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216 6 : Some Final Thoughts I consider myself a seasoned traveler in the realm of fairy story. I have long since lost count of all the places I have visited in the myriad fantasy stories I have read over the years. Often, a setting feels more well-known than wonderful, like a vacation resort one has visited several times before. Equally often, however, I blink (my mind’s eye, at least) at the fresh wonders that glitter between the pages: windswept tussock grass in lurid colors, a forest of strange beasts and weird trees, a city of miracles . . . Whether familiar or alien, the setting combines with characters and plot to create the fantasy story. There is widespread agreement that settings are central to fantasy works— indeed, that a fantasy setting has much in common with the characters who live in, travel through, or otherwise experience it. Nevertheless, few critics have examined the genre from a perspective where those settings are in focus. It was this discrepancy between proclaimed significance and lack of scholarship that gave rise to my original question: what can we learn about particular works as well as the genre in general by examining fantasy settings? That question sparked this exploration into the representations of fantasy landscapes and the ways in which those landscapes interact with their respective stories. I have proposed the term topofocal to describe an approach to texts that focuses on the setting. This is not to say that characters and plot are of less importance, but it does mean that it is the setting—in any of its many aspects—that provides a critical way into the work. Each of the four main chapters offers a different topofocal perspective, examining one particular aspect of fantasy settings. Chapter 2 presents two studies—one quantitative and the other qualitative—of what is arguably the most visible manifestation of fantasy settings: the fictive map. In about three to four fantasy novels out of ten, the setting is presented by both text and map(s). These maps typically share an aesthetic that is relatively free from modern map elements, such as scale and legend; but they nevertheless mostly adhere to modern map conventions. At least SoME FINal thoughtS 217 two thirds of fantasy maps portray secondary-world settings, but elements or conventions invented as part of such worlds are rare. Overall, the maps convey an impression of adherence to genre conventionality. This apparent conventionality is deceptive, however, as all maps are the result of a mapmaker’s choices about what to include and exclude. If we bear in mind that every map has an author, a subject, and a theme, for instance, a close investigation of an individual map may reveal much about the world of the work. Rather than showing us only where the protagonists are and how they got there, a fantasy map can offer insights about the attitudes embedded in it.These are attitudes to particular map referents, to the culture and land of the map, and to the very world portrayed . The discussion in chapter 3 springs from a conspicuous difference between fantasy geography and the geography of the actual world. The same reality prevails all over the actual world (with the exception, perhaps , of extreme cases such as black holes and elementary particles), and on the other side of any border or boundary we cross, the same laws of nature and causality still apply. A fantasy world, by contrast, can be divided into different realities. It is possible to find that magic works on the other side of the border, or to walk from the land of the living to the land of the dead. Such borders may appear to be sharp demarcations, but they are often indistinct, gradual transitions from one reality to another. Regardless of what domain lies on the other side, the hero’s courage is put to the test when crossing the border into the alien and unknown—but it is generally the return that marks the real trial, of one kind or another. Fantasy landscapes are also dotted with enclosed areas—polders—protected from the outside world by a boundary. Inside these boundaries, climate, the nature of magic, even the passage of time itself may be different from the surroundings. Polders are anachronisms, bubbles of the past that are part of the world’s topology as well as its history. A key element of many fantasy definitions, and one I take as a defining feature of the genre...

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