#Sword and Sorcery Subgenres

[vestestafantasy]

Exploring The Evolution of Sword and Sorcery Genre

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[tlaquetzqui]

So do people who talk about D&D (and kindred games) understand that it takes place not in a world like Game of Thrones or The Witcher, nor even Skyrim, but in a world like Sengoku Basara? A world where scads of normal guys can be wiped out in an instant because one member of a PC class decided to make an appearance on a battlefield, and every swing of their swords sends out flaming shockwaves? Where a guy can take an arrow in the back, fall in the sea, and all it do is give his monkey animal companion time to chew his ropes off?

[aspennfantasy]

Am I the only writer who cannot decide into which subgenre their books fall? Please, tell me that I'm not...

When I started to work on my series, I knew it was fantasy, but I didn't pick any particular subgenre. I just wrote a story I wanted to write and realised only afterwards that finding readers might be easier if I could categorize the books as something specific. Obviously, it's epic fantasy as the world is entirely imaginary. Epic fantasy is a vast concept, however, and I feel like I should expand by picking another sungenre. Or should I?

As a reader, I don't pay much attention to the subgenres. If it's fantasy, I'm willing to at least give it a chance.

What about you? Take a second and answer the poll. I'm interested to see what you think!

[prokopetz]

When I was a kid I read a lot of sword and sorcery fiction from the 1970s and 1980s, and there was an extremely specific recurring trope I encountered in those novels and literally nowhere else.

There'd be this villainous duo – typically servants of the principal villain – consisting of a scheming mastermind middle-aged father and his hyperviolent lunatic teenage daughter. The daughter would constantly fuck things up due to her erratic behaviour, and the father would put up with it because they were stuck in this intensely toxic codependent relationship that left the daughter with no meaningful social relationships apart from her father, and the father unable to refuse his daughter anything she wanted, no matter how unhinged.

I ran into this exact trope in at least half a dozen different novels by as many different authors, all in the same subgenre of fantasy literature, all clustered around the same period of time, and nowhere else. (To anticipate the inevitable request for recs, Sorcerer's Heir by Paula Volsky springs readily to mind; I'd have to drag my library out of storage to pin down the others I'm thinking of – it's been long enough that I'm not confident of my recollection of specific titles!) For over thirty years this remained the case, and I was prepared to chalk it up to simply being an artefact of its time.

So, with all this context in mind, imagine my surprise when I checked what was trending on Netflix around November of 2021.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Fantasy

The Fantasy Fiction Continuum

Fantasy - as a genre, begins when the author inserts an element of the impossible into his/her conceit, making it a fantasy conceit.

Fantasy Conceit - what the creator intends to explore in the world, it is where the constructed world deviates from the real world, usually in the form of geography, biology, physics, metaphysics, technology, or culture.

Fiction set in the modern age sits closest to Non-Fiction since it shares the existing real-world setting. Audiences understand and identify with the modern setting, and therefore the author does not need to inject as much imagination into explaining the world around the characters.

Historical Fiction - edges a little further into the realm of Fantastical. The author must describe a past world that modern readers are unfamiliar with by painting mental pictures of times, locations, customs, and cultures that no longer exist.

Overlaid Fantasy - the Fantasy Conceit and real world comingle. A major component is that it is plausible, which is to say it still adheres to our real-world natural and societal laws with the exception of the Fantasy Conceit, at which point it diverges. Subgenres: Urban Fantasy and the Superhero genre.

Historical Fantasy - requires more fantastical elements than its modern Overlaid Fantasy counterparts and therefore sits a little more to the right on the spectrum as the author applies his/her Fantasy Conceit to a bygone age.

Secondary Worlds - stories where we have left our modern reality so that our story takes place in a setting that is decided not-Earth. At this point all plausibility that existed in our Overlaid Fantasy is out the window in that the audience no longer has the anchor of the modern world with only the Fantasy Conceit being different, but must literally discover a new world. This subgenre should always be logical, as in they adhere to their own rules established at the beginning and remain consistent to them throughout. These stories contain pretty much all the subgenres that don’t explicitly take place on Earth, but may be grouped into Low Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, and High Fantasy.

Low fantasy - set in the real world; includes unexpected magical elements that shock characters, like the plastic figurines come to life in Lynne Reid Banks’s The Indian in the Cupboard (1980).

Sword and sorcery - a subset of high fantasy, it focuses on sword-wielding heroes, such as the titular barbarian in Robert E. Howard’s Conan pulp fiction stories, as well as magic or witchcraft.

High fantasy - in comparison to the above two subgenres, high fantasy contains the most magic and has more additional races.

Magical Realism and Nonsense - when logic disappears yet fantastical elements remain.

Sources: 1 2

[writers-potion]

List of Fantasy Subgenres

High Fantasy/Epic Fantasy

Low Fantasy

Urban Fantasy

Historical Fantasy

Sword and Sorcery

Dark Fantasy/Grimdark

Portal Fantasy

Magical Realism

Fairytale Retellings

Steampunk Fantasy

Gaslamp Fantasy

Mythological Fantasy

Fantasy Romance

Magical Academy/Institution

Mythic Fantasy

Alien/Extraterrestrial Fantasy

Environmental/Ecological Fantasy

Cultural Fantasy

Dystopian Fantasy

Interactive/Transmedia Fantasy

Grimdark Evolution

Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi)

Character-Driven Stories

Intersectional Fantasy

Multigenre Fusion

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[cipheramnesia]

I just think it's interesting how in 1961 Michael Moorcok created Elric of Melniboné in part for a contrast to the extensively popular Tolkienesque fantasy writing common in that day (still common today), and he was like, "Yeah so this super inbred prince comes from a hyperxenophobic kingdom of an island nation which has fallen into almost total decay, and they think everyone different from themselves are barbarians who they like to torture and enslave. He wants to fuck his cousin so much and he is literally as white as physically possible."

And from there proceeded to give Elric a powerful magic sword of destiny which he uses to win back his kingdom and it goes right back to being terrible so instead of being a king who restores honor to his nation, he literally murders every single person on the island and burns his whole kingdom down.

He fucks off to die but his murder sword won't even let him, and just kills every single person around him constantly like, friendship is magic all right and that magic is evil murder sword food. But he finally murders his way to basically a legendary city of paradise where heroes get to go and rest in their final days except he's done so much murder that a giant fuckoff army tracks him down and razes paradise to the ground.

Then once pretty much every single person and several gods are dead he's like now what murder sword there's no one left to kill and murder sword is like "actually there's one" and fucking stabs Elric to death before transforming into a demon and destroying the entire planet.

