alternative worlds are fantastic in the 21st century. For centuries, fantasy has been one
of the most, if not the most, successful modes of storytelling and writing in almost every
culture in the world. Much older than most other modes of narration, even though often
not valued to the same degree, which most of you know, fantasy is an ever-present feature
in our media. What exactly fantasy is, however, is as difficult to pin down as the masses
of fantasy stories are varied. Throughout the centuries, various attempts at categorizing
have been made. Most of these attempts try to establish a distinction between the various
terminologies like fantasy, fantastic, imagination, fairy or fancy. Others were more interested
in the function of fantasy writing. Thus, in his structural approach to fantasy, Svet
Andorov came up with the idea that pure fantasy creates a certain hesitation in the reader
and also fulfills a social function. I'm sure most of you are familiar with his theory.
Even though Todorov was, and to a large degree still is, one of the leading authorities for
many scholars in the field, his theory has been criticized, extended or defied by other
scholars whose theories in return have been criticized, extended or defied by other scholars,
and so on and so forth. If the never-ending chain of scholarly criticism has taught us
one thing, it is that fantasy, certainly because it allows for so many different approaches,
cannot be summed up in a single idea. The, for me, most convincing approach, therefore,
is that fantasy is not a genre, as a genre usually suggests a certain stability, and
fulfills more than just, for example, a social function, as that is basically what almost
every piece of writing does. Fantasy is a mode. As Frederick Jameson observed when he
discussed the mode of Romans, I quote, when we speak of a mode, what can we mean but that
this particular type of literary discourse is not bound to the conventions of a given
age, nor indissolubly linked to a given type of verbal artifact, but rather persists as
a temptation and a mode of expression across a whole range of historical periods, seeming
to offer itself, if only intermittently, as a formal possibility which can be revived
and renewed, end of quote. The ideas of revival and renewal will be crucial for my talk later
on, but with fantasy as a mode, we see that a limitation to a specific idea is indeed
difficult. That does not only account for scholars, but also for readers, so basically,
nobody exactly knows what fantasy is, but somehow everybody has a clue. What is certainly
true for our postmodern society is that fantasy also is an aspect of pop culture, is widely
influenced and shaped by its adaptations through various media, particularly movie
adaptations and their accompanying flow of merchandise have converted already successful
stories like The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter into even greater commercial successes.
The subsequent flow of numerous other adaptations of fantasy stories, some more, but certainly
most of them less successful, into movies, audiobooks, ebooks, downloads or computer games
proves that the mode of fantasy is indeed mainly shaped by its versatility, its possibility
to revival and renewal. In this talk, I would like to suggest that the ability to revival
and renewal, which fantasy certainly has, is not necessarily to be found on the level
of storyline, plot, content or character. Fantasy does not constantly reinvent itself,
but as a mode rather has the wonderful ability to adapt itself to new tendencies and anticipations
and thus is probably more than any other mode of writing, a mirror of contemporary society.
With this thesis in mind, I would like to focus on a specific aspect of postmodern fantasy,
namely setting, which does not only include landscapes, but the entire narrative frame.
The end of the last century saw publications of many famous fantasy series, which presented
quite conventional, that is usually archaic, and pre-industrial settings. Thus, Harry
Potter's Adventures took its readers to an old-fashioned English boarding school,
the Castle Hogwarts, and the movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings presented millions
of watchers all around the world with a highly idealized and aesthetic Middle-earth, with
hobbits who live in agricultural village communities and elves with the bastions high up in trees.
