0:00:04 > 0:00:08What is it about the unreal, almost childish world of magic,
0:00:08 > 0:00:12swords and quests that entrances adults, too?
0:00:14 > 0:00:18Could mere escapism capture so much of the reading world?
0:00:21 > 0:00:24Fantasy is a form of fiction for people who like to see
0:00:24 > 0:00:28all the ordinary rules smashed.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30But its key writers are deadly serious,
0:00:30 > 0:00:34and they have created new rules so successful that fantasy is now
0:00:34 > 0:00:38one of the most popular forms of storytelling in this,
0:00:38 > 0:00:40or any other, world.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43And yes, there is escapism.
0:00:43 > 0:00:45There are wizards in pointy hats.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50But it turns out that what fantasy is really good at...
0:00:52 > 0:00:55..is allowing us to see our own world
0:00:55 > 0:00:58in a fresh and surprising way,
0:00:58 > 0:01:02through a twisted, Gothic filter.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04Fantasy is empowering.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07It's a domain where the usual rules don't apply.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12You're working with a very high-octane fuel.
0:01:14 > 0:01:19Fantasy is for making metaphors concrete,
0:01:19 > 0:01:24and allowing you to look at the things that are intangible.
0:01:25 > 0:01:27In this series,
0:01:27 > 0:01:30I'm looking at the tricks of the trade in bestselling fiction.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33The conventions that govern different genre,
0:01:33 > 0:01:35and their unique forms of storytelling.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38In this case, fantasy.
0:01:42 > 0:01:47Through their epic stories, fantasy writers take us on adventures,
0:01:47 > 0:01:52becoming some of the best-loved authors of all time,
0:01:52 > 0:01:56with novels that have claimed top literary prizes...
0:01:57 > 0:02:01..laid the foundations for vast television empires...
0:02:03 > 0:02:05..and reshaped modern storytelling.
0:02:07 > 0:02:13So, as this genre casts its spell upon millions and swoops through
0:02:13 > 0:02:17modern culture like never before, I want to dismantle it a bit,
0:02:17 > 0:02:21to look at its rules and understand how its writers transport us
0:02:21 > 0:02:26to outlandish worlds which turn out, on closer inspection,
0:02:26 > 0:02:29to look unsettlingly like our own.
0:02:52 > 0:02:56Fantasy has electrified today's popular culture largely thanks to
0:02:56 > 0:02:59a phenomenally successful television series.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.
0:03:05 > 0:03:06There is no middle ground.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10This brutal tale of ambition and betrayal follows seven quarrelsome
0:03:10 > 0:03:15kingdoms, each ruled by noble houses of dodgy aristocrats
0:03:15 > 0:03:16vying for power.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18There is sex and wit.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21Politics tends to be a bit "bladey."
0:03:23 > 0:03:27Game Of Thrones started life as a series of fantasy novels
0:03:27 > 0:03:32by the writer George RR Martin, called A Song Of Ice And Fire.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37It may be set in the imaginary state of Westeros,
0:03:37 > 0:03:40but it's really about our world.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43Martin's books capture our contemporary sense of cultural,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46political, and social decline.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52As populist politics and brutal power drive us towards
0:03:52 > 0:03:58a new dark age, in Westeros, even the climate is turning nasty.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04So, how do writers like Martin begin to create
0:04:04 > 0:04:07their sprawling fantasy realms?
0:04:08 > 0:04:11First, they must build a world.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18In fantasy, creating the history,
0:04:18 > 0:04:22the geography, and the culture of the imaginary realm is known as
0:04:22 > 0:04:26world-building and it's absolutely crucial to the genre,
0:04:26 > 0:04:29because the author is asking the reader to believe things
0:04:29 > 0:04:34so outlandish and unexpected that any slip, any break in the edifice
0:04:34 > 0:04:35could be fatal.
0:04:37 > 0:04:38BELL TOLLS
0:04:38 > 0:04:41Creating a fantasy world is easy.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44Creating a fantasy world that's coherent and believable
0:04:44 > 0:04:47is very difficult. It means getting the small stuff right
0:04:47 > 0:04:51as well as the big picture, and one of the key ways of doing this
0:04:51 > 0:04:54is weaving together the real and the fantastical.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58MUSIC: Game Of Thrones Theme by Ramin Djawadi
0:04:58 > 0:05:01Fantasy is a strongly British genre.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05George RR Martin, creator of Game Of Thrones, is American,
0:05:05 > 0:05:08but he was inspired by British history.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13A trip to Hadrian's Wall in 1981 became the genesis
0:05:13 > 0:05:16of the first book in his series.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19Standing on what was considered by the Romans to be the edge
0:05:19 > 0:05:21of the civilised world,
0:05:21 > 0:05:25he imagined what it would have been like to be a freezing soldier
0:05:25 > 0:05:28facing unknown northern terrors.
0:05:29 > 0:05:31This being fantasy,
0:05:31 > 0:05:35in his imagination the wall became enormous and made of ice.
0:05:38 > 0:05:42A sense of wonder and epic scale inspired one of the central
0:05:42 > 0:05:46narrative devices for his entire series of novels.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52"Almost 700 feet high it stood,
0:05:52 > 0:05:54"three times the height of the tallest tower
0:05:54 > 0:05:57"in the stronghold it sheltered."
0:05:57 > 0:06:00"His uncle said the top was wide enough for a dozen armoured knights
0:06:00 > 0:06:03"to ride abreast.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06"The gaunt outlines of huge catapults and monstrous wooden
0:06:06 > 0:06:11"cranes stood sentry up there, like the skeletons of great birds.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14"And among them walked men in black,
0:06:14 > 0:06:15"as small as ants."
0:06:19 > 0:06:22Not only did Martin look to Hadrian's Wall,
0:06:22 > 0:06:24he also thumbed British history books
0:06:24 > 0:06:27for their nastier, darker moments.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31Vicious dynastic squabbling from the Wars of the Roses...
0:06:33 > 0:06:35..the ruthless betrayal of a whole family
0:06:35 > 0:06:37from Scottish Highland history...
0:06:38 > 0:06:42..and there are plenty of native and familiar stereotypes.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45Northerners, obviously, are tough and no-nonsense,
0:06:45 > 0:06:47like their fortresses.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50And, just as in real life, southerners are decadent
0:06:50 > 0:06:54and extravagant, with fancy castles to match.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00Like many fantasy writers, Martin, with Westeros,
0:07:00 > 0:07:03re-imagines the Middle Ages and, at first sight,
0:07:03 > 0:07:05it feels historically familiar.
0:07:05 > 0:07:09There are very castle-y castles, there's feudal overlords,
0:07:09 > 0:07:13there are serfs, the technology is, to say the least, pretty basic,
0:07:13 > 0:07:16and clearly the whole place stinks.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18And yet, little by little, this
0:07:18 > 0:07:21world is revealed as a fantastical one.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28Martin uses this slow build-up to great effect.
0:07:28 > 0:07:33Even the inhabitants of Westeros themselves aren't entirely sure
0:07:33 > 0:07:36just how fantastical their world is.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39Magic, White Walkers, dragons,
0:07:39 > 0:07:43these things are more often distant rumours than established fact,
0:07:43 > 0:07:47and it's their scepticism that smooths the way for the reader
0:07:47 > 0:07:51into the story until the bad stuff really starts to happen.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55For most of the time, Westeros is more like a piece of history
0:07:55 > 0:07:59we might have read, or even a history we did read and then somehow
0:07:59 > 0:08:02forgot about, except with the added advantage that, even now,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05we still don't know how it's going to end.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11The ultimate world-builder was JRR Tolkien.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15His Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings books
0:08:15 > 0:08:17are the most famous in all fantasy.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23He built worlds of enormous scale and complexity,
0:08:23 > 0:08:25but he tackled them in a different way.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32His approach to world-building revolved around
0:08:32 > 0:08:34his fascination with languages.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40In 1911, he came to study here, in Exeter College
0:08:40 > 0:08:42at Oxford University,
0:08:42 > 0:08:44taking English and philology.
