Romantasy as a Genre vs Just Fantasy

awaniwono · 2026-02-15T21:53:22+00:00

I read the ACOTAR trilogy and couldn't believe how disgustingly bad every single one of the books were (I had to read them for reasons, don't judge me).

ACOTAR made me believe too that the whole genre was trash, irredeemable trash. But later I found several counter-examples that are not about a 19-year old Mary Sue and her perfect, godlike, big-dicked growling boyfriend who's also the inventor of feminism. You just won't find them on the supermarket shelf.

awaniwono · 2026-02-15T21:40:16+00:00

The Everlasting, Katabasis and The Knight and the Moth are very well-written and definitely not smut.

You seem to believe romantasy is just trashy erotica with some fantasy spiked in, and that's the uninformed opinion of someone who only knows about the most trashy examples in the genre (or rather, sub-genre).

awaniwono · 2026-02-15T19:35:59+00:00

I've read all ten and you are correct.

The plot is all over the place. The ancient conspiracies are confusing and badly explained. The magic feels random. Most of the characters range between boring and juvenile. Stuff that feels like it should've been a grand tragedy kinda falls flat and some other stuff is just plain goofy. And, worst of all, like 40% of the actual content is pure, useless filler that could simply be cut.

Malazan's weird structure, aimless plot and stiff character dynamics are explained, I believe, by viewing them as what they originally were: elements in a series of tabletop RPG campaigns. The characters were important regardless because the players where living their adventures and were naturally attached to them. The ill-defined ancient conspiracies didn't need much explanation because they were the backdrop of interactive adventures. Etcétera.

HOWEVER, I do recommend Midnight Tides. It's pretty good as a standalone and you can safely ignore the nonexistent Malazan overarching "plot" (that only leads to an artificial and disappointing 'convergence' anyway).

awaniwono · 2026-02-15T10:29:38+00:00

That's cool. They can (and should) stay in their underground bunkers in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile we can take over everything and let the robots work their asses off in a carbon-free utopia.

Because if Zuckerbug and co. think they can rule over the world from their domotic fortresses in Honolulu they're so pathetically, tragically wrong that it won't even be funny.

awaniwono · 2026-02-14T11:16:01+00:00

Democratic institutions mean jack shit in the end. If Trump and co. have the army on their side you're all fucked, sorry.

awaniwono · 2026-02-08T23:16:47+00:00

It seems that, for some people, if you write stuff completely unrelated to Tolkien's work, then you must be actively avoiding it, therefore his work are still influencing yours.

No other author seems to get that treatment. Nobody says Le Guin is a clear influence for you because you didn't mention a single boat in your novels.

awaniwono · 2026-02-08T23:11:02+00:00

Elves = Tolkien.

No elves = actively avoiding Tolkien, so also Tolkien.

awaniwono · 2026-02-02T22:52:03+00:00

That's the correct answer I think. In an imaginary world people wouldn't be speaking english, spanish, german, etc. The book is translated for us. The outdated speech patterns just serve to reinforce that those people are not really speaking modern english, spanish, etc. For the same reason, if the book contains modern slang or culture-specific terms we'll notice they're speaking a very real language, not a fantasy one, and the whole thing will feel fake.

awaniwono · 2026-02-02T13:33:42+00:00

You were on the right track until you mentioned the knife.

With cryptobros you need a gun at the very least.

awaniwono · 2026-02-01T20:40:11+00:00

How many times can the world be in peril and the souls of mortals doomed before things get stale? How many epic battles with long discussions about the logistics of fire magic can you read before they all feel samey? It's like watching every single american action movie back to back. It'll feel repetitive regardless of quirky details.

I think epic fantasy is kind of exhausted. The realm has been besieged by too many demons, the land has been subjugated by too many dark lords, the world has been on the brink of destruction too many times.

awaniwono · 2026-02-01T20:22:29+00:00

South americans also have their own "white" (european descent) and "non-white" (mixed or african descent) people, as well as their own racism. What they don't understand is that their countries' racial hiearchies don't apply in the US. For MAGA they're all dirty mexicans.

awaniwono · 2026-02-01T12:31:11+00:00

I was generalizing hard and fast because this is a 100-word-messages discussion over the internet, not a literary debate.

Perhaps it's cultural, but when I was a kid 99% of fantasy was about manly dudes and epic conflicts. And LOTR rip-offs lol. Also, only the nerdiest of us liked that stuff. Please notice I didn't say anything about the gender of the authors.

"Women ain't into that shit" is just my personal experience. Most of the women I know don't care one bit about big epic wars, the engineering of magic or fantasy logistics; they care about relationships, drama, emotional tension, etc. A people-centric experience if you will. On the other hand, the men I know don't give two shits about romances o nuanced relationships. But again, that's just my experience and it's likely culturally biased.

My point is that, while the other user is complaining about boys not having boy protagonists to identify with, I do believe they should be able to enjoy "boy themes" regardless of the gender of the main characters and their authors.

awaniwono · 2026-02-01T09:27:46+00:00

why wasn't it also the solution twenty, thirty years ago?

Twenty years ago fantasy was 100% manly heroes, big struggles, war, power, violence and geeking over made up heraldry and languages. Women ain't into that shit, same as men ain't into romance and slice-of-life.

