Why is fantasy traditionally set in medieval times?

pedroj012 said:

Would be cool to read more about fantasy in ancient Greece, Africa
WWII, etc.

I'm fairly new to fantasy, so I'm definitely open to suggestions there.

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Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series is ancient-Rome influenced.

Most likely, fantasy is set there because the big daddys of early fantasy set their worlds in places that were much like medieval Europe, with knights and kings and stone castles.

I think the market is well ripe for new fantasy settings. How about pre-Columbian Americas? Arabian Peninsula? Mughal Empire?

Tolkien.

Well, modern "hard" fantasy as in Epic or High fantasy is based off of Tolkien. Which is weird because Tokien was heavily influenced by nordic mythology--namely, Beowulf.

But then that's what many people think of when they think of pure fantasy. Before that it was more about a lot of folk myths and fairy-tales, and nowadays there's more movement in contemporary fantasy.

Myrealana said:

I think the market is well ripe for new fantasy settings. How about pre-Columbian Americas? Arabian Peninsula? Mughal Empire?

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Aliette DeBoddard has an Aztec set series.

For Arabic inspired fantasy you could started with Saladin Ahmed. City of Silk and Steel by the Carey family is also awesome.

Those are just off teh top of my head. Can't think of any Mughal fantasy, but I suspect there is some

I love new settings too*, but it has to be said the old ones sell


*I've gone with Renaissance Italy just lately. Still European, but a very different era

I think part of it is just a setting that's familiar to readers. But not all fantasy is set in those sort of worlds - mostly it's epic fantasy that is.

Myrealana said:

I think the market is well ripe for new fantasy settings. How about pre-Columbian Americas? Arabian Peninsula? Mughal Empire?

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Or even Ohio and Illinois with hobos and rail barons. Trust me on that.

My point is that, when you decide to leave the Epic Fantasy box, pretty much anything's fair game. Personally, the more out of that box, the merrier as far as I'm concerned.

Kerry

I'd blame Tolkien and the Arthurian revival for a lot of it. Plus, you know, we're in the West with lots of European influence, so the history of Western Europe makes for an easy sell.

There's tons of other stuff these days, though, and I don't think we're near flooding the market with it.

In Epic/High/Sword and Sorcery style fantasy we have Ahmed, Jemisin, and others with Middle-Eastern/North African fantasy. There's a lot of alternate history stuff in those regions and the Mediterranean. There's East Asian fantasy in the form of Tales of the Otori and Cindy Pon. Winter on the Plain of Ghosts is set in Mohenjo-daro (Indus Valley Civilization/Southern Pakistan). Etc.

Write more, we could use it.

Because fantasy with too much technology around becomes a hodge-podge of magic and science. With too little technology you essentially have stoneage people who barely understand agriculture and best suited to running away and hiding rather than fighting the big evil coming their way.

The feudal period provides a good blend with enough people around, who are familiar with organizing those people to a common purpose. The technology is still basic so magic is able to shine. P.S. that middle ages period also lasted around 1,000 years. Far more than the modern period, and far more interesting than the pre-Bronze Age period.

Personally I'm more concerned with the YA tropes and modern anachronisms that continually get hammered into the stories than I am about the feudal settings being employed. I have a few ideas about using magic in a futuristic setting. I figure if we're going to blend science and magic, then just go for broke and do it.

I think the Medieval European setting (, however many misconceptions it contains,) is easy shorthand. At least in the Europe and the former European colonial lands, I think most people would be at least somewhat familiar with a shorthand concept of Medieval Europe. -Much of that may be more Hollywood than History, but it is a backdrop that will seem familiar to a lot of readers.

Osulagh said:

Tolkien.

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Yup.

Say you're a young person. Say you read an amazing story that fires your imagination, that makes you want to live there, to be in that world.

Maybe you're quite imaginative, so that world keep living in your brain, starts spreading, growing, changing. Maybe you start to write stories based on the stuff in your head, the adventures you send yourself on in this changed version of the original inspiration.

Those stories will be unique, but if they started from a particular seed, then they're probably going to have some similarities to that seed.

A lot of fantasy writers got their imagination spurred for the first time by Tolkien. As a result, a lot of them turned out a first, second, or third fantasy book that looked a lot like Tolkien's work.

And then those books go on to set other young imaginations afire.

Not just tolkien, but the broad strokes that make up a generic 'medival' setting are very familiar to your standard western audience. You've got a king, knights, dragons, peasants, fields, etc, and despite drawing from references that actual cover something like almost 1200 years of history, most people immediately 'get' it right off the bat.

The Arthurian legend also has a pretty heavy influence on western fiction.

Thomas Vail said:

Not just tolkien, but the broad strokes that make up a generic 'medival' setting are very familiar to your standard western audience. You've got a king, knights, dragons, peasants, fields, etc, and despite drawing from references that actual cover something like almost 1200 years of history, most people immediately 'get' it right off the bat.

The Arthurian legend also has a pretty heavy influence on western fiction.

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That and the tales of Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson have huge roles too.

The Wizard of Oz is interesting because it is a world based upon the agrarian US.

Most superhero comic-books are based upon urban North America.

Michael Steven said:

Because fantasy with too much technology around becomes a hodge-podge of magic and science. With too little technology you essentially have stoneage people who barely understand agriculture and best suited to running away and hiding rather than fighting the big evil coming their way.

The feudal period provides a good blend with enough people around, who are familiar with organizing those people to a common purpose. The technology is still basic so magic is able to shine. P.S. that middle ages period also lasted around 1,000 years. Far more than the modern period, and far more interesting than the pre-Bronze Age period.

