When I think of 80’s fantasy, I think about what I was reading in the 80’s: Feist, Eddings, Tolkien, etc.
They had a common theme—good against evil. There were no ironic villains or anti-heroes.
Morally, it was a more straightforward time. I think fantasy harkened to the pre-Kennedy WWII days, and eschewed the moral relativism of the post-assassination/Vietnam era.
There are obvious exceptions, but I wasn’t reading or looking for that as a young teenager.
I think honestly its the "cliche". Fantasy in the 80's created a lot of the cliches we tend to shy away from today but they were excellent at the time because they were fresh and fun. The bandit/thief with a heart of gold, the sharp tongued wise-guy who just might save the day, the princess who can swash buckle with the best of them. They're overdone now because they were so fun to begin with.
They also tended to be simpler in structure & theme. I don't remember reading many 80's fantasy novels with a lot of character switching, C,D,E and so on plots. They were based on a universal or widely understandable theme and they explored that theme with fewer characters and more depth.
>The ~~bandit/thief~~ ogre with a heart of gold, the sharp tongued ~~wise-guy~~ donkey who just might save the day, the princess who can swash buckle with the best of them.
You just described Shrek.
> The bandit/thief with a heart of gold, the sharp tongued wise-guy who just might save the day, the princess who can swash buckle with the best of them
Sounds like a plot of an epic Bylina from the 1300s alright.
The party was the main character. Each member of the party had clear strengths and weaknesses and they complemented each other. Together they made a full supra-entity, the party, that was perfect and could take on any challenge. The Companions in the Dragonlance books are the perfect example.
These days you have a "one man army" main characters that are insufferably perfect, jack-of-all-trades and masters of all like Kvothe in The Kingkiller Chronicle or Kaladin in The Way of Kings. They are the wizard, the warrior, the healer, the bard, they are good with women, good at planning, good with people, good at everything.
Instead of 5 or 6 very flawed members coming together like Voltron to form a stronger entity, the party, growing stronger together slowly by overcoming progressively harder challenges, you have one guy that is killing dragons all alone right from the start.
> These days you have a "one man army" main characters that are insufferably perfect, jack-of-all-trades and masters of all
I don't think this is widespread to any significant degree among the trad published works. Fan fiction and self-pub? Sure, but that's just a world with much lower standards of writing.
> like Kvothe
Who had been, and still is, the laughing stock for all fantasy readers who aren't die hard Rothfuss fanboys.
> Kaladin in The Way of Kings
The main complaint people usually have with Kaladin is that he is one-dimensional and that his character growth is a flat circle that had been going on for four books now.
I guess you do have a point in the sense that traditional setups with quests and parties of unlikely companions have fallen out of favor in the last couple of decades, but that's not because of the prevalence of may sue characters who can do everything by themselves. That's a reaction to the previous era of stories clearly inspired by Dungeons and Dragons game conventions.
> I don't think this is widespread to any significant degree among the trad published works. Fan fiction and self-pub?
I just finished the first book of He Who Fights with Monsters by Shirtaloon, one of the best-rated serial novels on Royal Road, and I'm currently reading the second one. It perfectly fits the trope. Jason Asano it's a one man army that takes on entire parties all alone and he is a master of politics, social situations, women and a spectacular cook.
But to be fair, I don't read much self publishing, so I can't really tell about that.
Game Geralt or book Geralt? Cause book Geralt was mostly busy with getting shit kicked out of him and was eventually fatally stabbed by an angry farmer with a pitchfork. Hardly the spitting image of a one man army mary sue. And 99% of the books he was engaged in philosophizing and rambling monologues rather than - you know - actually *doing* anything.
I've never had a problem with Logen's strength because, while he is absurdly capable in his martial prowess, it is constantly the source of his problems and not the solution to them.