These archaic and often also Anglo-Saxon settings were usually presented as the characteristic
setting of fantasy, which is also observable in the book room, if you've checked out the
covers of the various books there, they all follow this ideal. In contrast, fantasy writing
and media of the 21st century finds its most successful titles not in pre-industrial worlds,
but in contemporary or exotic settings. I would like to focus, and yes, I do dare, on
Stephenie Meyer's extremely popular Twilight series, which tells the adventures of a young
teenage girl who lives in a small town in the northwest of the United States and suddenly
falls in love with a vampire next door. And this series I will focus most upon, Nickelodeon's
famous Avatar The Last Airbender TV series. I will provide you with some visual material,
as I think that everybody is familiar with it and also to visualize it. And I will refer
to it as The Last Airbender, not as Avatar. The Last Airbender has just been made into
a movie by M. Night Shyamalan, which some of you may have seen, and combines American
and Japanese animations with settings of historical Asian cultures from Chinese temples to Eskimo
villages. I will show that these exotic places, in combination with alternative lifestyles
and reflections of contemporary tendencies, especially from Asian cultures, meet the needs
and dissipations of today's audience in a globalized and multicultural society. As I
said before, I will call these narratives postmodern fantasy after Martin Horst's definition
of the same. Here I use that our, quote, contemporary form of the fantastic is vitally influenced
both by what is called the traditional, that is the 18th and 19th century forms, and by
typically postmodern elements that strengthen and complement the traditional fantastic,
end of quote. Indeed, what the above mentioned works have in common is that their basic ideas
are not new, but they are widely influenced by former pieces of fantasy writing. Thus,
even though the image of the vampire somewhat changed since the publication of Polydorus
the Vampire in 1816, which is usually considered the first vampire fiction, the vampire figures
in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novels, although often celebrated as revolutionary, to a large
degree still very much depends on their famous predecessors, in so far as that almost every
21st century reader has a certain notion about what a vampire should be like. As various critics
have pointed out among them, Susanne Pütz and her German study, Wampir and Iraopfer, the full
probloristic revenant is often depicted as a bladder energy sucking spirit, ghost or monster
that haunts graveyards, attacks unaware travelers or kills little children. Although Stephenie Meyer
again and again particularly stated that she did not read any vampire literature to create her own
interpretation, it is undeniable that she very consciously reverses conventional vampire motifs
to adapt her characters to the 21st century idea of the attractive villain. Edward Cullen is not the
old rotting corpse and we just had a very interesting talk by Maria Zibert about this topic,
so you may have seen pictures as well. So he's not the old rotting corpse who seduces helpless
victims, nor is he a kind of father surrogate chosen by Bella to replace her failed incestuous
relationship with her biological father, a claim which for example James B. Twitchell makes, not
in concern with Twilight but with other stories. Edward is young, stunningly beautiful, has a
gentlemanly behavior, loose and court speller, he is in the true sense of the word a family guy,
he is fashionable, rich and all the trifles that were deathly to his predecessors like garlic,
crosses, holy water or wooden packs do not even tickle him. He's more a superhero than a vampire,
like for example Clark Kent, take an obvious example, he is from a small town right in the
middle of nowhere in the US which is Fawkes, where besides fog, woods and rain there's not much to be
found and in his free time when he's not doing his high school degree for the umpteenth time,
he tries to protect humans and to have a more or less ordinary relationship with his girlfriend.
Besides being dead, Edward really is the vampire or rather guy next door. So it's his girlfriend.
In another article which I wrote together with my colleague Anne Claus, who's here today,
I argue that Bella's role as an active female agent, not least in the matter of sexual intercourse,
so she's the one who wants to have sex with Edward, of course only after the marriage,
is one of the main reasons why readers all over the world, particularly female readers,
want to, maybe not care but want to identify with her and desire this conventional story of a
forbidden love between two extremely attractive characters. Women in vampire literature are
generally scarce and if they do appear are either helpless victims or femme fatales,
like Lucy Westenra in Dracula or also the vampire child Claudia in Anne Rice's interview
with a vampire, who really fulfills both parts in the end and has to die for the mistakes of her
lover slash surrogate father Louis. Bella is not a prototypical female in this sense,
although she's very very fragile of course. The average and inconspicuous girl who does not
relate well to people her age embodies the new kitten school motif, commonly found not only
realistic teenage fiction but also in late 20th and 21st century teenage high school movies,
such as, and this is only one example, there could be more Sarah Sugarman's Confessions of
a Teenage Drama Queen from 2004. Although the school story was fundamentally a British phenomenon,
when you think of schools like Tom Brown's School Days for example by Thomas Hughes from 1857,
the focus in contemporary fiction has somewhat shifted from depicting British boarding schools
towards state-funded day schools, most evidently observable in the huge successes of Walt Disney's
blockbusters High School Musical and Hannah Montana, who both sat in American high schools.
