Writer Wander 016 - Carissimi

True Magic lies in Love

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

I don't want to write Rider Wander sixteen. Carissimi. One of the things that I've been thinking about recently, having recently finished the outline for Echoes of Heroes, and while I am soon to be beginning it roughly next weekend, one of the things that I'm thinking about is a particular moment that I've outlined in this story. In this particular moment, as the characters are getting ready to set out on another adventure or quest, they were accompanying another character who was a holy lady, Lady Ostris, whose name I mentioned last time. And before they accompanied her on their journey, they swore a vow to her, but it was a temporary vow, such that the vow would be fulfilled upon their arrival at their initial location. Now, when their quest has to extend even further than that, and she asks if they are willing to accompany her, she frees them of their vows to her, the original vows, and she says that if they wish to part, they may do so with no risk to their honor. However, if they wish to accompany her, they may swear another vow. And obviously, since I, you know, since I want the plot to move that way, I made it so that all the characters, the ones that are capable of continuing the journey at least, they all have another swear, another vow before Lady Ostrius. And when this is done, she takes it as a sign of profound love and respect, and she assigns a special title to those characters in the Brazil dialect, which is what I call the sort of like the high elven speech of this world, the Quenya, so to speak, which was the language in, you know, the high elf language that was used by scholarly people in the Lord of the Rings. And she calls each of those accompanying her that chose to accompany her on that other leg of the journey. She calls them carissimi. Carissimi is an actual word, right? It's not an invented word that I made, it's just a loan word I'm taking from Italian and from Latin, which means dearly beloved, or something along those lines, dearest, things like that. It's it's a word of very strong tenderness and affection, and it's very prominent in the the letters of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. He often begins his letters calling those he's addressing as carissimi or carissimos in in Latin, I think. And it's you know exactly it's like dearly beloved. And one of the things that I find very interesting about using this word is just how excited I was for that particular moment in the story, and I was asking myself why I felt that way. Why is it that you know this simple exchange of words, of titles, of you know, of affections between people, purely platonic, by the way? How is it that this stirs my soul in such a profound way? And one of the things that I came to, the conclusions that I came to is that a lot of modern fiction in general, there is a huge cynical current around, you know, around all of it, right? And even even in the current responses to that cynical current, right? Which, you know, the the cozy fantasy, right? A lot of that feels that, even though it is a response to the cynical current, it it often feels like it fails to take itself seriously, right? It's almost too laid back, right? Um, and in a sense, it's also failing to be sincere. And I think that that moment of carissimi, you know, that interchange of words of tenderness between the characters is a moment of profound sincerity, right? It's a moment in which, you know, these people who met each other on the road and are sharing in a given mission are giving themselves titles of of tenderness and of love. And I feel that that is something that was present in in classic fantasy, right? One of the things that I love about The Lord of the Rings are are those scenes that Frodo spends within Rivendell, just consulting all the elves and you know, being under the tutelage of Elrond and and whatnot. And that those scenes in um Lothlorion where he speaks to Lady Galadriel, and he has this, you know, this this moment of just a heart-to-heart talk with her, where it feels like they they share a certain tenderness with one another, and I feel that as fiction has aged, those moments of tenderness have slowly been discarded because they they just they just feel like oh it's not it's not realistic, oh that's too that's too childish, right? You know, that's not the kind of thing that I want to have in my in my adult fantasy novel, right? Uh or that's another thing, you know, um uh you know uh you don't even have to point to like a masterpiece like Lord of the Rings, that's a good Dragonlance. You know, a lot of people hate on the idea of a group of adventurers just meeting up at a pub to talk about things, but that's the inciting incident for Dragonlance, and I think it's very effective, personally. You know, a group of like old friends choosing to get together after so many years to discuss the state of the world, the the advancement of evil in the world, that there's something, yes, it's it's not exactly the most realistic thing, obviously. It's not it's not very realistic, and yes, it it is unlikely that in pre-industrial times a large group of friends would have been able to coordinate a meeting in an unassuming inn multiple years from the last time they spoke, and it's even less likely that they would, you know, just get together for the the sole altruistic purpose to discuss the the state of the evil in in the world. Yet I feel that there's just something about that, there's something profoundly archetypical, profoundly