Personally I'm more concerned with the YA tropes and modern anachronisms that continually get hammered into the stories than I am about the feudal settings being employed. I have a few ideas about using magic in a futuristic setting. I figure if we're going to blend science and magic, then just go for broke and do it.

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I had a story idea kinda like that. The setting is secondary-world, but the tech/culture/history is actually fifty to a hundred years ahead of the US in 2015 in terms or urbanization and science. The fact that they have magic to drawn on just makes it seem even more advanced. There are some of the usual analogues, because I still only know 2015 US/America/Earth, but I try to posit a little beyond that.

Tolkien, Arthur, the traditional "once upon a time" fairy tales...

Though if you think all fantasy's still pseudo-Medieval Europe, I suggest hitting the bookstore and/or library; many people have branched out to other eras and cultures... including prehistory and the far future.

Someone mentioned Codex Alera - that was written on a bet by Jim Butcher to combine the concepts of Pokemon and the Lost Roman Legion.

The popular YA series Percy Jackson & the Olympians (and the follow-up series, Heroes of Olympus) by Rick Riordan draws off Greek mythology. Riordan also writes The Kane Chronicles, which use Egyptian mythos as a base.

For Africa, the first one I thought of was The Leopard's Daughter by Lee Killough - it's set in a mystical prehistoric Africa, when the Sahara was green and animal spirits still crossbred with humans. (The heroine's father was a leopard-man.)

Pre-Columbian America's been getting more love lately. Long ago, though, I read and (mostly) enjoyed Clare Bell's The Jaguar Princess, about an Aztec slaver girl unknowingly descended from jaguar gods.

I've heard of (but never read) WWII fantasies, as well. I've heard good things about Ian Tregillis's Milkweed books, where the Nazis have demons. And for WW1 dieselpunk/biopunk, Scott Westerfield wrote the imaginative Leviathan trilogy.

I've also seen plenty of Asian-inspired fantasies, as well as some Arabic, go through the library. Not to mention fantasies that seem to defy traditional categorization.

Fantasy gets around these days... you just have to look for it.

I write 'medieval' adventure fantasy because I'm surrounded by the landscape of it. If I need to look at a castle there's one less than half an hour's drive away.

Mr Flibble said:

For Arabic inspired fantasy

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Judith Tarr used a Middle Eastern/Crusades-influenced setting for a number of fantasy works.

I've noticed this too, and I think the Victorian era probably has a lot to do with it. (as well. agreeing with all the others up above me.)

When I was setting out to start both of my WIP I did a lot of research into other periods that I would like to use over the traditional high fantasy settings. (If we look at them, most would be set from about 1200's to 1400's Europe, minus guns, which were around by the 1300's.)

The middle ages does have a lot to offer though. Realistically, it was the birth age of a lot of modern math and architecture, and society was still recovering from the dark ages. It gives a lot of movement space for a writer. There's just other periods that we could play with.

I think it just balances out. Someone already mentioned the thing between technology and magic. If you have magic, then it means there were a lot of things that you didn't need to do to advance technology. If you're heavy on technology, then people will expect some kind of explanation for magic and how it works.

I think it could be a population thing too. If you have a large population of the civilized peoples, you'll have to figure out a good reason why they haven't been able to push back against monsters and wipe them out.

Medieval times seems like the perfect setting. Not technologically advanced, populations were sparse, spread out, and vulnerable. It was also a time of superstition and darkness, where a lot of myths and legends were born.

Just my two cents.

It seems to me the medieval setting provides a major theme of fantasy that other settings lack. A king or lord could pass laws but they only extended a short distance, and beyond this there was no laws at all, not even the laws of physics. In very few other settings is the hedge so close.

I think some fantasy stories in other periods have difficulty getting the reader away from the law and have to resort to portals and other geegaws to accomplish what could be done by an afternoon walk in a medieval setting.

Jozzy said:

It seems to me the medieval setting provides a major theme of fantasy that other settings lack. A king or lord could pass laws but they only extended a short distance, and beyond this there was no laws at all, not even the laws of physics. In very few other settings is the hedge so close.

I think some fantasy stories in other periods have difficulty getting the reader away from the law and have to resort to portals and other geegaws to accomplish what could be done by an afternoon walk in a medieval setting.

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That's a pair of really good insights.

Interesting to consider various fantasy works in that light -- how far away is reality, and what's needed to keep it at bay? How does the setting contribute?

ShaunHorton said:

Medieval times seems like the perfect setting. Not technologically advanced, populations were sparse, spread out, and vulnerable. It was also a time of superstition and darkness, where a lot of myths and legends were born.

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And lots of dysfunctional governments fighting each other for petty and incompetent reasons. Lots of built-in conflict.

After reading a history of the Plantagenets, my own non-medieval WIP is looking rather too tame and conflict-free.

pedroj012 said:

Would be cool to read more about fantasy in ancient Greece, Africa
WWII, etc.

I'm fairly new to fantasy, so I'm definitely open to suggestions there.

Click to expand...

I think WWII ish settings are more geared towards superheroes (which I consider fantasy).

There are some ancient Greece ones, but I would love to see more of them.

I think that Africa stems from a lack of education, at least from the United States' perspective. I can take in-depth courses at my college about US history, Mediterranean history, Greek/Roman history, and medieval history; there isn't an African based history offered at my university.

I think we're going to see a shift in the next 2-5 years with different fantasy settings. Personally, I would love to see some immersion in the Japanese/Buddhist fantasy-based culture outside of manga.