before dying young. they would be homesick for their original world. ig that kind of grief kills the wish fulfillment vibe, but it makes me side eye the mc and think they're either unbelievable or really cold
I'm not into anime but put one on, on the background recently and laughed my ass off. Realize now it was a subversion of the Isakai thing. Uncle from another dimension or whatever. It's not some cool, handsome japanese teenager. Instead it's a super ugly dude who's life revolves around the sega vs nintendo console wars. he's constantly treated like shit in the world he goes too because he's so ugly they think he's an orc.
If you’re looking for urban fantasy where the magical and mundane worlds are integrated, you usually have to go for post-apocalyptic urban fantasy, like Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series or Rebecca Roanhorse’s The Sixth World series. They both have the basic premise that magic has always existed but waned or was suppressed for most of modern history, and the recent return of magic has caused massive social upheaval. The world is still recognizable enough, but everyone has had to adjust to magic’s existence (especially when magic interferes with technology).
The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel did urban fantasy right. Magic people use to rule the world but “the change” and the sinking of Atlantis scattered them and while some were able to group up and have dominions over their former human slaves, as time went on, humans found out how to smelt and forge iron, their weakness and humans pushed them into hidden areas or pocket dimensions of their own design. Small spoiler but Hecate killed the one to discover iron smelting but it was already too late. The practice had spread. As for isekai, Re:Zero is a subtle reversal of tropes where it is a horror plot for your typical neet (shut in). A good reverse isekai in my opinion is Re:Creators.
Small nitpick but the odyssey is not an isekai it’s the same world the whole way through (unless you count Odysseus’s brief foray with the underworld, which I wouldn’t)
Subbed from this video. Point one makes me think even more how based Tolkein was. Like yes I know a billion named characters. But in lotr only a handful got real time. The rest of lore comes from adjacent and supplementary works.
It may be a subjective opinion, but some fantasy books and anime are based too much on MMOs or D&D. Sure, games are fine, but for main characters it is not game - it is life and I also want to be invested in it as if it is real. So I dislike when someone mentions levels or character classes.
in terms of isekai, i think it would be really interesting to explore the psychology and humanity of a person who's left their original world. like, wouldn't you feel really dysphoric looking in the mirror and not recognizing the face that you see? or wouldn't they miss the people they were forced to leave behind, and wouldn't they want to go back? what lengths would they go to? which could potentially get into some weird multiverse stuff. if it's a game the character was reincarnated in, i feel like it would be weird and also dissociative to realize that you're a character in a game and therefore people can be typified as like npcs; do others exist to simply serve you? i've read some stories where the main character dies in the world they were reincarnated and come back again to learn from their mistakes; it would be interesting to see the effects that would have on a person's brain where your actions (i.e, putting yourself in dangerous situations) have no consequences (if you die you just come back to life). or how can you relate or describe the feeling of your consciousness yanked out of you and then imbued into a body that isn't yours, which brings up other questions of like, where did the other consciousness go? that would probably break a person's brain. and the concept of reincarnation itself is a spiritual/religious one, but that aspect isn't explored either.
YES, please less death in low/dark fantasy! It has to actually mean something! Limiting the amount of certain elements can make even normal things hit hard; I barely watched it, but Bojack Horseman had a rule of only one hard swear a season, so even though the main characters were alcoholics and drug users and living the forgotten former celebrity lifestyle, someone doing something messed up enough to get sworn at and even end up saying they F-ed up had massive weight, where it wouldn't of if everyone swore all the time. It's close to "everyone is sexy but no one is horny"; There's so much death that has to constantly top the last death to try and one up the impact that eventually none of it matters, the audience doesn't remember torture scene #15, and they're making memes of what should be the emotional climax.
Thank you. These videos are pretty helpful. I know about some problematic tropes but not all of them cause I don’t read a ton of books. Although I probably should read more.
Honestly? Spelling and basic grammer is a big one for me. It turns into a mental editing session so a story that is well written, in the sense that basic sentence structures are used. I also hate, hate, hate! The toxic douchebag love interest. Just stop it. Or have the mc not choose the toxic love interest.
The Erdtree was inspired by Berserk. There are many, many shots/scenes from Elden Ring that are inspired/copied from Berserk (because From Software was paying respects to Miura). The Erdtree is not the only example: the Brace of the Haligtree area is 100% copied from Berserk, and Malenia wears Farnese's helmet when she is still in the Holy Iron Chain Knights.
I'd just like to say that the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries is an urban fantasy series where the mundane and magical world are actually pretty intertwined
John Gwynne's latest epic fantasy books (the bloodsworn trilogy) handle POVs perfectly, IMHO. Book 1 has 3 POVs - so it's very focused on the three main "good" characters. This makes it so much easier to empathize with, relate to, understand, and fall in love with your main characters. In book 2 he introduces 2 new POVs, but these are both from villains, so you're getting a fresh perspective and new information.
First Kill does your urban fantasy idea well. The vampire father is a DA, the children go to high school and university respectively, and they still stay unknown to the majority of the population. There’s also other kinds of magical creatures and hunters. Yes, the hunters and vampires have to interact around humans and be polite to one another to avoid arousing suspicion. It’s so good!
Supernatural horror counts as a fantasy genre and in general, I hate the trope that "evil is aesthetically displeasing". The subtropes are: -Evil is cold -Evil smells bad -The dog knows The cosmic menace is less scary when everything about it is repellent because either you learn about the evil or you just avoid instinctively anyway.
I'm a huge science fan and am a sucker for thought out scientific magic systems like Fullmetal alchemist. I don't like more fantastical magic systems as much because they are just... Unexplained? Just a preference. Like with ye ole magic system of "do cool stuff, get tired or something", I would like to see a system that does this but explains it, even if you can't get into the nitty gritty details because it wouldn't make sense for a middle age wizard to talk about how magic directly splits ATP instead of using it to generate osmotic pressure. Powerful wizards could be fat because summoning a lightning storm or throwing a giant boulder around uses lots of calories. Eragon did this to a certain degree, lifting an object with magic might be more convenient or precise, but consumes as much energy as doing it normally. Also it is indirectly said there that once a guy used magic to blow himself up nuclearly and irradiated an entire island. Another gripe I have with the high fantasy classic european medieval setting is just how, especially in (Isekai) anime the cities are just so... Clean. There are no deathly ill people around, the disease rate is low and the streets aren't made out of meters of compressed shit. Now the author could easily explain that by, say, magic cleanup crews or magic-aided research into biology and finding out that, hey, making our streets out if infected feces might not be a good idea but it's barely done. Also for more advanced magical societies I really like seeing magic incorporated into the scientific problemsolving process since technological advance is not linear, but problem oriented. Instead of a predetermined tech tree you have the process of "I have a problem -> I (re)search for ways to solve that problem -> I make a solution to that problem, be it machine, procedure or chemical -> I solved the problem, perhaps with other ramifications". The legend of Korra did that quite well in some aspects like there are no asphalted roads because you have magic dirt move people, there are no guns or cannons because you have magic fire people and so on. This process of almost simulating researchers and societal ramifications is also the reason why urban fantasy, which has to play in a world similar to ours by definition, often separates its magical from its mundane (our) world because if magic was integrated into the normal world long ago, it wouldn't stay normal for long due to events playing out completely different and the technoligical landscape (the techscape?) being wildly different too because why use combustion engine when can have magic self-driving carriage? Running through the history of an entire magical society since the middle ages, researching their problems and inventing new magical solutions is VERY hard work where you could also risk ruining your storyline and premise because some problems you want the protagonist(s) to face should realistically have been magitechnically solved a long time ago. This separation is also one of the larger points of discussion in Harry Potter (and urban fantasy in general) because how would a secret magic world stay secret for long if there are not only millions of people who could potentially spill the beans but also magic people being born into regular society, how would the wizarding world stay secret for long, especially in the information age? I also would like more stories (or story bits/details) about normal/magical people adapting to the possibilities of their new world (if magic and technology aren't fundamentally incompatible. If your magic short circuits or EMPs every device newer than the lightbulb then that throws interesting ideas out the window. How would a wizard think of modern transport or the marvel/mess that is the internet? How and what aspects of modern life would they use in their day? Will we see PDF spellbooks? We have more stories of a normal guy being confronted with magic (due to it being convenient. You can diagetically worldbuild for the audience/reader because there is a character who has exactly as much idea what's going on as them, Zero) than a magical being learning about Windows and the machine that is surprisingly good at the simplest (and not so simplest) of tasks and can remember and recall tons of information in short time. Would the immortal Beings be concerned at how quickly everything is changing around them? We had big bulky matrix boxes and brick phones 20-30 years ago (a blink of an eye for an Immortal) and today I can watch a musician who has been dead for 20 years sing a convincing cover of the Five Nights at Freddy's song. Do magical beings have problems with how fast and easy information is to spread and how hard it is to delete or do they adapt accordingly? I could imagine wizards making a Wikipedia of magical beings, events of the fantastic world and spells all the while masking it as an expansive book/Videogame universe. There is a spark of truth in every conspiracy and the SCP wiki is starting to look suspicious... Some conflict can arise between more mundane and more magical oriented people/factions. I mean, I would assume that the amount of Muggle-born who take up fulltime magical jobs and migrate entirely to the Wizarding world is decreasing, right? Up until recently the muggle world was very boring, everything you had there you have in the magical world, and more! But I would imagine a new Hogwarts student moaning upon seeing that not only has Hogwarts absolutely no WIFI (I will miss out on the MEMES!) but their library is wildly more search intensive than Wikipedia. Wouldn't more people live a half life, taking the best of both worlds? (and yes, I know Harry Potter is a children's book but I will not stop argumenting and theorizing about it since it's fun) In conclusion, I really like science and technology (big machines are cool and when you think about it, the devices we use are marvels of development and engineering) and by extension am a fan of scientific oriented magic systems and urban fantasy authors who put way too much effort into their worldbuilding, even though I've never read any of those books as far as I know and even though I know these books will remain few and far between since the effort put into writing them and making sure they are good must be immense. It's similar to the new Spider-man movie where the authors realized how absolutely overpowered on-demand portals are and how someone with a functioning brain and some creativity would use them. Thank you for reading my science rant and feel free to comment and recommend fantasy to me!