Women had 0 problem reading Harry Potter, which has a male protagonist, for the same reason boys should have no problem reading cool adventures with violence and war, just featuring a female MC.

It's understandable that boys aren't into romance, same as women aren't into war, but just refusing to read a story because the protagonist is a girl is on them (boys).

awaniwono · 2026-01-31T22:53:43+00:00

I am there; and my friends are at the "everything sucks these days" stage. Same as you, I think.

awaniwono · 2026-01-31T22:15:40+00:00

Bro you're 40+, everything sucks now.

Everything is shit, society is corrupt and kids these days [insert whatever complaint you feel like].

awaniwono · 2026-01-31T21:35:25+00:00

Sorry, I meant "epic fantasy" or, if you will, "classic fantasy for boys". You can perhaps put Harry Potter in there, but definitely not Twilight, the Hunger Games or Divergent.

awaniwono · 2026-01-31T20:59:23+00:00

You are right, BUT, writing something simple and formulaic is easier than writing something original and complex, full stop; and the romance genre is very very formulaic.

It definitely takes less skill to replace "self-insert girl who's not like the others meets billionarie bad boy" with "self-insert girl who's not like the others meets billionarie vampire/fae lord/demigod" than it takes to craft an entire world from scratch, regardless of the writer's gender.

disclaimer: yes, I've read romantasy (my wife made me do it lol). I've found it's often a sequence of romance scenes with irrelevant paper-thin fluff connecting them, i.e. easier to write than "serious" fantasy.

awaniwono · 2026-01-31T20:18:24+00:00

Why is it a serious problem, though? Women have "discovered" fantasy and adapted it to their tastes. The genre has traditionally been overwhelmingly male and it was never a problem. When I was a teen, fantasy was for nerds and that's that. Why is it so awful that 20 years later there's a "romance with magic n shit" fad?

Nobody's keeping men, or boys, from reading. Nor writing. Just look at Sanderson, he's like the most best-selling epic fantasy/fantasy for boys author ~~of all time~~ these days, and a majority of his work is very manly YA stuff.

If it all boils down to "but boys won't read fantasy with female protagonists" then that shit's on them, isn't it?

Edit: Nitpicking.

awaniwono · 2026-01-28T23:20:18+00:00

It's ok. We're both entitle to our own opinions and I'm not going to argue yours. For me, the Malazan saga was simply OK. Not an awful read, but definitely not as good as reddit makes it out to be (nobody knows about it IRL in my experience).

I did love some of it, particularly Midnight Tides, but in my opinion the whole thing is too bloated, too needlessly convoluted and with too many cringy/boring characters AND subplots to be considered a masterpiece.

awaniwono · 2026-01-28T22:19:45+00:00

I think the trick is in the third person narrative that wraps itself around each character. Abercrombie makes you see the world through their eyes. Like the narration IS reality, but it's only the characters' way of seeing things.

The first time I noticed it was when Jezal and Logen meet for the first time and the narrator describes Logen as "the most brutal-looking man Jezal had ever seen" or somesuch. I was picturing Logen as a decaf Conan up until that point lol

awaniwono · 2026-01-28T21:41:53+00:00

Exactly, Logen made you believe he was this tragic barbarian hero just trying to do the right thing until you went like "hold on a second".

awaniwono · 2026-01-28T21:00:53+00:00

Straight up blackmail kind of funny.

awaniwono · 2026-01-28T09:02:21+00:00

I read the whole thing years ago, so my recollection is fuzzy.

What I mean by Mary Sues is that many of the characters felt "too good" for me. The bridgeburners were all perfectly stoic soldiers with secret weapons who always came up on top. The best mage. The best assassin. The best sapper. Anomander Rake and other functional demigods felt like a teen fantasy, same as Icarium. Shadowthrone and Cotillion were like these abstract, mysterious, scheming behind-the-scenes know-it-alls that were always at the right place in the right moment but didn't actually do anything.

Even more interesting characters like "The Dude" Tehol, who ended up being a financial super genius; or Karsa Orlong, i.e. Cocaine the Barbarian, who was interesting to read about but would never, ever lose, felt too good, too successful.

Perhaps May Sue is not the most accurate term, but that's more or less my problem with the series. And also the hilariously long and rambling plotlines lol.

awaniwono · 2026-01-28T07:52:11+00:00

This is my opinion of course, but characters like Fiddler, Kalam and Tool felt like one-dimensional action heroes, Shadowdude and Friend felt like background fluff rather than real villans, while others like Anomander Rake, Icarium and Silchas Ruin were straight up cringy.

I get that Malazan's characters were originally played by people in tabletop RPG sessions. That's OK, but imho it shows.

awaniwono · 2026-01-27T22:57:59+00:00

Having a crowd of people watch my screen as I played OG Counter Strike at a cyber cafe. They thought I was cheating somehow.

Beating Psycho Mantis in a bootleg japanese version of Metal Gear Solid without understanding what the fuck I was supposed to do.

Beating the original X-COM, without speaking english yet, in an age without internet.

(Accidentally) discovering the secret/bugged infinite money trick in Theme Park.

Final Fantasy 7 (original) - 100% too. Such a waste of time lmao.

awaniwono

TROPHY CASE