0:08:49 > 0:08:50During his very first term,
0:08:50 > 0:08:53Tolkien discovered this book in the college library.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57It's a slightly dull-looking book on the Finnish language.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00But for a man who was always fascinated by languages
0:09:00 > 0:09:03and was toying with inventing his own,
0:09:03 > 0:09:05this book was a complete revelation.
0:09:05 > 0:09:10The shape and the sounds of the words entranced Tolkien.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13And, to the horror of librarians everywhere,
0:09:13 > 0:09:16he even scribbled notes in the margins,
0:09:16 > 0:09:19comparing Finnish with ancient Greek.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21I've never been very good at Finnish.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24It's a difficult language, but I know something about it.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27But its formation, its sound texture,
0:09:27 > 0:09:29is very remarkable.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32It actually makes me quite intoxicated.
0:09:34 > 0:09:36What's different about Tolkien is
0:09:36 > 0:09:39that everything starts with language.
0:09:39 > 0:09:41He begins to invent his own one, called Quenya,
0:09:41 > 0:09:45and then develops stories, but not just for themselves,
0:09:45 > 0:09:47to house the language, as it were,
0:09:47 > 0:09:50and he creates lots of characters, like elves,
0:09:50 > 0:09:52so they can speak these languages.
0:09:52 > 0:09:56It doesn't start with adventures or journeys or quests
0:09:56 > 0:09:59or battles, it starts with language.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07Tolkien began work on what he called his "legendarium" -
0:10:07 > 0:10:11the mythology, the history and the culture of his creations,
0:10:11 > 0:10:13all based on Middle Earth.
0:10:13 > 0:10:17And he'd carry on with this for the next 50 years.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19By the time he died, it still wasn't finished.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23It was simply too enormous for a whole lifetime of writing.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28Tolkien's fantasy novels only skimmed the surface
0:10:28 > 0:10:30of the larger fictional world he'd created.
0:10:31 > 0:10:37The legendarium included histories, lineages, languages and cultures,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40all carefully fleshed out.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42But Tolkien never revealed everything.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44He always kept something back,
0:10:44 > 0:10:48just like the great medieval texts he admired so much.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52And I think it's this sense of depth, of complex texture,
0:10:52 > 0:10:56which has lured so many readers from around the world
0:10:56 > 0:10:58to Middle Earth and then trapped them there.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03But not all of his academic colleagues were impressed.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07This was, to say the least,
0:11:07 > 0:11:10a curious obsession for a serious academic and not all the other dons
0:11:10 > 0:11:12could take it entirely seriously.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16There was one time when Tolkien was reading aloud the latest instalment
0:11:16 > 0:11:20of Lord Of The Rings to his admirers, when Professor Hugo Dyson
0:11:20 > 0:11:22could take it no longer.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25- "Oh, God!" he said, "Not another - BLEEP- elf!"
0:11:28 > 0:11:33Even the most skilled writers find it difficult to hold their elaborate
0:11:33 > 0:11:37fantasy creations entirely in their heads.
0:11:37 > 0:11:42And that's why in fantasy, books often come with a map.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51George RR Martin was only a few chapters into the first book of his
0:11:51 > 0:11:54fantasy sequence when he stopped writing
0:11:54 > 0:11:57and began to sketch out his map.
0:11:59 > 0:12:03This is Martin's original, hand-drawn design.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06A bird's-eye view of Westeros.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11With the map, he began to put a physical form on Westeros,
0:12:11 > 0:12:16imposing the boundaries which shape the dynamics of his fictional arena.
0:12:16 > 0:12:21The geography of the seven kingdoms determines their relationships
0:12:21 > 0:12:24and their nature and, therefore, it's fair to say the map
0:12:24 > 0:12:25drives the whole story.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30Maps have become a kind of shorthand for fantasy.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33The notion of a map is so important to Martin's story
0:12:33 > 0:12:36that it was used for the title sequence in
0:12:36 > 0:12:38the Game Of Thrones television series.
0:12:40 > 0:12:44For Tolkien, maps were even more central to his fantasy.
0:12:44 > 0:12:48He drew maps of his imaginary lands with his son, Christopher,
0:12:48 > 0:12:50which were included in Lord Of The Rings.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57He saw them as essential for understanding the story itself.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02It's really from the maps in Lord Of The Rings that we get the
0:13:02 > 0:13:06best sense of how Tolkien would create an entire world.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09This one is of the bucolic Shire with its hobbits,
0:13:09 > 0:13:11very much based on the West Midlands,
0:13:11 > 0:13:13where Tolkien spent much of his childhood,
0:13:13 > 0:13:16and with thoroughly English place names to match.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22And here's a rather bigger map.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25"The West of Middle Earth at the end of the Third Age."
0:13:25 > 0:13:29And here Tolkien invents new names designed to conjure up a sense of
0:13:29 > 0:13:33ancient, untold histories, such as
0:13:33 > 0:13:36Dagorlad, the Battle Plain,
0:13:36 > 0:13:38or the Lost Realm of Arnor.
0:13:49 > 0:13:54The detail and sense of depth in Tolkien's world-building marked him
0:13:54 > 0:13:58apart. There was a review on the original jacket of
0:13:58 > 0:14:00The Lord Of The Rings that declared,
0:14:00 > 0:14:04"No imaginary world has been projected which is at once as
0:14:04 > 0:14:08"multifarious and so true to its inner laws."
0:14:09 > 0:14:13Somewhat cheekily, this was the work of Tolkien's good friend,
0:14:13 > 0:14:17the fellow Oxford Don and fantasy writer, CS Lewis.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24The two men were members of the Inklings -
0:14:24 > 0:14:27a club who met here at the Eagle and Child pub
0:14:27 > 0:14:31to discuss medieval history and fantasy writing in a fug
0:14:31 > 0:14:34of ale and tobacco smoke.
0:14:34 > 0:14:38Lewis and Tolkien were like a pair of somewhat eccentric, academic
0:14:38 > 0:14:42Toby jugs. They both thought the English syllabus should stop
0:14:42 > 0:14:46with Geoffrey Chaucer to allow more time to study the early stuff.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48Now, there were clearly problems with this.
0:14:48 > 0:14:50It meant leaving out some half-decent writers,
0:14:50 > 0:14:52like William Shakespeare,
0:14:52 > 0:14:56but, for them, this was a price worth paying in order to marinate
0:14:56 > 0:14:58themselves in everything from the
0:14:58 > 0:15:00early sagas to the magical romances -
0:15:00 > 0:15:04the old stories which gave them the tools for their own fiction.
0:15:05 > 0:15:12But the two friends approached fantasy writing in diverging ways.
0:15:12 > 0:15:14For Tolkien, there was an absolute boundary,
0:15:14 > 0:15:19a complete wall between the fantasy world and the real world.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22Over there, Middle Earth, here, planet Earth,
0:15:22 > 0:15:24and nothing can get from one to the other.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27For CS Lewis, there are portals.
0:15:27 > 0:15:29There are openings between the world of fantasy and the world
0:15:29 > 0:15:31the rest of us inhabit.
0:15:42 > 0:15:46Lewis's Chronicles Of Narnia series begins with the story
0:15:46 > 0:15:50of four evacuee children who walk through the back of a wardrobe
0:15:50 > 0:15:52into a magical land.
0:15:53 > 0:15:58The portal takes us to a world of winter - yes, more winter -
0:15:58 > 0:16:00cruelly ruled over by a white witch,
0:16:00 > 0:16:03where they meet the mighty lion, Aslan.
