Date Posted:02:40:09 03/25/04 Thu Author:Thormagni Subject: Re: Heroic Fantasy In reply to:
Adilbrand
's message, "Re: Heroic Fantasy" on 20:16:28 03/24/04 Wed
Maybe I am a commie, but I suspect that it is capitalism in general that destroyed the traditional mythology. The modern publishing philosophy doesn't actually treat the marketable characters as characters in a tale, per se, but rather as commodities to be packaged, marketed and sold. Once you find a marketable commodity, you milk that cow. Killing someone off or having the story end and giving up the income stream of that property is completely opposite to the capitalist ideal.
Once the mega-corporation gets its hooks into a creative idea, it kind of puts us in a limbo as readers of many popular fictional characters. We know that Superman or Spider-man are never really going to croak and that there will be an infinite number of Star Wars books, filling every nook and cranny of a character's life. Because, were the story to END, there wouldn't be a new product to sell. And these are marketed as must-have products.
I wonder what is going to happen to Harry after Rowling writes her last book. Sure, SHE is done, but I wonder if Scholastic and Time-Warner are going to let the series die. Or will we see a series of poor quality "Young Harry" novels set around his first years at Hogwarts and a "Teen Harry" series and an infinite succession of spin-off products.
I love to read Orson Scott Card's novels. And Ender's Game was practically the perfect sci-fi novel. On the Harry Potter/JK scale, OSC and Ender are is barely a blip on the rader. But now his sequels have spawned sequels of their own. His most current work is the "shadow" novels which follow lesser characters in the Ender universe as they interact with Ender and his family. Interesting, for sure. But also a marketing ploy, I suspect.
So as consumers we have to be kept in this juvenile state, primed and ready to rush out and purchase the next in the series, without ever getting the benefit of seeing the end, the finale.
>I wonder what socialogical force gave rise to the
>truncated myth cycle Bob mentioned in his post? Was
>it DnD itself? I do think that although DnD created a
>bit of resurgance in fantasty fiction, it also ruined
>fantasy fiction at the same time, making it all sort
>of cookie-cutter fantasy.
