Honing In On 2023 -- & Celebrating the "Band of Brothers" in Fantasy

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Last year, I refeatured Having Fun with Epic Fantasy: the Band of Brothers, a post that first appeared on SF Signal. 

The play that coined the famous term

At the time, I considered it an interesting sidepost to 2022's What Makes A Hero? series, but in refeaturing it found I could not argue with the central premise that "the famous (Shakespeare: Henry V) quote, 'we band of brothers', speaks to the heart of epic fantasy."

Tom Hiddleston as Henry V

As also noted, the “band of brothers” appears throughout fairytale, folklore and myth, (examples included Robin Hood and His Merry Men, King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, and Penthesilea and the Amazons) but also in history and in the legendary overlap between history and myth. 

LoTR's Aragorn & "not this day": note the similarity to Henry V

Arguably, King Arthur lies within that overlap, since there's reason to believe he was a real person, but almost certainly not anything like the central figure depicted in the Round Table and Holy Grail legends. 

Real historical examples include the Spartan Three Hundred (and less-mentioned allies) that died to a man at Thermopylae (480 BCE), but delayed the invading Persians long enough for the Greek states to muster and defeat the invaders by sea at Salamis, and by land at Plataea. Another, significant example is the "Sacred Band" of  Thebes, another company of three hundred comprising 150 fighting pairs who were also lovers.  

King Arthur & the Round Table: literally a 'shining company'

The King Arthur and the Round Table, the Three Hundred and Sacred Band, and the Y Goddoddin's Shining Company (celebrated by Rosemary Sutcliff in the novel of the same name) tie the "band of brothers" to epic fantasy's tradition of the quest journey and battles, usually against overwhelming odds, to save the world. 

Clearly, these traditions informs Shakespeare's famous St Crispin's Day speech on the eve of the life-and-death battle (against seemingly overwhelming odds) of Agincourt—as well as the now-classic WW2 mini series about "Easy" Company of the 101st Airborne Division. 

Yet stepping beyond epic and war, the "band of brothers" metamorphoses into the "band of buddies", aka the "Scooby gang." Aside from Scooby Doo itself, the term is closely associated with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the close-knit friends that support Buffy and work together to overcome Sunnyvale's monsters. 

Consistent with the "band of brothers" tradition, the big-bads are frequently bigger and badder than Buffy, so the odds frequently feel overwhelming. At some point in the series, the argument is made that the whole reason Buffy survives longer than your average Slayer is because she has a "Scooby gang" rather than being the traditional "lone wolf." While at the last she literally has a band of Slayer sisters.J

 

Buffy & the original Scooby Gang

If epic fantasy's "bands of brothers" tie primarily to world-altering quests and battles, the Buffy-style  Scooby gang is far more closely related to fairytale and folklore's band of faithful friends and lovable (often animal or magical) companions met in pursuit of smaller-scale adventures. Puss in Boots is one classic example, Prince Ivan and the Wolf another. 

Yet whatever their origin or the style of tale in which they appear, Fantasy would not be the same without its "bands of brothers" and "Scooby gangs." So I'll be starting this year by focusing on some of my favourite examples from fantasy literature, as well as referencing examples from my own writing.

See you here again on March for more "band of brothers" and "scooby gang" fun. J

~*~

About The Author:

Helen Lowe is an award-winning novelist, poet, and lover of story. With four books published to date, she is currently completing the final instalment in The Wall Of Night series.

Helen posts regularly on her “…on Anything, Really” blog, monthly on the Supernatural Underground, and tweets @helenl0we.

2023: Call to Adventure 2.0

2023: Reimagining the Hero's Journey- a Call to Adventure

In today’s world of insta-nowness, writers no longer have a few pages to hook readers. We have a sentence. And if that sentence is any good, we might have a paragraph. Opening lines are key to not only getting readers attention, but letting them know the what and how of your novel. Letting them know exactly what kind of adventure they are promising.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813).

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. - George Orwell, 1984 (1949).

“I’ve watched through is eyes, listened through his ears, and I tell you, he’s the one.”- Orson Scott Card Ender’s Game (1997).

All of these first lines not only are intriguing, but tell us exactly how the writer is going to tell the story. We know that Ender's Game is going to intense the whole time. We know that 1984 is going to be dystopian. We know that Pride and Prejudice is going to be about society's need for a wife. All of these first lines draw you in immediately to the world of the story.

