Submarine Chomper
Isn't the definition of "High Fantasy" that it is = "A subgenre of fantasy which the story take place in a setting very unlike Earth and deals with world-threatening forces"?
High Fantasy is basically set in an alternate world that typically includes a LOT of magical elements, fantastical creatures and unusual technology.
Low Fantasy on the other hand is when magical creatures and elements intrude upon the regular aka "our" world instead.
The Aliens seriously wouldn't be the most dangerous thing coming into a high fantasy-setting that already got things that could end the world already, ready to "greet, meet, and eat" them.
Edited by Trainbarrel on Mar 24th 2024 at 5:37:15 PM
"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."
I think that it could work with Lord of the Rings specifically, myself.
I could imagine that, faced with so great a danger, the Valar might approve a small contingent of Maiar to unleash their full power against the invaders in support of the peoples of Middle Earth.
(... Presuming that the aliens don't land in Valinor, in which case the invasion is very ill-fated, I fear.)
Not to mention that there are a few other powers still present even at the end of the Third Age, if I'm not much mistaken: the Balrog of Moria might have been slain, but I'd be very unsurprised if there were more where they came from; the mountain giants might still be around; the Watcher in the Water is likely still alive; there's potential for the Nazgul to still be available (or at least eight of them, depending on interpretation of a particular line); the Eagles are still a thing; and so on.
And that's just those powers that I have to mind offhand—there may be others, elsewhere. (Perhaps more children of Ungoliant?)
Now, how many would fight for Middle Earth, how many would try to stay neutral—and how many would take up with the invaders is an open question. As is the question of what entities the protagonists would be willing to take up with in facing a powerful invading foe.
All of which, I feel, could make for an interesting story!
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Definitions vary, but that sounds more like "Urban Fantasy" to me.
Our own article on "Low Fantasy" describes it as a bit of a catch-all for "not High or Heroic fantasy", but generally having a secondary-world setting and a darker tone than High Fantasy tends to have.
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Mar 24th 2024 at 6:47:42 PM
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They call me.... Prophet
In the 1950's, yes.
But i do specifically mean Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion has plenty of vastly more epic and powerful beings who could absolutely destroy alien SF invasions.
Dn D is also easily mentioned as a major influence where alien worlds and aliens exist and so do alien invasions.
Hence, it is only impossible if your story is literally the plot of Lord of the Rings, which is majority medieval-power-level. In the larger world of Tolkien it's pretty close to the nadir of the world, before the modern age and after the glorious age of heroes and legends.
Power levels aren't really a problem, it is other storytelling elements. Like with Lord of the Rings, it would change the cosmotology, and the plot, and the aesthetics. So if one wrote a sequel to Lot R where little green men with Ray guns invaded Arda, that would raise questions. Of course, Erú also made them and their world. Do they have their own Valar? Are they the actual Firstborn? Can they reach the undying lands? Arda is also a place where technology doesn't really advance, and everything is in decay and decline. That doesn't fit with advanced alien species.
If one wants to write an original story, a lot of these problems go away and one has the freedom to shape the plot and the world how one will. One probably wouldn't fit in the High Fantasy genre anymore, but that is mainly a problem with labels.
Sure, but that's true of most specific stories—The Lord of the Rings isn't special there.
If one were to have an alien invasion in the middle of, say, A Study in Scarlet, that too would change the cosmology, the plot, and the aesthetics.
Of course! And those, I would argue, are interesting questions that could contribute to an interesting story!
That's not quite true, I would argue.
Remember: The stories of the Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings are intended to be stories of an invented mythology for our world. The age that follows the Third Age of The Lord of the Rings is intended to be the Age of Man—our age. Thus implicitly ushering in our developments in technology.
And indeed, one can see a start to this in The Lord of the Rings itself, with a handful of technological advancements appearing, such as Saruman's explosives.
Magic and the supernatural are in decline; Man is about to step into the forefront.
I think that it could, potentially, fit well within a crossover of genres.
As long as the hallmarks of High Fantasy remain, I think that it could still easily be one of the main genres at play.
For example, let's say that the plot has aliens invade—and in doing so discover magic. The alien overlord hears of a powerful magical MacGuffin that will secure his victory. His forces are closer to it—but don't yet know enough of magic to use it.
The forces of Good now have a choice: Do they make all haste to cut off the alien overlord from the MacGuffin—or do they allow it to fall into the invader's hands in order to instead attempt to capture the only source of information on its use...?
Okay, it's a simple and somewhat-cliche plot—but it still demonstrates a crossover of High Fantasy and alien invasion, I do feel.
Not to mention that there are genres of sci-fi that could allow for an alien invasion while still keeping close to a fantasy tone—offhand, I think of Planetary Romance and Space Opera.