And while he didn't exactly invent whole languages I have to admit he sure did some fuckin contrast there and basically created the trope of a scary fantasy murder boy in black armor with a magical black evil sword what is evil, and proceeded to turn this gritty reboot of the Conan sword and sorcery subgenre into this entire other different Eternal Champion thing.

Some thirty or so odd years later the whole drug fueled alcohol soaked lot of those stories ended up in my hands in the guise of cheap used paperbacks with lurid covers, and that's how Elric of Melniboné took the place in my own youth usually occupied by The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings, and never got supplanted by either.

[gorbalsvampire]

Gehenna War

It's pretty neat, yo.

Like Blood-Stained Love, it transforms the core "personal and political" horror of Vampire into another subgenre. Unlike Blood-Stained Love, it has a lot of concrete advice for Storytellers on structuring scenes, assembling pools, building characters to interact with, and making that subgenre work at the table.

An effort has been made, here. There's a little chart in the introduction claiming that Chapters 2 and 3, and the Appendices, will be of use to any action chronicle, be it more high concept or street level, and having read the durn things I think that claim's borne out. I'm gonna talk about those sections first, and later loop back around to the specifically Gehenna War stuff.

Chapter 2 has neat archetypes for characters in various armed conflict roles - generals, spies, intelligencers, recruits, veterans - with recommendations for priority stats rather than statblocks, so these can be flipped for player or Storyteller use. Suggestions for bonus XP amounts if you want more powerful starting characters, and focused specialisations that advise you to focus particular areas of your character sheet - almost like soft classes, or playbooks. A handful of new Merits and Flaws (one of which is getting slammed onto Penny), and a mixed bag of Discipline powers. Bloodform is back? Woo! There are "reroll Rouse checks for raising this one Attribute or using this one Discipline" openers for the Physical Disciplines? Swing and a miss, more filler. There's two incredible new high-end Blood Sorcery rituals (I shall be using both of them very soon), and some funky Thin-Blood Alchemy if you want your Duskborn to join a Methuselah cult.

Then: advice on running Basic Combat, and explicit guidance on the modularity of the Advanced Combat rules, and a few new ones. This is brilliant stuff for new Storytellers, reflective of the demand for the Combat Primer, and it's given me some ideas I didn't have before, and ALSO. VINDICATION. OBSERVE.

One of the things that waters down play over time is if the characters need to build the same dice pool every time for the same task. To avoid this, Storytellers should vary the traits involved according to the situation, to keep things interesting and to curb players trying to optimize their pools.

Leaving aside that awful syntax at the start - "Play becomes predictable if the characters need to build the same dice pool every time they attempt a task" - activate your voice, and dismiss "is" clauses, you cowards! - anyway, leaving that aside, this is how I've been doing things all along and I love that a book explicitly says "do it and don't get hung up on the exact RAW every time."

Car chase mechanics, cute new gear (I like the Scourge Blades, nasty-ass duelling swords that delay vampiric healing). Then it's on to story advice!

Chapter Three does something I wish Blood-Stained Love had done for romance: getting into the structure of action stories, how action interacts with other genre qualifiers (crime, horror, survival, thriller etc.), the escalating role of villains - like, actual formalist thinking about how stories work. We then get some mechanical advice on how to shift the mode of play, how to approach things like Hunger and Frenzy to make them more or less of a factor. It's short, but it's fuckin' GOOD.

Appendix I is all about dice. When you should and shouldn't roll, as opposed to taking half. Grouping those moments into broad types by what they do to the emergent story. How to add variation with tracker rolls or unusual dice pools. How to manage failures on tests and what to offer players to keep the story moving. And, most important of all, how to deal with the Beast, going through each Skill and showing how the Beast impacts a Messy Critical (still a success, remember!) or a Bestial Failure.

You need this Appendix. The corebook needed this appendix. Maybe it took six years of best practice and sharing ideas to get these ideas fully understood. Maybe if there'd been one dev team since the start we might have had this sooner. At least we have it now.

I'll talk about the Gehenna War itself in a follow-up post. That's Chapters One, Four, Five and Six, and Appendix II.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Can you write a fantasy without magic or elves?

Fantasy without Magic or Elves

Absolutely! The only real requirement for fantasy is that it's set in an imaginary universe and (usually) lacks locations, events, and people from the real world. The caveat to that is some fantasy subgenres, like historical fantasy, urban fantasy, medieval fantasy, and dystopian fantasy, which do take place in the real world, but they also contain implausible supernatural and/or magical elements.

Fantasy "without magic and elves" often leans toward "sword and sorcery," just without the sorcery. It has a lot in common with medieval fantasy as well, just not the real locations, events, and people. But not always, because you can have a steampunk or dystopian fantasy set in an imaginary world without elves or magic.

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[sterlingarcher23]

Willow, Lovecraftian horror and the Thule Society from Hellboy

What does Willow have to do with the master of horror, H.P. Lovecraft, that shaped, actually created a subgenre of the horror genre and the völkisch movements("German ethnic nationalist movement active from the late 19th century to 1945", Wikipedia) like the Thule Gesellschaft (Society), founded in 1911 ?

Probably more than one may think and I wanted to discuss the various elements that illustrate how Willow's villains and its mysterious Order of the Wyrm may have been influenced by these things in this essay.

As a personal sidenote: Even though I haven't read all of Lovecraft's works, I'm a big fan of his works. And yes, Lovecraft was a racist, anti-semite and probably a misogynist too - this traits had a huge impact on his creative work. That is undeniable and I am no fan of this separation of author and art. You shouldn't do that, you need to understand the art and that's only possible if you look at the artist. It tells you some about human nature and how, in case of Lovecraft, his view of the world is reflected in his works - if you keep that in mind you can understand his stories as a cautionary tale of sorts, that the “Fear of the Unknown” is something that resides in many if not in all of us. To identify and sort of equate the author with its art doesn't mean that a creator agrees with his protagonist(s) view(s) but the work itself, what it tries to tell comes from within the creative mind. To quote Henry Ackeley from "The Whisperer in Darkness: Ex nihilo nihil fit. - Nothing comes from nothing. Additionally, as a German it is always difficult to talk about the racist and fascist era and its institutions, movements etc that took over a whole country and lead to such a tremendous loss of lifes.

Before you advance reading, it is A) important to have watched the show (even though I try to put in explanatory notes) and B) it is therefore riddled with spoilers. 