0:16:07 > 0:16:12Lewis's use of portals allowed for the thought that the world of magic,
0:16:12 > 0:16:16fantasy, if you like, the imagination,
0:16:16 > 0:16:18is all around us, all the time.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22It's only an incautious arm's length away.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25The mundane and the magical are hugger-mugger.
0:16:25 > 0:16:27Now, this is a simple idea,
0:16:27 > 0:16:31but, thanks to Lewis, it has entered many modern minds.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37But the portal wasn't just a way into a magical realm.
0:16:37 > 0:16:41It transports the reader into a world that immerses them
0:16:41 > 0:16:43in Lewis's deeper beliefs.
0:16:44 > 0:16:49Lewis's Narnia is a glittering, vivid, crystalline world.
0:16:49 > 0:16:53But below the level of talking beavers and fawns with umbrellas
0:16:53 > 0:16:56and the White Queen doling out Turkish Delight,
0:16:56 > 0:16:58there are messages most children,
0:16:58 > 0:17:03frankly, probably miss, because this is a profoundly Christian parable.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06Aslan the Lion sacrifices himself
0:17:06 > 0:17:09to redeem Narnia from evil.
0:17:10 > 0:17:14And, like the Christ, he dies and is reborn.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19Lewis was a serious Christian and his beliefs brought
0:17:19 > 0:17:22the motives of his fantasy into question.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28Lewis's critics focused on who he would and would not
0:17:28 > 0:17:32allow through his portals, because Narnia was really a place
0:17:32 > 0:17:35for child adventurers only.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38Inside it, you could grow to become a king or a queen,
0:17:38 > 0:17:41but the human children were barred
0:17:41 > 0:17:44as soon as they began to approach puberty.
0:17:44 > 0:17:45Like many religious thinkers,
0:17:45 > 0:17:48it seems that Lewis had a bit of a problem with sex.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52Spoiler alert!
0:17:52 > 0:17:55In the final book, the Pevensies are all killed in the real world
0:17:55 > 0:17:58and allowed into Narnia's equivalent of heaven.
0:17:58 > 0:18:01All except for the eldest girl, Susan,
0:18:01 > 0:18:04who is, rather ruthlessly, barred from paradise
0:18:04 > 0:18:07because she developed an interest in
0:18:07 > 0:18:09lipstick and invitations.
0:18:11 > 0:18:15CS Lewis had a portal into a fantasy land of his own.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21He wrote all of the Narnia books here in Oxford,
0:18:21 > 0:18:24and it's difficult not to see this city itself
0:18:24 > 0:18:27as a kind of portal between worlds.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32The university whisked him away into a life of blissful, literary
0:18:32 > 0:18:35indulgence, secluded from the outside world
0:18:35 > 0:18:38and yet surrounded by like minds.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40His own personal Narnia.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48It's quite remarkable how many leading writers of fantasy
0:18:48 > 0:18:52have passed through Oxford. Authors like Lewis himself, Lewis Carroll,
0:18:52 > 0:18:55Tolkien, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper,
0:18:55 > 0:18:58Diana Wynne Jones, Frances Hardinge,
0:18:58 > 0:19:00Philip Pullman, and on and on.
0:19:01 > 0:19:05It's as if this intellectual powerhouse of a city
0:19:05 > 0:19:08has always needed a creative release,
0:19:08 > 0:19:11and from Lewis Carroll to Tolkien,
0:19:11 > 0:19:13from CS Lewis to Philip Pullman,
0:19:13 > 0:19:17it's found it, again and again, in fantasy.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23In crabbed, mazy, Gothic Oxford,
0:19:23 > 0:19:27it can sometimes seem as if the medieval, myth-dazed mind
0:19:27 > 0:19:32has never quite gone away and the entire modern world
0:19:32 > 0:19:35is merely an impertinent interruption which the writers
0:19:35 > 0:19:39of fantasy rightly, virtuously ignore.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44The Oxford writers had picked up, among other things,
0:19:44 > 0:19:47on the medieval fascination with magic.
0:19:47 > 0:19:49In a sense, they were trying to
0:19:49 > 0:19:51bring back a way of thinking throughout
0:19:51 > 0:19:54Britain that was swept away by science.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58Much of fantasy is an anti-Enlightenment project.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02Fantasy is an otherworldly genre,
0:20:02 > 0:20:06with ideas that can't be explained by everyday reason
0:20:06 > 0:20:08or, indeed, the laws of physics.
0:20:08 > 0:20:12There is magic at work, driving the impossible.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27Magic is a spectrum of extremes.
0:20:29 > 0:20:30For CS Lewis,
0:20:30 > 0:20:34there were witches who could conjure up Turkish Delight
0:20:34 > 0:20:36or impose icy winter.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42In Tolkien's books, magic is a force of coercion.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48And in a Game Of Thrones, it brings back characters from the dead.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52It may seem odd now,
0:20:52 > 0:20:54but before the age of the Enlightenment,
0:20:54 > 0:20:58these mysterious forces were simply a part of everyday life.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04Most people, for most of the time, firmly believed in magic,
0:21:04 > 0:21:08in witches, in the pervasive power of evil, in little people,
0:21:08 > 0:21:12hobgoblins and sprites and morally ambiguous elves.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17People believed that charms and spells could influence reality
0:21:17 > 0:21:20and the mythical creatures were found throughout the literature
0:21:20 > 0:21:22of the times.
0:21:23 > 0:21:25Magic was central to folklore.
0:21:25 > 0:21:30Figures like elves and goblins weren't just imaginary beings -
0:21:30 > 0:21:35they embodied human instincts and our most profound fears.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41But after the Enlightenment, things changed.
0:21:41 > 0:21:45The world of faerie was sanitised.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47Myth shrivelled.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51Storytelling seen only fit for children and classical scholars.
0:21:53 > 0:21:57By the late Victorian and Edwardian period, it had all become
0:21:57 > 0:21:59ridiculously prettified.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01The Scottish writer Andrew Lang, for instance,
0:22:01 > 0:22:04produced the Red Fairy Book, the Blue Fairy Book,
0:22:04 > 0:22:08the Yellow Fairy Book, the Green Fairy Book and so on, ad nauseam,
0:22:08 > 0:22:11full of little prettified nymphs.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15They ceased to be dark and dangerous forces and instead became
0:22:15 > 0:22:18flower sprites and enthusiastic shoemakers.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26Since then, fantasy writers have reclaimed the potency of old magic
0:22:26 > 0:22:31and folklore, tapping into a wellspring of ideas
0:22:31 > 0:22:32with deeper meanings.
0:22:35 > 0:22:41I'm meeting Alan Garner, a man who lets the dark magic back in,
0:22:41 > 0:22:45breathing new life into folktale and legend
0:22:45 > 0:22:48through stories like The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen,
0:22:48 > 0:22:52a tale of goblins and witches and the search for a magic jewel.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55More than anybody else,
0:22:55 > 0:23:00you seem to locate your stories around folktales and folk stories.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02Folk legend,
0:23:02 > 0:23:05fairy-tale, myth,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08are thought of as escapist,
0:23:08 > 0:23:10but, in reality, they're not,
0:23:10 > 0:23:13they're distilled metaphor and truth.
0:23:13 > 0:23:17So you're working with a very high-octane fuel to begin with.
0:23:17 > 0:23:19So, in simple terms, Alan,
0:23:19 > 0:23:23what is it that folktales give us that other forms of fiction can't?
0:23:24 > 0:23:26They give us three things.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29The first thing that they give us
0:23:29 > 0:23:32is the black, the second thing is the white,
0:23:32 > 0:23:37so we have clear-cut stories which are not morality tales -
0:23:37 > 0:23:40that's something that the Victorians are guilty of.