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Mar 25th 2024 at 9:29:08 PM
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A lot of things are not clearly magical, but Gimli noticed that when he arrived in Gondor, the older stonework was better than the new, and Faramir says that the Gondor changing from being High Men to Middle Men. There is a lot of those kind of subtle things.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Sure, but I don't think that this means that technology won't advance—again, it's meant to be a mythology for our world, and technology clearly did advance there.
As to the specific examples, I'd argue that the decline in stonework might be more a shift from the "supernal master craftsmen of old" to "merely human workmanship".
And I'd argue that the "High Men" are somewhat of the "supernatural"/"magical" side of things, having been gifted longer life as I recall.
The move from "High Men" to "Middle Men" is thus a part of moving from the supernatural to the mundane—with technology being of the latter.
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I don't think that Tolkien depicts a separation between supernatural/magical and normal human in the same way that it is often done in other works. Lot R is about death, and the decline is part of that narrative. Adding high tech creatures changes that narrative. It changes the deep world building of Tolkien that is based on his worldview as well as medieval literature.
I don't agree at all.
Lord of the Rings is about the death of an age—and the start of a new age beyond. Specifically, the Age of Man.
To quote the book (emphasis mine):
That is, our age, and the start of the long road of technology, has begun.
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They call me.... Prophet
OK but this is irrelevant. It doesn't literally have to be LOTR nor do i see OP wishing for a way to blend it with a Sci fi invasion. It's simply high fantasy, which is a highly nebulous terms.
All that's necessary to show it can be done is to point out sufficiently powerful magical beings exist that can stand up to nuclear weapons
she/her friend to the hooved
They could work as an incongruous Outside-Context Problem played for horror—don't try to make them fit.
While it's not exacty what you're asking about, one good example of this that comes to mind is the Aurum from Kid Icarus: Uprising: an utterly alien planet-looting horde who come right the fuck out of nowhere (literally, as lore implies), nobody anticipated them, and fighting them becomes the top priority of the existing factions.
Edited by Chortleous on Mar 27th 2024 at 11:16:40 AM
This disagreement presents an interesting conundrum. Tolkien implies in LOTR that the old is superior to the new. But he also implies that the Fourth Age leads into the real life history of humanity (and its technology).
Taking both implications together, it appears that Tolkien was using criteria other than developed technology to define what makes a civilization "superior".
I would agree.
Indeed, I note that the one relatively-technological faction within The Lord of the Rings is a villainous one—that being Saruman's.
If I were to guess, I'd guess that Tolkien's criteria might include artistry, philosophy, ethicality, and a propensity and capacity for great deeds.
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Apr 4th 2024 at 9:57:52 PM
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They call me.... Prophet
Because LOTR is about the transition of ages, from a very divine/heroic/mythic age to our current mundane-but-technological one. It's not that the old is superior to the new, as even the old stuff is fading in power. It's that the old stuff is the stuff of legends as the new is struggling to be born.
I don't know: Tolkien seemed to take a fairly dim view of modernity, from what I gather. Where technology appears it appears in the hands of villains, and where there is peace and contentment it is found in a rural setting (the Shire).
My read is that he holds the old superior to the new—but also falling away before it. It's a melancholic end; an end that is not final, but in which much of great value is lost, to become only treasured memory.
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I don't if anyone has brought this up yet, but aliens don't have to change the genre from fantasy to sci-fi. The aliens can invade via magic instead of technology, such magic-powered spacecraft or a magic portal/wormhole.
This is very true!
I think that it could be quite interesting to have an invasion of aliens with their own magics, or more advanced magics, or some such thing. A parallel to aliens having unfamiliar or more-advanced technology, but supernatural.
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In a sense, that's what Lovecraft is.
Submarine Chomper
Yeah that is absolutely Lovecraft.
It even got a mix of "Scientific Sci-fi Aliens" and "Paranormal Fantasy Aliens" waging war against each other whenever their paths cross through the Mythos.
And we humans are caught in the middle of it whenever we stumble upon them.
The difference being that the humans in the Cthulhu-Mythos can actually use the magic and tech both sides of the war are using against each other. Rather than just be completely helpless.
And sometimes, even humanity's own technology is enough to win a small victory against an abomination within the Cthulhu-verse.
Edited by Trainbarrel on Apr 22nd 2024 at 6:28:53 PM
"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."
Come to think of it, a lot of high fantasy settings have an element of Cosmic Horror. Slayers have the Lord of Nightmares, Discworld has the Dungeon Dimension, Lord of the Rings mentions the Nameless Things, Earthdawn and Shadowrun have the Horrors, and even D&D has the Far Realms.
It kind of fits the theme since all these fantastic things are possible, what about nightmarish things?
High Fantasy is Lord of the Rings.
I don't think it would work with Lord of the Rings specifically, but it could work with something like Lord of the Rings. Especially if the aliens had technology more like Dune than like Independence Day, and if magical armour was proof against alien weapons.