I'd imagine it would be almost unrecognizable, considering his immense influence. Perhaps it's still dominated by Swords and Sorcery stuff?
JRR Tolkien dies in WW1. What does the fantasy genre look like today?
- Thread starter Victor Hatherley
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I'm not sure if CS Lewis would ever write The Chronicles of Narnia without Tolkien writing The Hobbit.
I think fantasy would be more based in more traditional fairy tales and more direct inspiration from the grimm bros. People would need to read more for local mythos and references.
Elf Will be smaller and more fantasious rather magic Anglo saxon , imagine Santa elf as more mainstream versión.
Drawves are already miners thanks to snow white ( who was a massive inspiration for tolkiean mythos itself) So they would be more Germanic based that small scots.
And so on.
Elf Will be smaller and more fantasious rather magic Anglo saxon , imagine Santa elf as more mainstream versión.
Drawves are already miners thanks to snow white ( who was a massive inspiration for tolkiean mythos itself) So they would be more Germanic based that small scots.
And so on.
I think there would be two main types of fantasy: the pulpish, Conan-style Swords and Sorcery and the traditional, childish faitytale-style with elves, dwarves, and so on. Without Tolkien, they would probably both be seen as completely different genres.
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There were others writing good fantasy before Tolkien wrote, and others before he became world famous, but fantasy probably remains more of a fringe genre. Mark Twain wrote some pretty good fantasy stories (Connecticut Yankee, The Mysterious Stranger); L Frank Baum and his Oz series. HP Lovecraft, Robert Howard, Fritz Leiber, etc - and that's just a few American writers. Most cultures have a lengthy list of fantasy story tellers.
It's the breadth and depth of Tolkien's world creation, along with his marvelous writing that set him apart. That just open the floodgates for others
It's the breadth and depth of Tolkien's world creation, along with his marvelous writing that set him apart. That just open the floodgates for others
Having none of the academic work and lectures on Beowulf might also have an effect.
Good points. With that said, I'm going to expand my first post a bit. What is IOTL considered fantasy would probably be split into three groups:
Magical Realism: The "literary" fantasy like Twain's. Even IOTL, critics don't like to classify it as fantasy because of the Sci-Fi Ghetto, so ITTL, these works would just be grouped with general "literature."
Swords and Sorcery: Robert Howard, Fritz Leiber, etc. It would probably be the most similar to modern fantasy genre, but with less emphasis on worldbuilding and without other races such as elves and dwarves, which would be seen as the domain of fairytales. It would definitely be more fringe and likely be more interchangeable with other forms of speculative fiction (after all, Conan and the Lovecraft mythos unofficially took place in the same universe even though, by modern genre definitions, Conan is S&S Fantasy and Lovecraft is sci-fi/horror).
Fairytale: Children's stories. Again, without Tolkien, stories about elves, dwarves, kings under the mountain, and all that would be seen as purely the realm of fairytales and folklore.
(This is all, of course, assuming that a different genre-definer never comes around. After all, without Tolkien, who's to say a different person won't start writing adult fantasy with folkloric elements?)
I think that last part could easily happen but that individual might base it something entirely different (Greek myths instead or something like that).
Lord Dunsany has always been overshadowed by Tolkien and tended to write short stories rather than long novels but would probably be more prominent as an influence in TTL. Thomas Burnett Swann might be still remembered today rather than a largely forgotten figure. Peter Beagle would probably still have written "The Last Unicorn"
It would be less serious and well-regarded. It was good for the genre to have an Oxford professor of his caliber as a 'founding father'. Expectt less academic rigor and less obsession with linguistics!
Embraced it yes, did so before he seriously came into contact with Tolkien but might have lost his faith, credited Tolkien with helping him through a crisis of faith in the 1920s
You wouldn't see "Fantasy" as a coherent genre with specific tropes, like we do today. Instead, "fantasy" would probably be a grab bag of anything that was too out there for science-fiction.
One must look at early fantasy works that were not obviously Tolkien clones or produced in reaction to it.
Obviously Conan and other Sword & Sorcery stories from the pulp era will become a format. They predate any of Tolkien's published work.
Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain may loom large in the imagination without the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It's children literature, but so was the Hobbit. It seems to be based independently on Welsh mythology than as a result of Tolkien's work although it was published a good decade afterwards.
I think some version of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books will come out, but without Tolkien in the Inklings it'll be different without his comments and advice. Narnia predates Lord of the Rings, but came after the Hobbit.
Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels will be out. Titus Groan came out right after WWII.
Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, which is critical in the development of D&D by Gary Gygax, will likely still come out. The original novella was written in 1953, before Lord of the Rings, and expanded in 1961 although it does contain some elements found in Tolkien.
I don't think any of these will take Tolkien's place as a popularizer of the fantasy genre, but there are plenty of things here in both low and high fantasy. The big holes would be the obvious fantasy races in role playing games - no Halflings, no Tolkienesque elves or dwarfs (notice I did not say dwarves since Tolkien used that variant), and certainly no Orcs. Supposedly Gygax did not use Tolkien's work as an inspiration for D&D but included those fantasy races as playable options because he knew they were popular. We may see more magical dwarfs from Norse myth or more traditional faeries included. It all depends on what the potential consumers would want - maybe there are no demihumans at all. Instead of orcs as the primary enemy race, it may become some form of lizard man or serpent man from Robert E. Howard's works.
