Fantasy

4 Jun 2026

Collective memories of fantasy

There are collective memories with regards to fantasy. Though the nature of the genre inherently lends to each author (or creator or artist or what have you, henceforth collectively referred to as author) creating his own world, the established tropes of fantasy provide a framework with which the collectivity of fantasy enjoyers comes quickly to the creation the author has created.

For instance, there is almost always an element of green in the generic fantasy world --perhaps the Platonic form of a fantasy world-- be it in the aesthetics of the visual creation or the semi-naturalist pre-industrial society. So too with elves and dwarves; with these, however, it is easy to assign blame to J.R.R. Tolkien (God willing they canonize him) with the LOTR books. Is there anything particular about elves and dwarves other than what has been molded into our Gestalt consciousness? I do not believe so.

One could argue that the only reason that these tropes are so common is that they have appeared in so many works, both groundbreaking and mundane. Others, perhaps, might point to the industrial revolution as the primary driving force behind western fantasy's tropes: in order to alleviate the chaos caused by mass societal transition from medieval-feudal agrarianism to industrial life they turned to an idealized version of the past intermingled with fantastical elements.

Collectivity bound by language

Fantasy works are bound by language. I cannot speak for someone raised outside of the English/American cultural milieu, but my (very limited) understanding of Spanish language literary traditions inclines me to say that the word fantasy does not necessarily preclude the high fantasy-style (or even low fantasy-style) in Spanish. From this the conclusion can be drawn that the nature of fantasy is not per se high fantasy or low fantasy but much broader.

Historically speaking, Spanish literary fantasy stems from magical realism as opposed to English common high/low fantasy. Stunning examples of this are the preeminent /100 Years of Solitude/ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as well as the same's /The Most Beautiful Drowned Man in the World/ and Julio Cortazar's /The Night Face Up/.

Drawing back to the Platonic forms above, though I would classify both of those as green, it's a different green. I would file the difference away as the English high/low fantasy as green of sunny grass while the Spanish magical is green the color of a shady European forest.

The Epiphenomenon of the Ouroboros

Assuming that the above Platonic form of the essential fantasy work exists, then we can see an ouroboros in action-- and this has been the case. Because of the group consciousness of fantasy, market demand becomes focused on what the established fantasy tropes are, and because of this more authors mold their concepts using the building blocks of established tropes.

I suppose it's axiomatic to say that the onus of the fiction writer who wants to make money is to mold what he wants to say into something that the market wants to read.