0:23:41 > 0:23:43But they are folk wisdom.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49And, along with it, they give a sense of wonder.
0:23:49 > 0:23:53They release the imagination at the same time.
0:23:53 > 0:23:54That is not a contradiction.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58There are parallels here with religion in that sense,
0:23:58 > 0:24:02because if there are clear rules and breaking those rules
0:24:02 > 0:24:04would produce bad results,
0:24:04 > 0:24:07and there's also a sense of praise, of wonder,
0:24:07 > 0:24:09you've got the essence there of traditional religion as well.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13Folktale, legend...
0:24:14 > 0:24:17..fairy-tale, religion...
0:24:18 > 0:24:23..all partake of the same energies.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27And that is not to belittle any of them.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31They are very serious and, for me,
0:24:31 > 0:24:33fundamental aspects of being alive.
0:24:36 > 0:24:41Reclaiming the magical world of folktale and legend
0:24:41 > 0:24:44is a driving force throughout fantasy fiction.
0:24:44 > 0:24:49In the pages of fantasy, what we see is our own folkloric origins popping
0:24:49 > 0:24:52up their little hands and saying, "Look, still here."
0:24:53 > 0:24:58Plundering folktales is a good starting point for adventure.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02But if you want to nail an epic fantasy, you need to look at how
0:25:02 > 0:25:05the likes of Homer or the Norse sagas
0:25:05 > 0:25:08actually structure their stories.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12They call on a kind of ancient mythical storytelling template
0:25:12 > 0:25:16that's come to be known as The Hero's Journey.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21It's made up of features that are common to some of the oldest forms
0:25:21 > 0:25:23of heroic storytelling in the world.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34Mythologists spotted this structure and many Hollywood scriptwriters
0:25:34 > 0:25:37still use it, whittling the quest down to
0:25:37 > 0:25:40a popcorn-friendly 12 key stages.
0:25:41 > 0:25:43Let's take a look at The Hobbit,
0:25:43 > 0:25:45as reimagined by director Peter Jackson,
0:25:45 > 0:25:47in one minute and six seconds.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51Bilbo's ordinary world of the Shire is interrupted
0:25:51 > 0:25:53by a call to adventure.
0:25:53 > 0:25:56I am looking for someone to share in an adventure.
0:25:56 > 0:25:58Which sounds an awful lot like certain death...
0:25:58 > 0:26:00Incineration.
0:26:00 > 0:26:02..so Bilbo tells them where to stick it.
0:26:02 > 0:26:04Nope.
0:26:04 > 0:26:06But then his mentor gives him a pep talk.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08Changing his mind, our hobbit
0:26:08 > 0:26:13crosses the threshold into the unknown.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16As his adventure unfolds, he meets allies and enemies,
0:26:16 > 0:26:18facing tests on the way.
0:26:18 > 0:26:21If Baggins loses, he eats it whole.
0:26:22 > 0:26:24Fair enough.
0:26:24 > 0:26:26Bilbo then approaches the innermost cave.
0:26:26 > 0:26:31Here, he faces the supreme ordeal, death by barbecue.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34If still being a live hobbit wasn't enough of a reward,
0:26:34 > 0:26:35Bilbo gets to keep some loot,
0:26:35 > 0:26:39before taking the long road back to the Shire where, presumed dead,
0:26:39 > 0:26:42his reappearance is a kind of a resurrection.
0:26:42 > 0:26:43Can you prove it?
0:26:43 > 0:26:47Finally home, perhaps wondering how such a short story was stretched
0:26:47 > 0:26:50into three films, Bilbo has returned with the elixir.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54In his case, the experience of a lifetime and a magic ring.
0:26:54 > 0:26:56Time's up.
0:27:01 > 0:27:05Of course, The Hobbit was only a sample of Middle Earth,
0:27:05 > 0:27:09a try-out for a much grander scale of quest adventure
0:27:09 > 0:27:11in The Lord Of The Rings.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15Tolkien was creating mythical worlds,
0:27:15 > 0:27:18but what people forget is that he was a writer like any other,
0:27:18 > 0:27:21operating in the present, in his own times.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25I've been rereading Lord Of The Rings recently
0:27:25 > 0:27:27and it's ever clearer to me that
0:27:27 > 0:27:28this is a book which comes out of the
0:27:28 > 0:27:32British experience of war in the 20th century.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35Tolkien himself had served in the trenches in the First War,
0:27:35 > 0:27:38and you can see echoes of that throughout the book.
0:27:38 > 0:27:39But, more important still,
0:27:39 > 0:27:43it was actually written during the Second War at a time of rationing,
0:27:43 > 0:27:47and I think you can see the lusts and desires of the British people,
0:27:47 > 0:27:50half-starved, in all of those scenes where Tolkien
0:27:50 > 0:27:53lavishes attention on beautifully creamy cream,
0:27:53 > 0:27:54thick, lush cheese,
0:27:54 > 0:27:57perfectly white bread and good beer.
0:27:57 > 0:28:00This is what the British were fantasising about in the 1940s.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04Furthermore, of course, the Hobbits themselves - pacific, gentle,
0:28:04 > 0:28:07slow to anger but very fierce when they do -
0:28:07 > 0:28:09that's how the English, in particular,
0:28:09 > 0:28:12thought of themselves in the 20th century.
0:28:12 > 0:28:14MUSIC: Somebody To Love by Jefferson Airplane
0:28:18 > 0:28:23But, as Tolkien became a more worldwide phenomenon,
0:28:23 > 0:28:26these very English roots were lost on his new readers.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31In the 1960s, Tolkien's book was pirated in America,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34becoming immensely successful.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37He was embraced by a new generation of readers with little sense of
0:28:37 > 0:28:39where his work had come from.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42The Lord Of The Rings, rather oddly,
0:28:42 > 0:28:45became a bible for the American counterculture.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49His new fans even looked a bit hobbity.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54But it turned out that one man's magic ring was another man's
0:28:54 > 0:28:57atom bomb, because in the 1960s,
0:28:57 > 0:29:01Tolkien completely and comprehensively lost control
0:29:01 > 0:29:03of the meaning of his book.
0:29:03 > 0:29:07For younger American readers at the height of the counterculture,
0:29:07 > 0:29:11this was a story, a parable of the small guy against the big guy,
0:29:11 > 0:29:14ordinary folk against the man and the machine.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18Now, you might think that hobbits make rather unlikely
0:29:18 > 0:29:21New Left revolutionaries, and you might be right.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24But so it was. The readers had grabbed control of the story.
0:29:33 > 0:29:35As reader demand soared,
0:29:35 > 0:29:40publishers rushed to print anything with wizards and dragons in it.
0:29:40 > 0:29:41Fantasy became a genre.
0:29:43 > 0:29:47And with this new appetite for the fantastical came new writers.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51One author, a woman from the west coast of America,
0:29:51 > 0:29:55began to write books that would bring the Old World stories
0:29:55 > 0:29:57of fantasy into the New World.
0:29:57 > 0:30:00She was the first fantasy writer I fell in love with.
0:30:00 > 0:30:02In 1968,
0:30:02 > 0:30:07Ursula Le Guin published the opening book in her Earthsea series called
0:30:07 > 0:30:09A Wizard Of Earthsea.
0:30:11 > 0:30:12Growing up in California,
0:30:12 > 0:30:16Le Guin read myths and stories from Native American culture as well as
0:30:16 > 0:30:21classical history. Her writing was far less rooted in northern European
0:30:21 > 0:30:23traditions than British fantasies had been.
0:30:26 > 0:30:28Fantasy evolved very fast.
