Here Be Dragons (48 page)

5. REALMS AND RULERS

1
. Moorcock,
Wizardry
, 64.

2
. References to Tolkien,
The Lord of the Rings
, are given parenthetically in the text. The following abbreviations are used in the references: FR—
The Fellowship of the Ring
, TT—
The Two Towers
, RK—
The Return of the King
, Appx—appendices to
The Lord of the Rings
. Book and chapter are given in Roman numerals before the page reference.

3
. A handful of Dark Ladies can be found in the genre, such as the White Witch in C. S. Lewis's
The Lion
,
the Witch and the Wardrobe
(1950), but the overwhelming majority of these personifications of evil are male, so I therefore refer to a Dark Lord as
he
.

4
. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” 68. Clute briefly notes that tragic fantasy exists but is uncommon; see Clute, “Fantasy,” 339.

5
. The model is presented by Clute in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
and described in somewhat more detail in his Guest Scholar Speech at the Twentieth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (Fort Lauderdale, 1999; later published in
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
); see Clute, “Fantasy,” 338–39, and John Clute, “Grail, Groundhog, Godgame: Or, Doing Fantasy,”
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
10, no. 4 (2000). Clute's model is effectively used by Farah Mendlesohn in her fantasy taxonomy; see Mendlesohn,
Rhetorics
, xv et passim. The quotation is from a review of Mendlesohn's book; see Clute,
Canary Fever
, 369, originally published as “Drawn and Quartered” in
Strange Horizons
, June 2008.

6
. Attebery,
Fantasy Tradition
, 12–13.

7
. Ibid., 13–14. Elsewhere, Attebery observes that
The Lord of the Rings
conforms to Propp's morphology; see Attebery,
Strategies of Fantasy
, 15.

8
. V[ladímir] Propp,
Morphology of the Folktale
(1928; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968), 63–64.

9
. Clute, “Fantasy,” 338–39.

10
. John Clute, “Healing,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 458.

11
. Don D. Elgin notes that even Aragorn's line will fail, however, and that Sam
and his children are the future of Middle-earth; see Elgin,
Comedy
, 50. Elgin's point suggests a telling comparison between the two characters: it is possible to argue that whereas Aragorn is the monarch who ascends the throne, marries, and heals the land, Sam heals the land, marries, and becomes a successful, democratic representative of his people (he is elected Mayor seven times; see Appx B 1071–72). Rather than the pro-monarchy tract it has often been accused of being, Tolkien's text leaves it to the reader to decide who is the “proper” ruler.

12
. Mendlesohn,
Rhetorics
, 3.

13
. Jones,
Tough Guide
, 108.

14
. The association between Aragorn's ascending the throne and the introduction of nature in Minas Tirith (discussed in
chapter 4
) is a result of his policy (such as allowing the elves to plant trees in the City) and Gandalf's help in finding the scion of the dead Tree; there is no
direct
link.

15
. Ursula Le Guin,
The Farthest Shore
.
The Earthsea Quartet
(1973; London: Puffin-Penguin, 1993).

16
. Michael Ende,
The Neverending Story
, trans. Ralph Manheim (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1984), 31–32. Original: “Die Kindliche Kaiserin galt zwar—wie ihr Titel ja schon sagt—als die Herrscherin über all die unzähligen Länder des grenzenlosen phantásischen Reiches, aber sie war in Wirklichkeit viel mehr als eine Herrscherin, oder besser gesagt, sie war etwas ganz anderes. […] Sie war nur da, aber sie war auf eine besondere Art da: Sie war der Mittelpunkt allen Lebens in Phantásien.” Michael Ende,
Die unendliche Geschichte
(Stuttgart: K. Thienemanns Verlag, 1979), 33–34.

17
. Patricia A. McKillip,
The Riddlemaster of Hed
(1976; New York: Del Rey–Ballantine, 1978), 85.

18
. Terry Pratchett,
Wyrd Sisters
(1988; London: Corgi, 1989), 127.

19
. Ibid., 90–92.

20
. Ibid., 92.

