The heart of the epic

[sartorias]

Kings and battles . . . timely, eh? What we need are heroes. I've been rewatching Nirvana in Fire because I need a dose of idealism, smart leadership, loyalty, and telling truth to power as an antidote to the news. Until that happens, today's BVC riff is about epics, and what I see as the lure.

Agree? Disagree?

Comments

[whswhs]

I'm hesitant to say that The Lord of the Rings is epic fantasy. Yes, it contains some of the things that epic fantasy contains, and Aragorn, in particular, works well as an epic hero. But the protagonist is Frodo Baggins, and I really think Frodo is almost an anti-epic character (I'm remembering Dame Ioreth talking about he went single-handed into Mordor and fought against the Dark Lord, which is virtually a parody of epic!).

Since the start of the year I've read two of Guy Gavriel Kay's novels, and enjoyed them a lot, and I think I'd call them "epic." So I don't think I necessarily dislike epic. But I think it's a neutral quality for me.

[sartorias]

LOTR embodied epic for me, probably because I read it at a young and impressionable age. Frodo is the ultimate epic hero for me. Aragorn seems more standard fantasy hero? I dunno, every time I think of rules, the exceptions multiply.

[whswhs]

I'm not sure about "standard fantasy hero": When I think of the category, I come up with Frodo Baggins, Ged, Lessingham, Sabriel, and Jehane bet Ishak, among others, and I'm not sure I could attribute "standard" traits to them. I suppose other readers might think of Conan, Jirel of Joiry, Fafhrd, and the Grey Mouser, and while Aragorn is a skilled combatant, like all of them, he doesn't seem to have their pragmatism, or their rootlessness; he's both a man of strong ethical convictions and one deeply conscious of his heritage.

But I have to say I just can't imagine a meaning of "epic hero" that could apply to Frodo. I don't suppose you're just making the circular argument "LotR is an epic, Frodo is its hero, therefore Frodo is an epic hero" (the claim that LotR is an epic itself being in question). But any set of qualities I would think of attributing to epic heroes as a genus (and that's not so broad as to define "hero" as such) seems not to fit Frodo. What do you think are the distinguishing marks of epic heroism?

[sartorias]

Like I say, Frodo was formative for me, so an epic hero, to me, strives for a goal that is nearly too much to bear (or is), and changes radically, while bringing about wide-reaching change. And along the way is a catalyst for events. Work in all the good ideals, and there he is, at center.

[whswhs]

I think we may have quite different concepts of "epic fantasy." When I read LotR I didn't think of it as "epic fantasy" or even "epic"; I thought of it as its own thing. I don't think I used the expression "epic fantasy," or even heard it, till decades later, and in fact perhaps not till this century. (I ran into "heroic fantasy," but that was in an anthology by L. Sprague de Camp that included Conan and Jiral and Cappen Varra and all that lot, in short stories-and short fiction really doesn't have room to be epic, does it?) So when I ran into "epic fantasy" I thought of epics, and hence of Achilles and Odysseus and Rama and Arjuna and Aeneas and their ilk: Larger than life heroes, skilled at war beyond the measure of common men, and often divine or descended from the gods, and getting caught up in sweeping wars. And, well, all the hobbity stuff in Tolkien just doesn't seem epic to me. Which is not to say I dislike it! In fact, while I like some epic fantasy, I treasure LotR more than any of it.

[sartorias]

I think you're right about different concepts. I wasted some time last night trying to find notes from an earlier Mythcon, at which someone, alas identity now forgotten, was struggling with terms for LOTR, and how it was not sword and sorcery or heroic fantasy, then tied it to Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories" and the concept of eucatastrophe, emphasizing the spiritual dimension and using the word epic in scope. Which was shorted to epic fantasy. So it could be I've been using it in that sense whereas others mean something different.

[whswhs]

I would agree that the scope of LotR is at least equal to that of most epics; if anything, it exceeds that of either of Homer's epics.