0:30:28 > 0:30:30The old ideas quickly became cliches,
0:30:30 > 0:30:33and although Le Guin was a great admirer of Tolkien,
0:30:33 > 0:30:36she was also determined to subvert him.
0:30:46 > 0:30:48Le Guin looked at the notion of wizards,
0:30:48 > 0:30:51a typical Merlin or Gandalf type -
0:30:51 > 0:30:53elderly and bearded.
0:30:53 > 0:30:54She wondered what they were like
0:30:54 > 0:30:57when they were younger and how they'd learned
0:30:57 > 0:30:58their dangerous skills.
0:30:58 > 0:31:02The result was Ged, a young farmhand who is packed off,
0:31:02 > 0:31:05Harry Potter-like, to wizarding school.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09Le Guin considered that being an American writer
0:31:09 > 0:31:11rather than a European one,
0:31:11 > 0:31:16she should challenge the previously Aryan tendency in fantasy writing.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20So it slowly becomes apparent in A Wizard Of Earthsea that
0:31:20 > 0:31:23most of the characters, including the hero, Ged,
0:31:23 > 0:31:25are in fact brown-skinned.
0:31:25 > 0:31:29And when Aryan Nordic Norse types appear, they're not as heroes,
0:31:29 > 0:31:31but thuggish semi-Vikings.
0:31:34 > 0:31:39Whilst giving a nod to the fantasy works she had eagerly lapped up
0:31:39 > 0:31:43as a reader, Le Guin was taking fantasy her own way.
0:31:47 > 0:31:50She even did evil differently.
0:31:50 > 0:31:52Ged's enemy is a demonic shadow
0:31:52 > 0:31:57generated by his attempt to show off by raising the dead.
0:31:57 > 0:32:02Gradually, Ged realises that it is his own shadow,
0:32:02 > 0:32:05a darkness he must accept as part of his own nature
0:32:05 > 0:32:08before it can be defeated.
0:32:09 > 0:32:13At the heart of Le Guin's Earthsea is the notion that fantasy is the
0:32:13 > 0:32:14language of the inner self.
0:32:14 > 0:32:19It's a book much more marked by the Californian counterculture than by
0:32:19 > 0:32:21Oxford philology and medievalism.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24It's more in spirit tie-dyed cotton
0:32:24 > 0:32:27than good, old-fashioned, sturdy tweed.
0:32:27 > 0:32:31And in Ged's adventures, we see him move from boyhood to manhood,
0:32:31 > 0:32:34correcting his mistakes as he goes.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37This is a meditation on the nature of childhood itself.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51There's something quite special about fantasy fiction's place
0:32:51 > 0:32:53in our childhood.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58From Alice In Wonderland to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01Five Children And It to The Hobbit,
0:33:01 > 0:33:05many of the greatest books for the young are thoroughly fantastical.
0:33:06 > 0:33:10Reading these kinds of stories as a child is a joy.
0:33:10 > 0:33:14A simple suspension of disbelief and we are sent off on adventures
0:33:14 > 0:33:16we will never forget,
0:33:16 > 0:33:18partly because they're all so dark.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24These are tales that help us to navigate the adult world through the
0:33:24 > 0:33:27playground of our imaginations,
0:33:27 > 0:33:29staying with us long after we read them.
0:33:29 > 0:33:32And this tradition is alive and well.
0:33:32 > 0:33:372015's Costa Book Award winner was Francis Hardinge with The Lie Tree.
0:33:40 > 0:33:44'I asked Francis why fantasy is so popular a genre with children.'
0:33:45 > 0:33:50I think, certainly for a child, fantasy is quite empowering.
0:33:50 > 0:33:54It's a domain where the usual rules don't apply.
0:33:54 > 0:33:55I mean, in some cases,
0:33:55 > 0:33:57it's out-and-out obviously subversive.
0:33:57 > 0:33:59If you look at Alice In Wonderland,
0:33:59 > 0:34:02pretty much everything there is a deconstruction of a lot of the
0:34:02 > 0:34:05moralising literature that children were being given at that time,
0:34:05 > 0:34:07and if there's a message to the whole thing it's,
0:34:07 > 0:34:10"If there's an adult in front of you who seems to be talking rubbish,
0:34:10 > 0:34:11"they're probably talking rubbish."
0:34:11 > 0:34:17But it's a way in which the children can escape from a lot of their usual
0:34:17 > 0:34:20adult, parent-dominated, etc, structures,
0:34:20 > 0:34:23and escape into a world of adventure and danger.
0:34:23 > 0:34:26Francis, in fantasy novels, you find that the protagonists,
0:34:26 > 0:34:29the hero or the heroine, is a child.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33Why is it that they make such good central characters for these books,
0:34:33 > 0:34:34do you think?
0:34:34 > 0:34:38Certainly from the point of view of a writer,
0:34:38 > 0:34:43it makes introducing the reader to an entire new world easier if,
0:34:43 > 0:34:46basically, you have a character who is discovering it at the same time.
0:34:46 > 0:34:48That's quite a useful protagonist
0:34:48 > 0:34:51for readers of any age to be reading.
0:34:51 > 0:34:54I think it's useful for adult readers
0:34:54 > 0:34:57as well as younger readers to be recapturing that sense of discovery,
0:34:57 > 0:35:00that sense of breaking down one's earlier assumptions
0:35:00 > 0:35:03about how the world works and one's place in it.
0:35:03 > 0:35:05It's like Matisse.
0:35:05 > 0:35:07We must see the world through the eyes of children.
0:35:07 > 0:35:09Yes. Also, they make great underdogs.
0:35:09 > 0:35:13There is very often a really dark streak in fantasy novels.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16There is real evil. There is death.
0:35:16 > 0:35:17For children, why is that?
0:35:17 > 0:35:20The children know about evil, they know about ugliness,
0:35:20 > 0:35:24they know about this element of the world,
0:35:24 > 0:35:26the baby has known the Dragon intimately
0:35:26 > 0:35:28since it had an imagination.
0:35:28 > 0:35:31What we are setting up is a narrative
0:35:31 > 0:35:34where those evils are contended with.
0:35:34 > 0:35:36Children are not stupid.
0:35:36 > 0:35:39They do see the darkness that's already in the world
0:35:39 > 0:35:42and they experience intense emotions
0:35:42 > 0:35:45that we might wish to believe that they don't.
0:35:45 > 0:35:47My sixth book, Cuckoo Song,
0:35:47 > 0:35:50focuses upon a child monster...
0:35:51 > 0:35:54..and puts the reader in an uncomfortable position
0:35:54 > 0:35:56of sympathising with someone
0:35:56 > 0:35:59who is experiencing frightening compulsions, self-hate,
0:35:59 > 0:36:03self distrust and the sort of savagery that can go
0:36:03 > 0:36:06with terror and desperation.
0:36:07 > 0:36:10We are all emotionally monstrous sometimes,
0:36:10 > 0:36:13and a literal monstrosity, whatever our age,
0:36:13 > 0:36:16can be a powerful way of showing that.
0:36:16 > 0:36:20There you have it. Children are at the heart of this genre.
0:36:20 > 0:36:23And we haven't even mentioned JK Rowling.
0:36:25 > 0:36:26Now we have.
0:36:27 > 0:36:31Rowling's Harry Potter series are some of the bestselling books
0:36:31 > 0:36:33of all time.
0:36:33 > 0:36:37Her mashup recipe of boarding school adventure,
0:36:37 > 0:36:42mystery and magic has held millions of readers spellbound.
0:36:42 > 0:36:47In many ways, it is the ultimate rite of passage sequence.
0:36:47 > 0:36:49But although Rowling was writing for children,
0:36:49 > 0:36:54her books were equally loved by an enormous number of adults.