Maybe the most obvious recommendation, especially for someone who is "over-recommended" online, but have you read any Sanderson? All of his cosmere magic follows consistent and logical structure ("hard magic"), even if it isn't always obvious to the characters in the story, though they tend to learn the rules of the magic system over time.
In the fantasy series im writing, someone mentioned a "Flaw" in saying "dude your main cast is too small and introducing a new main character in every installment is wrong" That was paraphrased. But i was like "If i added too much i would lose interest. Wouldnt my readers?
I found something interesting relating to isikai The CYOA Reddit is basically build your own op isikai character from all these options and the outer reincarnation CYOA is you get all these cool options but screw you another person got isikai'd before you and became a gods and hates you on principle so you have to pick the orc race for immunity to her mind hax and even then you aren't going to win and you're fated to die
Instead of "trim down cast" how about finish the series before writing. That way you can look at your work as a cohesive whole and better edit before releasing.
I have good memories of YA like the Knights of Emerald by Anne Robillard and the Quest of Ewilan by Pierre Boterro Might not have been translated into English, but these were my favorites growing up
I'm reading the Way of Kings for the first time and the epic fantasy bloat is real. I'm liking it slightly better than Mistborn so far (the Well of Ascension is literally one of the most boring books ever) but I'm still kinda disappointed :( I really want to understand the Sanderson hype but the man DOES NOT shut up about the most trivial things.
17:45 Something like that was done in The Wolf and the Woodsman. I never finished it, so I don't know all the details, but mutilating yourself gave you a magical boost. It didn't work if someone else mutilated you, and that was a plot point.
Summary: High Fantasy tends to be too bloated, the solution is to trim down the cast, sometimes as much as -90%. Young adult fantasy tends to have too small of a cast (90% of stuff happens to the same people as if there's nothing going on in the world at large) but mote importantly YA lacks originality in terms of setting and magic systems. The solution is to experiment more and play with the fabrasy genre. Urban fantasy has the mundane and hidden worlds way too separated. The solution is to have the two worlds interact more, even in subtle ways. Isekai is often plotless, the solution is to add stakes and objectives for the main character from the get go. Dark fantasy tends to be edgy instead of dark, the solution is less character deaths and more meaningful deaths. Low fantasy tends to habe too little fantasy. The solution is to amp up the amount of magic and the part it plays. And/or to have the whole plot revolve around the little magic that there is.
This is one of the reasons why I consider the first five books of the urban fantasy apocalyptical / post apocalyptical Darkfever series to be good. Yes, the series takes place in Ireland, primarily but the author makes sure to give the POV character glimpses of parts of the world as people learn to cope and fight back against the fae realms (yes, realms) integrating themselves into ours. The cast is large but not so large that you don't struggle to keep up with them. Although the series goes beyond book 5; reading to book 5 gives you a basically complete story with a conclusion even if it doesn't wrap it up in pretty ribbon. (but caveat, these books should come with a NSFW warning)
With the bit at the end about magical people being oppressed "not making sense", it doesn't make sense if there's more mages than non-mages. At least to me. It makes perfect sense that you'd oppress someone who can literally bend reality to their will and shoot fire out of their hands, especially when you can't do that yourself. You don't want to be on the receiving end of that fire.
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So that not just you can play with yourself...
"What if Vampires controlled the Stockmarket"---*small Pause* 😂
Do a video on science fantasy please 🙏 🧬🦄
Oddly enough for Isekai it's not usually a teenager or not just a teenager, unless that teen is Average Mctoastman, they are often lonely old men who have nothing and who's death wouldn't do that much to disturb their neighborhood.
blank slate? have you seen/read eminence in shadow?
Cid is a fuckin sociopath/psychopath before reincarnation
Your Vampires control the stock market should unironically be the standard for modern urban fantasy like that. The arch type of the vampire is to represent the distant and aloof old powers, such as the nobility of the old world. In a modern fantasy, a Gilded Age vampire in a manor who owns a Rockefeller style cooperate empire, and massive stock portfolio is the perfect representation of them. Bound by weird archaic rules that no one understands, but likewise in their immortality they don't understand the world either.
World of Darkness W
@@SilverHedgehog420Lmao I was just about to say that. World of Darkness is a perfect example of vampires secretly influencing human society.
Not to mention both vampires and corporate owners are parasites.
@@nobody4248world of darkness took this concept further and had an equal amount of vampires as crazy homeless people or seemingly normal humans. That's because the point of that franchise was blurring the lines between fictional monster and real mortal. They turned vampire courts into corporate rat-races. They turned werewolf packs into angry serial killing terrorists.
The sexy and/or brooding loner/outcast is a very popular archetype for the vampire as well.
My problem with isekai (or power fantasy webnovels in general really), is that they concentrate all the specialness in the setting onto the main character and then there's no other character that's allowed to be cool. It doesn't matter how many badass scenes the main character gets when all the other characters are pathetic. The more cool characters there are in the story, the cooler the story as a whole becomes.
I don't understand why this mistake gets made so often, because if you read the shonen manga that inspire these stories, all of them have a memorable scene or two where a side character becomes beloved for doing something badass that the main character couldn't do
Asuna Syndrome: where a highly competent character gets lobotomised when they become the main character's friend, since we can't have anyone upstaging the hero!
read re:zero if u want a main character who constantly gets out shined by literally everyone else in the story lol
@@vainglory-di6or Pretty much but I'll take that and his honing than ultra powerful hero from the jump!
Just look at the MCU and the character of Bucky Barnes. He kicks ass in the Winter Soldier. Then is watered down to "good, but not great" in the later movies.
@@tonym.8069 agreed
The magic people are oppressed because OBVIOUSLY our main character needs to be one of the genetically superior group, but they also have to be an underdog. You can call this the undergod: a character who is inexplicably both gifted and ostracised.
Let's see, stuff I don't like:
- Big armies of unnamed characters dying, as though we're going to care just because they put a big number on it. One guy we know dying is more emotionally resonant than a million guys we don't.
- Worldbuilding elements that ought to significantly affect the structure of society that just don't. If there are giants in your world that breaks almost everything, please stop putting them in as an afterthought. If there's a spell to unlock doors then people wouldn't bother with locks. Don't just copy stuff over from our world without thinking.
- Trying to do eldritch horror but instead just doing fish monsters and kaiju. It's actually not an unknowable horror if you can kill it with bullets.
The thing is,yeah you can make anything kaiju, it is even not bad to go ham on kaiju, but you really are going ham with using gigantic,what the hell, be creative.
And eldrich horror, yeah, is not a kaiju. kaiju are ham now, not scary. Unless of course the society lacks means to have modern weaponry. Also why not a gigant tigr or cat or rat, ..
And the affect on the world, monster hunter did that right.
Or if that kaiju iss there, they just get out of the way and move elsewherre and stay moile in the region and it shaped the socity topartly normads.
“Uh so in my world, because lockpicking spells exist, right? So like, people just don’t lock up anything, because, like, why would they even bother?”
If you unironically believe that would happen then you’re a fucking moron. You talk about lazy worldbuilding, but that is lazy AND stupid. If you actually included that in a story, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Anybody can buy a lockpicking kit online and spend 30 minutes learning to pick the simple lock on your door.
Unless everyone can do magic, people would still use locks.
That was one thing that bugged me about "Children of Blood and Bone", too. I guess the author wanted to draw parallels to anti-Black racism, or alternatively the stigmatization of people with albinism in many African countries, but I agree that magic users would be more likely to dominate a hierarchy than be oppressed.
To develop the spell to unlock doors you'd first have to *need* to unlock doors. If no one had locks, no one would learn the spell- And so it would be forgotten, and locks would be useful again. To add to this, does everyone know this spell? Because a lot of locks IRL are very pickable by someone who knows what they're doing, but you're not specifically trying to keep them out- You're trying to keep as many people out as possible. If everyone, literally everyone, can get past any lock then, yeah, it's not a good investment. If you're keeping out even just 60% of people? That sure as hell works.
I’m writing a dystopian fantasy series where the magic used is channeled through the person’s nervous system. This would grant the user magical abilities but using too much too often would result in nerve damage, migraines, mood swings, decreased motor and bodily functions as well as an increased likelihood of developing severe cognitive and mental disorders later in life such as dementia and Alzheimer’s and in extreme cases, using too much can even result in either brain damage or brain death.
I love this idea, great way to explore disability and also trauma with its many effects on the nervous system. You could even have characters with neurological damage/illness be pre disposed to being able to channel that magic.
That’s really creative. I like it.
