by mdellert1172

Mighty-thewed heroes and their thief/wizard/priest companion(s) fighting monsters, quaffing ale and smiting evil at the edge of a broadsword. These are some of the popular images that come to mind when one hears the fateful words: "Heroic Fantasy."

But is that really what the genre is all about?

Other fine writers here on Wattpad have explored the wider fantasy genre's history and background, and I won't rehash their work here.

But the progenitor of the modern "heroic fantasy" sub-genre is generally held to be Irish Fantasy writer Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany (1878-1957). Lord Dunsany's highly-recommended work, in general, has influenced such authors as J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin, and many others, including myself.

His third book, the collection of short stories entitled, The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories (1908) -- and even more particularly, the story from that collection, The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth -- are often cited as "The Example" from which all other Heroic Fantasy descends.

Later writers such as Robert E. Howard (particularly 1929's "The Shadow Kingdom"), William Morris, E.R. Eddison, Evangeline Walton, T.H. White, and C. S. Lewis added to the work of the early writers, and writers/editors Lin Carter and L. Sprague De Camp helped codify the genre.

In the 1970s and 80s, the market proved profitable enough to produce longer fantasy works such as The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson.

Late 20th- and early 21st- century writers like George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan, Andrzej Sapkowski, and Robin Hobb have since built on those foundations to produce the complex, morally ambiguous works currently found predominating the genre, while independently published authors, such as those found right here on Wattpad, continue to explore the boundaries of the form.

The Heroic Fantasy setting is typically a "secondary world," a fictional place-time that resembles our own Earth in its general characteristics, but with its own well-developed history, a strong element of the supernatural and the paranormal, a well-codified system of magic, and fantastic beasts.

These secondary worlds may be strongly grounded in our own world (such as the Polish-Russian influenced Uprooted by Naomi Novik, or the Hiberno-Celtic setting of my own Matter of Manred tales), or they might be set in fictional "prehistoric times" (The Hyborian Age), in a totally new world (C.J. Cherryh's Morgaine Saga), or in a far future time (Bitterwood by James Maxey). But this is by no means a requirement.

The hero of the Heroic Fantasy genre is typically the "reluctant champion," a person of low or humble origins, possibly with mythic or royal ancestors/parents unknown to the hero before the start of the adventure. The codifiers of the trope include Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Conan the Cimmerian, and the Pevensie children, and examples continue through Shea Ohmsford, right up to Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.

But the examples prove the fluidity of the genre, appearing in settings ranging from the traditional "secondary worlds" to the modern urban "real world," and in thematic works that might be more appropriately considered "epic," "sword-and-sorcery," and "high."

And this "classic hero" formula has itself become fluid in more modern works, where protagonists include anti-heroes such as Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (who isn't just reluctant, but downright obstructionist), and the morally ambiguous characters found in the Song of Ice and Fire books.

The typical Heroic Fantasy plot involves events that are initially beyond the protagonists' control that thrust the protagonists into positions of responsibility where their mettle is tested through a series of challenges. Often, this involves a geographical journey through a fantastic setting.

But these plots can also describe works otherwise considered "epic" and "high" fantasy -- where the fate of worlds, gods, and mighty kingdoms are at stake -- and "low" fantasy -- where the focus is entirely on the hero's own personal (and sometimes unsavory) goals -- not to mention the works of heroic fantasy's kissing-cousin, "sword-and-sorcery."

For me (and most fans, I think), "heroic fantasy" fits somewhere between high- and low-fantasy, with the fate of something greater than the hero in the balance, but without the grand scope of grand kingdoms and mighty gods.

The Heroic Fantasy setting itself is not in need of saving, as in the high- and epic-subgenres, but neither is it as suffused with the "weird horror," graphic violence, and sexuality that characterize the closely-related Lovecraftian-influenced Sword-and-Sorcery school.