0:36:54 > 0:36:59Perhaps only fantasy bridges across the generations like this.
0:37:03 > 0:37:07Philip Pullman's books also had this generational crossover.
0:37:07 > 0:37:10Although quite clearly written for younger readers,
0:37:10 > 0:37:14they explore some complex, adult and contemporary themes.
0:37:14 > 0:37:17These are books with grand ambitions.
0:37:19 > 0:37:21Pullman's His Dark Materials
0:37:21 > 0:37:26is a remarkable polemic against organised religion.
0:37:28 > 0:37:33In a story that spans alternative Oxford to the Northern Lights of the
0:37:33 > 0:37:36Arctic and beyond, two young protagonists,
0:37:36 > 0:37:40Lyra and Will are pitted against the evil Magisterium -
0:37:40 > 0:37:43a kind of fantasy theocracy.
0:37:47 > 0:37:52The Magisterium is obsessed with control of science and society and
0:37:52 > 0:37:56anything which threatens their pre-eminent status and power.
0:37:56 > 0:37:59When the scientist, Lord Asriel,
0:37:59 > 0:38:01begins to investigate a mysterious substance
0:38:01 > 0:38:03called dust, the Magisterium
0:38:03 > 0:38:06is determined to repress its meaning.
0:38:06 > 0:38:10Now, dust is Philip Pullman's fantasy creation,
0:38:10 > 0:38:13but he uses it with deadly seriousness
0:38:13 > 0:38:17for relatively aggressive criticism of Christian doctrine.
0:38:20 > 0:38:23Dust seems to be the fictional equivalent
0:38:23 > 0:38:26of Christianity's original sin.
0:38:28 > 0:38:32In life, we accumulate sinfulness as we grow older, and particularly with
0:38:32 > 0:38:34the arrival of puberty and sexuality.
0:38:34 > 0:38:36But for Pullman,
0:38:36 > 0:38:39although most of his heroes and heroines are children,
0:38:39 > 0:38:42this is an entirely natural process.
0:38:42 > 0:38:45Sexuality may bring heartbreak, but it isn't evil.
0:38:47 > 0:38:49There is absolutely no idealisation
0:38:49 > 0:38:52of childhood innocence going on here.
0:38:52 > 0:38:56Pullman's work is unmistakably a direct counter,
0:38:56 > 0:38:59a rebuke to CS Lewis's Chronicles Of Narnia.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07Pullman's Dark Materials books are much enjoyed by young adults and by
0:39:07 > 0:39:13children, but adult readers can't fail to notice the crunchy intensity
0:39:13 > 0:39:15of big ideas inside these books.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18Pullman's reflections cover everything from the nature
0:39:18 > 0:39:22of the Industrial Revolution to Renaissance architecture,
0:39:22 > 0:39:24Darwinian co-evolution,
0:39:24 > 0:39:28the true achievement of John Milton in Paradise Lost, and much more
0:39:28 > 0:39:32besides. Now, Pullman is anything but a Christian.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36He loathed CS Lewis. But, like many fantasy writers,
0:39:36 > 0:39:40he has a bit of a soft spot for a half-decent pulpit.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52An author's themes don't come much bigger or more abstract
0:39:52 > 0:39:54than religion and belief.
0:39:55 > 0:39:59But there is nothing fantasy writers love more than creating
0:39:59 > 0:40:01their own gods.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12In Neil Gaiman's fantasy classic American Gods,
0:40:12 > 0:40:15he conjures up a whole pantheon of deities,
0:40:15 > 0:40:18but not quite as you might imagine.
0:40:19 > 0:40:24This is a brilliantly funny and highly subversive fantasy set in
0:40:24 > 0:40:25modern-day America.
0:40:25 > 0:40:30It starts as a classic American road trip in the slightly surreal style
0:40:30 > 0:40:32of Jack Kerouac.
0:40:32 > 0:40:36But this is really a book about belief in the modern age or,
0:40:36 > 0:40:38to put it another way,
0:40:38 > 0:40:43who or what these days do you and I really worship?
0:40:44 > 0:40:48The story sees a collection of gods from the ancient world,
0:40:48 > 0:40:52lost and bewildered deities hardly anyone believes in any more,
0:40:52 > 0:40:56who were brought over to America by waves of settlers through the
0:40:56 > 0:41:00centuries, pitted against the new gods of American life.
0:41:00 > 0:41:05These new deities are created by the power of modern desire,
0:41:05 > 0:41:08setting the stage for a cataclysmic showdown.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13Religions are the great intangibles.
0:41:13 > 0:41:16They operate on faith. They cannot be inspected.
0:41:16 > 0:41:18They don't operate quite in our world
0:41:18 > 0:41:22except that we believe in them and act as if they do.
0:41:22 > 0:41:24So in the world of American Gods,
0:41:24 > 0:41:28what I tried to do was just take it very literally,
0:41:28 > 0:41:32say gods are as important as they are believed in.
0:41:34 > 0:41:38It's about the idea that every culture that has come to America...
0:41:39 > 0:41:43..has abandoned the folk beliefs and the gods they brought with them
0:41:43 > 0:41:46and now they are exiled to the edges.
0:41:48 > 0:41:51And, at the same time, we have new gods.
0:41:53 > 0:42:00We will have the gods that have come in to take up the areas of belief,
0:42:00 > 0:42:05the areas of time, that people used to donate to their religion.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08Right now they're giving to their iPhones.
0:42:10 > 0:42:14You know, 20 years ago they were giving to their televisions.
0:42:14 > 0:42:16And it gave me a beautiful metaphor.
0:42:16 > 0:42:18It gave me old versus new.
0:42:19 > 0:42:22It gave me different kinds of belief.
0:42:25 > 0:42:30So I tried to write about what it would mean to be a god right now,
0:42:30 > 0:42:32what it would mean to be driven by belief.
0:42:37 > 0:42:39There are new gods growing in America,
0:42:39 > 0:42:41clinging to growing knots of belief.
0:42:41 > 0:42:45Gods of credit card and freeway, of internet and telephone,
0:42:45 > 0:42:48of radio and hospital and television.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51Gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon.
0:42:51 > 0:42:53Proud gods,
0:42:53 > 0:42:56fat and foolish creatures puffed up with their own newness
0:42:56 > 0:42:57and importance.
0:43:00 > 0:43:04One of the most important things fantasy is for...
0:43:05 > 0:43:10..is for making metaphors concrete.
0:43:10 > 0:43:12Just for making them solid
0:43:12 > 0:43:17and allowing you to look at the things that are intangible.
0:43:19 > 0:43:25You're taking a fantastical idea and you're taking it seriously.
0:43:25 > 0:43:30And... But you're also allowing it to comment on the world in a way
0:43:30 > 0:43:32that you can't
0:43:32 > 0:43:37in a more mainstream, more mimetic novel.
0:43:37 > 0:43:39These, it seems to me,
0:43:39 > 0:43:43are real modern gods, and the modern is very important because there's a
0:43:43 > 0:43:47challenge issued to fantasy by every critic of these books -
0:43:47 > 0:43:49"What about real life?"
0:43:50 > 0:43:51It may be a surprise to them,
0:43:51 > 0:43:54but examining the trials and tribulations
0:43:54 > 0:43:58of the everyday world is where fantasy is at its strongest.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13The modern master of using fantasy to hold a mirror up to humanity
0:44:13 > 0:44:15was Sir Terry Pratchett,
0:44:15 > 0:44:19whose Discworld was a flat planet resting on the backs
0:44:19 > 0:44:23of four elephants standing on a giant turtle.
0:44:24 > 0:44:28And yet the inhabitants of Discworld share many similarities
0:44:28 > 0:44:32with those of us who frolic around on this little blue ball.