heroic in in that kind of scenario, that just it speaks to my soul. And that's one of the things that I touched on in the well, I've touched on it before, but one of the things that I touched on right in the last episode is how often it feels like a lot of the things that we use to try and you know differentiate our novels from other novels, in my opinion, seem to be very superficial, like you know, magic systems and you know stuff like that, or or particular weird societies, or you know, a character having a particular fighting style or a character, I don't know, a character belonging to to a certain group, you know, these are things that you know they have merit, right? But I don't feel that they fundamentally you know answer that yearning for a true differentiation, right? I feel that, for example, I feel that a lot of people, if someone made like an epic fantasy that takes place in say a Japanese, a Japanese setting, right, that in and of itself would probably be praised just for being in a Japanese inspired setting. However, what I feel is that you know it's great that you you gave this cool genre a fresh coat of paint that's not often seen, right? However, you know, what does it matter that you are telling the same kind of story with already told but with a different with a different skin, right? What what is that what does that matter, right? Are you really doing something different? Are you really doing something that that differentiates you when you're doing that? Versus making an epic fantasy in the Japanese-inspired setting, but there's something there's something about that Japanese influence that permeates that fantasy. And it's not something as simple as replacing the Dark Lord with a a great Oni, which is like the the Japanese word for for demons, right? It's it's not as simple as that, you know. You have to pull deeper from that mythology to make that that difference meaningful. And I feel that the things that I often look for in a story, I I don't really care about, you know, like I said, I don't care about magic systems, I don't care about unique settings, quote unquota. Like those those are those things are fine, but they're not really what attracts me to a setting. What often attracts me, and what I find truly interesting, are if there are variations in the type of plot line being presented, or variations in the structure of the plot line, or the presence of just simple, tender moments in the story. Another really good book that you know that's very good at this is The Wizard of Earth Sea. I really feel that that that's a book where you can you can feel that Ursula K. Le Guin is giving the main character time to breathe, Sparrowhawk. He's giving him time to to breathe, and you know, the relationship that he develops with his mentor is one that there's a true there's a true tenderness to it, and there's a there's a quiet humanity to the relationships that develop within Earthsea that you don't really see in a lot of more modern fantasy fiction. And I I find that just deeply deeply fascinating, and I guess I'm looking for moments in my fiction that remind me what it what it really means to be human, right? I remember that when I was first getting into writing it, I was you know looking for writing advice on the web, trying to find out what how what am I supposed to do to become a better writer, etc. Very common piece of advice was like, you know, make sure every scene is in function of the plot, make sure every scene is you know is moving, is doing stuff. And you know, again, I I feel that that might be true for certain kinds of novels, because the author who was giving that advice, I won't slander him because uh I do like his channel, but the guy who is giving that advice, uh he he wrote thriller books, and you know, obviously that kind of advice does make sense for a thriller book, but that's not really something that you should be marketing as if it was advice in general for writing a book. There are books that benefit from taking things slow, and obviously it's telling that that you know that that creator, um, when he reviewed the Lord of the Rings, he you know he didn't enjoy it as much. He said he preferred having read it rather than the process of reading it, and you know, different strokes for different folks, of course. But I feel that you know he did he wasn't the target audience for the kind of person that would enjoy the the slow burn, you know, the enjoyment of the simple things, right? You know, I like it when fantasy stories take a pause to show you an old song or an old hymn. You know, it gives it gives texture to the world, it gives, you know, it creates the illusion of a world that doesn't just exist for the plot of a story that isn't just there to move forward and you know a particular narrative that no, this is you know an organic world where things have happened before, they're happening now, and and they'll continue to happen. That's what I like in fiction. And it feels like a lot of fiction has just been slowly dehumanized in a in a very real sense. It feels like a group of you know, a group of engineers have taken over the writing space and have started to mold, especially fantasy writing, into their particular vision of of the world. And that they absolutely have a right to exist. I'm not I'm not gonna argue here that they shouldn't exist, you know, they have value. Um when I think of that, I'm I'm thinking of uh you know Brandon Sanderson. Brandon Sanderson is an excellent writer, he's a very talented man, and uh he absolutely deserves a space in fantasy fiction. But from what I've from