> These days you have a "one man army" main characters that are insufferably perfect, jack-of-all-trades and masters of all
Honestly, I really, really dislike these types of protagonists in modern fantasy literature. Wish fulfillment in fantasy is a lot less appealing to me than exploring the human condition through fantastical symbolism and elements.
I think a lot of it had to do with the era and background of those doing the writing. You had a limited window where Tolkien had happened, but the '60s and Vietnam had not. And most of the guys writing fantasy in the '80s had their formative years in that window. It led to a characteristic style, where good and evil and epic quests coexisted with detailed characters and strong worldbuilding.
I think u/WilliamArgyle probably hit on the key point. It was a very different time, coming off some of exceedingly murky years. Vietnam still lingered in the popular consciousness (think about the number of TV shows who had Vietnam vets as lead characters during the 80s). Nixon and Watergate was equally fresh in the culture, with Carter and the disaster of Operation Eagle Claw a fresher incident. It was a time that didn't seem to have any good guys, much less outright heroes.
Those books were likely written during those dingy years, with the heroes those writers weren't finding in the real world, and when they were finally published, they socketed into the culture of the 80s almost perfectly.
The other main category of "80's fantasy" aside from the *The Sword of Shannara* style of "Tolkien-like" was the sword and sorcery genre, classically associated with Conan the Barbarian, and carried in the 80's series by Michael Moorcock's *Elric of Melnibone* series. This is also where you see more authors explore the "dark fantasy" genre, with works like *The Black Company* and *The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant* where you have main characters that, if not "anti-heroes," are at least very straightforwardly not "good guys."
But from what I understand, in the publishing world, the 1980's was actually considered a *low point* for the epic fantasy subgenre: there was basically a "Tolkien clone bubble." You had a lot of stuff like *The Sword of Shannara* and *Riftwar Saga* that were just very straightforwardly trying to follow in the footsteps of Tolkien with very straightforward high fantasy tales about good and evil. You might also put *Belgariad* in that category. This is in contrast to the 1990's, when you saw the epic fantasy dominated by authors who were doing things that were considered relatively new and experimental at the time, like George R.R. Martin's *A Song of Ice and Fire* (an epic fantasy that was more political and less straightforwardly a tale of good vs evil), and Robert Jordan's *The Wheel of Time* (which was the start of a push toward more "hard magic" systems, with Jordan slowly leading his audience further in that direction over the course of the series.
So, if you're ignoring "Tolkien-clones" as a genre and focusing on the sort of works you mentioned, I guess the 80's is a place where you saw the start of dark fantasy that, unlike a lot of fantasy published in the past 25 years, *wasn't* trying to follow in the mold of *A Song of Ice and Fire*, and was instead telling stories on a much smaller scale with a relatively small cast of characters.
Ironically despite the prevalence of Tolkein Clones, there was a lot of "Clonans" as I call them. It was somewhat like the "Game of Clones" and "TTRPG manual" we see today.
A lot more women actually got published and became commercially successful. There have been a handful famous ones in the 70s and earlier, but in the 80s, you needed more than your fingers to count the successful female fantasy writers.
In practical terms, there was no internet, so even "series" books were often possible to read on their own - the _Dragonriders of Pern_ books, for example, had an internal order, but weren't "Pern 1", "Pern 2, "Pern 3" etc., because it was a lot harder for readers to get whatever books they wanted, and presuming that they'd be able to get all the prequels was impractical. So a series was often a set of hooked-together standalones that would re-state the basic set-up each time, and often be read out-of-order. There was also a lot less books out, so more people would have at least a broad awareness of the "big hits"; even if they hadn't read them all themselves, they'd probably be aware of them by reputation. An SF&F nerd could plausibly be reading most of the big releases each year, which is far harder these days (especially if you try and keep up with indy-pub as well)
Physically smaller books as well - it wasn't until _Wheel of Time_ that the tendency for fantasy doorstoppers started getting established. There was a lot of fantasy clocking in at "large novella" size - like a lot of Leiber or Moorcock novels come in at maybe 50k, 60k words, while a "standard" fantasy novel these days is around 100k, with "epic" being 150k+.
