Fantasy World - Common Elements

Common Elements

The most common fantasy world is one based on medieval Europe, and has been since William Morris used it in his early fantasy works, such as The Well at the World's End. and particularly since the 1954 publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Such a world is often called "pseudo-medieval" – particularly when the writer has snatched up random elements from the era, which covered a thousand years and a continent, and thrown them together without consideration for their compatibility, or even introduced ideas not so much based on the medieval era as on romanticized views of it. When these worlds are copied not so much from history as from other fantasy works, there is a heavy tendency to uniformity and lack of realism. The full width and breadth of the medieval era is seldom drawn upon. Governments, for instance, tend to be uncompromisingly feudal-based, or evil empires or oligarchies, usually corrupt, while there was far more variety of rule in the actual Middle Ages. Fantasy worlds also tend be medieval in economy, and disproportionately pastoral.

Careful world-building plus meticulous attention to detail is often cited as the reason why certain fantasy works are deeply convincing and contain a magical sense of place. Heavy and faithful use of real world setting for inspiration, as in Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds, clearly derived from China, or Lloyd Alexander's use of real world cultures such as Welsh for The Chronicles of Prydain or Indian for The Iron Ring, make the line between fantasy worlds and alternate histories fuzzy. The use of cultural elements, and still more history and geography, from actual settings pushes a work toward alternative history.

Conversely, the creation by an author of an imaginary country—such as Ruritania or Graustark—does not automatically transform that imaginary country into a fantasy world, even if the location would be impossible in reality owing to a lack of land to contain it; but such Ruritanian romances may be pushed toward the category of fantasy worlds by the introduction of, say, witches and wise women, where it is not clear if their magic is effectual.

According to Lin Carter in Imaginary Worlds: the Art of Fantasy, fantasy worlds, by their nature, contain some element of magic (paranormal). This element may be the creatures in it (dragons, unicorns, genies and so on) or the magical abilities of the people inhabiting the world. These are often drawn from mythology and folklore, frequently that of the historical country also used for inspiration.