The Once and Future Hero: Understanding the Hero in Quest Fantasy

This paper examines the figure of the hero in Quest Fantasy novels, George R. R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. It employs Frye’s taxonomy for the categorization of genres and Bakhtin’s seminal ideas on the Epic and the Novel as references to analyse the charac...

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Main Author: Eduardo Lima
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 2017-03-01
Series:Fafnir
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journal.finfar.org/articles/the-once-and-future-hero-understanding-the-hero-in-quest-fantasy/
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author Eduardo Lima
author_facet Eduardo Lima
author_sort Eduardo Lima
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description This paper examines the figure of the hero in Quest Fantasy novels, George R. R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. It employs Frye’s taxonomy for the categorization of genres and Bakhtin’s seminal ideas on the Epic and the Novel as references to analyse the characterisation of the Quest Fantasy hero in selected Fantasy texts and compares them with two Heroic works, Beowulf and The Poetic Edda. This analysis is based on the premise that Fantasy fuses elements of the Epic and the novel in a dialogic tension that is manifest in the setting and in the characterisation of the hero. It starts by looking at the general understanding of the hero figure, especially in the Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse tradition. It then discusses how shifts in the way contemporary Western societies understand the world requires a new view of the hero. This is followed by an analysis of the narrative chronotope and its effects on the characterisation of the Quest Fantasy hero, from its beginnings to its journey into the adventurous world.
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spelling doaj.art-beb0cce331554327851406e71f2d8cab2022-12-21T19:04:50ZengFinnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy ResearchFafnir2342-20092017-03-0141719The Once and Future Hero: Understanding the Hero in Quest FantasyEduardo Lima0 Brunel University LondonThis paper examines the figure of the hero in Quest Fantasy novels, George R. R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. It employs Frye’s taxonomy for the categorization of genres and Bakhtin’s seminal ideas on the Epic and the Novel as references to analyse the characterisation of the Quest Fantasy hero in selected Fantasy texts and compares them with two Heroic works, Beowulf and The Poetic Edda. This analysis is based on the premise that Fantasy fuses elements of the Epic and the novel in a dialogic tension that is manifest in the setting and in the characterisation of the hero. It starts by looking at the general understanding of the hero figure, especially in the Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse tradition. It then discusses how shifts in the way contemporary Western societies understand the world requires a new view of the hero. This is followed by an analysis of the narrative chronotope and its effects on the characterisation of the Quest Fantasy hero, from its beginnings to its journey into the adventurous world.http://journal.finfar.org/articles/the-once-and-future-hero-understanding-the-hero-in-quest-fantasy/characterisationchronotopedialoguequest fantasy
spellingShingle Eduardo Lima
The Once and Future Hero: Understanding the Hero in Quest Fantasy
Fafnir
characterisation
chronotope
dialogue
quest fantasy
title The Once and Future Hero: Understanding the Hero in Quest Fantasy
title_full The Once and Future Hero: Understanding the Hero in Quest Fantasy
title_fullStr The Once and Future Hero: Understanding the Hero in Quest Fantasy
title_full_unstemmed The Once and Future Hero: Understanding the Hero in Quest Fantasy
title_short The Once and Future Hero: Understanding the Hero in Quest Fantasy
title_sort once and future hero understanding the hero in quest fantasy
topic characterisation
chronotope
dialogue
quest fantasy
url http://journal.finfar.org/articles/the-once-and-future-hero-understanding-the-hero-in-quest-fantasy/
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