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Author
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Comment
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Nalo
Registered User
(9/7/02 8:24:59 pm)
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a perhaps silly question
I hear the term "dark fantasy" a lot, and I think I have a notion what it means, but it occurs to me that "dark" fantasy suggests that there is an opposite. So what is "light" fantasy? Or perhaps "bright" fantasy?
-nalo
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pinkolaestes
Registered User
(9/7/02 8:50:00 pm)
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an analytical thought
Just less than two cents worth here, but in analytical psychology, dark fantasy is a kind of code phrase meaning anything that is distonic to the ego, anything that is normally censored by ego (as a result of socialization and/or inhibitory pressures and introjects-- which are demands to behave in certain ways that come from outside oneself but penetrate and are seated in psyche as though they originated from within...) Although some would think that matters of outre sexuality for instance might be considered 'dark,' more properly, any thought or ideation that is resisted by ego could be considered 'dark.' For instance, say ego formation barred thoughts of religiousity--thereby, for that person, spontaneous erruptions of a mystical nature would be/ feel 'dark' to that person. To a person who prides themselves on any particular matter, thoughts and impulses that are oppositional are assessed by ego as "dark."
hope this helps,
cpe
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Van45us
Registered User
(9/7/02 10:09:30 pm)
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Wow.
And here I thought it was just anything written by August Derelth...
Just an aside. Dark fantasy wasn't invented by Neil Gaiman, as much as we all love him. He'd be the first to admit it.
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Janeyolen
Unregistered User
(9/7/02 11:30:40 pm)
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easy definitions
Dark fantasy usually refers to horror. Light fantasy usually refers to humorous fantasy.
Jane
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Terri
Registered User
(9/8/02 12:29:37 am)
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Re: easy definitions
Ellen Datlow and I tend to use the phrase "dark fantasy" for stories that fall on the borderline between fantasy and horror.
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Nalo
Registered User
(9/8/02 6:52:50 am)
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Re: easy definitions
So, De Lint's _The Onion Girl_ would be dark fantasy, and Samuel Delany's "Neveryona" series would be, um, light? (Does anyone actually say "light fantasy"?)
-nalo
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Terri
Registered User
(9/8/02 10:40:27 pm)
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Re: easy definitions
I'm not sure Charles's Onion Girl is really dark enough to be dark fantasy. Most good fantasy has "dark" aspects to it (look at all the darkness in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, for instance), but it's still recognizable as fantasy. "Dark fantasy" -- the way Ellen and I use the term, at any rate -- applies to work that's so dark that it's really hard to say whether it's fantasy or horror (and thus has something to offer both sets of readers). But not so dark that it actually *is* pure horror, with its psychological effect coming at least as much from the "transcendant" quality of fantasy as from the fear-and-goose-bumps-raising quality of horror. Neil Gaiman's novels Neverwhere or American Gods are dark fantasy, whereas his Stardust is just plain fantasy.
I don't hear the term "light fantasy" used often, and when it is used, it usually applies to humorous fantasy of the Terry Pratchett or Esther Friesner sort. "High fantasy" or "traditional fantasy" tends to apply to imaginary-world novels ala Tolkien, "contemporary fantasy" or "urban fantasy" to books like The Onion Girl (though Charles himself prefers the term mythic fiction, which has the advantage of not scaring off so many mainstream readers), "swords-and-sorcery" or "low fantasy" applies to adventure stories of the dungeons-and-dragons type. Then you get into all the sub-catagories: alternate history novels, fairy tale retellings, "mannerist" fantasy (works rooted more in Jane Austen, the Brontes, and Dorothy Dunnett than in Tolkien, such as books by Caroline Stevermer, Ellen Kushner, or Delia Sherman), etc. etc. It's enough to make your head spin....
Neveryona (as usual for Delany) is one of those catagory-defying novels that makes all the above definitions fairly useless. It uses a lot of "low fantasy" tropes, but books of that sort tend to be adventure stories meant for pure entertainment without high literary intentions (or pretensions, if you will). But Delany proves (again, as usual) that works in *any* genre can have a high literary intent in the hands of a skilled (and subversive) writer.
Edited by: Terri at: 9/8/02 10:48:47 pm
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Nalo
Registered User
(9/9/02 4:10:45 am)
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Re: easy definitions
Thanks, Terri! That's a great answer to my question, which was really, 'what does one call the stuff that's not-dark-fantasy,' or, implied, 'isn't all fantasy dark?' You've answered both questions.
-nalo
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Gregor9
Registered User
(9/9/02 6:48:45 am)
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Dark derivations
To spin that further,
If such a genre classification had existed at the time of the French salons, I believe a great deal of the fairy tale fiction emerging from them would have been called "dark fantasy."
Greg
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(9/9/02 10:54:25 pm)
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Red versions
Let's look at Red Ridinghood.
In the version that ends with the wolf eating her--dark fantasy.
In the version that ends with the woodman saving her (and granny)--heroic fantasy.
In the version that ends with Red and the Woodman putting stones in the wolf's belly and he lumbers off to the river and drowns himself--ironic fantasy.
In the James Thurber version in which Red takes out a gun and shoots the wolf and the moral is: "Little girls aren't as easy to fool anymore."--light fantasy.
Hope this helps.
Jane
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Terri
Registered User
(9/9/02 11:14:33 pm)
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Re: Red versions
Jane, that's hilarious. And true.
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Don
Registered User
(9/11/02 5:44:56 pm)
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Re: Red versions
Picking up on Jane's typology . . .
In Carter's "The Company of Wolves," where "she sleeps in granny's bed, between the paws of the tender wolf"--erotic fantasy.
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