Instead, the Heroic Fantasy setting provides a robust and ambiguous "adventure-friendly" background for tales of derring-do, dungeon-delving, questing, and princess-rescuing, where encounters with magic and fantastic elements can simply be had within a much more narrow and "realistic" scope. After all, how many Mighty Kings have you met lately?

What fascinates and excites me most as a writer in this genre is the degree of latitude it affords me to experiment and play with the forms and conventions of Fantasy.

My own heroic fantasy Matter of Manred stories feature impoverished hedge-kings of war-torn lands whose concerns are anything but epic and whose motivations are simultaneously "good" yet also self-serving, and certainly not world-shattering.

But my stories also feature two young men, a merchant, and a priest, out for a day's journey through the countryside, and the strange (albeit minor) magical and fantastic elements they encounter on an "adventure" in the oldest and most mundane sense of the term: "that which happens by chance, fortune, or luck."

The Mighty Kings and Dark Lords are far-away. The Gods, they are forgetful. But the protagonists, ordinary men, and women faced with extraordinary but relatable challenges must make choices that have consequences that are no less life-altering to them, even if they aren't likely to save the Great Wide World. They reflect the world I live in, the choices I face from day to day, and the consequences I live with.

My own work was once-described by a reader as "a poor man's Game of Thrones," and I've embraced that idea as indicative of the genre. The Lannisters always pay their debts, but the Hedge-King has debts no honest man can pay.

Example of Heroic Fantasy on Wattpad:
Hedge King in Winter by mdellert1172

Synopsis:

The king is crippled. Can his brother hold the kingdom together against the machinations of their rival cousin?

This exciting heroic fantasy tells the story of the idealistic yet loyal younger brother of the hedge-king of a minor, war-torn tribal kingdom who fights to save his brother's kingship from their nefarious older cousin and the lawless gang of bandits he's sharked up to seize the throne.

Excerpt:

Bran the Handsome, chief-holder of the thorp at Maladarach, seemed not at all surprised to learn that an abandoned barn on his property had been hosting a conclave of villains for weeks.

Bran was on his knees, held by two of Eowain's men. "You knew about this."

"They threatened my family." Bran seemed calm. "Who'm I supposed to trust, after the rape over in Careganath? You and your men?" He didn't seem convinced.

"How many?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe forty or fifty. They moved around a lot. A dozen here, two dozen there, coming and going."

"Mounts?"

"About two dozen, well-kept."

"Yours."

Bran sneered. "They're thieves, ain't they? Hells yes, they're mine."

"Held you to ransom for your own good behavior, did they?" Eowain didn't feel convinced. The hidden cellar certainly wasn't new. Eowain didn't believe the bandits had stolen horses or anything else from Bran.

"What was I supposed to do, Eowain? You ain't king yet, and we ain't seen hide nor hair from Lórcan in nigh on a month. Just you, parading that foreigner woman to and from Cailech. Is that the idea now, we'll start crowing in the wilderness with those savages?"

Eowain knelt down to look him in the eye. "Where'd they get the crossbows, Bran?"

"Couldn't tell you if I knew."

Eowain didn't believe him. Bran knew, he was certain, but was more afraid of the bandits than of his own king. "You're too good-looking for me to ask again, Bran." Eowain gestured to the two soldiers holding him. "Tell me. Before the lads have to hurt you."

He shook his head.

"Bran?" Eowain was losing his patience. Maybe his men could tell, or maybe they were angry about the ambush. One of his soldiers wrenched at Bran's arm.

The chief-holder relented with a squawk. "Alright! Aiii, alright, I said! Stranger come round here a few weeks ago with a wagon. Come down the road from Monóc hill, looking for someone, I don't know who." Bran waved to the eastern trail. "He wandered off again with his wagon toward Ruakhavsa and Bankern. I never did know what he was hauling in that wagon, but he had five surly-lookin' lads with him what had them crossbow things."