@@Reed5016 thanks, there are other things about the magic system but that’s the greatest weakness to it.
Pretty cool and original idea. I’ll come back in a few years to ask if anything has become of your story, if I still remember it.
@@creepyreflection8072 hopefully it will come out this year, early next year at the latest.
I want isekai to work harder to justify the isekai. WHY does this world need to summon a hero from Earth? Don't they have local options? WHY does Joe Middle Management get special reincarnation privileges? "The bad guys screwed up a summoning ritual" is the most effort I usually see.
I didn't watch it, but I remember reading about an anime where somebody assassinates all the isekai dudes because they cause more trouble than they solve. That's how I feel about it most of the time.
I feel it's at its best when the protagonist isn't summoned in particular, but either their actions by accident or the actions of someone else put them in that situation. Though maybe studio ghibli films don't count, that's mostly what I'm thinking of
Althought the _Chronicles of Thomas Covenant_ books are very bad, their justification for why the fantasy world needs a regular human from our world as their chosen one is interesting. In the fantasy world of those novels, free will is very limited because everybody is either born alligned to the light or to the darkness, so after centuries of war good and evil are at an stalemate and the only one who can break it is a person from another, more morally gray world
That anime might be "The Executioner and Her Way of Life"
Idea; He get summoned by some scientist for researching but Isekai dude get offended, escapes, and will come back for revenge.
How about an isekai where they actually recruit the guy who beats the crap out of the drippy otaku kids to help them because shota-kun who tugs it in 7-11 to the girly mags he can't afford is legitimately not gonna save the kingdom and princess.
The "cut your arm off to do magic" is pretty close to Dorohedoro, where magic runs on "smoke", which comes from the blood of magic users. So to access it many magic users make holes in their bodies. One character cut his fingers off and stitched them back on. Dorohedoro is absolutely nuts.
You are forgetting that Shin is the only guy who had to do that because he is halfblood. Every other mage can use smoke just fine without any modifications.
Considering the Middle Ages lasted 1000 years, that's a huge chunk of Europe's written history. It's not that surprising that so many stories have such a setting, since it covers so much time. And even when some stories are set just after the Middle Ages, sometimes it can be hard to tell unless you're a historian. ASOIAF, for example, has a lot of post-medieval features, but most people will call it medieval just because there are knights and kings, even though those classically medieval aspects also exist after the Middle Ages.
It's "medieval" because it doesn't have any guns, which is by far the most telling trait. The reason stories are set in that period is because of Romanticism, which came about in reaction to the industrial revolution. Guns are not magical. Swords are magical.
@@PlatinumAltaria But thre iss plenty before that, and most of the time its not from history anyways. A lot would be more interesting if authors took a lot from history and do history research, And probably the not so common too, and not the big man history would help. How did pople live, what weird events did happen,
And not that you have slavish adhere to tht, but thats would add a lot that usually isnt there. And a lot sources ar lost or partly, but the partly like copuld have imagination filled in.
i mean the manga kingdom does that and its good. And yeah you could steal weird but defining characteristics, from history.
GRR martin like didnt only took from fantasy but also history.
Europe in 476 and Europe in 1476 would be recognisably different to the average viewer in 2023
The trouble is it's very generic medieval fantasy. If the writer researches a specific region of Europe and specific time period, it's going to be cooler and more unique feeling. Many medieval fantasy stories feel like the author only knows the setting from other medieval fantasy books.
@@PlatinumAltariaguns... Existed long before the industrial revolution- and frankly you can make guns magical
It just takes some work and creative planning.
One thing i especially hate about the 'the magic people are oppressed' is because it kind of garbles the entire metaphor. Like, the whole thing with real world racism is that it's pointless, baseless, and wrong; people of different races are different in phenotype and culture, but not in capabilities. if the oppressed class in your fantasy world can turn into bears and maul people randomly, or can accidentally shoot fireballs that explode crowds of people, there's actually a reason for others to fear them. This is why stuff like zootopia or Bright or that awful show about the zombies doesn't really work. if the other side has a point in your racism metaphor, you did a bad job.
Yeah, in a world where, lets say, humans have to study for years to cast magic while generic fantasy elves can do so from birth, discrimination makes a lot more sense than real world racism, which as you say is baseless.
But we also shouldnt compare apples and oranges. We shouldnt call discrimination based on 'innate magical talent' racism, unless the author speciffically wrote a story of oppression as an analogy to real world racism and just messed it up.
while I do somewhat agree with you, I also think the idea that "you did a bad job if the other side has a point in it's racism is wrong", like recently I think attack on titan did this really well, where you could say the eldians are oppressed because of the sins of their ancestors, you can tell their is a reason for the marleyans to fear the eldians, but instead of them being scared of eldians they actually use them for there own gain. Even if their is a danger of an eldian turning into a titan(there usually wasn't), marley was never justified in it's oppression of eldians due to the sins of their ancestors. I think as long as it shows that their reasoning is wrong and that you can't hate a group of people for it, I think the idea is not inherently bad.
@@kabirarya5381 Attack on Titan is deeply fascist, antisemitic (aren't titans mentioned to be made from jewish people at one point?), and written by an anti-Korean Japanese nationalist, so I don’t really think it has a good racism metaphor
One interesting way I've seen it done is using the fact that they actually are different to highlight how minorities excelling at anything is seen as a threat because minorities existing is seen as a threat in general. Like, I think the story was about African American Super-powered kids, but it was a metaphor for like how tons of kids are pushed into athletics just to have the slimmest chance at going to college or even rarer going pro, and people love them being stronger and faster than everyone else, but if they just saw a athletic looking minority without knowing they're an athlete or anything, tons of those very same "fans" would treat them as a dangerous threat. I think the trope can work, it just needs to move past the "everyone is the same" message and take up the message "minorities excelling isn't a threat and people are different but no one, not even people so radically different from you should have to live with a target on their back for trying to walk the fine line between being the successful and model minority they have to act like to survive and avoiding doing too well and getting dehumanized or treated like a inherently dangerous being"
TheLuckOfTheClaws: I kind of agree and disagree at the same time. Like I agree that a world like that would make it more understandable for people to fear them, but it wouldn't make it morally okay to oppress them, as long as you're writing the characters as actual human beings. So I think there is something interesting that can be done there with the conflict between fearing these people because they have powers, while on the flip side many of them might have done nothing wrong and are being oppressed for something they can't control, it's an interesting theme that I don't think I've seen done justice before.
8:00 similar to how ASOIAF and Stormlight will introduce a character for a single chapter to fill us in on a plot point that none of the main characters could be there for, before leaving them alone and going back to the original story. Sometimes even just killing them off so the story doesnt get hung up on giving "right place right time merchant" a whole wikipedia page
E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroborous does this. Arguably the best chapter in the book is a recount of a large battle by a young soldier who was there. He's only in that one chapter.
I will not stand for this Rysn slander lol
@@riley8385 her I at least SUSPECT will be more important later (unless something happens in rhythm of war which I haven't read yet ._.)
I'd like to see more fantasy stuff tackle 1800s Europe-style settings. Not on the technological side but rather politically, a really unstable setting with constant rebellions and revolutions and changing territory and such. Where the nobility are scared and desperately clinging onto their power amidst their cousin-brother-uncles overseas being overthrown. At most you get, like, one revolution, and it's the main character doing it (or putting a stop to it).
On the isekai side, the main problem I'd say is how all the settings just work like a videogame. Even in the better ones there's rarely any attempt whatsoever to actually make a world or setting rules or anything, they always just are about literal measurable stats and levels and adventurer's guild ranks and all that rubbish.
Perhaps the manga "Requiem of the Rose King" by Aya Kanno might interest you. It's dark fantasy but takes place around 1400s during Wars of the Roses. The plot pretty much revolves around how the main character (and their political opponents) rises in power to the throne with the good old royal back-stabbing routine. I must warn you though it's also explores romance and sexuality here and there, in case you're only interested in the politics. I wouldn't say those parts weren't necessary or out of place just for the sake of being there because it actually contributed to the whole plot.
I mean the second trilogy by Joe Abercrombie is a pretty good Industrial Revolution era fantasy with a stark political side
My biggest problem with isekai is that if you fix a lot of the common flaws, add a plot, interesting world building, character development wtc, u run into the question of why wasn't this just a fantasy series. Why'd the mc have to be from another world
Try Mushoku Tensei. It's actually pretty important that the main character is from another world, not only to the world setting and plot, but also to the character and a theme of the story.
@@TheRedHaze3 mushoku tensei is also interesting since it's kinda the common ancestor of modern OP protag isekai
The reason Isekai stories are popular in Japan is because they are bought, read and enjoyed by salarymen, who work dead end jobs with unpaid overtime, requirement of going for drinks with bosses after that unpaid overtime, long commute times and all of it boils to no social life for friends, no time for hobbies and no love life. They don't really live outside working. So isekai stories offer a distraction, an imitation of a happy life, they get all the freedom to do what they could not in their old life, be respected, valued, socialize with new friends, meet girls and build a love life with them in a form of harem, even when it's just dangled in front of the MC and us readers until the very end of story, become the OP hero to save a town/nation/world from generic bad guys.
Also why would they want to return to their original world where they just work with no end in sight, aren't desirable by women, so no love later family life. In another world they get their wish - a happy life with no hardship.
Many isekai are like that, but there is also a ton of them that are not of this type.
The most interesting and least problematic isekai are those written by women.
