With fashion resurgences and a 2012 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby captures not just a period of time, the 1920s in America, but a lifestyle that seems to be perennially fascinating to a wide audience. However, it is very much a product of its time and lacks representations of […]
In one of my photography courses this past semester we talked about the idea of ‘darkest Africa’ and how images of the continent intentionally excluded the evidence of the cultures that already existed in order to present a view of Africa as an empty place for Europeans to come in and illuminate through industrial development. […]
There is nothing particularly wrong with young adult fiction, it makes readers out of people who might not otherwise pick up a book, but it does rely on a different set of tropes. The ‘magic pixie dream girl’ trope is one of many to becoming a mainstay in teen books and is also the subject of mocking from the wider literary world. Some of that mocking is well deserved as it speaks to the continuing unrealistic representations of young women in media, but other aspects are just traits that make characters interesting to read about – especially in the kind of light fantasy that dominates YA books.
Lord of the Rings is not known for its subtle layers of moral complexity. There is no flicker of doubt regarding Sauron’s evil plans or the innate goodness of hobbits. JRR Tolkien was consistent in his use of clear moral coding both with characters and with world building which is particularly clear in the contrasting […]
The notion of alternate universes lives in a strange place in popular imagination. It is used by popular movie franchises, debated by science and the topic of the occasional joke. The multiple universes of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia predate most of these interpretations and their presence is often forgotten within the wider image of […]
One of the consistent motifs in the short fiction of H.P. Lovecraft is the description of creatures and spaces as non-Euclidean. Most readers are still able to identify the horror of these creations (as well as the rampant racism in the stories) but the description itself is highly academic. For many readers this isn’t enough […]
Whether drawn from faiths in the real world or completely constructed by an author, divinities of all sorts are a useful way to explain the source of a character’s power. The ways in which these characters are positioned in relation to their presiding deity allows for different kinds of conflicts. In novels like R.F. Kuang’s […]
There is no wiki for Jo Walton’s Among Others and even if there was it probably would not be particularly helpful. This is because unlike many other, more well-known fantasy stories, the magic the novel is not something that can be codified for fans to pour over the technicalities of. Instead Among Others is built […]
Books or movies are often described as an immersive experience but the ways in which these works are discussed means that it is difficult to consider whether a visual artwork could be similarly engrossing. In the world of contemporary art there are works that are truly immersive in that the viewer must directly participate in […]
In gaming jargon, it’s called being overpowered but even if the discussion around fantasy literature lacks the vocabulary to pinpoint what makes certain book series loose their appeal, over powered characters are often at the heart of the issue. The way that fantasy stories tend to develop, both with larger plot points and the arc […]
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