First some definitions

Lovecraftian/Cosmic/Eldritch Horror: “Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock.” Wikipedia

Sword and Sorcery: “Sword and sorcery (S&S) or heroic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of romance, magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters.”, Wikipedia

HIgh Fantasy: “High fantasy, or epic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy defined by the epic nature of its setting or by the epic stature of its characters, themes, or plot. High fantasy is usually set in an alternative, fictional ("secondary") world, rather than the "real" or "primary" world.” Wikipedia

The Immemorial City, The nameless city/Mountains of Madness & Fallout

First lets take a look at the Immemorial city and its architecture and artstyle. Its huge, stretching into the distance with seemingly no borders as it touches the horizon. The city is gigantic, eldritch and dwarfs every single person in it. One can actually see Elora and Kit walking over the bridge like construction, however they are very small. The monolithic nature of the buildings also look as if they were spawned directly out of a description of one of Lovecraft's stories. Lovecraft liked the use of words like cyclopean, monolithic, eldritch in his descriptions: 

"…curious regularities of the higher mountain skyline – regularities like clinging fragments of perfect cubes…” - “…no architecture known to man or to human imagination, with vast aggregations of night-black masonry embodying monstrous perversions of geometrical laws and attaining the most grotesque extremes of sinister bizarrerie,,,,", At the mountains of madness, 1931

"...only a single mountain-top, the hideous monolith-crowned citadel..", The Call of Cthulhu, 1926/28

And because the Immemorial City is like in a desert like region, an in an almost literal way deserted area which at closer inspection seems lto be more like ashes than sand, you can combine previous descriptions with this:

"Remote in the desert of Araby lies the nameless city, crumbling and inarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by the sands of uncounted ages.", The nameless city, 1921

He also used the term non-euclidean to describe impossible architecture in which "an angle which was acute, but behaved as if it were obtuse" and while the Immemorial City is rectangular, pyramidic, using straight lines that are only balanced out by the curves of the gigantic statues, this might be the concept artists and creatives way of combining both the Lovecraftian architecture with the Art Deco style of the early 20th century.

The Immemorial City in the show & concept art by David Freeman

The statues and heads that are part of the architecture of the Immemorial City remind of Art Deco statues you can find for example in New York, the Atlas statue on 5th avenue or the faces on the building of the 20 Exchange Place, Those are also a typical style used in the Fallout franchise, especially in Fallout 4 (some of the faces appeared already in Fallout 2).

This design choice of using Art Deco, giant statues and stone or metal faces is interesting as Fallout built up some eldritch/Lovecraftian background itself and connected it with the architecture. One can find one of those heads in the depths of the so-called Dunwich Borer, a clear reference to Lovecraft who wrote a story titled "The Dunwich Horror". So, like Willow does it visually, Fallout connects Art Deco style with Lovecraftian horror elements by name. Cosmic horror in a fantasy show? Yes and there are more clues, including one in the very name of one of the characters, that support this. Like the Fallout franchise, the creators use visuals and names that link them to HP Lovecraft.

It is indeed interesting that the names of the two cities, the Nameless City and the Immemorial City strike a similar tone as well.

This site with concept art of the Immemorial City by David Freeman is very interesting.

In the name of Hastur: the Wyrm and the Great old Ones

The Fallout franchise, a post apocalyptic video game and now TV-show series  is making advances to build a cosmic horror background (the Youtubers SinisterHeart and EpicNate talk about this) by using names from the Lovecraft universe, some similar architectural elements and add some eldritch elements and beings to it (like the Interloper) - so does the TV-Show Willow:

Hastur, also known as the Unspeakable One, He-who-must-not-be-named, or the King in Yellow, is a Lovecraftian deity originally created by Ambrose Bierce and while in Bierce’s work Hastur is more benevolent, in the Lovecraft-universe he became one of the malignant cosmic beings of the Cthulhu universe, God-like creatures beyond man’s capability to understand them. "Hastur is defined as a Great Old One, spawn of Yog-Sothoth, the half-brother of Cthulhu". He is amorphous and uses avatars such as the King in Yellow. The Nameless City is Hasturs realm. And coincidentally Hastur is the surname of the rulers of Galladorn - its probably no coincidence that this name was chosen especially since Graydon, son of King Zivian Hastur, has a history of being either possessed or some truly evil part of Graydon is hiding inside - the show does not go into details in its first season however the scars on his chest indicate that this is some sort of a magical seal to keep evil at bay. Did Graydon release something by accident, did he read the wrong books or was it something in his family that may have awaken some day.

The big plan?

It is indicative that King Zivian wants an “allegiance” with Tir Asleen by marrying his son to Kit Tanthalos but that he also “convinces” Graydon to accompany the group that sets out to search for Airk.

Kit is the descendant of Bavmorda, the evil queen-witch of the film and Sorsha, - Kit's mother, reveals that her mother’s spirit somehow survived in her grandchildren. Which is probably why the Gales, “a group of monstrous creatures, led by The Crone” kidnap Airk in the first place.

The fact that Kit can use the Kymerian Cuirass suggests that she has Fey blood in her as the cuirass was forged by Queen Anabel of Kymeria who was a Fey herself, supernatural beings, of lesser, such as brownies or dyads, or higher fairies like Elves or Elementals.

It's not a stretch to assume that King ZIvian wanted a blood bond as it all points to the so called “Blood of the Six” that is important - what his plan is in regard to the crone is unclear, maybe he has plans of his own, maybe it is all related to the Wyrm. Maybe the goal is an offspring of "special blood" and there is a clue by the end of the first season that this is the case.

There's a brief moment by the end of the season in which Graydon (although he does not have scars) exchanges words with a version of Elora who tells him that she "wants him" at her side. This is pure speculation but King Zivians mysterious plan and "Dark Elora's" offer to Graydon could very well go into a similar direction: an (potentially) evil offspring. Or a child that holds dark powers? It would make sense given that the story of Willow started with a child. Elora. So, a child on the other side of the spectrum would make sense. "It's like poetry. It rhymes.", George Lucas

Even though Graydon was a spare kid and something was done to him or he did to himself, these elements may be connected if a blood bond is truly the idea behind this and some elements point into this direction, Sadly though there are only some vague clues to formulate a hypothesis.