Yeah, the best Isekais are the ones who attack that same escapism and make it a central point In their story
An important note about unique magic systems is to focus in on exploring the logical results of the base concept before you add more stuff. If your magic relies on self-harm, what does that mean, not just for wizards, but for society?
Guards check newcomers for scars, cause most mages cut themselves on the arms.
An order of assassins has mastered the art of invisible harm. They take a simple pill that causes gradual internal bleeding with no exterior side affects. None of them live past thirty, but they always get their target.
Old wizards live as mentors alone, as even simple spellcasting risks a horrible death from infection with their weakened immune systems.
An order of monks believes self-harm to be a sin, but are master wizards. No one dares lay a finger on them, for if you cut them they can unleash the power of your own strike back upon you tenfold.
An old warrior teaches the main character a useful trick. If you exert yourself for extended periods you can wield the burning of your muscles as magical power. It might be a tiny trickle, but you can reinvest it back into moving your body to grant you unimaginable endurance.
I really love the way you expanded on the idea!
I once had a silly idea about a story set in a fantasy world based on the mid to late 1920s where an 800 year old vampire who has been a soldier most of her life must, under orders from her superiors in the army, infiltrate a high school to protect a boy suspected of having special powers from enemy espionage rings, organized crime groups and shadowy cults.
The POV would be mainly split between the Vampire and the boy's best friend.
Feel free to use this idea.
Absolutely baller
Fantasy doesn't have to be a continent-wide epic. It can be set in a single city, or even better, one district of a city. There needs to be more domestic fantasy in general. Idk why there aren't more stories about, say, an orc and a human genuinely falling in love and having their own generational story about their children and grandchildren and their trials and tribulations. If you must have magic, you can have it as simple as using a spell to help churn butter, or light a hearth fire.
as far as I know, that's cozy fantasy. (and most of its probably tripe though)
@@katka8490 "probably" tripe? So you haven't read any?
The original World of Darkness RPGs were actually pretty good Urban Fantasy in the way they integrated the secret magic people and the mundane world.
i'm not very familiar with the original WoD, but I was super into Changeling the Lost for a while, and I thought the way it made the division between the fantasy world and the 'real' world into part of the abuse metaphor was really great. Because you are Irrevocably Changed, you have been Fucked Up by Something You Were Powerless To Stop....... and nobody can even tell. You look normal. It's convenient to be able to move through the human world without looking like a monster -- but the damage you suffered is invisible to everyone even though it is affecting you constantly in really intense ways
Out of all the WoD stuff I've heard of so far, Mage the Ascension piques my interest the most.
A good example of urban fantasy, would be the World of Darkness, where vampires, werewolves, ghosts, wizards and whatever else move and scheme in the shadows of mortal society.
Who is the author I can't find it in goodreads
@@Mykye it's not a book. It's a tabletop rpg
@@Mykye More like an entire transmedia franchise that spun out of it's debut TTRPG, _Vampire: The Masquerade,_ followed up by _Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Wraith: The Oblivion, Changeling: The Dreaming_ and _Mage: The Ascension._
The transmedia arm of the franchise includes *_books,_* comics, PC and Console Games (the most infamous of which is 2004's _Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines_ which is soon about it recieive it's long awaited sequel _Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2_), TTRPG Long/Actual plays that you can watch _*_right here_*_ on RUclips (the most well known of them being _Vampire: The Masquerade - LA by Night_ of which is a _soft_ sequel to the original Bloodlines game) and there was talk of 'World of Darkness Live Action projects' being in the works back in 2021 but it remains to be seen as to whether or not such things will come to fruition.
But it seems like you're more interested in books. There's a collection of short stories in audiobook form called _Vampire: The Masquerade - Walk Among Us_ and there's also a visual novel called _Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York_ and it's DLC _Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York_ if that is more your sort of thing.
But yea, simply saying that WoD is a TTRPG is selling it *_extremely_* short!
Honestly, you REALLY need to read more Young Adult Fantasy. While I agree about the more "big name" examples, there are plenty of other stories that don't fit that mold. Six of Crows, Cinder, We Hunt the Flame, Cemetery Boys, and plenty more. You just to need to seek out the lesser known shit.
Six of crows is so good, it became the best part of a tv show that isn't even about six of crows
Scythe is sc-fi. Its amazing, but still sc-fi.
Six of Crows is very well known and I think he wouldn't like it as it's basically fantasy Peaky Blinders with a lil Locke Lamora in the mix James is a very critical reader and SoC has a lot of tropes wouldn't surprise me if he rips it to shreds
Totally agree. To say they all have toxic romance is just not true if you try things like clockwork angel, Graceling, the lunar chronicles etc. And to say that all of the main characters are OP and one dimensional as “the chosen one” is also not taking into account a lot of YA fantasy like Poppy war and the Cruel Prince, angelfall, Steelheart and The rest of us just live here etc. it’s not a super unique or deep take to hate on YA for the books that have problems and ignore the rest
The young adult genre problem is the same problem I have with video games. I rapidly lose the ability to take a narrative seriously when the player is the only competent or relevant character in the setting. Skyrim is a great example of this. The player becomes the leader of the Companions, the Mages College, the Thieves Guild, the Dark Brotherhood, the Blades, and becomes Thane of every hold. And you can achieve these lofty titles with basically zero effort. You can become head of the College of Winterhold with no magical skills, provided you can find some way to bullshit your way through the "cast babies first spell" check at the gate.
Sorry for responding on a 4 month old commnet, but I would highly reccomend the older Elder Scrolls games (If you can get over the graphics and them being less user friendly). Because they do make the factions feel like they aren't just there to satisfy the player. The example I use is how to enter the factions in Skyrim vs Oblivion. In Skyrim to join the secret assassins club you just talk to any tavern owner who points you to the first quest, or just walk into windhelm and someone will point you to the first quest. In Obilivion you need to kill somone...anyone. Just murder an NPC (not sure on the specifics but Bandits or villians in quests won't cut it. It has to be an innocent). And then you are contacted and sent on the first mission.
In Morrowind, the fighters guild and the theieves guild are muturally exclusive. They are hostile factions with each other and thus you can't just become the ruler of the world, but have to tailor the factions you join based on your character.
Also random fact, the 'cast babies first spell' check at the start can be skipped without magic but it is literally the ONLY level 100 Speech check in the entire game!
"what if there was a power system that was built around damaging yourself" NO BUT I HAD THIS IDEA LIKE A COUPLE YEARS AGO BUT I HAVENT BEEN ABLE TO FIT IT INTO ONE OF MY STORIES YET ty for also thinking of it that's awesome c:
Going to pretend I didn't hear that Winds of winter comment and keep watching with tears in my eyes
Me too 😢 but I'm re-reading A Feast For Crows now and Cersei giving the Sparrow power is going to take a book or two to wrap up.
GRRM created way too many plots to wrap them all up in two books.
You have:
- Greyjoy plot
- Stannis and The North
- Jon/The Wall/Willing/Whitewalkers
- Dany’s Plot
- Dorne Plot
- Aegon/Varys Plot
- Lady Stoneheart
- Arya
- Sansa
- Bran
I think Chainsaw Man is a good example on how to integrate the magic in a urban fantasy setting.
All I could think of in the Urban fantasy section was an evil Mayor “that just.. wants to be a really big snake.“
That's just Orochimaru
@@riley8385 Urban Fantasy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not Naruto. Naruto isn't Urban Fantasy.
@@sevntohno8728 No shit, Sherlock.
Ok, imma make sure to include all these flaws and annoying tropes in my next epic young adult isekai!
Needs to also be DARK and in an urban setting!
Absolute power move
don't forget the LOVE TRIANGLE!
The magic people are oppressed makes sense if you want to be like the special people and view what pains they have to go through by the mindless hoard. Escapism at its finest.
I've read a lot of fantasy (no YA) and there seems to be a lot of youngsters going off to some kind of school where they are trained by a teacher that hates them, with a teacher that likes them and there is always a bully with his pack. Her pack in the case of the Red Sister. Then the flip side is the contest books. People seem to either want to rewrite Harry Potter or the Hunger Games.
This is why a book like The Traitor Baru Cormorant is so great. It is something you don't see very often.
On the magic system idea, there is an anime (Darker than Black) which does something similar. After using your power one has to injure themselves in a specific way (breaking your finger or smoking, for example). So that might interest you.
YESSSSS lover Darker than Black, the OP is still great
@@tonym.8069 JUST HOWLING IN THE SHADOOOOOOOOWS
Man it's been a while since I seen that one was pretty great the abridged version too.
The character with the cigaretts didn't have to smoke, he (I believe) had to *eat* cigaretts everytime he used his powers, which is a lot more damaging than regular smoking.
If I may toot my own horn for a moment, the fantasy novel I've started working on this year has tribal humans coexisting with (non-avian) dinosaurs, with the main antagonist being a shaman possessed by a malevolent god of extraterrestrial origin. The protagonist's mission is to summon another god from a nearby volcano to counter the antagonist's god. I haven't really thought about what established subgenre of fantasy it would fit into, but I guess the "save the world from an evil god" theme makes it closer to epic fantasy than anything else.
Sounds interesting!
Makes me think of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
No idea about a subgenre, though. Just "fantasy" I guss.
Loved all your points, James. Fantasy is my favorite genre and it definitely needs some fresh ideas.