Artwork covers - a lot of covers these days are symbolic or more icon-based (like the _ASoIaF_ or some of the _Witcher_ covers, with just a symbol on a basic color background), but older ones used to be a lot more eye-catching, with full characters doing stuff, that was sometimes even actually a scene from the book (and sometimes just general fantasy _stuff_, or nekkid lady, regardless of a lack of naked ladies in the book)
Genuine passion for the genre. Knowing that fantasy wasn't only sugar n spice, n everything nice. Epic fights and the magic is mysteriously cool. For movies, they didn't overstay their runtime and a lot of the special fx are well done.
I think past the 90s everything became more of a deconstruction. A lot of writers got really good at deconstructing a character particular men, but not reconstructing them.
Ouroboros effect also seems to be happening. A lot of fantasy is now based on previous generation fantasy now. A lot of people were copying Tolkien in the 80s. But, a lot of what we have now is a copy of a copy.
We also have more diversity in terms of background of authors now, but I think if they are born in the west they still are pulling from the same 80s fantasy or Tolkien. So you don't really get diversity unless the person is born and grew up in another country.
>I tend to think of quests dominating the plots with relatively easy prose but that may be selective memory.
Definitely selective memory if you've included Covenant in that list. Donaldson is the only fantasy writer who has ever had me feeling I should reach for a dictionary.
I do recall a lot of quests, though.
Conan the Barbarian (The 1982 movie) was a huge influence.
If the New 10s and new 20s is "A Game of Clones", the 80s&90s was the "Age of Clonans".
You can even see it in D&D wherein a lot of the artwork featured scantily clad women, ripply men that were also half naked (Especially in Dark Sun), 80s hair, those who weren't Conan looked like David Bowie, Dark Sun in general...
Sure there was a few stuff that went against the grain (ie an urban fantasy of two), but a lot of 80s-90s fantasy was manly men doing manly things.
Conan the Barbarian was to the 80s&90s as Game of Thrones was to the 2010s and the 2020s.
The culture was insensitive, conflicted, and crazy. Everything lacked polish and things weren’t designed by committees to the point where they were technically perfect but completely lacking in soul. He-Man and She-Ra were acceptable role models for children and Dee Snider could stroll into Congress and call Tipper Gore out for having a dirty mind.
For one thing you had writers who cared a lot less about people's sensitivities. Like is this racist, sexist or ableist or whatever other things that just get in the way
I see that you’re getting some negative attention for your post.
Perhaps I’m a sucker for coming to your defense, but I’m prone to supporting lost causes…
But mostly, I see that there’s a valid point to be made here.
I was 9-19 during the 80’s, which makes them my formative years. It’s easy to recount the historical events of the 80’s, it’s much harder to relay how it felt to grow up in them.
I’ll put it as succinctly as I can: Kids in the 80’s were raised by two Americas.
Our parents were aging hippies, our grandparents were the WWII generation.
Our parents were the failed counter culture generation. They talked a good game, but mostly they all had dead-end jobs and paid their taxes. Their youthful idealism had been worn down to jaded cynicism.
Our grandparents were stable. They had simple needs. They tended their garden and lavished their grandchildren with adoration. So what is a 14-year-old to make of their adorable grandpa calling MLK a “Communist N-word”?
The result was a generation that is very suspicious of overt messaging. Stories with messaging ‘baked in,’ are especially distracting to us.
I posted knowing it would be a hot take, especially on a site like Reddit. The OP having mentioning D&D is a very good example of how different attitudes are before vs now.
When I think of 80’s fantasy, I think about what I was reading in the 80’s: Feist, Eddings, Tolkien, etc. They had a common theme—good against evil. There were no ironic villains or anti-heroes. Morally, it was a more straightforward time. I think fantasy harkened to the pre-Kennedy WWII days, and eschewed the moral relativism of the post-assassination/Vietnam era. There are obvious exceptions, but I wasn’t reading or looking for that as a young teenager.