About Sword & Sorcery:

The land described by Robert E. Howard in his Conan the Barbarian is called Cimmeria. In Willow the magical cuirass is called Kymerian Cuirass after the Kymerian Empire - the name has a familiar sound and could have been altered for Willow. Lovecraft drew inspiration from different sources, including Ambrose Bierce who created Hastur and Robert E Howard was coeval with, a friend and penpal of Lovecraft - Howards works were influenced by Lovecraft’s (Yog, a deity worshiped by cannibals in Howard’s Conan universe may have been derived from Yog-Sothoth). Here is a Youtube-video by Atlantean Archive who specializes on discussing books especially by authors such as Howard and Lovecraft who compares both authors. In general the “Sword and Sorcery” genre has some dark, almost horror elements that feel very Lovecraftian. Willow, the film and the show, seems to try to bridge the two subgenres of “Sword and sorcery” and “High fantasy” in my opinion.

The dark elements we see in the Immemorial City itself, the very ghoulish monstrosities that the Gales are and even the Wyrm, but also the focus on the characters and Kit’s quest to save her brother on the one hand, are in my opinion more Sword and Sorcery, while the adventure of a group of misfits, the need to save the world in the process feels more like the High Fantasy we know from Tolkien.

Dungeons and Dragons itself is no stranger to combining the subgenres, depending on the setting but also with creatures such as Mindflayers that are very Lovecraftian.

Lovecrafts idea was: you either die or go insane, you cannot beat those monstrous beings. Robert E. Howard on the other hand was on the side of “You can choose your path and beat the monster with a giant sword”...by Crom.

The fact that the creators decided to use the name “Hastur” and connect it to Graydon’s mysterious past in which he turned evil and killed his brother, the Immemorial City with its eldritch architecture, the fact that for example the Fallout franchise does something similar: Lovecraft's works have potentially inspire Willow a lot.

Lets talk about the Wyrm next and about the Order of the Wyrm in the following chapters.

The Wyrm

Potentially the Wyrm was inspired by an old Irish deity called Crom Cruach, an ancient God of fertility who demanded the sacrifice of first borns in exchange for a good harvest.

He later became a much more demonic creature in most stories that was defeated by Saint Patrick and ultimately found his way into modern culture for example as the namesake for Crom (who otherwise more akin to Odin), the patron deity in Robert E. Howard’s “Conan the Barbarian” the titular hero worships, or as the villain in the novel “The Hunter’s Moon” by O.C. Melling in which he is called “Crom Cruac, The Great Worm”.

Very interesting is this mentioning of Crom Cruach use in the Villains Wiki: "In Pleasure of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole, Crom Cruach is the main antagonist, with the ability to infect beings with a mad need to sacrifice whoever they love most."

This description feels as if “Pleasure of a Dark Prince”  could have been taken as an inspiration for what happens to Airk.Especially in conjunction with the myth of the sacrifice of the first borns to the original Irish god of the same name: that Graydon kills his own, older (first born) brother and Airk is a first born himself. This is proven by the dialog between Airk and Kit in which he points out that he is the older sibling and Kit confirms this “By like a minute.”  Airk is a first born who was “infected” with the “milk” of the Wyrm and seduced to “sacrifice” those he loved if necessary by fighting and killing them especially when he is additionally possessed by the Crone. And one could say that Graydon, whatever made him do it, “sacrificed” his own brother. It all points to first borns that are sacrificed and the second borns that are actually important.

Which is rather interesting because both Graydon and Kit are second borns, their older siblings were sacrificed, Dermot killed by his younger brother and Airk turned to serve the Wyrm.

And of course the list is not complete with the Necronomicon a fictional book created by Howard Philips Lovecraft as a lesser god below Shub-Niggurath and is describe generally this way in the Villains Wiki:

Crom Cruach was originally envisioned as a god hidden by mists, represented as a gold figure surrounded by twelve stone or bronze figures. Crom Cruach's countenance is akin to that of a demonic snake or monstrous worm (possibly referring to a Wyrm or a Wyvern, a type of dragon).

The Order of the Wyrm, Thule Society, 3rd Reich-symbols and Hellboy

Chants & prayers

In the story “The Nameless city” there is another element that piqued my interest, a line: “That is not dead which can eternal lie/and with strange eons even death may die”. Having a familiar tone to the script that Graydon reads aloud after which an earthquake happens. At this point it seems as if it was just the typical “Dont-read-from-the-book” moment we know from films like The Mummy, 1999. However if we think ahead and of Graydons mysterious past, whatever it is his father and Dark Elora may want from him by forming alliances as talked about in previous chapters, then these things start to from a pattern that further point to Graydon’s importance for the plot.

Furthermore if you are familiar with “A song of Ice and Fire”, you may know the words “What is dead may never die” by the folks from the Iron Islands who worship a drowned God - clearly GRR Martin is referencing Cthulhu.

Yet again a piece of Lovecratian horror in fantasy and the creepy chants, sayings, prayers of spells are all very similar

“That is not dead which can eternal lie” - Lovecraft

“The Eternal One … stirs his deathless slumber”, Willow - The Order of the Wyrm

“What is dead my never die”, GRR Martin

And of course: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn - In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.

Joachim Kerzel (the German voice actor for Anthony Hopkins) speaking the words in the audio book adaptation of Der Ruf des Cthulhu / The call of Cthulhu

The order of the Wyrm - Hellboy & The Thule Society

The Order of the Wyrm, whose members “...worshiped an ancient blood magic, the Wyrm. The Wyrm was imprisoned a long time ago beneath the surface of world, and it waits, sleeping, for its acolytes to release it.”, they started as a small cult in Cashmere but at some point they kidnapped the princess of Cashmere, indoctrinated her so that she transformed into the Crone. They did something similar to Bavmorda, mother of Sorsha and grandmother of both Airk and Kit. The cult shares some interesting symbols with the symbols used in the Third Reich and the so called “Thule society”.

The Thule Society was founded in 1918 in Munich as a secret society, it was based on the “völkische Bewegung”, the völkisch movement, a German ethnic nationalist movement that started in the late 19th century and was active until 1945.

“A primary focus of the Thule Society was a claim concerning the origins of the Aryan race. In 1917, people who wanted to join the "Germanic Order", out of which the Thule Society developed in 1918, had to sign a special "blood declaration of faith" concerning their lineage.”

Due to its occult background this led to some conspiracy theories even though the Nazis suppressed after 1933 - it has been argued that it found its way into the NSDAP. Its beliefs were mentioned in Alfred Rosenberg's books, the leader of the Foreign Policy Office and Hitler’s first ideologist, as well as in the ideas of SS-Leader Heinrich HImmler who -unlike Hitler- was fascinated by the occult and mysticism. (Which means Indiana Jones is talking nonsense but I guess the name Hitler is better known than Himmler).

It looks as if the typical rectangular Swastika was fused with the more round shaped version of the Thule society to give it a very familiar look - round shaped elements also could be interpreted as sickle and evoke an association to some sort of harvest.

