The bulk of western fantasy (yes even today) is based on Christian philosophy, or its bastard child humanism. Good and evil, sin and redemption, sacrifice, justice, moral character arcs, etc.The remaining works that aren't, are largely based on some flavor of nihilism or existentialism. There's nothing wrong with this, but I want something fresh. Off the top of my head the only western fantasy series that isn't really based on the above is the Earthsea series.
>>24972027I was gonna say nice selfie, but I know you can't grow a mustache like Nietzsche's.
>>24972027The Worm Ouroboros.
>>24972027It's gonna be hard to find since the fantasy genre was literally made by devout Christians like JRR Tolkien. Fantasy naturally leans heavily on the whole hero's journey story, even if most modern writers are not Christian. Good young man goes on an adventure, has internal struggle, fights against big bad guy in an epic battle, some sacrifice occurs, and victory occurs for the hero. It also doesn't help that the fantasy religion is always some bastardized version of Christianity.
>>24972214>the fantasy genre was literally made by devout ChristiansThe genre arguably predates Christianity in the first place.Even in the modern, English speaking, western sense, there is still that whole other strain of fantasy that came before and still existed after Tolkien. Case in point >>24972151>I read the works of Eddison, long after they appeared; and I once met him. I heard him in Mr. Lewis’s room in Magdalen College read aloud some of his works–from the Mistress of Mistresses, as far as I remember. He did it extremely well. I read his works with great enjoyment for their sheer literary merit. My opinion of them is almost the same as that expressed by Mr. Lewis on p. 104 of the Essays presented to Charles Williams. Except that I disliked his characters (always excepting the Lord Gro) and despised what he appeared to admire more intensely than Mr. Lewis at any rate saw fit to say of himself. Eddison thought what I admire ‘soft’ (his word: one of complete condemnation, I gathered); I thought that, corrupted by an evil and indeed silly ‘philosophy’, he was coming to admire, more and more, arrogance and cruelty. Incidentally, I thought his nomenclature slipshod and often inept. In spite of all of which, I still think of him as the greatest and most convincing writer of ‘invented worlds’ that I have read. But he was certainly not an ‘influence’.
>>24972219he's a nihilist
>>24972220If we define fantasy as supernatural elements, then that obviously goes as far back as the stone age. But by that point its no longer fantasy and more like ancient legends & myths. Since ancient humans literally believed in magic and dragons and spirits and what not. Tolkien created the fantasy that everyone knows about today and his Christian religion played a huge role in defining the fantasy genre.
^ some anons unironically believe this
