The Great Fantasy Renaissance

This millennium has been far more fantastic than the last one. I’m talking about the Fantasy genre here; in books, movies, games, and other media. Fantasy has crept into other genres like action, comedy, and even romance. Superheroes have never been more popular, each with millions of Facebook fans. Even long dead politicians and religious messiahs are being resurrected to fight vampires and zombies.

                            

    

Our heroes are truly becoming become heroes… axe, baseball bat and all!

What happened and how did this insane glut of the hyper-real and super-normal invade our lives and imaginations? I hereby propose my theory of the Great Fantasy Renaissance.

The Birth

Opinions and accounts vary, but for me, the beginning came at the turn of the millennium with a cult movie directed by the Wachowskis (no longer brothers)… The Matrix. I speak merely of the first movie and not the controversial sequels. Apart from the myriad influences and allusions that made the movie oh-so-profound, what really fascinated people was the concept that reality was negotiable. It could all be a simulation, and anything is possible in a simulation.

If you could see the world, you could reprogram it!

We were awestruck by the possibilities as we watched Neo kick, punch, leap, and fly through the movie, defying physics, belief, and even death. It captured the imagination of the masses, beyond exclusive basements of nerd clubs. It inspired writers, artists, and designers new to sci-fi fantasy to unleash their creativity beyond the constraints of reality. And thus it began!

The Awkward Adolescence

Fantasy was beginning to stir again, it was still mostly for kids (‘childish’ nerds included). One literary phenomenon changed that. Joanne a.k.a J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter built an everlasting bridge that blurred the boundaries between children’s and adult fiction. Other, less noteworthy but still very successful writers blurred those lines some more and soon enough, it was OK for anyone to read anything.

That’s close to half a billion copies worth of sales right here!

On the movie side, special effects were coming of age, allowing directors to paint greater and more splendid canvases. Peter Jackson showed the world how to make epic fantasy with The Lord of the Rings, designing a world of swords, wizardry, and dragons that one could take seriously. Apart from that series though, movie maturity was still very PG rated, and the first couple of Harry Potter movies proved that. Movies still felt cartoonish, but some series like Spiderman and X-Men still became more popular than superhero movies ever had. DC’s Batman franchise was a joke though (the shameful age of the nippled batsuit) and it looked like the Fantasy renaissance would sputter out before it ever took off.

Why!

But times were a changing, and a new breed of writers and filmmakers were taking a long, hard look at a vision of grown up, serious fantasy.

The Glorious Youth

Much as I hate to admit it, the second author to follow Rowling’s act and make Fantasy even more popular was Stephenie Meyer. Polarising and critically slammed, but undeniably popular and successful, the Twilight series worked in tandem with the Harry Potter movement to spread the word that monsters can be human too. A whole legion of authors rode the wave and found encouraging if not comparable success. The inspirations and trends on the other hand were quite disturbing.

Sparkling vampires… Buff werewolves… Need I say more!

The movies were growing up too. The Prisoner of Azkaban was complex, scary, and a lot better than the first two. Batman grew dark and brooding in Nolan’s series, evolving into an epiphany with Heath Ledger’s Joker in the Dark Knight. The words ‘gritty reboot’ became the mantra for introducing fantasy to a whole new generation of fans. What these movies accomplished was incredible. They humanised fantastic powers and made them relatable. They focused on the logic, science, and history behind these quirks and gave fans a world that felt natural while still being incredibly awesome. Marvel took charge of their movies with their own studio. Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor paved the way for the blockbuster Avengers and their success is proof of how well that worked.

That’s 7 blockbusters in 1… one of them Hulk sized!

The Golden Age of Fantasy

We are truly poised on the verge of a revolution. Fantasy has become the mainstay and, along with its cousin Sci-Fi, it is becoming the foundational premise for non-fantasy stories. Movies like Let the Right One In and Under the Skin actually look at relationships and conflicts; sure the central characters is a vampire or an alien, but that’s incidental. Creative license does allow you to roam free with your setting and characters, and that is exactly what writers, artists, and designers are doing now. They’re having fun letting their characters power up and go wild in a world where anything is possible. The implications and consequences are exhilarating. What is to come in the next few years, will be utterly enchanting and fantastic!

The Cipher

“I love you,” she said. Her face was damp with tears and the misery made her look ugly and old. She was young and pretty; at least she had been an hour back. When she had believed that I loved her back.

I looked across the café at the barista. She was decorating a cream topped beverage with bright pink sprinkles. The moment warped and grew sparkly as everything became razor sharp but tinged blue, like a great TV screen going bad. I could see the sprinkles reflected in the barista’s eyes.

I turned back to her to see if it changed the way she looked. Her face grimaced with misery as she saw my dead eyes. She could see the effects of the warp, but she couldn’t understand it. No one could.

I looked down at my hands. They were bathed in blue, streaky fire. Little sparks jumped from one finger to another and bounced between my hands. I raised my hands and looked at her. She looked miserable and confused. She was just reacting to my vague gesture. It wasn’t oh-my-god-your-hands-are-on-fire confusion. She couldn’t see it.

“I have to go,” I told her. She let out a sob that quickly plummeted into a wail. My hands flared, covering my arms and then my entire field of vision in a flickering blue hellish haze. It was out of control.

“You can’t leave,” she screamed. “I love you! I cannot live without you! You have to tell me you love me! Say something, damn it!”

With each scream, the blue haze flickered more intensely. I was vaguely aware of everyone in the café looking at us. I didn’t have to look around to know that a portly man in an overly embroidered beige jacket was demolishing the pink-sprinkled, heavily creamed beverage… behind me. I could see the barista frowning at me and I could see her thoughts spilling out of her mind in strange purple words… Jerk! Cheat! Liar!

None of it was true, but it didn’t matter. It was too late for all that.

“Say something,” she shrieked. I felt all the glass in the café tremble a bit. So it really happened, given enough pitch. I raised my hands again and saw that they were now an intense, tightly packed band of blue energy. All it would take is one word. But this time I had waited for too long, let it build too much. I had no idea what would happen. It was time to find out.

“Boo,” I said.

 

 

“We should have got here earlier,” the strangely tall woman said.

The man shook his head, stopping to tap his pipe out over a smoldering trashcan. “He was too old for a cipher, too dangerous. We couldn’t have saved him.”  

“But we could have saved a city block full of norms,” she said, looking at the still smoking pile of rubble and the desperate activity around it.

“It’s alright,” he said, refilling his pipe. “They’re just norms.”

 

The Dream

The mind is cruel
It toys with you
It makes you think
You think you want
It makes you believe
You believe you need
It makes you dream
But it's all in the mind
It sets you off, chasing mirages
It convinces you that they're yours
Personal, irreplaceable dreams
It leads you on a merry chase
It makes you doubt
It makes you wonder
It makes you bitter
And a bit of a cynic
It might even make you crazy
Till that incredible point in your life
When you actually catch a dream
And hold it, fluttering in your hands
When you look upon it
Willing yourself to believe it's real
When you taste it
And breathe it in
That moment when you realise that
The mind wasn't lying
It was just waiting
For you to grow up
For you to be ready
For you to be wise
For you to get over yourself
And the rest of the world
For you to be willing
And desperate enough
For you to take chances
And get lucky enough
Enough for the dream
Because the dream is real
And it starts now