The Death of Pulp Fantasy

Comments · 1.5K

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  @TheTaleFoundry · 1 year ago · pinned

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• AE

  @aeronlangheim3462 · 1 year ago

  I think the thing that Pulp fantasy has that a lot of modern fantasy is missing is that there is a feeling of unapologetic over-the-top-ness to it. It&apos;s not ironic, it&apos;s not trying to deconstruct itself or be something else, it&apos;s just unapologetically itself. There&apos;s a certain level of confidence to it that I feel like a lot of modern fantasy lacks. It&apos;s genuine.

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• AR

  @argondrolf785 · 1 year ago

  “Fantasy is a lot like Rock and Roll, once you go in knowing what to expect, it stops being rock.” -Michael Moorcock

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• MI

  @Mister-Thirteen · 1 year ago

  Pulp Fiction was Confidently fantasy.<br>It didn&apos;t need to be meta, or worry about how it would read in another medium if adapted. It didn&apos;t try to use humor to uncut its own genre. It didn&apos;t try to make characters sound like the audience in cadence and prose. Its didn&apos;t build its entire narrative on the desire to meditate on a single theme or topic but rather touched upon them when appropriate. <br><br>Pulp Fiction got to be Fiction in a way that modern fiction is often at odds with. Because Modern fiction is trying so hard to be taken seriously that it undermines it own imagination.

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• ER

  @ericlin2611 · 1 year ago

  As someone currently writing online web fiction, it struck me how many similarities there are with pulp fiction, which I was too young to have ever gotten into. <br><br>Both tend to have many amateur writers due to a lower barrier of entry, both use the cheapest wildly available medium of the time, and both are community focused. One with paper and letters, the other websites and comment sections.<br><br>Web fiction even seems to share the &apos;low brow&apos; nature of pulp fiction, simple weird fantasy stories made for an audience looking mainly for wish fufilment, yet sometimes you find something that is much more.

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• JO

  @Jodipo · 1 year ago

  Ah yes, love a good Sword and Sorcery story.

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• SM

  @SmooveOfferator · 1 year ago

  Fun Fact: Gary Gygax explicitly designed Dungeons &amp; Dragons around the adventures in pulp fantasy over the adventures in books like Lord of the Rings. Gygax preferred the idea that heroes would accrue powerful treasures, rather than try to destroy one. Other designers, like the equally important Dave Arneson, were able to get Tolkien-esque elements included, sometimes with contention from Gary

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• PA

  @pastelpickel8547 · 1 year ago

  As someone who loves writing and world building this video helped remind me that not every fantasy adventure I write has to have an extensive magic system or unique culture. It can just be a story about characters in fantastical situations with no explanations or expectations.

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• HU

  @hugoleonardoamaral586 · 1 year ago

  I&apos;ve been reading a lot of pulp fiction lately. The sheer sense of fun and entertaiment these stories provide is unmatched. Not to mention the absurd productivity of these writers, releasing story after story after story. It was really a very special period in literature.

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• AN

  @andrewbidwell6421 · 1 year ago

  I think this is why manga and anime got popular in the west as well. There’s a pulp fiction aspect of them that fills this void.

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• AB

  @abcdef27669 · 1 year ago

  The community those Pulp authors created was the best part of the video. Especially when you know the tragic ends of authors like Lovecraft and Robert Erwin Howard.<br><br>If Lovecraft was a Fantasy character, he would probably fit the &quot;Master&quot; archetype, with all the other writers he helped to create, thanks to his own universe.

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• BE

  @belowthestoneofficial · 1 year ago

  Showed my dad this. Hes a great writer and book collector, &nbsp;and got me into pulp fiction and fantasy. He&apos;s the reason i do dnd and game development. Shared this video with him and hopefully it gets him back onto writing.

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