Sunday Sub-Genres: Mythic Fantasy

Introduction

This week on Sunday Sub-Genres, we’re taking a look at mythic fantasy. This is the sub-genre of fantasy that most pulls on fantasy’s mythological origins, though it isn’t always in the way that people would expect. The genre is as likely to use obvious mythological origins like Robin Hood or King Arthur as it is to create something completely new. The sub-genre has a lot going for it if you like works with strong magical elements and lots of mythical creatures. So, let’s take a look!

Defining Mythic Fantasy

Mythic fantasy is defined as fantasy that deals with the same themes as traditional myths but with (potentially) different names and powers of gods or mythological creatures that differ in some way from their traditional counterparts.

That’s a bit of a mouthful, I know. Basically, the extent to which mythic fantasy veers away from traditional mythology is up to the author, but it almost always contains some clash of the gods with the fate of the world in the balance. How this works out is also subject to a lot of interpretation. Some authors choose to pit gods from two differing cultures against each other, while others may choose to have gods from the same culture clash. Heroes may even line up behind the warring factions to add to the chaos further.

Writing Mythic Fantasy

Writing mythic fantasy gives individuals a large degree of space to build their world and setting in a variety of ways. If you like to create cultures that are built entirely around a deity or pantheon, this is a great option because mythic fantasy definitely requires that.

Let’s take a look at some of the unique parts of writing mythic fantasy.

Magic

The level of magic in mythic fantasy is very high. If the character isn’t human, it will have magic or some other fantastical trait. It just will. This means that if you aren’t going to use the traditional mythological creatures, you’ve got some serious world-building ahead of you.

This sounds fun to some people, but I know at least a few who read this are cringing. If you don’t like world-building, you can make your life easier on this front by using the traditional mythological creatures. But you won’t entirely get out of world-building because there’s your pantheon to consider if you choose to use new gods or goddesses.

Character Complexity

This is an area where things really can swing to some extremes. No matter what you do, characters will be complex. The question is just which ones will be. In mythic fantasy, there’s two options. Either the gods are highly complex, fleshed-out characters and the humans are basically non-complex pawns… Or the humans are so complex that they can drive the movements of the gods themselves. How you play it is really up to you and how you want to tell the story. Either leads to some interesting results.

Plot Complexity

If you’re looking for something that’s easy or middle-of-the-road, mythic fantasy isn’t your cup of tea. Plot lines in mythic fantasy can often be obscure or extremely tangled right up to the end, and like the myths they hark back to, every thread of the plot contains meaning.

Those who really enjoy mythology are the ones most likely to enjoy this genre both as readers and writers, though others who like complexity in plot may also like this type of fantasy. If you don’t like any of these things, chances are pretty high that mythic fantasy won’t be your thing.

Violence

This is a fairly significant point because mythic fantasy is different from a lot of other fantasy sub-genres. The violence here isn’t going to be overly gory or descriptive in most cases. You’re going to get some drownings at sea and a few lightning bolts tossed, but it won’t be cutthroat. It’ll be like the myths are. Sure, there’s violence. But it’s not described in gory detail.

Conclusion

Those are the key points of writing mythic fantasy. This can be a really fun genre to write if you enjoy complexity and world-building. If you enjoy neither, you probably won’t have much fun reading or writing this sub-genre. I’ve included some examples of mythic fantasy below. As always, I’ve marked books I haven’t read with two stars if I’m unsure of the reading level and one star if it isn’t appropriate for children and younger teens.