While Harry Potter is still exploring the dungeons and cellars of Hogwarts, Bella and Edward drive
to fork school in his brand new car and Edward and his vampire family were the newest and most
expensive brands. They are not vampires really but celebrities, a status which is also confirmed by
their fellow schoolmates who do not perceive the Cullens as a possible threat but rather as
untouchable high society. So the story of Bella and Edward is indeed not new, a forbidden love
has been a fascinating feature ever since Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the work was
also explicitly mentioned in the series. Vampires and gothic villains have been attractive and yet
repulsor figures since Polydorus the Vampire and the new kitten school motif is particularly
an American society and omnipresent topic in all kinds of media. The combination however of all
these features is indeed quite new and allows Maya to employ conventional narrative features
in a post-modern arrangement and thus create vast possibilities of identification
and a screen for the projected desires of her 21st century readership.
The TV series Avatar and here I have some pictures for you so that you can see what it looks like,
some of you may know it. The Last Airbender employs a similar concept but goes a step further
when in 2002 Michael Dante DiMartino and Brian Canitzko were given the opportunity to create a
TV series for Nickelodeon quote, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter were the two biggest things going
on and Nickelodeon was looking for something to answer those franchises end of quote. However the
two artists answered the studio's claim was something quite different even though the story
they came up with was not new. So what the story main is about is four nations divided by their
affiliation to one of the four elements that is earth, fire, water and air. I'd war because 100
years ago the Lord of the Fire Nation decided that the world would be a better place if they
all lived up to the Fire Nation standards. The only one who can re-establish peace is the Avatar
who is capable of wielding all four elements and the boy you see here with the blue arrow on his
head is the reincarnation of the new Avatar. Unfortunately 100 years ago he disappeared
when the world needed him most and his new incarnation is now discovered by the siblings
Sokka and Katara that are the two kids you see down below that to the right from the Southern
Water Tribe. In the idea of the Avatar who is quote generally a descend of a deity or part of a deity
and whose general purpose is to restore righteousness by destroying the wicked
and protecting the good end of quote that was from Sheth. We already see that the background
used in TV series is somewhat different from the Anglo-Saxon background or the Old Norse legends
Anglo-Saxon tales or Arthurian myth which we for example find in Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.
As Brian Knizka points out in the series bible which was published this year quote Mike and I
were big fans of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings yet we did not have any interest in creating yet
another British-based wizard-driven property. Instead we made the show out of everything we
loved pulling from our interests in Asian cultures and philosophies traditional martial arts yoga
anime and Hong Kong cinema to create our own mythology end of quote and you can see that for
example in the development of the main character Aang you see here on on the top some of the early
sketches you see that the features are still a little unbalanced the ears are pretty big the
nose is pretty prominent and down below you see the final sketches and you see the very common
or very common anime features like very very reduced lines the open eyes the very small nose
the balance features and also down below SD almost SD performances or a slapstick
basically so you can see this very good here this development. The statement by Brian Knizka reads
like a summary of post-modern pop culture the last airbender is a conglomeration of various
cultural backgrounds and philosophies not only when it comes to ideas transported through the
story but also in its visual appearance and design and to make this clear I also have some other
pictures here for you you see for example the design for the southern water tribe
and also a comment by Brian Knizka that it was inspired by the movie the fast runner
so it looks like an Eskimo village basically also we have backgrounds that look like a Japanese
dojo so this is a warrior dojo then we have huge and vast backgrounds really this one is
the palace grounds of the earth king which was inspired by the forbidden city and then of course
we have a very strong chinese influence here when it comes to the fire nation so that you can see
all this of course it combines influences of various media and also carries a sense of fan
fiction and fan art at the same time due to its process of development it is also aware of its
entertainment character and its economic potential of course that's the simple idea of four element
nations fighting against each other was chosen deliberately as Brian Knizka emphasizes quote
we were attracted to the universality of the four simple elements it makes for an instantly
understandable concept that has translated well to audiences in a number of disparate cultures
just like it did thousands of years ago end of quote the simplicity of the storyline however
is not necessarily reflected in the message the story wants to convey when production started
Nickelodeon was well aware that in order for the series to be successful the last airbender had to
