Here Be Dragons

by Stefan Ekman

  Here Be DRAGONS

  STEFAN EKMAN

  Here Be Dragons

  Exploring Fantasy Maps and Settings

  WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS

  Middletown, Connecticut

  Wesleyan University Press

  Middletown CT 06459

  www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

  © 2013 Stefan Ekman

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Designed by Richard Hendel

  Typeset in Miller and Filosofia by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

  Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative.

  The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ekman, Stefan, 1961–

  Here be dragons: exploring fantasy maps and settings / Stefan Ekman.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-8195-7322-3 (cloth: alk. paper) —

  ISBN 978-0-8195-7323-0 (pbk.: alk. paper) —

  ISBN 978-0-8195-7324-7 (ebook)

  1. Fantasy fiction—History and criticism.

  2. Landscapes in literature. I. Title.

  PN3435.E38 2013

  809.3′8766—dc23 2012034770

  5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Acknowledgments vii

  1. INTRODUCTION 1

  The Relevance of Settings 1

  What Is Fantasy? 4

  2. MAPS 14

  Previous Explorations of Fantasy Maps 15

  What Is a Fantasy Map? 19

  A Survey of Fantasy Maps 22

  Reading Fantasy Maps 43

  3. BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES 68

  Together Apart: Borders in Brust, Gaiman and Vess, and Nix 70

  The Geography of History: Polders in Tolkien, Holdstock, and Pratchett 99

  4. NATURE AND CULTURE 129

  Two Slippery Terms 130

  The Return of the Tree: Bringing Nature Back into Minas Tirith 135

  Nature, Magic, and Misfits: Wilderness within Newford 141

  Blurred Boundaries: Conflux in New Crobuzon 154

  Growing Somewhere In-Between: Liminal Nature in Ombria 166

  5. REALMS AND RULERS 177

  Linking Rulers to Realms: An Overview 178

  Ruling the Mythical Landscape: The Fisher King in Last Call 183

  Shaping the Realm: Palimpsests in Tourists 190

  Where Dark Lords Live: Landscapes of Evil in Tolkien, Donaldson, and Jordan 194

  6. SOME FINAL THOUGHTS 216

  Appendix A: Method for the Map Survey 221

  Appendix B: Map Sample 225

  Notes 233

  Bibliography 263

  Index 277

  Acknowledgments

  As a rule, I do not travel alone; and during my explorations of fantasy landscapes, numerous traveling companions have joined me, suggesting better routes, offering invaluable advice, or just generally cheering me on. I have greatly appreciated the company of all of you.

  My most heartfelt gratitude goes to Marianne Thormählen, who provided unwavering encouragement during the entire project. My work has benefited enormously from her stimulating advice, attention to detail, and willingness to devote time and energy far above and beyond the call of duty. I could not have hoped for a better cicerone on this trip. I am also immensely grateful for the help and support of Tom Shippey, whose knowledge of Tolkien and numerous other areas of the fantastic has been a tremendous resource.

  A number of people have discussed, read, and commented on various stages of this text. Above all, credit should go to the members of the Higher Literary Seminar in the English Studies section at the Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, whose willingness to dedicate time and effort to improving this text was always sincerely appreciated. This book owes a great deal to your work. My warmest thanks also go to Lisa Isaksson, Martin Andersson, Petra Andersson, David Sandboge, Susanna Karlsson, Viktoria Holmqvist, Christine Mains, Brian Attebery, Stefan Högberg, Richard McKinney, Mattias Ekman, Farah Mendlesohn, Siv Tapper, and Jenni Tyynelä for reading various drafts and sharing your knowledge (and libraries) with me.

  For the quantitative map study in chapter 2, I was in particular need of assistance. If it had not been for the kind support of SF-Bokhandeln, the bookseller that gave me access to its database as well as its stock, that study would have been next to impossible to carry out. Pia Heidrich, Aidan-Paul Canavan, and Lena Ekman: without your help, the chapter would have been much the poorer. I am also indebted to Cai and Bengt Alme, Immi Lundin, Anna Clara Törnqvist, Marie Wallin, and Katarina Bernhardsson, who all made my journey considerably less strenuous and much more pleasant. Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to the following foundations for generously funding part of my work: Hjalmar Gullberg och Greta Thotts stipendiefond (Hjalmar Gullberg and Greta Thott Scholarship Fund), Fil dr Uno Otterstedts fond för främjande av vetenskaplig undervisning och forskning (Dr. Uno Otterstedt Fund for the Advancement of Scholarly Education and Research), Knut och Alice Wallenbergs stiftelse (Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation), and Hilma Borelius stipendiefond (Hilma Borelius Scholarship Fund).

  Finally, I am deeply grateful to my friends and my extended family, who have been invaluable companions on the road of writing. I especially thank my parents for introducing me to fantasyland all those years ago and always accepting and supporting my commitment to the genre. Without you, this journey would never have begun. Most of all, I would like to thank Helena Francke, who has been with me every step of the way toward this book, however rough the going. Were it not for her patience with my constant talk of fantasy, and the generosity with which she gave of her time, expertise, and sound advice, this book would not have turned out the way it did, and my journey would have been a grueling and dreary trek indeed.