what I've read of him, I've enjoyed all of it. I've enjoyed all of it. But I often feel that the scientific approach he has to magic systems and to world building his you know his magic societies, it often feels like he just lost the plot on what fantasy is really about. To where I'm not even sure if I'm comfortable calling his stories or his flavor of fantasy fantasy at all. You know, not that he should care, right? They're they're good stories, they're they're well written. I've enjoyed them. He's a very competent and talented creator. However, I feel that the soul of of that genre that he he claims to write it, in my opinion, is just is just not there. And again, very talented guy. I'm not saying he's not, and he's he's made a great contribution, and there's a lot of there's a lot of cool things about him, but I don't I don't like that particular effect he's had on the genre, where he's brought this very scientific mentality to fantasy, in my opinion, and he's made it into something that it just that it just wasn't before. And you know, who knows? Maybe I'm not you know, I'm in the minority here, potentially, but I do want a return to form for for the genre, right? You know, I don't want to be the guy who's like on the bandwagon of hating like Standard Sony and hard magic systems. That's you know, that's not it. I'm sure that that position is a lot more popular than people think, okay, you know, but there's some truth to it. There's some there's some truth that uh you know this focus on like hard magic system has either led to worlds that are mostly devoid of magic, period, or worlds that are go for that, you know, systematized magic approach. I I don't like you know those systems. Another author I like that you know that sort of does this is uh Ellie Modicid. In uh I read a lot from his imager series, and uh again, he has developed a very interesting society, a very interesting civilization in that world, but I feel that it lacks magic. In his case, I think that's probably by design because he's a very he comes from a political planning background and an economics background, so his worlds are often characterized by a very strong political realism that you don't often see in fantasy, which is why I really like his his stories, but again, they they don't quite feel like fantasy at the bottom heart, you know, aside from the fact that they take place in a in a secondary world, but you don't feel that mythical texture that I feel is what really um characterizes fantasy is fantasy. And there's something there's something interesting to that, right? Because uh when I'm thinking of Imager in particular, those stories, they take place, uh he likes to jump around in time a lot, but you know, the the setting that they take place in can be described as either a renaissance setting or a an early modern setting, depending on which book, right? So you already have gunpowder, you have very centralized states, um, you already have people who are are questioning religious authorities, for example. And maybe there's something to that. Maybe, you know, part of the reason why fantasy often gravitates to the Middle Ages, it's not just because it's a trope, like a lot of people seem to think, but rather it's because the the Middle Ages really is the last time period in history in which we had a properly mythic understanding of the world. By the Renaissance, that was already fading. But the Middle Ages really was that like that last period in which there was a mythic worldview that defined everything. And you know, I'm not using mythic in an insulting sense, you know. I'm using it in you know in the I guess a structural sense, a you know, a definite descriptive sense more than more than anything. And obviously, the Middle Ages had philosophy, they they had they had wise people, they they had you know a very rigorous system of scholasticism that I would argue led to the developments that you later see in the Renaissance and the um the scientific revolution. But you know, like the ancient world, even though you had these brilliant people, it was dominated by you know this this world of profound mystery and and myth and un you know unspoken answers, right? And that's why a lot of fantasy fiction either is either in the Middle Ages or earlier than that, because when you try to to push it forward into another era, it sort of loses its magic because one of the things that define history in the West at least from the Renaissance onward is the you know the the pervasiveness of of understanding of the world, of knowledge, of the clarification of mysteries and the solutions to problems that have plagued us for a long time, be they philosophical or scientific. And that leads naturally to worlds in which systems become a lot more complex and a lot less dependent on narratives or individuals, and they sort of become like these these abstract things that that rule over everything, that you know, that intertwine around everything, and it's very hard to give a mythic sense to a world that has aged like that. So even though you could create a a secondary world that was in a and a modernity slash enlightenment setting, I'm not sure if you could really call it fantasy. Obviously, we would call it fantasy now for the sake of you know of keeping things you know for marketability and whatnot. We would call it that, but you know, it's really it's it's really not. It's it's really not. It's missing that mythic undertone. So those are my thoughts, Wander Rider. So next time you ask yourself why fantasy authors often pick the Middle Ages, think of this Rider Wonder Out.