There's Low and High-Fantasy but what would be "Mid-Fantasy"

The Hobbit

File: download.jpg (44KB, 457x595px) Image search: [Google]

44KB, 457x595px

>>52654683

It's not any scholarly definition, but I think you could define fantasy by what is possessed of speech in the story. E.g.:
Only humans speak > "Low fantasy"
Humans, elves, dwarves, and giants speak > "High fantasy"
Animals can speak: > Fairy tale

Something near the magic level of king arthur.

>>52654749
That's like, the benchmark for low fantasy Anon.

Mid-fantasy would be more like Middle Earth, as >>52654755 mentions.

Note that the classical literary definitions of "high" and "low" fantasy would classify Conan as high fantasy and Harry Potter as low fantasy because the latter is set in the real world and the former isn't.

File: nuclear_joy.gif (271KB, 400x320px) Image search: [Google]

271KB, 400x320px

A useful phrase to more clearly talk about fantasy
>low fantasy
Mostly humans, magic is rare and arcane, likely never comes into contact with most people, sorcerers are incredibly rare, fantastical species are either nonexistent, esoteric, dead, or are rare monsters
>mid fantasy
Magic is well known to exist, but the daily life of most people is the same, a mage would be seen as a skilled and amazingly well learned man, where as in low fantasy he would be seen almost the same as a genuine mage in our world. Fantasy creatures do exist and are prevalent enough to be see fairly often. Gods and other objects of worship probobly exist and directly interact with world.
Lord of the rings in the low end, witcher in the high end.
>high fantasy
Magic and other fantasy elements color the daily life of almost everyone in the setting.

>>52654986
>high fantasy means forgotten realms
Stop.

>>52655070
I think you've lost this fight.

Nobody in the /tg/ demographic is going to consider Harry Potter, Dresden files, lord of the rings, Conan, star wars, golarion, the Dragonball franchise, and forgotten realms to all be in the same genre of "low fantasy" due to "earth canonically exists".

The literary definitions aren't making a comeback in this field, and I'm not going to get my way and have them choose terms that are actually fucking useful, either.

>>52654836
Conan is set in the real world. Cimmerians are supposed to be the ancestors of the celts.

>>52654836
Conan is set on Earth 140,000 years ago before the Ice Age wiped out all traces of advanced civilizations and forced humanity to start over almost from scratch.

>>52654986
Why not just switch that to low magic, middle magic (medium?) and high magic, all of which are under the category of fantasy? Seems like the part that changes the most should be more connected in the name.

>>52654836
Cimmeria is a country in doggerland. The hyborian age is a mythological age either set just before the last ice age (32,500 BCE) or after it (10,000BCE), depending on which REH scholar you talk to. There are some arguments for either placement. Either way, it's set on earth.

Forgotten Realms had a series of events wherein gates to earth opened. Several of the people in the forgotten realms aren't earth analogues, they're descended from people who came to Toril from Earth.

Golarion has an adventure path where the party travels to WWI Russia and fights Baba Yaga.

The origin for the humans on corellia in star wars is/was (the project was dropped partway through so the origin of humans is "officially" not known, though you could assume they evolved on corellia) time travel from 25th century earth, with references to George Lucas's American graffiti and thx 1138. Additionally, the ET aliens go to earth, and are also present in star wars. There are other Easter eggs that place earth in star wars canon as existing, albeit not relevant to the story.

Characters in the Witcher briefly end up in various historical places and times on earth.

>>52657243
>140,000
What? According to whom?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyborian_Age?wprov=sfla1

10,000BCE, or 32,500 BCE.
Not 140,000.

>>52657393
Most of the time when /tg/ people say low fantasy or high fantasy they mean low magic or high magic, not "earth exists" or "earth doesn't exist".

Low fantasy as "earth exists" is unimportant if the story isn't set there.

Again I advocate for "Terran fantasy" replacing low fantasy - albeit only when the story actually takes place on earth for at least part of the story.

>>52657435
>Most of the time when /tg/ people say low fantasy or high fantasy they mean low magic or high magic, not "earth exists" or "earth doesn't exist"
Yeah, I get that. I'm just saying if we're trying to make a more sensible definition re:>>52654986
why not base it on how much magic it uses because that's the main determining factor? They're all fantasy.

The prescriptivist high-low definition is mostly useless. Literature doesn't care, libraries don't care, book sellers don't care, contemporary fantasy fans don't care. Its a thing grogs bring out to complain.

>>52657393
>>52657435
The few times they aren't talking about magic levels, they're still not talking about "earth exists", they're talking about "personal vs epic story scope".

But this thread happens twice a month, and nothing ever changes.

Omnipresent-Minor-Magic, Non-Terran, Personal-Scope, Roman Tech-Level fantasy.

Look at how clear we could be if people gave a shit and said what they fucking meant.

>>52657539
Just ditch the vague shitty terms and use clearer ones >>52657549, and define the elements that matter.

Because what the fuck is high magic anyways? Even if you only define by magic level, the term is vague as fuck.

If magic is powerful and world shaking, but rare, is that high magic? What if it's fucking everywhere, but it only does relatively small things, replacing basic modern technology?