  Here Be DRAGONS

  1 : Introduction

  Reading fantasy was always like going on a journey for me. It might have been to a curious place spied through the window, or to an impossibly exotic country far away. Sometimes the landscape was comforting and familiar; at other times, disturbing and alien. Blinding beauty or nauseating ugliness assailed my eyes. In these places, there were adventures and heroes, enigmas and challenges, but what stuck in my mind was often the various locations themselves. Some of them were natural landscapes: grand, open vistas or dense, mysterious forests; others were cities, with dark alleys, labyrinthine sewers, and architectural marvels. Many, admittedly, seemed to echo the European Middle Ages; but all eras and continents, as well as times and places unknown to me, appeared before my inward eye. Somehow, the stories seemed to revolve around these places, weaving in and out of them rather than just using them as backdrops for the action onstage.

  This books deals with fantasy settings and the worlds that became so important to me in my reading. Instead of roaming the worlds one at a time, with the plot as my guide, I have explored them more systematically and for their own sakes, to reveal how they are constructed and how they interact with the other elements of the stories. As I delved into the fantasy worlds, I discovered much that surprised me; and my explorations also made me realize how truly intriguing the realms of fantasy are, and how deserving of critical investigation.

  THE RELEVANCE OF SETTINGS

  It is not uncommon for critics to draw attention to the importance of the natural environment in fantasy.1 Some even go so far as to suggest that in fantasy, or in some kinds of fantasy, or in some fantasy works, the landscape can function as a character on one level or another.2 Nevertheless, the fantasy landscape’s proclaimed importance is not reflected in much of the fantasy criticism
that has been produced, and most attention is still being paid to character and plot. John Clute implies the interconnectedness of character, plot, and setting by defining “fantasy geography” (not just the landscape) as a manifestation of the story and a “metaphysical pathos of the emotions and events” therein.3 In Don D. Elgin’s The Comedy of the Fantastic: Ecological Perspectives on the Fantasy Novel,4 the main value of the setting derives from how the characters affect and are affected by it, despite its significance as a world “complete in and of itself.”5

  A number of studies have concerned themselves with the structure of the fantasy setting, discussing it in terms of its main structural components and how they relate to one another. A seminal example is Kenneth J. Zahorski and Robert H. Boyer’s “The Secondary Worlds of High Fantasy,”6 in which the authors propose a rough taxonomy of otherworldly fantasy settings but say little about any natural environments. Some scholars have examined the fantasy environment in connection to the maps that frequently accompany novels in the genre,7 and multiple studies focus on the landscapes and settings of particular writers and works, most commonly J. R. R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings (1954–55).8

  Apart from occasional brief reflections on the landscape’s central importance to fantasy, little has been written on the subject. In an article provocatively subtitled “The Irrelevancy of Setting in the Fantastic,” Roger C. Schlobin asserts his premise that “[s]etting does not determine the fantastic.”9 I agree with Schlobin’s point: the setting should not be made central to a definition of the fantastic. My intention is not to argue in favor of a topofocal,10 or place-focused, definition of fantasy, nor to suggest that setting is more important than character or plot. I am, however, in favor of topofocal readings of fantasy, as a complement to traditional approaches, because setting is as important as character and plot. Fantasy offers possibilities to create fictive worlds that are fundamentally different from our own, even in cases when the setting masquerades as a copy of the world we live in. Such differences are common and constitute integral parts of the fantasy stories in which they occur.

  A particular kind of difference separating our world from the settings of fantasy provides the focus for this book. A physical environment can be divided in many ways—between sea and land, along tribal, linguistic, or political lines, cut up into any number of types of units on maps—and this is true regardless of whether the environment is actual or imaginary. But most divisions of our world are social constructs, foisted on the land, and the most basic division is that between the landscape and ourselves. In fantasy, the situation can be, and often is, different: the land can be divided into areas where separate sets of rules of causality and laws of nature apply; dividing lines that we are familiar with can be rethought; and the division between people and their environment can be bridged. The setting plays a central role in a fantasy story, and to increase our understanding of the genre, we need to learn more about this role. This book uses a topofocal perspective to examine four basic types of divisions and their function in relation to the world of which they are a part, as well as in terms of the story in which they are used.

  My analysis is based on close readings of a variety of divisions in fantasy works written primarily in English, but with occasional references to works in other languages. As my interest has generally concerned the current state of the genre, I have selected works published between the mid-1970s and mid-2000s.11 The exception is The Lord of the Rings: its central position in the genre makes it a useful point of reference, and for that reason I discuss it throughout the book. Each work has been selected primarily for its clear treatment of the feature under investigation, but I have sought to use mainly well-established fantasy writers. Chapter 2 includes a quantitative survey of a random sample of fantasy maps, and the maps brought up for discussion are all part of that sample, with the exception of the Middle-earth maps.