Eowain rose and stepped away from Bran. He crooked a finger for Medyr to join him, then turned away with him to whisper. "What do you think? That peddler Kerron and his cousins, working the High-King's Road two weeks' past?"

Medyr shrugged. "The timing makes sense. The shipment that your aunt was bringing up river, hijacked from Hanlainn territory on its way north? The sudden appearance of crossbows in the hands of bandits? So much for the innocent peddler and his distant relations."

Eowain turned back to look at the chief-holder. The thorp of Bran the Handsome wasn't one of the larger hold-fasts. Fifty-odd souls on forty-odd acres. With good seed and no troubles, they could turn a decent profit come harvest time. They had a small grain mill that served the settlements nearby, and a modest tailor who did good work with woolen kersey and serge. Bran's wife had brought a handful of horses to the hold as part of her dowry, and he'd made good custom from breeding and foaling since she'd passed on. Bran's son was serving honorably in the King's Company, as his father had before him. Altogether, it was a respectable place, and Eowain would have been glad to count its people among his clients.

But Bran had been a gadfly for years, first under Findtan's reign, and then under Lorcán's. Maladarach was a border holding, and after the wars with Ivea a generation earlier, that border had crept ever closer. Bran agitated for a campaign to retake the hill three miles to the north that his grandfather had once held. Bran complained that not enough trade from the High-King's Road came to his little thorp. Bran caviled that there was never enough relief for farmers when the harvests were bad, nor enough subsidy when the harvests were good.

Frankly, Eowain despised Bran. And now, he also knew him as his cousin's not-so-secret partisan. But he still had an obligation to the people who lived there, to keep them safe. As much as he might want to carve the pretty off Bran's famously handsome face, the people of Maladarach wouldn't be any safer, and their opinion of Eowain and his brother might turn yet further away. Was it better in this case to show mercy or strength?

There was a sound like the sizzle of water on a hot oven. What's that? Eowain looked to the two men holding Bran, then to left and right, and even behind. One of the men seemed to hear it too and shrugged at him. It sounded as if it were nearby, yet also as if it were moving, but he couldn't see anything to account for it.

Then, quite suddenly, a flame appeared with a pop between Eowain and Bran. There was no firebrand, no live coal, not even a cinder. Simply a disembodied flame, hovering alone in that morning of the winter, as far from the ground as the head of a young boy at play.

Eowain gawked, he couldn't help himself. It danced random and erratic through the air. He knew he should do something, but didn't know what. First it was here, then it was yon, then thither and there. It flickered as it went, like a candle in the wind.

The men holding Bran went pale with fright. Bran himself went grey.

Then the dancing flame collided with one of Eowain's men and kindled the tartan of his livery. All of them stared at the coruscating flickers as the flame bobbed away.

The man slapped once, twice, and again at the tongues of fire licking along the warp and weft of his woolen tartans. He released his hold on Bran the Handsome, swatting with both hands at the spreading conflagration. He began to scream like a pig at slaughter, flailing like a fool as he fled from the very thing he was wearing.

The dancing flame weaved again and again through the air, a-lighting on clumps of dead winter grass, fallen twigs, and broken branches, spreading its flames out in a semi-circle between Eowain and Bran the Handsome.

The other soldier released Bran, removed his cloak, and beat at the burgeoning flames. Bran the Handsome shrieked and ran off into the forest.

Medyr stepped forward to face the flame, a far-away look in his eyes. Eowain dared not imagine what his drymyn saw beyond the pale of the world. Medyr raised his hands, gesturing with inscrutable purpose, then barked a single word: "Forsendath!"

The flame flared, wavered, then burst into sparks and vanished.

Medyr stumbledon his two legs, then fell to his knees in the snow.

The man on fire screamed as he ran. One of Eowain's men had the mercy to put a bolt through him before he reached the forest's edge and set the whole kingdom aflame.

Inspirations:

Matthew Winkler - What makes a hero?

Music