Oh, and when you were discussing how to improve Isekai stories, it brought to mind this Chinese series "Scum Villain Self-Saving System" by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu that I read recently and is definitely worth checking out. It counts as an Isekai because, obviously, the protagonist is someone from the modern world who gets transported into a fantasy world of a book series (a series he, himself, had been furiously ranting about and deriding as power fantasy BS). When he arrives, a thing referred to as the "System" guides his actions with video game rules as he tries to improve the story, as well as avoid dying because he incarnated into the body of the most hated villain who is supposed to get his arms and legs ripped off at the end. It's honestly a bit of a trip and it's so weird and crazy that I half-thought I was having a fever dream at times. Also, it subverts the harem trope hard, which is always a plus.
orv too!!
A solution to Isekai: Don't have the main character buy slaves! None of that "Yes I'm buying people but I will be a good slave owner!" It's so annoying that some of the main character's first companions of those he bought and have no choice but to follow him.
When it comes to Epic Fantasy bloat I think Malazan manages it the best. It is 10 long books with hundreds of characters and several continents. Yet Erikson never makes it feel like he is dragging his feet. Plot points are constantly happening then being addressed, new ideas are established quickly and with as much fanfare as the setting would deem. All while making all the main cast feel real and active in the story. He does more in one chapter than what most authors would take 300 pages to set up.
Similar to the injuring yourself magic system, after thinking about and doing very small amounts of research on the history of human and blood sacrifices, I created a magic system that involved life energy that's in all living things that can be converted into different effects depending on rituals that a lot of the time are tied to secret family lineages.
Fun examples of things I thought of, any time someone was no longer capable of supporting their village they could sacrifice their life force to the village protector, strengthening him to defend against monsters
A lineage of actual vampires and ghouls and stuff that were created through a long history of doing blood specific rituals
Demons created through a long life of stealing life from those unwilling
A church that takes care of orphans only to have them sacrifice all but 5 years of their lifespan to gain unimaginable strength. Except that the priests take a lot of this life force for themselves to keep control over these paladins.
there was an odd little romance book i read last year called Must Love Fangs by Jessica Sims. i thought it was one of those like $5 books that middle-aged moms get at like the supermarket or whatever, but this one was surprisingly fun because of the concept. The main character is a human who works in a supernatural dating service, but she gets diagnosed with Fatal familial insomnia (FFI) which is the inability to sleep which would eventually lead to an early death. To cure this, she decides to set herself up on dates with some of her workplace's supernatural clients, because she thinks that becoming supernatural would enable her to escape her illness (and death, if she gets bitten by a vampire). The characters are pretty interesting and funny, too, and it was a fun read for me overall. I liked that the plot wasn't about some big world-threatening thing, and I liked that even though it's technically part of a series I could read it as a one-off just fine.
This reminds me of a (probably) similar book called "How to marry a millionaire Vampire" (iirc). Great title btw. Definetly not a spoiler. The main plot is basically: 'Vampire looses a fang and has to get a dentist to fix it before the night is over.'
"Look, it's me!"
I watched all Child's Play movies. I know what is coming...
With Urban Fantasy, it'd be fun to read one where the magic world isn't hidden. Like,
Aw dude, you got bit by a werewolf? That sucks man.
Or,
I saw a dragon, just hope it isnt flying to the bank, seen that way too many times.
Or,
Wow! This eldritch beast is so much more terrifying than they say!
DEDA Files by Yahtzee Croshaw is about the magic world being exposed to the public. It's pretty funny.
What I'd like to add about Isekai: A lot of the time, there's no good reason why protagonist-kun has to come from earth to the other world. Also the the fact that they have been isekai'd is barely relevant to the plot. It seems the isekai is just to facilitate the reader's wish fulfilment and self-insert. It's gotten old.
Also, whenever being from the other world actually IS relevant, it's usually because the protagonist is unusually obsessed with a specific technology or field of science and reinvents that technology in the other world, giving him a great advantage. This is cool, but I don't like how no one in the other world seems to adapt with or come up with ways to counter this technology. You hardly ever feel there's a challenge for the protagonist.
Here's an Isekai setup I came up with (and feel free to use this):
A group of junior army officers and their subordinates during WWI are retreating on a supply barge across the lake. An artillery shell was about to hit them when it was struck by lightning. Somehow it resulted in the barge being isekai'd along with everyone and everything in it. They woke up in an unfamiliar shore. They slowly understand their situation. Their "Multiversal Transportation" as they call it, was the result of a magical experiment gone wrong. Even worse, a group of inquisitors from the dominant religion of the other world is hunting them down because of their otherwordly origin to "maintain cosmic order", they specialize in this and can quickly adapt to whatever surprises otherworlders bring with them.
Now the officers must find a way to go back home. Learning and researching about magic relevant to multiversal transportation however they can. All the while living on the run from the inquisitors. They also have to manage scarce resources to maintain the technology they happen to have with them because it's not readily available in the magic-oriented and non-industrialized otherworld.
With this:
- The plot is driven by the fact that they want to go home
- There's a sense of urgency because they're being hunted
- There's pressure because their modern technology can only help so much when they're outnumbered or outpowered by magic. So they have to use it sparingly and as effectively as possible.
Edit:
- The inquisitors are also well experienced in dealing with otherworlders, so they know to be careful and adapt quickly with whatever otherworlders bring to the table. So our heroes must also be careful not to reveal their tricks too early, too often, or too recklessly
Well tanya rhe tale of evil is good it he isekai by god to 1914 europe yep it swapgender. In this world every nation have mage and war tactic very mixture with ww1 and ww2
@@runajain5773 Yeah I've seen that too. One of my favorites.
reminds me of the destroyermen series and similar works from the same author.
There are a few book series like that with magic and mundane together in urban fantasy. There is also Shadowrun, a very old cyberpunk + magic RPG that came out in the late eighties/early nineties. Both have super integrated magic/mundane worlds. In Shadowrun, magic has even been corportized. Outside of those, it is annoyingly rare to see magic and mundane together.
Taking notes as I go:
4:32 I think indulgence in writing can be cool, sometimes. Malazan pulled it off pretty well, but I kind of get James' frustration here, too. Sometimes you make it 2/3 of the way through MGS V and just want it to end...
6:52 Ward by Wildbow might've done something like this, I think... a lot of named characters from Worm just kind of don't show up again, leading us to assume that they died or just aren't around. Either way, it benefitted the more character-focused sequel.
14:30 While I ultimately agree (all of the crazy fantasy locations I can think of are firmly outside the realm of YA), I'm of the opinion that it's a better indicator of writing skill to have a normal-ish location and flesh it out; make it more interesting over time. Brockton Bay from Worm (probably not YA but bear with me) is just a normal northeastern US city, but gains character, features and damage as the story progresses.
20:50 I think a lot of fantasy that does this excuse it better than James is giving it credit for. In Fate, for example, magic is only as strong as the amount of Mystery remaining in the world, so if magic became widely public and more people learned about it, Mystery would weaken and magic would become useless.
28:55 GoT, First Law, Age of Madness, Malazan, etc.... I dunno, I feel like at least the big names in this category handle themselves pretty well in this regard.
One Piece is also a great example of a magic system where there's risk-reward. In a world where it's like 10% land 90% water, mostly it being the sea, if you want the crazy devil fruit powers you become a hammer in the ocean. I do wish or hope Oda flips this though, it isn't because the Devil of the Sea or Sea hates Devil Fruit users, in fact its what led to their creation and is just trying to accept its children back into its arms. I'm thinking to doing such a thing, where my Sorrcerers tend to be attracted to coastlines and islands because their bound to the sea if you will, sorta like magnetically drawn there.
I like the concept of multiple chosen ones with some just unironically dragged into it one way or another, One Piece has this and its kinda hilarious. But I think a big issue for Fantasy at times is not are the casts often too off-balanced is a way to put it, but the world itself. What do I mean you say? Look at Westeros vs. Essos, one feels like this weird bloated version of the British Isles while the rest of Eurasia is treated like filler stuff. And I get Essos wasn't the main focus, Westeros was, but its like...weird how empty it feels at times. If George made it more even handed like bringing in more HRE or France or the like, and maybe had one represent Northern Europe/Eurasia and one Southern Eurasia it wouldn't be so bad but man idk.
bedides one picesharing that dragging fantasy oproblem and bein absurdist fantasy.
And yah buggy is ons i guess XD Also luffy does maybe but he reaally wants to do his thing that aligns but, he wants his thing.
Ok here's a concept: start in a generic medieval fantasy world and then have it invaded from across the sea by a technologically superior empire they'd never heard of. Reverse Columbian exchange.
The Low Fantasy vs. High Fantasy Definition I'm used to is Low Fantasy = our world with a secret magical world/community (e.g. Harry Potter) and High Fantasy = different world, though I guess Low/ High Fantasy as a shorthand for little/ high magic(-al elements) is easier
Yeah
High/Low fantasy does not mean the same thing as High/Low magic.
The dresden files or harry potter are low fantasy, as in the real world exists and magic is hidden, but like magic is everywhere and used all the time by the protagonists etc.
Meanwhile LOTR or Game of Thrones is high fantasy and low magic. A fictional world, but magic is rarely used except in a few instances.
Urban fantasy is almost all low-fantasy, by this definition.
@@mrvoltem9379 I know and agree, which is kind of why I was surprised by James Tullos definition of the terms.
Wikipedia has the low fantasy = magical elements in an otherwise normal world, which I think is kind of ambigous.