0:44:33 > 0:44:35His recipe of humour,
0:44:35 > 0:44:41wordplay and insightful observation proved a runaway success in fantasy,
0:44:41 > 0:44:42and in the 1990s,
0:44:42 > 0:44:46he was the bestselling British author in any genre.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52Rob Wilkins worked with Terry Pratchett for two decades,
0:44:52 > 0:44:56and he has a unique perspective on the way he wrote.
0:44:56 > 0:44:58He said that he had a pack rat mentality.
0:44:58 > 0:45:01And by that, the only way I can describe it is saying
0:45:01 > 0:45:03he had a mind like a vacuum cleaner
0:45:03 > 0:45:06and he would absorb things and suck things up from everywhere.
0:45:06 > 0:45:09And it wasn't until we sat back down at the keyboard that you
0:45:09 > 0:45:10realised that he had done that.
0:45:12 > 0:45:15Just a certain inflection in somebody's voice,
0:45:15 > 0:45:17a little personality trait, something that they did,
0:45:17 > 0:45:20he would pull all of that in.
0:45:20 > 0:45:22So he would pull in the small things,
0:45:22 > 0:45:25all the way through to the railways, to the post office,
0:45:25 > 0:45:28to the banking system, to newspapers.
0:45:28 > 0:45:30There was nothing that Terry wouldn't look at.
0:45:32 > 0:45:37He could filter ideas until the atom of what he wanted was remaining.
0:45:40 > 0:45:43At first, Discworld was an affectionate mickey take
0:45:43 > 0:45:46of the more pompous side of the fantasy genre.
0:45:46 > 0:45:51But Pratchett's imagination soon took another turn
0:45:51 > 0:45:53towards the foibles of the rest of us.
0:45:55 > 0:45:57By the time we got to book four,
0:45:57 > 0:45:59by the time we get to Mort, something happened.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04There were ideas that he knew he could play with,
0:46:04 > 0:46:06and Death was suddenly
0:46:06 > 0:46:09going to be a main character.
0:46:09 > 0:46:13And suddenly Discworld became a mirror of our own world.
0:46:15 > 0:46:18In Mort, Death experiences the delights
0:46:18 > 0:46:21of an employment agency interview.
0:46:24 > 0:46:26"And what was your previous position?"
0:46:27 > 0:46:29"I beg your pardon?"
0:46:30 > 0:46:32"What did you do for a living?"
0:46:32 > 0:46:35Said the thin young man behind the desk.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38The figure opposite him shifted uneasily.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42"I ushered souls into the next world.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45"I was the grave of all hope.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48"I was the ultimate reality.
0:46:48 > 0:46:54"I was the assassin against whom no lock would hold."
0:46:54 > 0:46:55"Yes, point taken.
0:46:55 > 0:46:59"But do you have any particular skills?"
0:46:59 > 0:47:01Death thought about it.
0:47:01 > 0:47:05"I suppose a certain amount of expertise
0:47:05 > 0:47:08"with agricultural implements,"
0:47:08 > 0:47:10he ventured after a while.
0:47:10 > 0:47:13The young man shook his head firmly.
0:47:14 > 0:47:19Pratchett said that fantasy isn't just about wizards and silly wands.
0:47:19 > 0:47:22It's about seeing the world from new directions.
0:47:22 > 0:47:24And his books proved fantasy could tackle life
0:47:24 > 0:47:26at either end of the scale,
0:47:26 > 0:47:28from the most weighty issues of the day
0:47:28 > 0:47:30to the more everyday and mundane.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33Each book would deal with something new.
0:47:33 > 0:47:34Jingo, it's world issues.
0:47:34 > 0:47:36It's the Middle East, it's everything else,
0:47:36 > 0:47:38and you can paint on what you want.
0:47:38 > 0:47:41With Snuff, it's about slavery and enslaving the goblins.
0:47:42 > 0:47:45Unseen Academicals, it's football.
0:47:45 > 0:47:48This is one football team against another football team.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51Another part of town against another part of town.
0:47:51 > 0:47:53And we all know what that feels like.
0:47:53 > 0:47:55He crashed the banking system in Ankh-Morpork
0:47:55 > 0:47:57and then our own banking system went
0:47:57 > 0:48:00down, and Terry was accused of having some sort of foresight
0:48:00 > 0:48:04into seeing into the future, and he did it multiple times as well.
0:48:04 > 0:48:06He said, "Do you know what? I just make this stuff up.
0:48:06 > 0:48:09"I can see the way it's going. There's no magic in that."
0:48:11 > 0:48:14Like all great satirists,
0:48:14 > 0:48:17Pratchett had a keen eye for dangerous ideas
0:48:17 > 0:48:21and a long nose for the pompous and the absurd.
0:48:21 > 0:48:25Above all, however, he simply understood people.
0:48:25 > 0:48:30Discworld might be about as fantastical a setting as it gets,
0:48:30 > 0:48:34but Pratchett's stories are essentially about everyday life.
0:48:34 > 0:48:37He felt that people were basically the same,
0:48:37 > 0:48:39whether they inhabited a magical planet
0:48:39 > 0:48:42populated by dragons and wizards,
0:48:42 > 0:48:47or a small town off the M6 populated by cribbage enthusiasts
0:48:47 > 0:48:49and insurance salesman.
0:48:54 > 0:48:57Fantasy novels come in all shapes and sizes,
0:48:57 > 0:48:59but I have noticed one thing they all share
0:48:59 > 0:49:02is a sense of a lost world,
0:49:02 > 0:49:04that the glory days are over.
0:49:05 > 0:49:10Beneath the surface of adventure and peril is a strand of deep,
0:49:10 > 0:49:12poignant melancholy.
0:49:22 > 0:49:27In fantasy, the fictional realm is in a state of decline.
0:49:27 > 0:49:29There is something wrong.
0:49:29 > 0:49:35Magic is leaving the world and the old order is fading away.
0:49:35 > 0:49:39It's shown as a form of existential threat to the fantasy world's
0:49:39 > 0:49:43very existence, and even has an academic name - thinning.
0:49:45 > 0:49:47Thinning is integral to fantasy,
0:49:47 > 0:49:50from the most obscure works to the most celebrated.
0:49:51 > 0:49:54The unfortunate inhabitants of Westeros
0:49:54 > 0:49:56meet it on multiple fronts
0:49:56 > 0:49:59in George RR Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire.
0:50:01 > 0:50:05A decades-long winter is setting in and the army of the dead,
0:50:05 > 0:50:09led by the nightmarish White Walkers, is on its way.
0:50:14 > 0:50:17Yes, there are dragons to fight back,
0:50:17 > 0:50:19but there's only three of them left.
0:50:22 > 0:50:27Thinning is the slipping away of the other world's unique fantasy
0:50:27 > 0:50:31essence. It is the slow dying of the magic.
0:50:31 > 0:50:33And in the context of a fantasy novel,
0:50:33 > 0:50:36that is about the worst possible thing that can happen.
0:50:37 > 0:50:42Everywhere you look, you will find impossible worlds raging against
0:50:42 > 0:50:43the dying of the light.
0:50:43 > 0:50:47A flame...thinning to nothing.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51At the end of Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings,
0:50:51 > 0:50:53even a victory against the Dark Lord Sauron
0:50:53 > 0:50:58can't stop the flight of the elves from Middle Earth.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01In Le Guin's Earthsea series, the magic is draining away
0:51:01 > 0:51:06from the fantasy realm, sucked out by an evil wizard.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09Even Lewis's Narnia is in decline -
0:51:09 > 0:51:14its citizens turn to stone and locked into perpetual winter
0:51:14 > 0:51:19with no more human kings and queens to keep evil at bay.
0:51:24 > 0:51:26It's an idea that reflects worry
0:51:26 > 0:51:28about where our own world is heading.
