#oneaday Day 167: What happened to plain ol’ fantasy?

This is a discussion I’ve had a few times on Discord of late, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here. So, being in need of something to write for today, I thought I’d ponder it here.

I grew up being rather fond of fantasy — you know, swords, magic, elves, goblins, that sort of thing. I attribute this primarily to my brother’s girlfriend of his teenage years introducing me to HeroQuest and the Elric of Melnibone role-playing game; I never played the latter but I did play a fair few sessions of the former, and even managed to convince my parents to get me Advanced Heroquest by Games Workshop for one birthday, which I think has successfully hit the table maybe two or three times in my entire life. (Lucky it has solid solo rules!)

Similarly, one (well, two, technically, I guess) of my favourite book series growing up was David Eddings’ Belgariad/Malloreon cycle, which chronicles the rise of young farm boy Garion into a god-slaying hero and powerful sorcerer. Also of note was Douglas Hill’s Blade of the Poisoner and its sequel Master of Fiends, both of which were really for kids, but which I enjoyed and re-read numerous times in my youth.

What do all the above have in common? They’re all simple, straightforward, old-fashioned fantasy. I add those qualifiers because I feel we don’t get a lot of simple, straightforward, old-fashioned fantasy any more. We get a shitload of “dark fantasy”, sure, and we also get a lot of “ironic parody fantasy”. But just straightforward, simple fantasy? That feels like a dying breed.

To clarify what I mean by these terms: by “dark fantasy” I mean a world where everyone is either miserable or fucking (often simultaneously), the streets are made of mud and the dwarves say “fuck” a lot. By “ironic parody fantasy” I mean “teeheehee, the heroes of this fantasy world know what a ‘level’ is and talk like they’re in a Marvel movie!”.

Both of these have their appeal — they must do, otherwise there wouldn’t be so fucking many of both of them — but I feel we’ve reached a point where “subverting the expectations of the fantasy genre” is now more of a cliché than… the fantasy genre itself. I hunger for a good old-fashioned tale of swords and sorcery where no-one says “well, that happened” or “fuck”, and which culminates in the plucky young hero, who came from humble beginnings, punching out some sort of god-like entity.

It doesn’t even feel like we get this in video games much any more. Final Fantasy has very much gone down the “dark fantasy” route in more recent installments and I think that has been a positive move for the series — Final Fantasy XVI and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin are particular highlights from recent memory — and a lot of anime-style RPGs play up the comedic angle somewhat. There’s nothing wrong with either of these things — I enjoy both when I’m in the mood for them — but sometimes you just want something a bit more… straightforward, I guess?

I’m intrigued to try out Metaphor: ReFantazio at some indefinite point in the future, though I suspect that veers towards “dark fantasy”, and I have several dungeon crawlers waiting in the wings that might fit the bill.

I’m not mad about this or anything — trends and tastes change, after all — but I just think it might be nice if we could see a bit more in the way of old-school barbarians-in-loincloths-and-wizards-with-beards fantasy. It was a defining influence on me growing up, and it would be nice to revisit that.

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2280: Three Wishes

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For a man of my age, I probably give the whole question of “what would you wish for if you got three wishes?” rather more time and attention in my head than it deserves, what with it being something (probably) impossible, but it’s something to keep my mind occupied with when I’m trying and failing to fall asleep.

I’ve had numerous possible answers over the years — never resorting to “I wish I had three more wishes”, I might add — but right now, at a particularly shitty point in my life, I find myself settled on three pretty-much definite answers.

1. I wish my wife and I would be in 100% perfect health, mentally and physically. I’ve struggled with mental health for more years than I was probably aware of it, and it hasn’t gotten any easier over the years. In fact, as I get older, it’s got more and more difficult, particularly since several attempts to get a career started have gone nowhere — often through no fault of my own, as in the case of my misadventures in games journalism — and left me feeling increasingly useless and worthless to the world at large with each passing year.
Alongside that, my wife has been struggling with a chronic pain condition that I’m always forgetting the name of for well over a year now, and it’s taking its toll on both of us. She’s been off work for several months now, and the pain has had a severe effect on both her mental health and, by extension, since I’m unable to offer any sort of help besides just being here when I can, my own as well.