The main effect would likely be no Tolkien clones - no Terry Brooks or David Eddings type stuff.
Obviously Conan and other Sword & Sorcery stories from the pulp era will become a format. They predate any of Tolkien's published work.
Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain may loom large in the imagination without the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It's children literature, but so was the Hobbit. It seems to be based independently on Welsh mythology than as a result of Tolkien's work although it was published a good decade afterwards.
I think some version of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books will come out, but without Tolkien in the Inklings it'll be different without his comments and advice. Narnia predates Lord of the Rings, but came after the Hobbit.
Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels will be out. Titus Groan came out right after WWII.
Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, which is critical in the development of D&D by Gary Gygax, will likely still come out. The original novella was written in 1953, before Lord of the Rings, and expanded in 1961 although it does contain some elements found in Tolkien.
I don't think any of these will take Tolkien's place as a popularizer of the fantasy genre, but there are plenty of things here in both low and high fantasy. The big holes would be the obvious fantasy races in role playing games - no Halflings, no Tolkienesque elves or dwarfs (notice I did not say dwarves since Tolkien used that variant), and certainly no Orcs. Supposedly Gygax did not use Tolkien's work as an inspiration for D&D but included those fantasy races as playable options because he knew they were popular. We may see more magical dwarfs from Norse myth or more traditional faeries included. It all depends on what the potential consumers would want - maybe there are no demihumans at all. Instead of orcs as the primary enemy race, it may become some form of lizard man or serpent man from Robert E. Howard's works.
The main effect would likely be no Tolkien clones - no Terry Brooks or David Eddings type stuff.
If I remember correctly, Gygax's original reason for including the orcs and dwarves and elves from Tolkien in D&D was because of the demands of his players, who wanted fantasy races for Chainmail, and then that migrated into D&D; he would have preferred not having them at all. I don't know what Arneson felt.
It might be nice if Barker's Tekumel got more traction because of this, but I doubt it would.
The Unknown Worlds sort of fantasy may get a bigger hearing; perhaps a rediscovery in the fifties in the aftermath of L. Sprague de Camp's work with Howard's Conan. Adventure, more organized, more "world-building" behind the faerie sort of work.
Then in the sixties we might see a niche where the grim, Byronic-hero, "it's a bad day and only going to get worse" sort of retreat-from-Empire founded fantasy of Michael Moorcock and his sort.
Alas, I have to agree with cpip about the unlikeliness of the clever and intricate creations of Prof. Phil Barker (Mohammed Abd er-Rahman Barker) ever coming to notice.
Then in the sixties we might see a niche where the grim, Byronic-hero, "it's a bad day and only going to get worse" sort of retreat-from-Empire founded fantasy of Michael Moorcock and his sort.
Alas, I have to agree with cpip about the unlikeliness of the clever and intricate creations of Prof. Phil Barker (Mohammed Abd er-Rahman Barker) ever coming to notice.
We'd be likely, IMO, to see "fantasy" as much fractured science-fiction was and still partially is between national-cultural traditions.
For instance, I'd expect to see American heroic-fantasy keeping a pulp vibe (neo-pulp if you could de Camp atrocities), with a relatively amoral take on the story and narrative;
British fantasy to be more fairy-tale like (altough I could see such going darkly when it comes to theme pretty easily) with a strong americanized autorship (Carter, Moorcock, etc.);
French fantastique* would probably be as mixing-up science-fiction and horror/supernatural tales, especially in the historical (or historicizing**) science-fiction AND in bande-dessinées.
*Fantasy in France took a long time to really be accepted as a precise genre, traditionally being included both in science-fiction or supernatural recits. Even today, it's pretty hard to point at "pure" fantasy, most of it being of poor quality (I'm looking at you Soleil editions)
** Meaning largely influenced by historical settings, rather than historical narratives. The difference can be slim, admittedly, but I suspect that the picaresque and historicizing take that still pretty much define half of french fantastique (coming from XIXthswashbucklers and historical novels) being more focused on Renaissance and Modern take than early medieval.
For instance, I'd expect to see American heroic-fantasy keeping a pulp vibe (neo-pulp if you could de Camp atrocities), with a relatively amoral take on the story and narrative;
British fantasy to be more fairy-tale like (altough I could see such going darkly when it comes to theme pretty easily) with a strong americanized autorship (Carter, Moorcock, etc.);
French fantastique* would probably be as mixing-up science-fiction and horror/supernatural tales, especially in the historical (or historicizing**) science-fiction AND in bande-dessinées.
*Fantasy in France took a long time to really be accepted as a precise genre, traditionally being included both in science-fiction or supernatural recits. Even today, it's pretty hard to point at "pure" fantasy, most of it being of poor quality (I'm looking at you Soleil editions)
** Meaning largely influenced by historical settings, rather than historical narratives. The difference can be slim, admittedly, but I suspect that the picaresque and historicizing take that still pretty much define half of french fantastique (coming from XIXthswashbucklers and historical novels) being more focused on Renaissance and Modern take than early medieval.