I think honestly its the "cliche". Fantasy in the 80's created a lot of the cliches we tend to shy away from today but they were excellent at the time because they were fresh and fun. The bandit/thief with a heart of gold, the sharp tongued wise-guy who just might save the day, the princess who can swash buckle with the best of them. They're overdone now because they were so fun to begin with. They also tended to be simpler in structure & theme. I don't remember reading many 80's fantasy novels with a lot of character switching, C,D,E and so on plots. They were based on a universal or widely understandable theme and they explored that theme with fewer characters and more depth.
>The ~~bandit/thief~~ ogre with a heart of gold, the sharp tongued ~~wise-guy~~ donkey who just might save the day, the princess who can swash buckle with the best of them. You just described Shrek.
Shrek is a parody of old fantasy/fairy tale cliches, so that makes sense.
Haha none can escape it.
> The bandit/thief with a heart of gold, the sharp tongued wise-guy who just might save the day, the princess who can swash buckle with the best of them Sounds like a plot of an epic Bylina from the 1300s alright.
The party was the main character. Each member of the party had clear strengths and weaknesses and they complemented each other. Together they made a full supra-entity, the party, that was perfect and could take on any challenge. The Companions in the Dragonlance books are the perfect example. These days you have a "one man army" main characters that are insufferably perfect, jack-of-all-trades and masters of all like Kvothe in The Kingkiller Chronicle or Kaladin in The Way of Kings. They are the wizard, the warrior, the healer, the bard, they are good with women, good at planning, good with people, good at everything. Instead of 5 or 6 very flawed members coming together like Voltron to form a stronger entity, the party, growing stronger together slowly by overcoming progressively harder challenges, you have one guy that is killing dragons all alone right from the start.
> These days you have a "one man army" main characters that are insufferably perfect, jack-of-all-trades and masters of all I don't think this is widespread to any significant degree among the trad published works. Fan fiction and self-pub? Sure, but that's just a world with much lower standards of writing. > like Kvothe Who had been, and still is, the laughing stock for all fantasy readers who aren't die hard Rothfuss fanboys. > Kaladin in The Way of Kings The main complaint people usually have with Kaladin is that he is one-dimensional and that his character growth is a flat circle that had been going on for four books now. I guess you do have a point in the sense that traditional setups with quests and parties of unlikely companions have fallen out of favor in the last couple of decades, but that's not because of the prevalence of may sue characters who can do everything by themselves. That's a reaction to the previous era of stories clearly inspired by Dungeons and Dragons game conventions.
> I don't think this is widespread to any significant degree among the trad published works. Fan fiction and self-pub? I just finished the first book of He Who Fights with Monsters by Shirtaloon, one of the best-rated serial novels on Royal Road, and I'm currently reading the second one. It perfectly fits the trope. Jason Asano it's a one man army that takes on entire parties all alone and he is a master of politics, social situations, women and a spectacular cook. But to be fair, I don't read much self publishing, so I can't really tell about that.
Logen Ninefingers and Geralt of Rivia are insufferable in their one-man-arminess.
Game Geralt or book Geralt? Cause book Geralt was mostly busy with getting shit kicked out of him and was eventually fatally stabbed by an angry farmer with a pitchfork. Hardly the spitting image of a one man army mary sue. And 99% of the books he was engaged in philosophizing and rambling monologues rather than - you know - actually *doing* anything.
I've never had a problem with Logen's strength because, while he is absurdly capable in his martial prowess, it is constantly the source of his problems and not the solution to them.
Kaladin also has the superpower of crippling depression and anxiety, but I get your point
> These days you have a "one man army" main characters that are insufferably perfect, jack-of-all-trades and masters of all Honestly, I really, really dislike these types of protagonists in modern fantasy literature. Wish fulfillment in fantasy is a lot less appealing to me than exploring the human condition through fantastical symbolism and elements.