I guess it depends on how you interpret "normal world"
The thing I hate about any type of Fantasy is basically the same thing I hate about writing in general but it seems to affect Sci-Fi and Fantasy the most. Escalation and Retconning. By escalation, I mean when they have to increase the stakes for each major conflict, or each book... This time we are trying to save the kingdom but then we have to save the world and then we have to save the universe and then the multiverse and then Time itself... Blech. You don't need to constantly escalate the size of the stakes. You can save Grandma's vegetable patch as long as you write a compelling story. Retconning, to me, happens in the worst way when you have a wwriter who let the Bad Guy die at the end of Book 1 and then they get asked to write a book 2. Now they either Bring Back their bad guy (Stop, Don't do that without a super good reason AND you meant to do it all along, AND you foreshadowed it in the first book) OR They decide they have to come up with the newer and even worse bad guy... but it doesn't make sense for a new bad guy to be worse.. so they retroactively make the new bad guy the old bad guy's teacher / Boss. They didn't write that in before, so they are rewriting history. Then they have to jam in all kinds of BS to make the new one mysterious and more powerful (escalation again) but if this more powerful bad guy was in league with the first one, why didn't he help his boy out in the last story? Why didn't he hero have to fight both of them? I see it in stories all the time, TV series are the worst for it. At the end of a season, the season long antagonist gets defeated. Then the series gets picked up fror antoher season and they come up with something new... but the characters or the enemies that that toss into the new season have been around forever... but they didn't get involved when you were tearing their world apart in the previous season... why? In the old Marvel Comics, if you had a Super Vilain that was threatening the world in New York while Spider Man was talking to him, trying to get him to put down the Remote Control to the Super-Nova cannon, the Avengers came flying in from three different cities, The X-Men were airdropped in by Quinjets, the Fantastic Four arrived, Doctor Strange teleported in.... because they all live on that same world, so when you threaten it, they all come out to defend it. ... But then you have the Marvel TV shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. where they had a guy threatening to destroy the world with Gravitonium ... but where were the avengers? Iron Man is a local hero, he'd have been involved... Doctor Strange? Thor maybe wanna come protect the Earth since he said he would aand his girlfriend lives here?? Nope, onlly the cast of that show gets involved. Even in the streets of NYC you didn't see any cameos from Daredevil, Luke Cage, or Iron Fist... I realize that different studios were doing it, but they were doing it on the same MCU world... It's like retconning but its worse, it's neglect. Hmmm... looking up at my wall of text, I guess I had some feelings about this issue :)
One very good example of a minor character doing what he is supposed is Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, from lord of the rings. The absolute chad showed up, defended minas tirith and was just helpful. The same thing can be said about Eladan, Elohir, Glorfindel, Echtelion, Grima and the other hobbits
Last but not least, its weird to me not to see more classically set fantasies, give me some ancient or palaic (I so butchered that but super ancient) or heck more books inspired by Byzantium and exploring interesting what ifs! Imagine a fantasy world where Constantinople was able to broker peace and in a sense fuse with the Ottoman Turks after the Seljeks and Bulgarians began to fade away or cause the Mongols coming, and the plot is an ancient sect of warriors inspired by the Varangian Guard trying to track down treasures lost during their Sacking of the City? I mean come on that be much more interesting and could have Corsairs and make it a weird "what if the Marines were the heroes and pirates the villains" twist on One Piece?!
Yeah I personally hate pirates being the good guys in stories.
Funny enough a few episodes of the Chackie Chan Adventures had the villains win the race to reach a magic book that controls reality, and rewrites history so that they and their demon buddies ruled humans from the beginning.
It takes several episodes of one character who retains their memories re recruiting all the heroes and setting off to fix reality.
There were some cool plotlines in that show
You've grown into an intelligent, attractive young man. You've always been intelligent with a lot of insight, but you were a bit more awkward some years ago. No shame, literally everyone has an awkward phase of their growth and development. You look so handsome and confident now. I'm just commenting because I'm impressed and hoping to compliment you without seeming weird. I've watched ur videos from way back up to your recent videos and the transformation was not what I expected! Anyway. Sorry if this is weird or accidentally insulting. I am not good with words. But my heart is in the right place!
Edit; I am not trying to hit on you, I'm in my mid thirties, married, with 3 kids, just wanted to give u kudos
H2O: Just Add Water is my favorite whimsical Low Fantasy
My main gripe with very high fantasy settings is that the magic feels so separated from the lives of people. Even if not everyone can do magic, a lot of stuff would be very different. Just take infrastructure for example: If you got tens of thousands of mages running around in your kingdom, think of how much easier it would be to dig canals and irrigation channels for fields and farms. Heck, if you got that many mages you can probably dig a tunnel through the alps in half the time and manpower it takes *us* with our current technology to do that. So even if you do not have any direct communication or teleportation magic, travel in your setting would be drastically faster than travel was in say 15th century Europe: More and better roads, tunnels, and canals. And rivers would be easily kept straight and deep for boats as well.
And that is just the boring stuff you can do with brute force type magic.
Could you please do a review of the Red Queen series? I like it but I don't think it's very well written, and I'm curious to see if you have the same criticisms that I do. Great video btw!
Which Isekai have you been watching?
This is the part where I type out a bloviated essay no one asked for on the subject.
Instead, my TL;DR would be not that Isekai Anime suffers from a lack of plot, it is that it is ruled over by a specific series of tropes and remixes which uses the visual storytelling version of steroids to compensate for a lack of talent and technique by the author of the source material it was adapted from. Much less the limits put on it by expectations of those who consume the genre. Not unlike the criticisms of the Western Publishing Market and how it's all paint by numbers trope constructed reworkings.
Yeah probably risk aversion, publishrs trying to go on a tred no matter if a more out there ida, would be better.
And i guesss capitalism, as like authors still want to sell to live. They will go there somewhat at minimum.
Like character developement, would do a lot. If there is one thing you ccan be realistic-y is character developement. Take course and then settle. and maybe youcan kill but ten, dont undo it. Like why i like grimgar and fromthe summaries the bookss seem good too with them being in a weird world tht , who knows, but it deals with chracters bing realistic and growing throgh trumatic but bonding events.
And its not a power fantasy. At the start, they suck. which helps feel the slowerish growth earned
I've read a few super long chinese isekai (or not necessarily going to other worlds, but still that "style") light novels. Suffering from a lack of a plot isn't entirely wrong, but I've found that for these it's more that the plot isn't very well connected. Some do have a connected plot, and good for them. But many sort of just make it all up as they go along and the plot & (and worldbuilding) suffers.
"/.../ visual storytelling version of steroids to compensate for a lack of talent and technique by the author of the source material it was adapted from." Not sure about anime (I don't watch anime), but this happens in the light novels. This style of light novel absolutely just turn up the "grand (=read BIG, not cool) visuals" to get by bad writing.
As for the characters JT mentioned, yeah that's a thing. The harem as well. They exist. OP MC. They absolutely need to have more relevant side characters. However: "Much less the limits put on it by expectations of those who consume the genre." I've found this as well among many fans of the mangas adapted from these light novels. It's very restricted because these people (typically sort of incel-ish, except they don't really fall into the "hate women" category, but more delusional) really don't like it when the MC isn't OP/whatever.
One of the few pieces of anime that's I've seen is the first 2, or is it 3? seasons of Bleach that were on Netflix. The main character has little personality and just moves along going from battle to battle working his way up a chain of bad guys. There's the beautiful spirit girl that is with him the whole time but they never have a relationship.
a young adult series with a very unique and interesting world to me would be the edge chronicles. there are about a dozen really cool locations, including a large balloon city, a forest that puts everything in it to sleep, a huge bottomless marsh controlled by mechanical birds, and the whole place is on the edge of a cliff so high nobody can see the bottom
Elden Ring lore is the best food I had in my entire life. I wish fantasy would expand in this direction of creativity and logic within the story
Isekai needs to get rid of all the slavery too
And the barely legal-straight up illegal harems
Maybe it’s there because the salarymen who have no freedom at work and no life outside of work want to inflict the same thing on others in a power fantasy? (I don’t read isekai, though, so I’m not sure if it’s usually the MC doing the slaving. This is an extrapolation.)
@@laughingseagull000But illegal barely legal harems with minors? Doesn't that make men look very bad and weird 🤨
Especially the shy elf slave girl who has no confidence
@@mittag983japanese people actually have a very real problem with that stuff...
about the magic sistems, thats why i like the magic sistem of heavens officials blessing so much, the amout of power you have is based of how many followers you have, and the main character doest not have any and have to build a temple to himself to try atract followers
Question for everybody here (James and the viewers):
What if George Martin die before ending A Song of Ice and Fire, and Brandon Sanderson enter the game, the same way he done in Wheel of Time, after Jordan's death?
I know that is unlikable to happen, but take your time to think about it.
Given what happened the last time bad writers tried to end that series, I don't have high hopes.
Brando Sando slander is top tier
I think Sanderson has gone on record as saying he doesn't like A Song of Ice and Fire very much. Also I feel that him and Martin have worldviews that are too different for either of them to accurately preserve the themes of each other's work.
Martin already said that he doesn't want anybody to finish his work (apparently not even himself😂).
While I'm a big Sanderson fan, I don't think he would be the correct writer to finish Martin's work in this fictional scenario.
Their styles are just too different.
The authors of The Blade Itself or Malaz are a better choice imo.
