Fantasy

Medium TV
Genre Fantasy

The genre I will be looking at is fantasy. The main conventions of the fantasy
genre is that they usually follow a linear story line with lots of generic tropes,
which tend to happen throughout the show. For example having a stereotypical
hero and villain, and a fairy-tale ending. Fantasy is also a genre that is free to
create its own lore and universe, meaning the creators are free to create the
world that fantasy is set in to their own liking. A very popular example of this is
people incorporating dragons into their fantasy or other mystical creatures. Many
fantasies the best example of a fantasy that follows the generic fantasy tropes
would be Lord of the Rings. This fantasy has its typical characters such a hero in
Frodo, villain in Saruman, and wise old character in Gandalf. Lord of the Rings
also follows a fairly simplistic linear story, this being get the one ring to rule
destroyed by throwing it into a volcano. Another fantasy, which has taken the
world by storm, is Game of Thrones; however, this fantasy has managed to break
many of the typical codes and convention of the fantasy genre. It has done this
through various ways, on way in particular that it has done this is the way that it
scraps the idea of a happy ending for the characters. This is done a lot through
killing many of the main characters. Even though many of the fantasy forms use
some very explicit content, mainly gore and violence, the fantasy genre still
captures the mind of the younger audience as well as an older audience. The
fantasy genre in not exclusive to any age, but I would say that is slightly more
aimed at a male audience. However, this does not mean that many females
would not enjoy the genre. Fantasy also includes lots of feature that lot of
females would enjoy also such as romance. Fantasy also has various different
types of fantasy, here is few:

Romance Fantasy
Fairy Tales
Alternative History
Arthurian Fantasy
Comic Fantasy
Dark Fantasy
Epic Fantasy
Fairy Tales and Mythology
Heroic Fantasy
High Fantasy
Mystery Fantasy
Magic Realism
Modern Fantasy
Sword and Sorcery
The fantasy like most genres started through books and written pieces of work.
The most famous piece of written fantasy and probably the most influential
fantasy writer and creator is J. R. R. Tolkien. He is credited with creating one of
the first as well as vastest and detailed new fantasy world, which included hugely
in depth lore and history. J.R.R Tolkien was a well-known poet, professor and
philosopher, so it is fair to say he had the attributed to create the fantasy world
as big as it was. These books would give most people their first taste of what it
was like to explore a whole new world, creating escapism for a large majority
people who may have been going through struggles of the world in 1954. These
books later in 2001 proved timeless with the story being adapting to the big
screen. This would prove to be a huge success by making around $2.9 billion by
the end of the three main films as well as gaining critical acclaim winning awards
such as the academy awards best picture, as well as the BAFTA best picture to
name a few.
The fantasy genre left a huge impact on film and the world, changing the way
various genres of films were made. Many films now felt like they had to try to
match the scope and sheer size of the fantasy world like Lord of the ring's world,
which was very hard to do. . Many people to try emulate the success of Lord of
the rings, but it was not until 2011 when a new fantasy took the world by storm,
this being Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones was written originally wrote a
book by George R R Martin. The book again created a huge completely new
world with even more lore and history than the Lord of the rings books did.
George took huge inspiration of the Lord of the Rings books; however, he
managed to develop his fantasy further by creating thousands of linked together
stories, characters, conflicts and more fantasy tropes. Another aspect of
Georges stories, which gave it great appeal, was that he did not follow typical
fantasy guidelines; instead, he made his characters and storylines completely
unpredictable and usually against what would be expected. He does this mainly
by killing many of the characters that would in typical fantasy medias would
survive and become heroes. He also develops his characters so much that can
never be seen as purely good or evil. Instead, it is left up to the audience to
have their own interpretations.
Game of thrones also was transitioned of the books, but due to George thinking
was too much content to fit into movies, it was adapted into a TV series. This was
done with great success with show gaining a massive following and currently
being the biggest and most anticipated show in the world. With the books, being
adapted from a book to a TV series instead of movies it aloud there to be around
10 hours of content each season. This not only aloud for more content to be
included in the grand scheme of things, this aloud for the audience to happier as
they would get more content to consume. This was also a good thing for the
producers and creators as they could gain more money by expanding its lifespan
over the year (2011- 2018) Game of thrones is aired on HBO which has used
Game of thrones as somewhat of a cash cow making them hundreds of millions
of dollars every season. Game of Thrones has come a cultural phenomenon with
millions of people around the world become fascinated with studying the show
and all of its characters and history.
The next form that fantasy has heavily influenced is the video game industry.
The two main fantasies that we have already looked, Lord of the rings and Game
of Thrones have both expanded into the video game world. Lord of the rings has
been around for way over 10 years now so has multiple video games out, but has
recently struck gold with "Shadows of Mordor" these games acts as a prequel
game toward the Lord of the Rings saga. It follow the story of Tailon who is
seeking revenge on Sauromen who killed his family. The video game players will
play as Tailon as they explore and fight through Middle earth in attempt to seek
revenge. The game manages to add more lore and content into the Lord of the
Rings word. The fantasy genre fits very well into this type of video game as it
allows people to satisfy their desires that they may have had for year of actually
playing as a fantasy hero and filling out the typical hero acts, such as killing
villains, saving the girl and more. Shadow of Mordor was such a success that it
gained a Game of the year edition as well sparking such hype that a Shadows
of Mordor 2 has been made and is to be released soon. Game of thrones has also
expanded into the video game world with its Tell-tale games. Telltale games
are games that focus on decision making which effects the world around you and
deep storytelling. With fans of Game of Thrones crying out for more content in
the off season, the tale tell slotted in very well with the audience giving them not
only new content but a new perspective into the world that fan have come to
love. These games are different to a standard typical game in term of button
mashing and other video game tropes, instead the creators that realised that
Tell-tale would fit into the Game of Thrones world a lot better. Game of Thrones is
so popular because of it deep and fascinating storytelling and interesting
characters, so giving the audience the opportunity to actually be in this world
and make active decisions which would have an effect on the world. This type of
game gives the audience a more immersive experience, which is, true the show
and book. Fantasy in video game has become somewhat of a phenomenon with
game such as World of Warcraft becoming one of the most played games of all
time. World of Warcraft is another form of fantasy which has created its very own
world and lore to go along with it. World of Warcraft is a huge open world RPG
game in which people from all around the world battle it out to make themselves
the most powerful warrior by fighting over characters and finding loot, all with
the aim to level up the character. World of Warecraft is different to a lot of video
game as it ran of a subscriber system, so people had to pay money every month
in order to keep on playing, at the peak of World of Warcraft popularity it had
around 12 million subscribers.The final game that I will be looking at is Fable.
Fable is the perfect example of a fantasy game in my opinion as it manages to fit
in almost all the fantasy tropes that people have come to expect from the
fantasy genre into one game. Fable does this in such as in your face way that it
works perfectly. It plays off that facts that it knows that you know what type of
game it is, so it really plays up the main elements of fantasy, such as being
good or evil, exploring the worlds history and lore and lots of other factors
which make it such an almost generic video game.
Fantasy has become one of the most popular genres on all forms of media,
however not everyone view the fantasy as positive. Many fantasy shows have
been criticised for various reasons. A good example of this is Game of Thrones
who have content backlash for some very explicit content, most of the time this
just being for the violence and gore, but there have been some scenes, which
have sparked a public outcry against the show. Over time, more and more people
have come to accept fantasy for what it is, a fantasy. Forms of fantasy such as
Game of Thrones have become a cultural phenomenon and sprung of into
countless other forms for people to watch, such as parody has and fan theories.