 

In the Hero's Journey, the Call to Adventure is the world of the story calling the hero to make something better. It is the world of the story summoning the hero to greatness. Something within that world is wrong, and the hero is in a perfect position to fix it. The Call is usually an event or a character that presents the future hero with a quest, a mission, a plea for help. Depending on the book, it is a character who announced a murder, a dragon who has just set a town on fire, or a general who has selected his next weapon. This call is usually right there in the hero's face with a trumpet blaring out his request. Its easy to spot and even easier to refuse (but that is next month's post).  

Unfortunately, real life is not as blunt.  You don't wake up in the morning and know that your whole day is going to be dystopian, or snarky, or intense. You just have to face the day and see what comes, what calls. And most of the time in real life, these Calls are not as epic, but still meaningful. Answering a plea to help someone get something from the top shelf is not as heroic as being the savior that will win a galactic war. 

Unless you focus on the world of the story. Life is made up of a million stories- every person you meet is part of their own story. And their plea for help to get something from the top shelf of a store, that you very easily accomplished, might not feel like a Call to Adventure. But that might have been the last ingredient they needed to make their mother's favorite recipe. You might have just changed a whole world with that can of tomatoes. You might have been a hero that they needed in that moment in the world of the Grocery store, in a quest to make an excellent soup. 

So in this year of re-imagining, let's listen for different calls for adventuring. Because without the adventure, we ourselves can't go from Zero to Hero. 

Thank you and may your imagination be your guide. 

Amanda Arista

Author. 

Insta: @pantherista https://www.instagram.com/pantherista/

Twitter: @pantherista  https://twitter.com/Pantherista

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pantherista

Website links: www.amandaarista.com

More from “Inside Middle Earth” -- & A Post Yet To Come!

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This post is by way of a note for regular First o’ the Monthers, to advise that my February post will be up on the 6^th, not the 1^st this month.

But just to offer something for those checking in today, I've included another “Inside Middle Earth” pic for you, below. J

Last month’s photos were all mine, but this one was taken by Marion Drolsbach, who translated The Heir of Night into Dutch.

Marion visited late last year and this photo is a Southern Hemisphere sunrise from that time. I’ve already featured it on m’home blog, but I feel it merits a wider viewing. Enjoy!

See you back here again on the 6^th!

Photo Credit: Marion Drolsbach

Loving Stories within Stories

Claire the Librarian by Blackbird Art in AJ Hackworth's Library of the Unwritten.

After an unplanned visit to the Cardiac Care Unit, I'm under strict orders not to stress and/or work, for now.... but of course, I can muse, and an idea that grabbed me is that of intertextuality. I've written about it before, so this is basically a repost. See? I am NOT stressing or working, but I did want to share. After all, it's my day to post at the @supernaturalunderground, you know, where books make the heart beat faster? (Haha!)

But seriously, Intertextuality is when a fictional character becomes engaged in a story within the fictional book. A simple example is Sookie Stackhouse who always picks up a romance novel when she's not deep in a vampire/were/fae drama. Roald Dahl's Matilda reads widely and continuously, as do all the main characters in The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. 

In a more complex example, we meet Claire the Librarian in AJ Hackworth's Hell's Library Series where she becomes more than just a little engaged with some of the unwritten books in her charge. I highly recommend this series!

Roald Dahl's Matilda and her love of literature.

In many cases of intertextuality, the reader is better understood or defined by their books. For example, Tyrion Lannister sets himself apart by being an avid reader in a world of swords and betrayals, dragons and oncoming winter.

“The mind needs books like the sword needs a whetstone.” (Tyrion Lannister) in A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin

And let's not forget Lisa Simpson. She has surprisingly eclectic tastes for a cartoon character. I've seen her reading A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky and the entire Harry Potter Series to name a few.

In this way, a character's literary choices can show us something about who they are, what they love and maybe even what they desire.

Look at the fictional character Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's novel, Northanger Abbey. What does her obsession with Gothic novels, and The Mysteries of Udolpho, a real-world novel by Ann Radcliffe, add to the plot and world-building?

The Mysteries of Udolho by Ann Radcliffe first published in 1794.