If you make a connection between the symbols of the Nazis and the Thule society as potential inspirations for the symbol of the Order of the Wyrm, with the clues we have of the so called “Blood of the Six” which runs in the veins of both Kit and Airk, and Graydon maybe being of interest for Dark Elora due to his blood, it is safe to say that the order is blood-line interested in general. And that the order is the Willow-vers representation of a lineage-concerning, (pre-)Nazi-like order such as the Thule Society.

This is hinted at through Sorsha and the fact that Kit can use the cuirass, making her blood related to Fays. So, the order's interest in this blood line ideology is very much in line with beliefs of the original, historical Thule society.

Germania - Even though it was based on Roman architecture, the right out crazy plans of Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler of a Welthauptstadt (World capital) with some similar elements we see in the show (instead of some sort of tanks according to images, there are human figures in the concept art) and a central big hall, like a huge temple you were supposed to “worship” the Nazi ideology, a building so insanely large it would have had its own climate, is echoed in the Immemorial City as well.

In Hellboy, the 2004 film by Guillermo del Toro, one of the central focus points is the Thule Society under Karl Ruprecht Kroenen (btw in the comics the spelling is “Ruprect” which is incorrect) who helps Rasputin to unleash the Ogdru-Jahad, the seven Gods of Chaos.

These beings were among others inspired by the Outer Gods/the Great Old Ones by HP Lovecraft and the Jörmungandr, the world serpent from Norse mythology that is directly connected to Ragnarök, the end of the world, killing the old gods but also dying in the process and lay groundwork to new life. 

Hellboy is yet another plot that, similar to Indiana Jones, has Nazis as the antagonists that seek power in occult objects and means to reach their goals. This connection, the occult, the Thule society which used the Swastika back in 1919 already, and the Order of the Wyrm that uses Nazi/Swastika like symbols is indicative of what influenced the show “Willow” aside from Lovecraft.

Yet another interesting fact is that in the Roleplaying Game “Vampire - The Masquerade”, there is a so called “Order of the Wyrm (Vampire the Masquerade)”, centered around a tome penned by Abdul Alhazred - Abdul Alhazred, a character invented by HP Lovecraft, writer of the infamous Necronomicon. The Wyrm in “Vampire - The Masquerade” is the “incarnation of destruction and misery that will one day swallow the world”.

“If magic is the bloodstream of the universe, the Wyrm feeds on it.”, Willow Ufgood

Conclusion:

These elements make up the world building of Willow: In sometimes subtle and sometimes very obvious clues, symbols and architecture, combining the myths of Lovecraft, the Sword and Sorcery of Robert E Howard, the high fantasy of Tolkien (since Lucas originally wanted to make Lord of the Rings), a certain blood lineage ideology of the Thule society and its imagery which is echoed in the symbols Order of the Wyrm etc. These things follow a clear pattern. It is a vast and much richer universe, filled with potentially endless wonders and horrors, made by a creative team that probably had a large variety of inspirations on their desks.

As I would say about any other analysis that I made. If I can find it, professional writers in Hollywood can find it and very likely brought those ideas already with them when they expanded the Willow universe. Like us they read novels, comics, play RPGs, and video games, watch TV and movies. - Ex nihilo nihil fit.

And these potential connections, inspos etc may offer some clues into which directions the Seasons 2 and 3 of Willow were supposed to go thematically.

[storywonker]

Publisher's Weekly, in what fucking UNIVERSE is A Song of Ice and Fire Sword and Sorcery? I know genres are big buckets but I'm sorry, ASOIAF is epic fantasy, GRRM may cite Lieber as an influence but they're not the same subgenre, they're different kinds of story concerned with different questions!

[alpaca-clouds]

High Fantasy Conundrums: It's Actually Not "Medieval Europe"

So I ramble on about High Fantasy and the issues with this subgenre in regards to depicting diversity of all sorts. I talked yesterday about the lack of non-white cultures within most of the big named High Fantasy settings (such as DnD, LotR, DA, Witcher and so on). Because while these days we will find non-white characters in those settings often, those are not allowed to exist within any other context than a white, supposedly "medieval European" culture. A white culture, at the very least.

This is an issue especially with those coorporate controlled worlds, such as DnD and DA. Those absolutely could afford to worldbuild their settings outside the "Fantasy Europe" continent, but they somehow never do.

And I am not even saying that there should not be PoC characters in those settings, that have absolutely completely absorbed the "white culture" and are very much part of it. I am just saying that this should not be ALL non-white characters - and that there should be a variety of non-white cultures. Also, ideally, that there should be more than THE dwarven culture, THE elven culture, and THE halfling culture.

However, there is of course another conundrum that comes up at this place. And ironically enough that conundrum is almost the reason why Lord of the Rings exists in the way it does. Because Tolkien named this as one of the reasons he created Middle Earth.

See, let's all be very honest with one another. Yes, we tend to act as if your average 0815 high fantasy world with swords, sorcery, elves and dragons is based on medieval Europe. Because it has like knights, with swords, and some architecture that is vaguely based on medieval Europe. And the people will usually eat food that is somewhat inspired by what people wrongly imagine food in medieval Europe looked like, and they cloth in that way too, but...

Yeah. No. It is not medieval Europe.

There are so many things about those settings, that are very much not very medieval European. And I will call it out now: A big part of that is the lack of the Church, as we know it, and at the same time also the lack of cultural conflicts within the human society.

It is not just that those worlds tend to have elves, and magic, and dragons, and whatever other fantastical elements that were not part of the real medieval Europe. It is more clearly, that those worlds will very much lack certain cultural aspects that were central to medieval European culture.

(And don't get me started on the fact that "medieval Europe" lasted for a good 1000 years in which things changed a lot. And one of the big issues with a lot of Fantasy Worldbuilding is, how resistant it is to change. Often fantasy worlds will stay the same over thousands of years, with no major technological or societal advancement happening.)

And here is an issue that a lot of writers run into. Some consciously, some unconsciously. An issue that become quite clear, whenever we actually start to think about the topic of "cultural appropriation".

I wrote about it two weeks ago in a way. How a lot of white writers aware of this issue will go and adapt Greek mythology, without realizing this one central part: Even that is appropriation, because of Greece's long history of being colonized - something that, yes, the Western European powers did play a role in as well. They still do. Exploiting Greece to this day.

The issue is, that... Well, there is no "European culture". Because that culture has been destroyed by colonialism and the Church. It has been thoroughly destroyed, leaving a lot of white people with a big issue in that regard. Because they are essentially cultureless outside of colonialism. Colonialism and exploitation is the only culture there really is for them. And that... is kinda an issue.

