E2: Fantastic Lit and Speculative Fic Notes

Myth: early peoples attempts to understand the how and the why of the world around them—sacred stories

Folk Tales: oral stories to teach teenagers in the Middle Ages how to live in the world, how society worked and how to get along in life.

Fairy Tales: stories written by the literate for the literate to examine "modern society" and how to best survive in it. Connected to much folklore in that it was meant to help young people navigate a dangerous world

Fantastic Literature: incorporates elements of mythology and fairy tales (archetypes, coded language, rule of threes, the forest) with modern sensibilities and settings; meant to be read in order to provoke a change in perspective

• asks the same questions as mythology
• focuses on how the answers fit into today's world
• the most important question is: what does it mean to be human?
• often pulls ideas (characters and story-lines) from mythology and folklore
• grew out of fairy tales
• uses much of the same imagery, symbolism, and coded language as fairy tales (but with a modern twist)
• tries to make people view the world differently (like it is still full of Mystery and magic)
• how you read the story depends on whether or not you understand the code
• The Forest is anyplace that is new, with new rules, new people, new challenges.
• The fairy tale forest is sometimes the woods, or a small town, or a big city. Any place that is totally out of the main character's comfort zone. Any place where the main character is going to have to learn new rules, new skills, and how to grow up.
• The fairy tale forest (or town or city or school) is where the main character faces his or her shadow [everyone enters the forest, not everyone leaves]

Speculative Fiction (becomes Scifi): At the end of the nineteenth century people tried to figure out what the transition from rural life to urban life meant and how to deal with science as god

• asks the same questions as mythology
• focuses on how changing technology changes the answers
• the most important question is: what does it mean to be human?
• often will put characters (archetypes/tropes) from myth/folklore into hi-tech settings
• don't always seem to be the same characters (you have to search for the connections)
• grew out of the massive technological changes that came during and after the Industrial Revolution
• created its own imagery, symbolism, and coded language (to understand the stories before "the golden age" you had to be smart enough to figure out the code)
• how you read the story depends on whether or not you understand the code
• The Forest is anyplace that is new, with new rules, new people, new challenges.
• The fairy tale forest is space, a space ship, another planet, another plane of existence, etc...

Basic Archetypes: developed by Alfred Adler and Carl Jung using the work of Sigmund Freud

• Hero: Puts the well-being of his people above his own safety and from beginning to end, he learns important skills and changes as a person
• Mentor or Guide: Teaches and protects the hero; Gives the hero magical gifts to help complete the quest; Often tied to nature or religion; could be a failed hero who is trying to help the next generation
• Herald: gives the hero or anti-hero the quest; sends him or her on a journey that includes adventure, self-discovery, finding hidden talents, learning new skills, loneliness, and lots of fighting (is usually the mentor or dispossessed noble)
• Anti-hero: Never overcomes inner demons and is, instead, destroyed by them; can be an outlaw or villain to society, but is sympathetic to the audience; cynical or wounded
• Shapeshifter: Can change form, but usually appears to change from good to evil, mean to kind, friend to lover, etc.
• Gatekeeper: the person or people who guard a gateway or task; Sometimes they are part of the villain’s company or sometimes they can become allies or members of the hero’s group
• Shadow: Represents the hidden qualities (inner demons) of the hero; Represents the suppressed elements of the other characters – things that seem like weaknesses 
• Trickster: Element of chaos, curious to know how and why, practical joker; often causes problems for everyone by accident; Comic relief 
• Catalyst: the person or event that actually causes a change in the world or the life of the hero/anti-hero; can cause new powers or abilities to surface in others (oftentimes is also the trickster; sometimes the villain)