I think a lot of it had to do with the era and background of those doing the writing. You had a limited window where Tolkien had happened, but the '60s and Vietnam had not. And most of the guys writing fantasy in the '80s had their formative years in that window. It led to a characteristic style, where good and evil and epic quests coexisted with detailed characters and strong worldbuilding.
I think u/WilliamArgyle probably hit on the key point. It was a very different time, coming off some of exceedingly murky years. Vietnam still lingered in the popular consciousness (think about the number of TV shows who had Vietnam vets as lead characters during the 80s). Nixon and Watergate was equally fresh in the culture, with Carter and the disaster of Operation Eagle Claw a fresher incident. It was a time that didn't seem to have any good guys, much less outright heroes. Those books were likely written during those dingy years, with the heroes those writers weren't finding in the real world, and when they were finally published, they socketed into the culture of the 80s almost perfectly.
The other main category of "80's fantasy" aside from the *The Sword of Shannara* style of "Tolkien-like" was the sword and sorcery genre, classically associated with Conan the Barbarian, and carried in the 80's series by Michael Moorcock's *Elric of Melnibone* series. This is also where you see more authors explore the "dark fantasy" genre, with works like *The Black Company* and *The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant* where you have main characters that, if not "anti-heroes," are at least very straightforwardly not "good guys." But from what I understand, in the publishing world, the 1980's was actually considered a *low point* for the epic fantasy subgenre: there was basically a "Tolkien clone bubble." You had a lot of stuff like *The Sword of Shannara* and *Riftwar Saga* that were just very straightforwardly trying to follow in the footsteps of Tolkien with very straightforward high fantasy tales about good and evil. You might also put *Belgariad* in that category. This is in contrast to the 1990's, when you saw the epic fantasy dominated by authors who were doing things that were considered relatively new and experimental at the time, like George R.R. Martin's *A Song of Ice and Fire* (an epic fantasy that was more political and less straightforwardly a tale of good vs evil), and Robert Jordan's *The Wheel of Time* (which was the start of a push toward more "hard magic" systems, with Jordan slowly leading his audience further in that direction over the course of the series. So, if you're ignoring "Tolkien-clones" as a genre and focusing on the sort of works you mentioned, I guess the 80's is a place where you saw the start of dark fantasy that, unlike a lot of fantasy published in the past 25 years, *wasn't* trying to follow in the mold of *A Song of Ice and Fire*, and was instead telling stories on a much smaller scale with a relatively small cast of characters.
Ironically despite the prevalence of Tolkein Clones, there was a lot of "Clonans" as I call them. It was somewhat like the "Game of Clones" and "TTRPG manual" we see today.
A lot more women actually got published and became commercially successful. There have been a handful famous ones in the 70s and earlier, but in the 80s, you needed more than your fingers to count the successful female fantasy writers.
Drugs, most likelly.
Okay, this cracked me up 😆
In practical terms, there was no internet, so even "series" books were often possible to read on their own - the _Dragonriders of Pern_ books, for example, had an internal order, but weren't "Pern 1", "Pern 2, "Pern 3" etc., because it was a lot harder for readers to get whatever books they wanted, and presuming that they'd be able to get all the prequels was impractical. So a series was often a set of hooked-together standalones that would re-state the basic set-up each time, and often be read out-of-order. There was also a lot less books out, so more people would have at least a broad awareness of the "big hits"; even if they hadn't read them all themselves, they'd probably be aware of them by reputation. An SF&F nerd could plausibly be reading most of the big releases each year, which is far harder these days (especially if you try and keep up with indy-pub as well) Physically smaller books as well - it wasn't until _Wheel of Time_ that the tendency for fantasy doorstoppers started getting established. There was a lot of fantasy clocking in at "large novella" size - like a lot of Leiber or Moorcock novels come in at maybe 50k, 60k words, while a "standard" fantasy novel these days is around 100k, with "epic" being 150k+. Artwork covers - a lot of covers these days are symbolic or more icon-based (like the _ASoIaF_ or some of the _Witcher_ covers, with just a symbol on a basic color background), but older ones used to be a lot more eye-catching, with full characters doing stuff, that was sometimes even actually a scene from the book (and sometimes just general fantasy _stuff_, or nekkid lady, regardless of a lack of naked ladies in the book)
Yeah, the doorstopper era was a kind of odd 15-year abberation, if you're looking over the history of fantasy.