In a way, with all his faults, Tolkien was aware of this. He stated multiple times that part of his reason for creating Middle Earth had been, to create a "fake mythology" for especially the England he knew. After the orignal mythology of the land had basically been erased. Lord of the Rings and everything connected to it, for Tolkien, was a knowingly faked "culture origin". Which is why he also went to those length with: "Oh, this is actually based on a book that I found and translated." Yes, everyone knew that story was made up. But he tried to allow those stories to take that place.

But yes, this is the issue. White folks have mostly lost their connection to what was originally their culture. And technically it is not their fault. It was supplanted by the Church first, and then it was supplanted by colonialism.

People are often not aware how many parts of "white culture" are actually based in: "We need to come up with a different way to do this, because non-white people are doing this as well, and we know we are better than them." (This shows especially in food culture. Because yes, there is a reason British cuisine is an abomination that should be burned to the ground. And yes, that reason is colonialism - just not the way people think.)

A core issue is, how Christianity as a religion has merged with those colonial ideas and ideals. The main aspects of Christianity - no matter whether we are talking about evangelical Christianity or Catholicism - are too entangled in colonialism, to actually provide that meaningful cultural aspect that we would need it for. And yeah. That... is a problem.

It is a problem in the real world, because I do think that a lot of folks feel that lack of culture in some way. I also think it is an issue, because for many people it takes away a lense through which they can see the world. And in the fake world of fantasy, it also shows in the fact that we do lack a certain cultural language. And High Fantasy shows this so clearly.

Because, yes... Technically I would argue that everyone does know that the Church played a big role in medieval Europe. They know somewhat, too, that the hierarchies, and serfdom and what not were important. And that you cannot go in and be like "this is like medieval Europe" when none of those things are there.

But we also do simply not know how to deal with the church these days - and with the role it took back then.

There is a reason, why we have no issue writing fantasy settings, in which gods from all sorts of mythologies intermingle, while there are only few settings in which the Christian God shows, and the angels play a role. Sure, those exist. I mostly can think of Neil Gaiman adjacent works in this regard. But they exist.

But there is a reason why they are not common. And that reason is, that we really are in limbo in a way. We are in a cultural limbo - and strangely enough this shows nowhere as clearly as in high fantasy worldbuilding, and its weird relation to culture itself.

[ginger-bumberell]

- ̗̀♱ about me ! (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)

🜏 | name : jules / malachi /j /or not / nimrod

🜏 | age : rather not say

🜏 | gender & sexuality : transmasculine 🏳️‍⚧️ + bisexual ♡⁠˖⁠꒰⁠ᵕ⁠༚⁠ᵕ⁠⑅⁠꒱

🜏 | languages : english / french / filipino

- ̗̀♱ interests

🜏 | music : rock (soft rock, hard rock, etc), metal, swing, blues / bands(or singers) : MSI, AM, Gorillaz, Slipknot, System of a Down

🜏 | video : movies: Children of the Corn, The Omen, Harry Potter series, Jumanji, Central Intelligence / shows: Young Sheldon

🜏 | games : Roblox, Minecraft, GL2, Lucius

🜏 | fandom (pls talk to me if you are in any of these) : Children of the Corn, Shadows House, DunMeshi / Delicious in Dungeon, Lucius

- ̗̀♱ movies

🜏 | genres : horror, comedy, fantasy

🜏 | subgenres : religious horror (COTC and The Omen specifically), sitcoms, slapsticks , sword and sorcery fantasy, high fantasy (epic fantasy)

- ̗̀♱ extra

🜏 | dms/frqs : allowed

🜏 | socials : your_gilmoreboy in discord and your-gilmoreboy on yt (i don't post... yet), malachiboardman in roblox

🜏 | my dumby wumbies (friends) : @k-at-kat @brains4ne @bernkastel11 @rainywinnerpeach @rainbowgr1lledcheese (if you're ever uncomfortable being on this tag page, please just tell me and I'll take your tag down immediately)

🜏 | people I watch : Kubz Scouts, Kristian PH, yenuuki

🜏 | fave bible quotes and where they come from: Zechariah 13:1 • The Shepherd Struck “ Strike the Shepherd and the sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones. ” — Malachi 13:1 • The Priests' Polluted Offerings “ A son honors his father, a servant his master. If I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? ”

🜏 | fave bible facts: Isaac was circumcised when he was eight days old.

[wicked-witch-for-hire]

Literary references in Gale's selection remarks

I. Theatrical plays (Shakespeare & Walter Scott)

- A rough tempest I will raise. - Shakespeare - Tempest, - this is a mash-up of two quotes:

In Act V, Scene 1, Prospero uses the phrasing "when first I raised the Tempest". In the same scene, he recites a soliloquy about the great works of magic he has accomplished, before finally renouncing magic altogether: " ... But this rough magic I here abjure ..."

This is an incredibly apt sentence for Gale - one can interpret this tempest as his magical capabilities or just the calamity of the orb, or even his end game choice. The whole play which begins with a shipwreck might be compared to the plot of BG3.

- What fools these mortals be. - Puck - A Midsummer Night’s Dream

- All the world's my stage and you're just a player in it. Shakespeare, again. As You Like It Link

- Oh, what a tangled Weave we web! - riff on a quote from Sir Walter Scott's play Marmion.

The original quote is "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!"

II. Pop-cult

- Swords, meet sorcery!

This is a reference to the term "Swords & Sorcery" which was coined by F. Leiber (author of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series) in 1961. Quoting from wiki: Sword and sorcery (S&S) or heroic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of romance, magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters. Sword and Sorcery tales eschew overarching themes of 'good vs evil' in favor of situational conflicts that often pit morally gray characters against one another to enrich themselves, or to defy tyranny.

- Gone with the Weave.

I think this is just a reference to the term "Gone with the wind" but not infamous book, lol.

- No gloom, all doom.

Riff on the popular expression "gloom & doom".

III. Religion

- Seek and you shall find me.

Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Matthew 7:7–8 "Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.

While I don't think Gale is our Lord and Saviour, this is an interesting line. I would not be surprised if the writers had also remarked on his peculiar resemblance to someone...so I think this is an inside joke.

- Let me recite their demise.

This alludes to the custom of reciting prayers for the dying and the dead (a common practice in Abrahamic religions).

IV. D&D homages & references

- Don't make me go all Edwin Odesseiron on you.