21
. In the Discworld novels, the legitimate heir often does not ascend the throne. See, e.g.,
Pyramids
(discussed in
chapter 3
), in which Teppic renounces the throne in favor of his (maybe) half-sister; and
Guards! Guards!
(1989) and
Men at Arms
(1993), in which Carrot has all the signs marking him an heir to the throne but these signs are quite emphatically ignored, and he remains an officer of the Ankh-Morpork Watch. Carrot's superior in the Watch is even explicitly against the idea of kings in, e.g.,
Feet of Clay
(1996).

22
. Brooks,
Magic Kingdom
.

23
. Tad Williams,
The War of the Flowers
(New York: Daw Books, 2003).

24
. William's Oberon and Titania recall the fairy rulers in William Shakespeare's
A Midsummer Night's Dream
, who are also directly linked to the land. Cf. Titania's description of how their quarrel has caused a large number of ills to befall the land and its people: Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night's Dream
, 2.1.81–117.

25
. References to Tim Powers,
Last Call
(1992; New York: Avon-HarperCollins, 1993), are given parenthetically in the text.

26
. Fiona Kelleghan and Tim Powers, “Interview with Tim Powers,”
Science Fiction Studies
25, no. 1 (1998): 7. The second book,
Expiration Date
(1996), focuses
on ghosts and people who ingest them, and the two sets of protagonists are brought together in
Earthquake Weather
(1997), when another bid is made for the kingship. The books are also referred to as the Fault Lines series.

27
. Gary K. Wolfe,
Soundings: Reviews, 1992–1996
(Harold Wood, UK: Beccon Publications, 2005), 23. From a review originally published in
Locus
#374, March 1992.

28
. For a discussion on Weston's influence on and a Fisher King reading of
The Waste Land
, see Marianne Thormählen,
The Waste Land: A Fragmentary Wholeness
(Lund: Gleerup-LiberLäromedel, 1978), 68–74.

29
. T. S. Eliot,
The Waste Land
.
The Waste Land and Other Poems
, ed. Helen Vendler (1922; New York: Signet–New American Library, 1998), l. 189, 191–92. Further references to the poem are given parenthetically in the text.

30
. Thormählen points out that the “king my brother's wreck” “could be a modified excerpt from Isis' mournful chants” (71). Since, in
Last Call
's mythical domain, Osiris and the Fisher King are linked to the same figure, that reading would still agree with the Fisher King reading the novel calls for.

31
. Tim Powers,
Earthquake Weather
(New York: Orb–Tom Doherty, 1997), 194.

32
. Jessie L. Weston,
From Ritual to Romance
(1920; New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1957), 118–19.

33
. Urban T. Holmes, Jr., and M. Amelia Klenke,
Chrétien, Troyes, and the Grail
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 103; Thomas Malory,
Le Morte Darthur
(1485; Ware, UK: Wordsworth Editions, 1996), 646 (bk. 17, ch. 5).

34
. Arthur Groos,
Romancing the Grail: Genre, Science, and Quest in Wolfram's Parzival
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 145, 205–6. It is worth noting that Groos, citing an article by Brunel, claims that the leg wound of Chrétien's Fisher King is, in fact, a wound to the genitals: “‘parmi les hanches ambedeus' […] has a widespread meaning of ‘genitalia'” (145n3); see also C. Brunel, “Les Hanches du Roi Pêcheur (Chrétien de Troyes,
Perceval
3513),”
Romania
81 (1960).

35
. Weston discusses the connection between Tammuz and Adonis and suggests a connection to the Fisher King figure (Weston,
From Ritual
, ch. 4). James Frazer also observes the Tammuz-Adonis link and includes further discussion on, e.g., Attis and Osiris; see Frazer,
The Golden Bough
, esp. chs. 29–42.

36
. Weston,
From Ritual
, 114.

37
. Barber persuasively argues that there is no “reflex effect” causing the desolation of the Fisher King figure's realm—in the earliest Grail stories, the wasteland is simply the result of the ruler's inability to lead his men into battle; see Richard Barber,
The Holy Grail: The History of a Legend
(London: Penguin, 2005), 205. “[Weston] emphasizes the Waste Land, which […] is a minor theme in all but the very late romances,” Barber claims, “and even in these romances it becomes important only because the writer was anxious to tie up the loose ends left by his predecessors” (Barber,
Holy Grail
, 249).