depict action yet due to its target audience without emphasis on violence this claim was in
leak with the idea of Di Martino and Knizko who wanted to base the world of the last airbender
mainly on buddhist teachings of course one has to admit that the elements of buddhism presented in
the show do not necessarily follow buddhist doctrine sorry they are rather presented with
a postmodern liberty an approach which also corresponds with the idea of David Loy and Linda
Goodview who state that quote perhaps the real challenge for westernizing buddhism is not only
to express traditional buddhist teachings in modern categories but to find or create
dharma stories that is the basic buddhist teaching that resonate deeply without contemporary western
spiritual inclinations end of quote the last airbender uses fantastic features to give us
alternatives that offer a very different perspective on our world that is particularly
seen in the use or rather not use of violence fighting scenes are common in the show and feature
in almost every episode when they do occur however um sorry they are not intended to lead
to the physical or psychological destruction of the opponent thus ang so the incarnation of the
avatar knows that he will finally have to fight the fire lord who is really the bad guy in the story
yet due to his upbringing education as a monk he's a vegetarian which he emphasizes again and again
and has been taught to respect all forms of life he's looking for another solution than to kill his
enemy and although everybody including his former incarnations tells him that killing will
be the only way ang does find another solution in the council of a lion turtle i have a picture
here for you said you see what i mean this little thing to the left is a ship so just for the idea
of size like ang incarnation of wisdom and goodness the non-violent outcome of the story
is probably what differentiates show like the last airbender from twilight both certainly share
several features yet the last airbender according to brian konitko takes its sensibilities from the
japanese enemies of hiyami yazaki some of you may know him he for example um created spirited away
which won an academy award 2002 and like the movies of this old master of animation the last
airbender gives us convincing models that's a quote of how to live in a complicated and often
confusing world end of quote this is the idea of law and good view so when ang decides not to kill
the fire lord he shows as an alternative to a solution which is only too common in fantasy
fiction and which lion good view summarize as follows i quote the myth of redemptive violence
is extraordinarily attractive often irresistible because it is a simple way to make sense of our
messy world think of the plot of every james bond film every star wars film every indiana jones film
every terminator film and now every harry potter film the bad guys usually are caricatures they
must be stopped by any means necessary we are meant to feel that it is okay and let's tell the
truth it is quite pleasurable to see violence inflicted upon them because they like to kill
people it is okay to kill them after all their evil and evil must be destroyed end of quote
if we keep in mind that post-modern fantasy indeed often reflects society it is more than
obvious that ultimate destruction is not only common feature in contemporary fantasy fiction
but also in our everyday lives there's maybe another reason why for example twilight is such
a huge success certainly a larger economic success than the last airbender although stephanie mire
mixes conventional narratives in unusual way her story answers to a common formula which also
describes one of the miseries of the 21st century and i quote again from loy and good view good you
many of us now live in a fantasy world where the actualities of our own daily lives are less
meaningful than the larger than life images that dance on big screens reality has been turned
inside out the attractive self-assured media personalities we watch are more than real
or more real than we are television does not reflect reality it determines it from watching
so many films and tv stories we have learned to think that life has or should have the same
narrative structure beautiful people get the main roles it is always obvious who the bad guys are
violence is necessary to resolve conflict and it works just fine what is most valuable life is
physical prowess sexual attraction and wit the really important issue is whether to have sex
with someone and good guys deserve to consume uh live happily ever after we consume these stories
and want to live them ourselves and we are disappointed when this myth does not want to
become our reality end of quote like in centuries before some fantasies do indeed as martin horse
says present the reader with a simple-minded picture of the world that is divided into good
and evil with hardly a shade of gray in between end of quote yet some stories go beyond that
simple idea and who offers more than just a momentary reflection as i argue twilight does
due to its adaptability to the new and contemporary fantasy can show us alternatives that is
possibilities of a promising future in its core it does not teach us about wizardry or the undead
but about ourselves as which at matthews observes in fantasy the liberation of imagination quote
the maps and contours of fantasy are circumscribed only by imagination itself in fact modern fantasy
is characterized by a narrative frame that unites timeless mythic patterns with contemporary
individual experiences its stories at the hearts are about the relationship between the individual
and the infinite thanks a lot