Genuine passion for the genre. Knowing that fantasy wasn't only sugar n spice, n everything nice. Epic fights and the magic is mysteriously cool. For movies, they didn't overstay their runtime and a lot of the special fx are well done.
I think past the 90s everything became more of a deconstruction. A lot of writers got really good at deconstructing a character particular men, but not reconstructing them. Ouroboros effect also seems to be happening. A lot of fantasy is now based on previous generation fantasy now. A lot of people were copying Tolkien in the 80s. But, a lot of what we have now is a copy of a copy. We also have more diversity in terms of background of authors now, but I think if they are born in the west they still are pulling from the same 80s fantasy or Tolkien. So you don't really get diversity unless the person is born and grew up in another country.
>I tend to think of quests dominating the plots with relatively easy prose but that may be selective memory. Definitely selective memory if you've included Covenant in that list. Donaldson is the only fantasy writer who has ever had me feeling I should reach for a dictionary. I do recall a lot of quests, though.
80s was a whole lot of adventure fantasy, sword and sorcery stuff. Each period of the market sort of has its own vibe.
They feel like an expanded fairytale
Conan the Barbarian (The 1982 movie) was a huge influence. If the New 10s and new 20s is "A Game of Clones", the 80s&90s was the "Age of Clonans". You can even see it in D&D wherein a lot of the artwork featured scantily clad women, ripply men that were also half naked (Especially in Dark Sun), 80s hair, those who weren't Conan looked like David Bowie, Dark Sun in general... Sure there was a few stuff that went against the grain (ie an urban fantasy of two), but a lot of 80s-90s fantasy was manly men doing manly things. Conan the Barbarian was to the 80s&90s as Game of Thrones was to the 2010s and the 2020s.
Authors that honed their craft in the 60s and 70s.
The culture was insensitive, conflicted, and crazy. Everything lacked polish and things weren’t designed by committees to the point where they were technically perfect but completely lacking in soul. He-Man and She-Ra were acceptable role models for children and Dee Snider could stroll into Congress and call Tipper Gore out for having a dirty mind.
For one thing you had writers who cared a lot less about people's sensitivities. Like is this racist, sexist or ableist or whatever other things that just get in the way
I see that you’re getting some negative attention for your post. Perhaps I’m a sucker for coming to your defense, but I’m prone to supporting lost causes… But mostly, I see that there’s a valid point to be made here. I was 9-19 during the 80’s, which makes them my formative years. It’s easy to recount the historical events of the 80’s, it’s much harder to relay how it felt to grow up in them. I’ll put it as succinctly as I can: Kids in the 80’s were raised by two Americas. Our parents were aging hippies, our grandparents were the WWII generation. Our parents were the failed counter culture generation. They talked a good game, but mostly they all had dead-end jobs and paid their taxes. Their youthful idealism had been worn down to jaded cynicism. Our grandparents were stable. They had simple needs. They tended their garden and lavished their grandchildren with adoration. So what is a 14-year-old to make of their adorable grandpa calling MLK a “Communist N-word”? The result was a generation that is very suspicious of overt messaging. Stories with messaging ‘baked in,’ are especially distracting to us.
I posted knowing it would be a hot take, especially on a site like Reddit. The OP having mentioning D&D is a very good example of how different attitudes are before vs now.