So Edwin was a possible companion in BG1 & 2. A lawful evil red wizard of Thay. If you have seen the new movie I don't need to explain further, but for those who don't: basically Lorroakan as a companion. He greets the protagonist with this: “ Greetings. I am Edwin Odesseiron. You simians may refer to me merely as "sir" if you prefer a less... syllable-intensive workout."

Gale basically threatens to go all power-hungry wizard on us - mind, this is a funny line you can only hear if you select him in combat over and over again (spamming).

- I hope Halaster takes good care of Tara while I'm away.

Halaster Blackcloak was was a notorious, ancient, and utterly insane wizard who resided within his lair, the infamous Undermountain ( located deep beneath the city of Waterdeep) and died in 1375, so circa 120 years before BG3 takes place (late 1492). As part of his many preparations to escape death, Halaster created a number of clone-bodies to receive his consciousness, which he kept locked in protective stasis and located throughout Undermountain and the lower reaches of Waterdeep. When Halaster died prior to the Spellplague, it was possible that one or more of these clones was activated and set free by 1479 DR, although this is not confirmed.

I guess this must be a joke in wizard's circle in Waterdeep :-) This is also a spam line, so one can only hear it if they really like to click on Gale.

- Coliar, Karpri, Anadia... So many worlds still to travel. One day. (looking at the astrolabe)

Coliar, Kapri, Anadia - are all planets in the system (Realmspace). Toril is the third planet, where Faerun is. To reach these places you need to use spelljammers. Gale needs to hitch a hike from Lae'zel I guess.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Rare writer ask game: name three pieces of media that are not novels/short stories or movies/TV that were formative for you, and tag three people.

Tagged by @quill-of-thoth

And, good lord. My parents were very opposed to significant amounts of video games, which is probably the next biggest chunk of narrative media available here. Or podcasts, except my audio processing is complete garbage, so I don't listen to any. And narrative is what I make, mostly.

I spent a huge chunk of my childhood reading in large part because I wasn't allowed to do much else.

But, it does leave manga open even if not anime. So. Hm.

Dungeons & Dragons. My first TTRPG. Not so much the tropes (if you have ever read my stuff, it really doesn't read much the large subgenre of sword and sorcery stuff derived from D&D rules. But it gave me a lot of very early practice playing a character, and cemented a deep appreciation for certain archetypes that are probably not apparent for people of my generation because my dad raised us on freaking AD&D.

YuYu Hakusho. The first manga I ever owned or read. I don't know if my writing looks particularly similar, but I suspect a lot of my attempts at found family/teams probably look like Yusuke/Kuwabara/Kurama/Hiei + Botan at least in spirit, and it was not my first anime or descent into full on otaku subculture, but it was definitely a turning point. I dressed up as Boton for Halloween one year in high school. My grandfather even made me an oar out of actual wood. I had so many long fussing discussions with my mother about how the sleeves needed to look.

...A Friend for Dragon, which is a book, but it's a children's picture book, not a novel or a short story, so it technically squeaks into counting. It's about loneliness and grief and honestly reading it probably explains a lot about Why I'm Like This and how I write themes into things without ever explicitly stating them, but like. Yeah.

Tagging...@leebrontide, @miliabyntite, and @user-needs-new-hyperfixation

[maxwell-grant]

Hi. Just found your blog--greatly enjoy your writing! Now, a question: Are there any popular female pulp heroes? What were they like? Thx in advance.

 Thanks! Well, popular is a strong word, most people start with asking "were there any female pulp heroes? like, at all?", the answer to which is, Yes!...Nowhere as much as there were male ones, and not in the traditionally accessed avenues for "pulp heroes", but yes, there were, I wrote a bit about them here. Not counting the female sidekicks of male pulp heroes because that's cheating, the most popular female pulp heroes are the ones that exist by proximity to that American pulp hero “scene”, which I must stress again, doesn’t really have that much to do with what pulp fiction was actually like during it’s heyday, but rather that amorphous concept of what people imagine a pulp hero to be like.

In that regard, a popular female pulp hero would have to be a character that managed to break through in some form and inhabit that pop culture archetypal space in some form, or at least linger around in some noteworthy fashion. To an extent, this is something that was achieved more by female villains, in particular H.Rider Haggard’s Ayesha as well as other characters like Shamblau, Black Margot / Princess Margaret of the Black Flame, and Irma Vep who made for memorable, impactful villains of popularity and status approaching that of the male heroes.

With that in mind, upfront I’d argue that there’s at least six unambiguously popular female pulp heroines, and those would be:

The Domino Lady, a masked Gentleman Thief who was a rare example of a female masked vigilante who was actually published in 1930s American pulp fiction. The Domino Lady is, predictably, the least popular of these, but she’s historically significant and fairly popular in her own right and usually featured in stories or images that place all the masked avengers together.

Pat Savage (illustration by Dan Schkade), Science Adventurer Doc Savage’s rowdy tomboy cousin, and Dejah Thoris, the famous princess of Mars from the John Carter saga (key progenitor of the Planetary Romance subgenre), who are kind of on the sidekick side of things, but there's been enough solo outings for them, and the two of them being fairly significant and influential characters in their own right, that I’m obviously not gonna leave them out.

Red Sonja (illustration by Donato GIancola), famed badass of Sword-and-Sorcery. She’s maybe the most famous by far pulp heroine of them all, the only one of these for sure that you could reasonably expect most people to at least know by name or imagery. And she is a 1970s Marvel Comics character who borrows her name from an unrelated character in a non-Conan Robert E. Howard story and her characterization from C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry (1934). Another character we can add to the ever-growing pile of “characters who define the term pulp hero despite never actually appearing in pulp fiction” next to The Spirit, Buck Rogers, The Phantom, The Green Hornet, etc.

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle: Here also standing for the general popularity of Jungle Girls in general who usually take after her in some ways or inspired her in the first place they all just kinda blend together at some point

Barbarella: (no idea what archetype taxonomy I could use for her). You all know or have heard of her at some point and she gets grouped with these characters so often I couldn’t really omit her either. I’ve never seen the movie but I know it is an Italian production based on an erotic French comic that shoots for an American comic book style, and that strangeness is part of what made it fairly memorable. I’ve read a couple of Tales of the Shadowmen collections that feature stories with her as well.

Having named these, I’m also going to name six other pulp heroines who do not follow that mold so strongly and don’t overlap with these, and who were popular and significant in different ways:

Hunterwali: Hunterwali is one of the most significant action heroines in film history, as she was the premier starring role for Fearless Nadia, the most iconic action hero of 1930s Indian cinema and the archetypal action actress for Indian films, really one of the earliest and most significant action movie actresses period. Inspired by the Douglas Fairbanks Robin Hood serials, Hunterwali (1935) was a record-breaking blockbuster, with the character said to be “the most popular character of its time” and listed as "Bollywood's best loved character" in 100 years of Indian cinema by CNN-IBN”.