No thanks, Sanderson wouldn't and couldn't do it.
17:47 the locked tomb series is a space opera, but they have a similar magic system through necromancy !! through the essence of death essentially, necromancers are able to use their powers, and the more death present the stronger their abilities can be; what determines a person's ability to wield necromancy is their predisposition to prepetual death :))
Well, urban fantasy needs the magic to be hidden, because that's just a basic trope for the genre. Our world, but once you peel away the top layer, all the dark secrets and magic comes up. Good urban fantasy typically has at least a flimsy excuse for why it is that way, so we know the author thougth about it, but felt it wasn't too important to go deeper into, which I can respect. But if there's absoltuely no explanation, yes, the world should look and work vastly different to ours.
Typically, I think it's explained by "if you piss humans off too much, they come with fire and pointy sticks", which is fair game for me.
Integrating the normal world and magical world in an Urban Fantasy story can be quite easy. The authors just have to ask themselves "what if superstitions are real?"... Ronald Reagan used astrology to plan his travel scheludes, in some parts of Europe places that allegedly have conections to the Fae world have similar goverment protections as nature reservations, all over the world hauntings affect the property value of houses and apartments, in Brazil there are Voodoo priests that charge hundreds or millions of dollars for their services and claim to have world leaders and billionaire CEOs among their clientele. Organized crime in South America is full of people who believe in pacts with the Grim Reaper. In New Orleands taxicabs are forbidden to enter certain areas because ghosts allegedly get into the cars ask to go somewhere else and dissapear without paying... there's already a world of weirdness under the surface of everyday life just waiting for an author to take it and turn it even weirder
Also, watch _Trese,_ is an Urban Fantasy anime from the Fillipines were the corrupt mayor is a warlock and there's a vampire mafia and its awesome
If faries would declare war on humans when those tried to "develop" a piece of land inhabited by faries, the world would look much different. ^ ^
@@johannageisel5390 that would be a good reason for real state companies to have warlocks or demons in their payroll. The worldbuilding writes itself
The only isekai I've ever truly been able to get behind is Juuni Kokki (or Twelve Kingdoms) which, unfortunately, was never finished. But it wiped out most of the problems I've had with isekai.
Children in the other world are grown on trees and occasionally the 'fruit' is blown into our world, and sometimes magical beings come to bring them back. Our protagonist is painfully shy, insecure, and cowardly and resists her destiny: she's the leader of a country in this other world, and without her, the land will perish. The world building is wonderfully thought out
Have you ever tried Re:zero?
is it done? are they fixed? Is it finally safe to go outside?!
If you think about it, the Warhammer setting is dark fantasy (grimdark fantasy, if you will) but also high fantasy because magic and elves and orks and dwarves and stuff are central, prominent parts of the setting.
Warhammer is probably my favourite fantasy setting, and people calling it 'low fantasy' never fails to irritate me.
One way of looking at some of the complaints that you list here could be as problems with the publishing industry:
- Genres stagnating due to only a slim selection criteria for manuscripts
- SJM being published under YA when that was not the target demographic, yet publishing didn't have New Adult as a genre.
I don't agree that SJM was the start of YA Fantasy though. Tamora Pierce was certainly published well before any Maas works. Other big series from the 90s-2010s would be Percy Jackson, Eragon, Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games. Works by Garth Nix, Diana Wynne Jones, Eoin Colfer, Terry Pratchett, Phillip Pullman.
I think YA Fantasy currently has two genres in one label, because the publishing industry has spent too-much-to-change-now in advertising smut under the wrong banner.
Also, filler/bloat happens outside of fantasy. While I might understand it happening in self pub'd works (author has the final say in those, after all), I don't understand why it's happening in trad pub. I have heard one author say to combat this, he cuts 10% of his draft to ensure that it's JUST what it needs to be. If he thinks it's needed, he'll do it again.
Your magic system suggestion just made me think of the main character in My Hero Academia.
If you want an urban fantasy where the fantasy element is interacting with the "real world", I would recommend Holly Lisle's Devil's Point series. It's a trilogy, it's short, it's funny and the fantasy element causes much chaos for the protagonist and may others.
i don't like that in the isekais i've seen/read, they barely think about their past life. they keep pushing that the mc is just an ordinary person, but an ordinary person has family that would be devastated by their death, and that they would surely miss. they would have serious regrets about things they wish they'd done or done differently before dying young. they would be homesick for their original world. ig that kind of grief kills the wish fulfillment vibe, but it makes me side eye the mc and think they're either unbelievable or really cold
I'm not into anime but put one on, on the background recently and laughed my ass off. Realize now it was a subversion of the Isakai thing. Uncle from another dimension or whatever. It's not some cool, handsome japanese teenager. Instead it's a super ugly dude who's life revolves around the sega vs nintendo console wars. he's constantly treated like shit in the world he goes too because he's so ugly they think he's an orc.
The problem with isekai is that it exists
If you’re looking for urban fantasy where the magical and mundane worlds are integrated, you usually have to go for post-apocalyptic urban fantasy, like Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series or Rebecca Roanhorse’s The Sixth World series. They both have the basic premise that magic has always existed but waned or was suppressed for most of modern history, and the recent return of magic has caused massive social upheaval. The world is still recognizable enough, but everyone has had to adjust to magic’s existence (especially when magic interferes with technology).
The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel did urban fantasy right. Magic people use to rule the world but “the change” and the sinking of Atlantis scattered them and while some were able to group up and have dominions over their former human slaves, as time went on, humans found out how to smelt and forge iron, their weakness and humans pushed them into hidden areas or pocket dimensions of their own design.
Small spoiler but Hecate killed the one to discover iron smelting but it was already too late. The practice had spread.
As for isekai, Re:Zero is a subtle reversal of tropes where it is a horror plot for your typical neet (shut in). A good reverse isekai in my opinion is Re:Creators.
Small nitpick but the odyssey is not an isekai it’s the same world the whole way through (unless you count Odysseus’s brief foray with the underworld, which I wouldn’t)
Subbed from this video.
Point one makes me think even more how based Tolkein was. Like yes I know a billion named characters. But in lotr only a handful got real time. The rest of lore comes from adjacent and supplementary works.
Fantasy pet peeve: all princesses speak in an English accent.
I would love a grim dark ww1 themed fantasy book with magi-tech. I played Roblox trenches a couple years back and I really loved the idea since then.
It may be a subjective opinion, but some fantasy books and anime are based too much on MMOs or D&D. Sure, games are fine, but for main characters it is not game - it is life and I also want to be invested in it as if it is real. So I dislike when someone mentions levels or character classes.
in terms of isekai, i think it would be really interesting to explore the psychology and humanity of a person who's left their original world. like, wouldn't you feel really dysphoric looking in the mirror and not recognizing the face that you see? or wouldn't they miss the people they were forced to leave behind, and wouldn't they want to go back? what lengths would they go to? which could potentially get into some weird multiverse stuff.
if it's a game the character was reincarnated in, i feel like it would be weird and also dissociative to realize that you're a character in a game and therefore people can be typified as like npcs; do others exist to simply serve you? i've read some stories where the main character dies in the world they were reincarnated and come back again to learn from their mistakes; it would be interesting to see the effects that would have on a person's brain where your actions (i.e, putting yourself in dangerous situations) have no consequences (if you die you just come back to life). or how can you relate or describe the feeling of your consciousness yanked out of you and then imbued into a body that isn't yours, which brings up other questions of like, where did the other consciousness go? that would probably break a person's brain. and the concept of reincarnation itself is a spiritual/religious one, but that aspect isn't explored either.
YES, please less death in low/dark fantasy! It has to actually mean something! Limiting the amount of certain elements can make even normal things hit hard; I barely watched it, but Bojack Horseman had a rule of only one hard swear a season, so even though the main characters were alcoholics and drug users and living the forgotten former celebrity lifestyle, someone doing something messed up enough to get sworn at and even end up saying they F-ed up had massive weight, where it wouldn't of if everyone swore all the time. It's close to "everyone is sexy but no one is horny"; There's so much death that has to constantly top the last death to try and one up the impact that eventually none of it matters, the audience doesn't remember torture scene #15, and they're making memes of what should be the emotional climax.
Thank you. These videos are pretty helpful. I know about some problematic tropes but not all of them cause I don’t read a ton of books. Although I probably should read more.
Honestly? Spelling and basic grammer is a big one for me. It turns into a mental editing session so a story that is well written, in the sense that basic sentence structures are used. I also hate, hate, hate! The toxic douchebag love interest. Just stop it. Or have the mc not choose the toxic love interest.
The Erdtree was inspired by Berserk. There are many, many shots/scenes from Elden Ring that are inspired/copied from Berserk (because From Software was paying respects to Miura). The Erdtree is not the only example: the Brace of the Haligtree area is 100% copied from Berserk, and Malenia wears Farnese's helmet when she is still in the Holy Iron Chain Knights.
I'd just like to say that the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries is an urban fantasy series where the mundane and magical world are actually pretty intertwined
If you want a female led isekai, there is the Education of A Bookworm.
John Gwynne's latest epic fantasy books (the bloodsworn trilogy) handle POVs perfectly, IMHO. Book 1 has 3 POVs - so it's very focused on the three main "good" characters. This makes it so much easier to empathize with, relate to, understand, and fall in love with your main characters. In book 2 he introduces 2 new POVs, but these are both from villains, so you're getting a fresh perspective and new information.
