Fantasy literature

Tiffany Aching and the Witches of the Discworld Series use knowledge that is based on working with and connecting to the natural world instead of against it, primarily through their use of magic without using magic and their use of “headology,” to create the desired effect without detriment to the ecology of the Discworld. This puts them in contrast with the male, Unseen-University wizards, whose magic works against the ecology of the Discworld as it changes and corrupts the world around it. Further, the relationship that Tiffany Aching has within her home, the land she was born in, and her ecology becomes a nexus between the natural world and human communities. This connection between herself and her land is comparable to the one that Ged learns through his journey in Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. This connection between the authors is not simply a categorical one but one that connects them, their work, and an ideological push against individualism that relies on interconnectedness between species.

This study addresses the state of scholarship regarding fantasy literature and questions the position of scholars who have dismissed it as panegyric. This study notes that no accepted definition of fantasy exists, sets forth its own, and questions the value of fantasy literature. Moving from definition, this study notes that fantasy literature limits artistic freedom by supplementing the reality principle of minimal distance in mimetic fiction with penemaximal distance. Penemaximal distance affords fantasy a great remove from the actual world but adds the generic megatext as a frame of reference that defines reality. This allows fantasy literature to create semantic and episodic memory of diegetic worlds no longer limited by actual world foreknowledge and perception. Engaging narrative and cognitive theory, this study argues that authors utilize semantic memory to work within established truths of the genre, and readers hold authors to those rules unless authorial justification merits revision of generic epistemology. By maintaining a link to semantic memory (truth), fantasy texts create belief in the diegesis through an acceptance of affective and cognitive significance. An examination of Charles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao notes the control of the reader's semantic memory in the catalogue presented following the text that forces a reconsideration of the assumptions made by the reader. This leads to a discussion of the reader's necessity regarding diegetic creation. Brandon Sanderson's The Emperor's Soul is engaged as a metacomment on writing fantasy and links the protagonist, Shai, to the author through plot and position regarding world-building and the creation of episodic memory that alters the reader in the actual world. Lastly, Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is positioned as fantasy that satirizes generic expectations and confronts reader assumptions in the diegesis, leading to episodic memory of a meritocratic world and actual world demystification. Gary Wolfe posits the idea of deeper belief, where experiences within the text become virtual analogues for actual world experiences, and this study argues this moment as the creation of episodic memory. This is one value of fantasy literature; the memory of experiencing worlds not limited by empirical perception.