One of my favourite speculative fiction novels of all times, Angel of Ruin (also known as Fallen Angel) by Kim Wilkins, tells of a contemporary journalist with not enough luck and a bit too much curiosity. As stories unfold within stories, the origins of one of the most famous poems ever written, John Milton's Paradise Lost, is re-visioned. In this case, the intertextuality becomes so intricate that there is no plot without it.

"Milton's Paradise Lost" by John Milton and illustrated by Gustave Dore Henry Altemus, Philadelphia - ca 1885, first thus edition (first Altemus Dore edition)

From cartoons to literary fiction, intertextuality has a role. Of course, when we read, we don't think of it that way, being too lost in the other worlds. At least, that's the goal.

Do you have a favorite fictional character who reads? A favorite story within a story? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

xxKim

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Kim Falconer, currently writing as A K Wilder, has released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy with Curse of Shadows out December 2022.

Kim can be found on  AKWilder Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

Throw the bones, read your horoscopes or Raise Your Phantom on the AKWilder.com site 

2023: Year of Re-Imagining

 Hello Faithful Readers, 

Yes, I was hiding under a rock. Yes, I was completely just trying to survive in my little bubble of the world I created that somehow I managed to pop. Yes, it sucked. 

I'm not saying I was at rock bottom, but there were some toe-touch moments where it definitely felt one step away from doom.

After those toe-touch moments, I always found a lesson, a little nugget of gold, to carry with me. And each time, I'd say to myself, "That was an Ordeal, and the lesson is a Reward." It all harkens back to the Heroic Journey of our Main Characters. For me, that process of going from zero to hero always helps me figure out where I am going, where I have been, and how much I still have to learn. 

For reference, here is a pretty and fairly accurate representation of the process I'm talking about. The real one is Christopher Vogler's interpretation of the Joseph Campbell Monomyth that delineates the 12 phases of a hero's journey.

I talked about this in 2014, My Year of Living Heroically, and yet, here I am, circling back around to it. Cycling back around to it, because growth is never ending. Learning is never-ending. Yes, old dogs can learn new tricks- they just have to have the right motivation. 

But this time around, I'm wiser, I've written more, lived more, read more, watched more. I'm not that same naive writer from back then. I'd like to say that I'm a little more enlightened, but really, I think my imagination has just gotten bigger. 

So for 2023, I present to you The Year of Reimagining. Reimagining story structure. Reimagining the Hero's Quest. Reimagining your life as a cycle to help you get through your rough spots. 

And of course there will be lots of movies, books, TV, and cute boys to help me with my new vision of an old story. 

Thank you and may your imagination be your guide. 

(If you've forgotten who I am, Here's ALL the contact info)

Insta: @pantherista https://www.instagram.com/pantherista/

Twitter: @pantherista  https://twitter.com/Pantherista

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pantherista

Website links: www.amandaarista.com

Diaries of an Urban Panther: https://books2read.com/u/mZrjp2

Claws and Effect: https://books2read.com/u/mdDlPZ

Nine Lives of an Urban Panther: https://books2read.com/u/bzdjrD

Truth about Night: https://books2read.com/u/3RJKPv

Truth about Blood: https://books2read.com/u/3JZjGP

Truth about Shadows: https://books2read.com/u/bp8p8X

Vampires gone Wild (short story in anthology): https://books2read.com/u/bPQGAr

Happy New Year!

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Happy New Year, dear Supernatural Undergrounders, whether near or far. (A decision that all depends on where we are in relation to each other, of course! :D )

Forest, ocean, sky...

Wherever you are and whatever you're doing, on this first day of 2023, I hope you're doing okay and that you have things you're looking forward to in the year ahead.

Mamaku tree fern

By way of celebration, I thought I'd share a few photos from "inside Middle Earth" (aka Aotearoa-New Zealand), which is where I hang out most of the time.

Why, hello... (Kaka parrot)

Fear not, I do have plans around a blog/post theme for 2023, consistent with the past few years, but its currently still "in development." ;-)

Harakeke, NZ flax

So for today, let's just relax, chillax, and enjoy the vistas!

"It may not be forever -- but I can see it from here!"

~*~

 

Helen Lowe:

Helen Lowe is an award-winning novelist, poet, and lover of story. With four books published to date, she is currently completing the final instalment in The Wall Of Night series.

Helen posts regularly on her “…on Anything, Really” blog, monthly on the Supernatural Underground, and tweets @helenl0we.