0:51:30 > 0:51:34It also provides the story with a remorseless narrative drive,
0:51:34 > 0:51:38one that propels the imaginary realm towards the edge of the abyss.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44But the effects of thinning on the genre go beyond the story itself.
0:51:47 > 0:51:50There's a kind of moral thinning going on in fantasy,
0:51:50 > 0:51:54an idea modern writers have greedily seized
0:51:54 > 0:51:57as they blur the lines between good and evil.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06It used to be that at the end of a fantasy story
0:52:06 > 0:52:07there would be a battle
0:52:07 > 0:52:11between the clearly defined forces of good on the one side...
0:52:12 > 0:52:14..evil on the other.
0:52:14 > 0:52:20In the battle, good would always triumph against suicidal odds, and
0:52:20 > 0:52:22everything was neatly resolved.
0:52:24 > 0:52:26But in these less morally sure-footed times,
0:52:26 > 0:52:29a different approach has emerged.
0:52:29 > 0:52:34Modern fantasy deliberately muddies distinctions between good and evil.
0:52:34 > 0:52:39I wanted to ask a writer who works in this distinctly post-moral school
0:52:39 > 0:52:42of fantasy exactly what's going on.
0:52:43 > 0:52:47Joe Abercrombie is a New York Times bestselling author.
0:52:47 > 0:52:52His are classical fantastical worlds brimming with moral ambiguity.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57We seem to be living in a time that's gone beyond
0:52:57 > 0:52:58simple narrative stories
0:52:58 > 0:53:02about good versus evil, where one great battle will solve everything.
0:53:02 > 0:53:04You build up to the final fight and then it's over.
0:53:04 > 0:53:07Mm. It's a muddier world these days, perhaps.
0:53:07 > 0:53:10And maybe it was that, in the shadow of the Second World War
0:53:10 > 0:53:12and during the Cold War,
0:53:12 > 0:53:15it was easier to believe in that good versus evil narrative,
0:53:15 > 0:53:18or it seemed to fit reality a little bit better.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21I think we're used to living in a world where we see both sides
0:53:21 > 0:53:25of every story, we're used to thinking of a moral relativism,
0:53:25 > 0:53:28if you like, where good and evil are about where you stand.
0:53:28 > 0:53:30And so, these days, I think,
0:53:30 > 0:53:33you know, these big epochal battles
0:53:33 > 0:53:35after which everything will be changed
0:53:35 > 0:53:38don't really seem to ring quite so true.
0:53:38 > 0:53:43I suppose, to me, our own world has always seemed much more ambiguous.
0:53:43 > 0:53:46Right and wrong are a question of where you stand.
0:53:46 > 0:53:50People are very rarely utterly evil or utterly good in any real sense,
0:53:50 > 0:53:51and so I wanted to reflect that.
0:53:51 > 0:53:55I think, as well, fantasy fiction often has these very strong
0:53:55 > 0:53:58stereotypes - a goodly wizard who perhaps is a little mysterious
0:53:58 > 0:54:02but you accept has the good of the world at heart.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05And I was interested in probing at that idea a little bit
0:54:05 > 0:54:09and taking some of those stereotypes from which we expect a certain thing
0:54:09 > 0:54:11and delivering something slightly different.
0:54:11 > 0:54:15So would an immortal wizard really have everyone's best interests
0:54:15 > 0:54:19at heart or would he only pretend to while serving his own agenda?
0:54:19 > 0:54:21Might be a bit of a dastard deep down.
0:54:21 > 0:54:23Well, exactly. He certainly might not,
0:54:23 > 0:54:26after living for thousands of years and having these huge powers,
0:54:26 > 0:54:28he might not regard the little people
0:54:28 > 0:54:30as anything to worry too much about.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35Putting good and evil on the same footing is certainly
0:54:35 > 0:54:38George RR Martin's thing.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41In his work, just like in our own political world,
0:54:41 > 0:54:44there is no reward for doing the right thing,
0:54:44 > 0:54:47and ruthlessness often wins the day.
0:54:47 > 0:54:52The scale of Martin's canvas allows us to experience moral grime
0:54:52 > 0:54:54at a new level.
0:54:54 > 0:54:58This is our dirty old world but simply stretched.
0:55:01 > 0:55:04Without the shackles of realism,
0:55:04 > 0:55:08Martin is able to explore the nature of the state,
0:55:08 > 0:55:11morality and power politics.
0:55:15 > 0:55:18But it's the consequences of the Game Of Thrones itself
0:55:18 > 0:55:20that shows the story
0:55:20 > 0:55:23at its most poignant and relevant to our world.
0:55:25 > 0:55:28There is a feeling that order is breaking down in a way
0:55:28 > 0:55:31that we have seen happen in modern times,
0:55:31 > 0:55:33returning us to a state of barbarism.
0:55:35 > 0:55:37As Westeros becomes a failed state,
0:55:37 > 0:55:42we don't only see the power play at the top, we see the consequences
0:55:42 > 0:55:46visited on the rest of society through a young girl, Arya Stark,
0:55:46 > 0:55:50who is forced to wander through shattered societies.
0:55:50 > 0:55:54Through her eyes, we understand that the mental coarseness
0:55:54 > 0:55:56and failure of the rulers
0:55:56 > 0:55:59ends up as butchery of the innocent and defenceless.
0:56:08 > 0:56:11You shouldn't be sitting out here like this.
0:56:11 > 0:56:12Where else to sit?
0:56:14 > 0:56:15Tried to walk back to me hut...
0:56:16 > 0:56:17It hurt too much.
0:56:19 > 0:56:22Then I remembered they burned my hut down.
0:56:22 > 0:56:23Who were they?
0:56:23 > 0:56:25I stopped asking a while ago.
0:56:28 > 0:56:32Playing with good and evil allows A Song Of Ice And Fire
0:56:32 > 0:56:35to explore ideas that resonate with our own times.
0:56:39 > 0:56:42Themes as scary as any Targaryen dragons.
0:56:49 > 0:56:52In the end, what the rules of fantasy deliver
0:56:52 > 0:56:57isn't just memorably rich fictional worlds uniquely their own.
0:56:57 > 0:57:02Every reader of fantasy fiction stretches out their hands
0:57:02 > 0:57:04and does a deal with the author.
0:57:04 > 0:57:07We get a ripping yarn, but in return,
0:57:07 > 0:57:12by entering their worlds, we expose ourselves to their deepest beliefs.
0:57:14 > 0:57:19Whether it's Tolkien and the essence of Englishness and war
0:57:19 > 0:57:22or CS Lewis and his profound Christian faith...
0:57:24 > 0:57:26..whether it's Le Guin musing over identity
0:57:26 > 0:57:29or Hardinge on the agonies of growing up,
0:57:29 > 0:57:33whether it's Gaiman and Pullman talking about consumerism and
0:57:33 > 0:57:35the dangers of organised religion...
0:57:36 > 0:57:40..or whether it's George Martin picking apart the perils of power
0:57:40 > 0:57:43and corruption.
0:57:43 > 0:57:47We may think of them simply as the purveyors of a jolly good read,
0:57:47 > 0:57:48I prefer to think of them
0:57:48 > 0:57:51as the Gothic philosophers of the modern age.
0:57:58 > 0:58:01How strange is your imagination?
0:58:01 > 0:58:04Have a go at creating your own perfect fantasy
0:58:04 > 0:58:05and writing fiction.
0:58:05 > 0:58:09Head to the BBC website on screen and follow the links
0:58:09 > 0:58:12to the Open University.
0:58:12 > 0:58:17Next time, I slip off to the covert world of the British spy novelist.
0:58:17 > 0:58:23What exactly are the rules of intrigue, betrayal and deception?