Demography of Fantasyland

News first. This week I'll be posting a two part Portal 2 review. Well actually the first post will be a review but it will contain NO spoilers. The second part to my Portal 2 posts WILL contain spoilers as it will be my take on the story; so if you want to keep the surprises to yourself do not read the second post until after you have beaten Portal 2. that being said...on we go!

Hello and welcome to my second part of the investigation of Fantasyland. The first part, in case you missed it, was my post on the Geography of Fantasyland. Here I'll be looking at the portrayal of cultures, species, and societies in fantasy stories.

One of the fascinating aspects of fantasy writing is the interaction of different cultures and how that is sometimes mixed with the interaction of humanity with species from it's own mythology. Of course one of the best and most used examples of such an interaction would be between elves and humans. A lot of the fantasy I have read uses elves, dwarves, and various other species. But some do so better than others...well actually I feel that quite a lot of fantasy does not portray other species in a realistic way. To better explain the problem in demography in a fantasy setting, writers often simply create monolithic cultures and societies.

While I enjoy Dungeons and Dragons as much as the next person, that world has lead to a lot of people producing the 'other' as a stereotype. To give a better example; I enjoy reading R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Series, but I do have to swallow the rather entertaining story with a grain of salt (Several actually). Dwarves, elves, orcs, etc, all have similar societies everywhere regardless of geography in the Forgotten Realms world. While I do partly believe that there are inherent characteristics in a species that show across geography, I do not think that would manifest into Scottish accents and a disposition for mining everywhere.

I do however think that if a writer doesn't want to come up with a highly complicated regional history for every branch of culture a particular species has, then he/she can make the fact that a species is a monoculture part of the story. For example in David Weber's Safehold series the entire planet is dominated by a singular religion and main language. But he uses this as part of the story, an obstacle for humanity to overcome if it wants to survive. Another theme (that I will not go into in depth) is the idea of the Singularity, where humanity becomes so advanced that they become one culture and, some would say, one mind.

Transferring this to Fantasyland, I think the best example of a pseudo-monoculture would be the elves and dwarves of Middle-Earth. To really get a sense of this however, you should read the Silmarillion (or failing that check it out on Wikipedia :) ). Essentially the elves spring to life all in one place and start to develop their own culture and language. This is used to 'color' the elves for everything that happens after. However, Tolkien realized quite correctly that time, distance, and influences, would create different subcultures. He showed this variance through language, bloodlines, geography, and certain key plot twists (which were then mostly represented by language, bloodlines, or geography). For example, there re huge differences in culture and language between the elves who stayed in Middle Earth, the elves who journeyed to Valinor, and the elves who later returned to Middle Earth. An even better subject of an well deployed monoculture in Middle Earth would be the dwarves. Their entire civilization sprang from the hand of one of the Valar and remained few in number throughout the stories. As they existed in a limited area, their cultures and languages did not vary much. Wherever someone went in Middle Earth, one could expect dwarves to be similar as they all came from one place.

One interesting result from humans writing these stories is that humans are the only people who have multiple cultures (which are seen, heard, and felt in stories) but other species do not. Now unless the writer gives some compelling reason, pertinent to the story, of why said species is a monoculture, then I would expect a species like dwarves to have many different kinds of cultures that vary just like humans. I would expect there to be different dialects, languages, customs, etc to spring up as the different species expand and progress through time. Quite a number of the fantasy authors I have read have taken pains to stress the variability of human culture and so I do not feel as pushed to harp on that line (although in certain cases it is still a problem). Even in Salvatore's work, there is a sense that humans in one place are different from humans in another.

In my stories set in wonderful Fantasyland I hope to give different shades of the species I include. I do not want my readers to feel like the world is bland. I do not believe (and hope not) that humans are the 'only' sentience capable of having different cultures. I imagine a key aspect to sentient life to be a wonderful ability to grow in different and unexpected ways. It makes sense that new cultures and regional histories develop and that regardless of species, people become different. Wouldn't that be a much more fascinating and exciting world to travel in? Isn't reality amazing because of the same?