38
. Dáithí Ó hÓgáin,
The Sacred Isle: Belief and Religion in Pre-Christian Ireland
(Woodbridge: Boydell Press / Wilton: Collins Press, 1999), 170.

39
. In “Cath Maige Tuired” (The Battle of Maige Tuired), James MacKillop claims that this and similar Irish and Welsh tales are believed to be antecedents to the
maimed Fisher King by some Arthurian commentators; see James MacKillop,
Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 253.

40
. MacKillop,
Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
, 253.

41
. References to Lisa Goldstein,
Tourists
(1989; New York: Orb–Tom Doherty, 1994), are given parenthetically in the text.

42
. Wolfe,
Soundings
, 209. From a review of Goldstein's short-story collection
Travellers in Magic
, originally published in
Locus
#406, November 1994.

43
. “palimpsest, n. and adj.,” 2a–b,
OED Online
, December 2011 (Oxford University Press).

44
. See, e.g., Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs,
Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 24–26; Charles W. Hedrick,
History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000), 109; and “palimpsest,”
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online: Academic Edition
(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2010).

45
. Hedrick,
History and Silence
, 93.

46
. Five categories of palimpsests relevant to the field of archaeology are discussed by Geoff Bailey, “Time Perspectives, Palimpsests and the Archaeology of Time,”
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
26 (2007): 203–10. An architectural palimpsest is described as “the partial erasing and constant overworking of sites and buildings over time. This can involve building over, within, above or alongside the previous or existing structure” in Tom Porter,
Archispeak: An Illustrated Guide to Architectural Terms
(London: Spon Press–Taylor & Francis, 2004), 135; see also Robert Cowan,
The Dictionary of Urbanism
(Tisbury, UK: Streetwise Press, 2005), 279.

47
. A brief but well-reasoned overview of the subject, which may serve as a starting point for such an exploration, is provided by Roz Kaveney, “Dark Lord,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 250.

48
. Examples of the former include the evil god Torak in David (and Leigh) Eddings's Belgariad sequence (1982–84); the wrathful and destructive Rakoth Maugrim in Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry (1985–86); and the power-hungry Morgoth in Tolkien's
The Silmarillion
(1977). Examples of the latter include Voldemort in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (1997–2007); Darken Rahl in Terry Goodkind's
Wizard's First Rule
(1995); and the Warlock Lord in Terry Brooks's Shannara books (1977–present).

49
. Including the White Witch/Jadis in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
and
The Magician's Nephew
(1955), who is mortal but from a different world and with powers far beyond those of normal people; Arawn in the Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander (1964–68), who is a supernatural character but not divine; and the Storm King in Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series (1988–93), who is an undead lord of the immortal Sithi.

50
. And therefore easily parodied. Examples include Diana Wynne Jones's
The Dark Lord of Derkholm
(1998), in which “Dark Lord” is just a role thrust upon a wizard to provide a suitable opponent for tourists from another world, and Mary Gentle's
Grunts
(1992), in which the Dark Lord returns in a female body and announces that rather than conquer the world by military means, she will win by election.
In “Another End of the Empire” (2009), Tim Pratt portrays a Dark Lord who decides to educate the children prophesied to overthrow him and finds himself adopting them and reforming his realm in the process.

51
. Mendlesohn,
Rhetorics
, 50.

52
. Texts that predate the emergence of generic fantasy, but that include the fantastic, and are of heightened significance to the genre. See Clute, “Taproot Texts,” 921–22.

53
. Michael Alexander, ed.,
Beowulf
(London: Penguin, 1995), l. 1357; cf.
Beowulf: A Verse Translation
, trans. Michael Alexander (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1973).

54
. John Milton,
Paradise Lost
, in
Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism
, 2nd ed., ed. Scott Elledge (1674; New York: Norton, 1993), 50 (bk. 2, lines 624–26).