If we were both 100% perfectly healthy mentally and physically, we could get on with enjoying our lives the way we both want to. Life wouldn’t feel like a constantly uphill struggle which, frankly, it does at the moment.
2. I wish I had a million pounds. It may be a cliche to wish for a large amount of money, but if I had a large amount of money, it would remove the other main stressor in my life that is at least partly related to our physical and mental health issues: money worries. I don’t even want to buy anything particularly extravagant with my hypothetical fortune; I’d simply pay off my debts, quit my job and continue living the way I do at the moment, pursuing my own passion projects in my own time without having to worry about where the money to pay the next bills and the mortgage is going to come from. The rest of the money would simply go towards day-to-day expenses and perhaps a few guilt-free treats.
3. I wish I had the ability to switch between being a man and a woman at will. This one is less grounded in my actual real-life everyday existence right now, since having the ability to do this wouldn’t make my current situation any better, but it’s something that I’ve always returned to when pondering this question, and a concept in general that I’ve always found fascinating from the perspective of walking in “someone else’s” shoes. I won’t lie, part of my curiosity in this regard is sexual in nature — I mean, come on — but also I feel it would just be interesting to be able to switch between two completely different bodies and appearances at will, making use of the most “appropriate” one for various situations, whatever that might mean.

So there’s my three wishes. If any Internet-connected genies are watching, I will happily accept just the first two if you’re running a bit short on mystic mojo.

One A Day, Day 21: Fantasy Feedback

So, that was the weekend. It went by far too quickly for my liking, but at least it was calm, relaxing and completely stress-free. If only things could be like that all the time, it would be lovely.

Of course, I haven’t “achieved” very much this weekend (unless you count my promotion to Lieutenant Commander in Star Trek Online) but sometimes it’s nice to not think about whether or not you should be doing something more important. There is plenty of time for stress in the week, because believe me, it always finds you.

I have one more week until the week-long half-term vacation from school. After that, it really is counting down the weeks and days until my escape. Once I get to that point, I will be past caring. If the school inspectors turn up to judge me inadequate during those last few weeks, they will get a piece of my mind.

They probably won’t, of course, because I’m far too much of a pussy to stand up to people in most cases, but it’s the thought that counts.

Or maybe I should say something. As I’ve said in a number of previous entries, teachers suffer in silence all the time. They nod and smile when another item is put on their personal “To-Do” lists without their permission, they grin and bear it when new “initiatives” are launched (and inevitably prove to be completely useless), they fill out their stupid pointless paperwork and then they go and moan in the staffroom. It’s the way of things. But I find myself wondering exactly what would happen if someone were to break that barrier and answer back to an OfSTED inspector.

Maybe it might go something like this:

INSPECTOR: Would you like some feedback from that lesson?

TEACHER: No. No I wouldn’t. Goodbye.

INSPECTOR: I really think you should have some feedback from that lesson.

TEACHER: I, on the other hand, do not. Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.

INSPECTOR: Your starter was satisfactory and had the children enga-

TEACHER: Are you deaf as well as stupid? I said no.

INSPECTOR: …the children were engaged. However, during your input-

TEACHER: Oh, we’re going to do this, are we? All right then. Input? It’s called “teaching”. Or even “talking”. Have you forgotten?

INSPECTOR: During your input, I would have liked to see more being taught.

TEACHER: Oh. Sorry. There I was thinking I was singing a song. Not… what’s that word for that thing I do when I’m standing at the front… Oh right, teaching.

INSPECTOR: However, there was a lot of you talking. It would have been nice to-

TEACHER: So I didn’t teach enough, but I talked too much. Right. Do carry on. This is fascinating.

INSPECTOR: It would have been nice to see the children say a little more on the subject.

TEACHER: They don’t know anything about the subject. That’s why I said it was a “new topic”. They seemed to understand that. Didn’t you?

INSPECTOR: As a result, the children didn’t make enough progress in that lesson.

TEACHER: Not enough progress? All right. How are you measuring that? Where is your magic “progress-o-meter” that measures how far the children progressed in the twenty minutes out of the hour you came and observed? I bet you have one. I bet it produces charts and graphs and syncs with Microsoft Excel, doesn’t it? Mmmm, Excel. You love Excel, don’t you? With its charts and its numbers and its ABJECT FUCKING TEDIUM. Just like you really.

INSPECTOR: So therefore, I am going to have to rate that lesson as inadequate.

TEACHER: Will it still be inadequate if I punch you in the neck?

INSPECTOR: What? Yes!

TEACHER: Well, it doesn’t matter, then. (punches Inspector in the neck) This is my most inadequate punch, bitch! You wouldn’t want to see my Outstanding one, or even my Good one!

Oh, what a wonderful experience that would be.

The sad thing about that fantasy exchange is that the things I quoted the Inspector as saying are the exact things they do say. Utter nonsense, non?