First Kill does your urban fantasy idea well. The vampire father is a DA, the children go to high school and university respectively, and they still stay unknown to the majority of the population. There’s also other kinds of magical creatures and hunters. Yes, the hunters and vampires have to interact around humans and be polite to one another to avoid arousing suspicion. It’s so good!
Supernatural horror counts as a fantasy genre and in general, I hate the trope that "evil is aesthetically displeasing". The subtropes are:
-Evil is cold
-Evil smells bad
-The dog knows
The cosmic menace is less scary when everything about it is repellent because either you learn about the evil or you just avoid instinctively anyway.
I'm a huge science fan and am a sucker for thought out scientific magic systems like Fullmetal alchemist. I don't like more fantastical magic systems as much because they are just... Unexplained? Just a preference. Like with ye ole magic system of "do cool stuff, get tired or something", I would like to see a system that does this but explains it, even if you can't get into the nitty gritty details because it wouldn't make sense for a middle age wizard to talk about how magic directly splits ATP instead of using it to generate osmotic pressure. Powerful wizards could be fat because summoning a lightning storm or throwing a giant boulder around uses lots of calories. Eragon did this to a certain degree, lifting an object with magic might be more convenient or precise, but consumes as much energy as doing it normally. Also it is indirectly said there that once a guy used magic to blow himself up nuclearly and irradiated an entire island.
Another gripe I have with the high fantasy classic european medieval setting is just how, especially in (Isekai) anime the cities are just so... Clean. There are no deathly ill people around, the disease rate is low and the streets aren't made out of meters of compressed shit. Now the author could easily explain that by, say, magic cleanup crews or magic-aided research into biology and finding out that, hey, making our streets out if infected feces might not be a good idea but it's barely done. Also for more advanced magical societies I really like seeing magic incorporated into the scientific problemsolving process since technological advance is not linear, but problem oriented. Instead of a predetermined tech tree you have the process of "I have a problem -> I (re)search for ways to solve that problem -> I make a solution to that problem, be it machine, procedure or chemical -> I solved the problem, perhaps with other ramifications". The legend of Korra did that quite well in some aspects like there are no asphalted roads because you have magic dirt move people, there are no guns or cannons because you have magic fire people and so on. This process of almost simulating researchers and societal ramifications is also the reason why urban fantasy, which has to play in a world similar to ours by definition, often separates its magical from its mundane (our) world because if magic was integrated into the normal world long ago, it wouldn't stay normal for long due to events playing out completely different and the technoligical landscape (the techscape?) being wildly different too because why use combustion engine when can have magic self-driving carriage? Running through the history of an entire magical society since the middle ages, researching their problems and inventing new magical solutions is VERY hard work where you could also risk ruining your storyline and premise because some problems you want the protagonist(s) to face should realistically have been magitechnically solved a long time ago. This separation is also one of the larger points of discussion in Harry Potter (and urban fantasy in general) because how would a secret magic world stay secret for long if there are not only millions of people who could potentially spill the beans but also magic people being born into regular society, how would the wizarding world stay secret for long, especially in the information age?
I also would like more stories (or story bits/details) about normal/magical people adapting to the possibilities of their new world (if magic and technology aren't fundamentally incompatible. If your magic short circuits or EMPs every device newer than the lightbulb then that throws interesting ideas out the window. How would a wizard think of modern transport or the marvel/mess that is the internet? How and what aspects of modern life would they use in their day? Will we see PDF spellbooks? We have more stories of a normal guy being confronted with magic (due to it being convenient. You can diagetically worldbuild for the audience/reader because there is a character who has exactly as much idea what's going on as them, Zero) than a magical being learning about Windows and the machine that is surprisingly good at the simplest (and not so simplest) of tasks and can remember and recall tons of information in short time. Would the immortal Beings be concerned at how quickly everything is changing around them? We had big bulky matrix boxes and brick phones 20-30 years ago (a blink of an eye for an Immortal) and today I can watch a musician who has been dead for 20 years sing a convincing cover of the Five Nights at Freddy's song. Do magical beings have problems with how fast and easy information is to spread and how hard it is to delete or do they adapt accordingly? I could imagine wizards making a Wikipedia of magical beings, events of the fantastic world and spells all the while masking it as an expansive book/Videogame universe. There is a spark of truth in every conspiracy and the SCP wiki is starting to look suspicious...
Some conflict can arise between more mundane and more magical oriented people/factions. I mean, I would assume that the amount of Muggle-born who take up fulltime magical jobs and migrate entirely to the Wizarding world is decreasing, right? Up until recently the muggle world was very boring, everything you had there you have in the magical world, and more! But I would imagine a new Hogwarts student moaning upon seeing that not only has Hogwarts absolutely no WIFI (I will miss out on the MEMES!) but their library is wildly more search intensive than Wikipedia. Wouldn't more people live a half life, taking the best of both worlds? (and yes, I know Harry Potter is a children's book but I will not stop argumenting and theorizing about it since it's fun)
In conclusion, I really like science and technology (big machines are cool and when you think about it, the devices we use are marvels of development and engineering) and by extension am a fan of scientific oriented magic systems and urban fantasy authors who put way too much effort into their worldbuilding, even though I've never read any of those books as far as I know and even though I know these books will remain few and far between since the effort put into writing them and making sure they are good must be immense. It's similar to the new Spider-man movie where the authors realized how absolutely overpowered on-demand portals are and how someone with a functioning brain and some creativity would use them. Thank you for reading my science rant and feel free to comment and recommend fantasy to me!
Maybe the most obvious recommendation, especially for someone who is "over-recommended" online, but have you read any Sanderson? All of his cosmere magic follows consistent and logical structure ("hard magic"), even if it isn't always obvious to the characters in the story, though they tend to learn the rules of the magic system over time.
25:36 that's basically the plot of Samurai Jack
Kristen Cashore is underrated when it comes to YA fantasy. She knows how to do it right.
In the fantasy series im writing, someone mentioned a "Flaw" in saying "dude your main cast is too small and introducing a new main character in every installment is wrong"
That was paraphrased. But i was like "If i added too much i would lose interest. Wouldnt my readers?
I found something interesting relating to isikai
The CYOA Reddit is basically build your own op isikai character from all these options and the outer reincarnation CYOA is you get all these cool options but screw you another person got isikai'd before you and became a gods and hates you on principle so you have to pick the orc race for immunity to her mind hax and even then you aren't going to win and you're fated to die
Instead of "trim down cast" how about finish the series before writing.
That way you can look at your work as a cohesive whole and better edit before releasing.
I have good memories of YA like the Knights of Emerald by Anne Robillard and the Quest of Ewilan by Pierre Boterro
Might not have been translated into English, but these were my favorites growing up
I'm reading the Way of Kings for the first time and the epic fantasy bloat is real. I'm liking it slightly better than Mistborn so far (the Well of Ascension is literally one of the most boring books ever) but I'm still kinda disappointed :( I really want to understand the Sanderson hype but the man DOES NOT shut up about the most trivial things.
Your vampires remind me of the Investors from Venture Bros
James really woke up and chose violence.
Did James Tallios really just give away the idea for free that I used last year for a short story? Self-harm magic is a tricky slope!
17:45 Something like that was done in The Wolf and the Woodsman. I never finished it, so I don't know all the details, but mutilating yourself gave you a magical boost. It didn't work if someone else mutilated you, and that was a plot point.
What you said in the low/dark fantasy section is precisely what I've been having a huge issue with ever since GoT got big
Summary: High Fantasy tends to be too bloated, the solution is to trim down the cast, sometimes as much as -90%. Young adult fantasy tends to have too small of a cast (90% of stuff happens to the same people as if there's nothing going on in the world at large) but mote importantly YA lacks originality in terms of setting and magic systems. The solution is to experiment more and play with the fabrasy genre. Urban fantasy has the mundane and hidden worlds way too separated. The solution is to have the two worlds interact more, even in subtle ways. Isekai is often plotless, the solution is to add stakes and objectives for the main character from the get go. Dark fantasy tends to be edgy instead of dark, the solution is less character deaths and more meaningful deaths. Low fantasy tends to habe too little fantasy. The solution is to amp up the amount of magic and the part it plays. And/or to have the whole plot revolve around the little magic that there is.
This is one of the reasons why I consider the first five books of the urban fantasy apocalyptical / post apocalyptical Darkfever series to be good. Yes, the series takes place in Ireland, primarily but the author makes sure to give the POV character glimpses of parts of the world as people learn to cope and fight back against the fae realms (yes, realms) integrating themselves into ours. The cast is large but not so large that you don't struggle to keep up with them. Although the series goes beyond book 5; reading to book 5 gives you a basically complete story with a conclusion even if it doesn't wrap it up in pretty ribbon. (but caveat, these books should come with a NSFW warning)
@@katka8490 Thanks for the recommendation!
You calling Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver’s Travels, Wizard of Oz, and the Odyssey isekais is by far the most insane hot take I’ve ever heard btw.
Zelda games have better world building than most YA Fantasy lol
With the bit at the end about magical people being oppressed "not making sense", it doesn't make sense if there's more mages than non-mages. At least to me.
It makes perfect sense that you'd oppress someone who can literally bend reality to their will and shoot fire out of their hands, especially when you can't do that yourself. You don't want to be on the receiving end of that fire.
Not YA, but the main character in Witch King by Martha Wells has pain-fueled magic, and it's used really well throughout the book imo