  As my main interest lies in how the setting works in relation to the story, my critical affinity leans toward ecocriticism, particularly as defined by Cheryll Glotfelty and Scott Slovic.12 In the introduction to The Ecocriticism Reader,13 Glotfelty explains that “ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment.” The questions she proposes that ecocritics and theorists ask include: “How is nature represented in this sonnet?” and “What role does the physical setting play in the plot of this novel?”14 Together, these two questions largely illustrate my own critical interest in exploring the way in which fantasy landscapes are represented and how those representations interact with the various aspects of the story, not necessarily just the plot.

  In “Ecocriticism: Containing Multitudes, Practising Doctrine,”15 Slovic considers ecocriticism to comprise both “the study of explicitly environmental texts by way of any scholarly approach [and], conversely, the scrutiny of ecological implications and human–nature relationships in any literary text, even texts that seem, at first glance, oblivious of the nonhuman world.”16 In other words, he argues, ecocritics can use any type of scholarly approach if they apply it to a particular kind of text, or any type of text if they approach it in a particular way. Previous scholars have approached literary settings in a wide variety of ways, too many to list them all. Some interesting examples include Topographies, in which J. Hillis Miller explores fiction and philosophical texts through the lens of topographical terms and descriptions of landscapes and cityscapes; Atlas of the European Novel, 1800–1900, in which Franco Moretti maps various literature-related data and then discusses those maps and their implications; and A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction, in which Robert Mighall spends a chapter examining how the urban Gothic setting developed from its forbears.17 I have, as noted, adopted a topofocal approach to fantasy texts, but I do not look for ecological implications within or outside the narratives, nor are my critical tools selected to facilitate the study of such implications. Instead, I complement my topofocal perspective with tools that have developed within fantasy criticism to discuss features peculiar, and relevant, to the genre.

  WHAT IS FANTASY?

  A great many attempts have been made to define the fantasy genre. In Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy (1986), Gary K. Wolfe included twenty-one definitions of fantasy,18 and two decades later, Farah Mendlesohn introduced her Rhetorics of Fantasy (2008) by stating that “[t]he debate over definition is now long-standing, and a consensus has emerged, accepting as a viable ‘fuzzy set,’ a range of critical definitions of fantasy.” In practice, she suggests, scholars generally choose among the available definitions depending on which area of fantasy and which “ideological filter” they are interested in.19 I do not wish to add yet another definition of the genre to the large number already proposed, but I have not found a single definition that I fully agree with. Therefore, I will outline the critical opinions about the genre that form the basis of my understanding of what fantasy is.

  In this book, the fantasy genre is taken to belong to the mode of writing called the fantastic, succinctly defined by Kathryn Hume as “any departure from consensus reality.”20 The fantastic in this sense encompasses genres such as fantasy, science fiction, and supernatural horror, as well as any other narratives in which the fictional world and events depart in any significant way from our own. Dainty flower fairies and betentacled monster deities, alternative historical development and unknown utopian societies, magical rings and spaceports are all fantastic elements that signal such departures. In fantasy, the fantastic elements are in some way “impossible,”21 entailing the presence of events, objects, beings, or phenomena that break the laws of nature of the world as we understand it;22 in addition, there must be no attempt rationally to persuade the reader of these elements’ putative “possibility” (as there is in much science fiction). Magic is magic, not a way of mentally controlling the physical world by tapping into areas of the brain that were not discovered until 2051; dragons simply exist, they are not the result of genetic manipulation of dinosaur DNA; and so
on. Not all fantastic elements in fantasy need to be impossible in this respect—many writers have explored the meeting of science fiction and fantasy23—but they frequently are; in the discussion that follows, fantastic therefore refers to something impossible.

  Furthermore, for fantasy to work, writer and reader must agree that there is something impossible—something fantastic—in the story; but for the duration of the story, as part of the story world, they will treat it as if it were possible. The fantastic elements are not allegory, or metaphor, or hallucination, or dream—in the story, the impossible is as “real” and “true” as the possible.24 Texts in which the author purports to relate a true experience are not fantasy, nor are texts whose content is written to be believed by its readers: fantasy is fiction and does not present itself as anything but fiction.25 It is, in this regard, written and read in a spirit of “what if?”

  In order to be taken seriously, however, the introduction of the fantastic elements must be believable. Tolkien refers to this credibility as “Secondary Belief,” which arises when what the author relates “accords with the laws of [the story] world. You […] believe it, while you are, as it were, inside.”26 Fantasy writers are free to make up whatever they like for their worlds, and change the laws by which these worlds work; but once the laws are in place, even the author is bound by them. The story must remain consistent; it must accord with the laws of its world. Rules can be changed and laws broken, but there must be a reasonable explanation for this—rules cannot change for no reason, without comment. The fantasy world must be as stable and predictable as our own, even if it is different. It is, in W. R. Irwin’s words, “an arbitrary construct of the mind […] under the control of logic and rhetoric.”27