The character is a swashbuckling princess who dons the guise of Hunterwali, "protector of the poor and punisher of evildoers", to become a swashbuckling Masked Avenger bent on rescuing her father and beat up the evil prime minister villain. She runs around on horseback performing stunts like jumping over moving carriages, jumping a horse from a bridge onto the top of a moving train, and defeating 20 soldiers in one sweep with her whip (Fearless Nadia did her own stunts, mind you).

Brigitte “Baby” Montfort: Brigitte Montfort was a highly popular Secret Agent pulp fiction character in Brazil, probably the most straightforward “pulp hero” we have as the star of cheaply printed pocket edition books that arose in the 60s as an alternative to the paperbacks. Brigitte is the daughter of a 1940s feuilleton character (yes, the feuilletons were published here as well) named Giselle Montfort, a Mata Hari-esque spy who bedded Nazis for intel and was eventually killed via firing squad. Brigitte was a globetrotting reporter who secretly operated as a cunning, cutthroat CIA agent, a bikini-clad James Bond. The stories went so in-depth that it was a common rumor at the time that they were written by a CIA agent employed by the editors, and Brigitte lasted about 30 years with circa 500 novels to her name, making her one of the most long-lived pulp characters.

Ethel King: Ethel King was a rare, prototypical Great Detective who debuted in German dime novels and was subsequently published all over Europe for the following two decades. Driven to fight crime by the loss of her father and fiance, she was referred to as “the female Sherlock Holmes” as well as “the female Nick Carter” for French and Italian publishing, and she takes after the two of them in a way.

Like Holmes, she employs brilliant reasoning and goes around with a wisecracking assistant (in this case her governess), and like Carter, she’s also assisted by a younger sidekick (an orphaned cousin she raised on her own), she gets into gunfights and has a tough attitude, and she deals with a massive Rogues Gallery of horrid villains with wild names and even wilder characters (including three evil doppelgangers). She would go on to become a formative influence not just on future female detectives, but also the German hefteromanes that spun out of the dime novels.

Nila Rand: Perfume, pistols and mystery in one package, she was created by Hedwig Langer under a pseudonym, one of the only two characters in this list created by a woman. Nila Rand was a thrill-seeking adventurer Femme Fatale featured in Scarlet Adventuress who dabbled in arms dealing, smuggling of stolen goods and gunfighting.

"She did not know which intrigued her the more, the alluring promise of exotic love, or the threat of terrible and violent death. The last was as necessary to her as the first. Nila Rand had played too long for high stakes and it needed the element of danger to make the game a thrilling one." - The Shanghai Stakes (1935)

Nila is a key example of what separates the femme fatale in the pulps from the films (far more frequently protagonists, rarely the sidekicks or girlfriends but instead solo operatives or leaders of their own gangs, rarely deliver on actual sex and instead manipulate men's desires to their advantage), but far more important than that is the fact that she was openly acknowledged to be bisexual, which goes without saying was extremely rare in any form to find in the pulps in any form.

Even in these spicy/erotic pulp magazines that were all about sneaking stuff past the radar (and thus a place where, for better or worse, writers could play around with topics other magazines would shy away from and would be unthinkable outside of pulp magazines). Finding a queer pulp hero from any period prior to the 1970s, let alone a protagonist and not an outright villain, is bordering on impossible, but it exists and here she is.

Lu Siniang: A lot of Wuxia/Nuxia storytelling is born from similar undercurrents of working class escapism and anger and desire for justice that led to many of pulp fiction’s most prominent heroes, and Lu Siniang is a particularly powerful embodiment of that. She was spun out of real life circumstances involving the execution of Lu Liuliang and his entire family for  “literary crimes” against the Qing government, and the subsequent  death of the Yongzheng Emperor, and said to be Liuliang’s daughter who had managed to survive away, learn martial arts and join/form a group of revolutionaries in a mission of revenge that culminated in her skewering/beheading the emperor. No Wuxia/Nuxia protagonist had dared to go that far before.

The story was reprinted several times following it’s inception, becoming particularly popular in the 1910s-1940s as the character would star in the   Lu Siniang  / Fourth Madam Lu serials starting in 1940, that comprised the first Chinese film franchise and film series about a fictional character, as well as one of the first action film series focused on a female protagonist alongside Hunterwali mentioned above.

Pussy Fane: The only other character in the list created by a woman. She was created by prolific romance writer and editor Jane Littel, who was repeteadly stressed  to be the "longtime companion" of another pulp romance writer Margaret Wallace (one of the pseudonyms Margaret wrote under was called "Margaret Littell", make of that what you will), with Pussy Fane being a short-lived attempt to combine crime and romance.

Pussy Fane is a Proto-Superhero from 1931, a beautiful escort/party girl who grew up in the circus among jungle cats and is forced to deal with blackmailers and gangsters. She regularly douses herself in perfume to mask their scent, and is burdened with regret and sorrow over her upbringing and nature, repeteadly hearing others refer to her as inhuman and more than half cat. She is also superhumanly strong and athletic, said to have the strength of 20 men, and she also regularly rips off the arms of would-be-rapists.

Yes, it’s a tragedy you’re only just now hearing about this character, it’s a damn shame the stinky classy-yet-feral woman who runs around ripping off the arms of grubby rapist gangsters missed her call in pop culture stardom as did so many of these.

So here there are, 12 female pulp heroes all encompassing different archetypes, as well as different genres and countries of origin. There are more, yes. They are difficult to find enough info to write about, yes. Is the effort worth it? You bet. I find it imperative to shout to the world that these characters and others like them existed, that plenty of them were popular and acclaimed in their own right, even in ways that overshadow the American characters and defy our pop culture preconceptions of what pulp female characters all have to look like.

There was no archetype or type of story available to pulp heroes that was closed off to the women, not now, not a hundred years ago when Ethel King established new paradigms for the Great Detective and dime novel fiction before Hunterwali made action film history doing everything Douglas Fairbanks was doing and then some, not even well over a hundred years ago when Lu Siniang was beating The Count of Monte Cristo and all the ensuing dramatic masked avengers to the punch in backstory and over-the-top revenge. We only stand to lose confining these to the dustbins of history and standing by such a shallow perception of what could be done, and what was done, back then with pulp heroines.