Hispanic High Fantasy

Got into a weird and disturbing argument on Tumblr this week which was… uh, not quite what I expected to face.

On the game front, WOOT YEAH GHOST OF YOTEI ANNOUNCEMENT!!1!! Also, still Dragon Age-ing. Got to the Skyhold. I am pleasantly surprised by the caliber of the game’s writing. A bit bothered by how little I’m blasting monsters, though.

Read Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States, and presently reading Latin American Writers at Work, so obviously I’m still on a Hispanic Heritage Month kick. The former is also a bit odd to read when the book was published in 2014, and it makes some political predictions that, uh, didn’t quite turn out.

On Hispanic High Fantasy

High fantasy in general tends to be very English-flavored, you know? And that’s admittedly fair in many cases, because, well, in the Anglophone world, that is the medieval (or Renaissance, or Industrial Revolution or whatever) history that we are taught in school. Not the only history, if your school was any good, but when you think kings and knights and such, you generally think of medieval England. Sometimes there are bits of other flavors there, too–Norse and Celtic are popular. Maybe you’ll get some Roman influence?

And lately, we’ve gotten some branching off into non-English fantasy. Fantasy built on East Asia, or West Africa, or Tsarist Russia. And those are fine! More representation is always good! I’m a little bummed that there’s not that much high fantasy out there based on Hispanic culture, though. It does exist: Lions of Al-Rassan and The Dinosaur Lords (surprisingly) are high fantasy stories that highlight Hispanic culture.

[That said, urban fantasy (fantasy with more real-world flavor, something like Coco, for instance) has had much more of this, and that’s great–that’s not what we’re talking about here, though. That’s another subgenre.]

Something I’ve done a few times in the past has been, “Hey, what would fantasy look like with a really heavy _____ influence?” And I figured, it being Hispanic Heritage Month, I’d do that for Hispanic culture. Remember, ‘Hispanic’ is a very broad range, covering the Spanish-speaking world, and none of these are iron-clad rules! Just ideas I’m spit-balling.

[Things like Spanish-flavored names and food should be obvious suggestions.]

ONE: Hispanic Folklore Creatures

Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to see, like, different fantasy creatures other than the ones you’re used to? Okay, yeah, it’s not like Hispanic people don’t have stories about dragons or giants. But there are other things, too. Instead of the usual English take on fairies, why not something like mouros? Or duendes? Instead of a phoenix, why not an alicanto? Instead of stone golems, why not an alebrije?

And as I’m not someone who thinks you have to be 100% faithful to the original folklore or legends when writing fantasy, you can do whatever you want with them! You can have these fill the roles of traditional fantasy creatures, or subvert those roles however you want! Remember that a lot of fantasy creatures who fit certain roles now, like goblins and such, only do so because a bunch of fantasy authors made them that way–you can carve your own stories how you want with these creatures.

TWO: Independence Stories

Historically, the fantasy genre is very comfortable with telling stories about rebelling against a tyrant. Well guess what? A lot of Latin American history involves revolutions! Spanish-speaking countries rebelled against Spain, deciding they were going to be their own nations rather than subjects of an empire across the sea. And then often, another country would take over, like France, or England, or, y’know, the US. 

Want to write a fantasy story about people rising up against tyranny? Hispanic history’s got your back. And it works well if you want to complicate things, because not all of these revolutionary leaders were really great people all the time! Fidel Castro comes to mind. Simon Bolivar turned over one of his generals (General Miranda) to the Spanish, in what is considered a horrible betrayal! So you have the ingredients to make morally complex stories here.

THREE: Religious Presence

Protagonists in high fantasy tend to be remarkably unreligious. Yeah, characters will talk about the power of their local church stand-in, but given apparently none of the main characters really believe in it, nor do any educated people they come across, it’s an informed trait at best. With a Hispanic influenced high fantasy story, you have a chance to reverse that. I’m not saying that the main character MUST be a believer, or that you need a fantasy version of the Spanish Inquisition (Lord knows we have plenty of those), but religion should have a presence.

There is so much going on with the Church scene in Latin American history. The missions, the Salamanca School, priests involved in independence movements (a priest kicked off Mexican Independence), priests and monks chronicled the history there… it’s a lot. I think there’s so much you can do with this, and sadly when people do it tends to be limited to, “Aha! Evil colonizing priests!” Fernandez-Ernesto in Our America points out that Spanish scholars decided that indigenous people were worthy of saving and shouldn’t be abused because they were human and could be made Christian. They were promptly ignored, sometimes even by other clerics, but that school of though existed–compared to English John Locke, who argued that you’re justified taking land if the indigenous people aren’t developing it productively enough, with very Anglo-centric ideas about what “developing” really means.

I’m not saying religious presence in the story must be benevolent all the way through, but it should be complex, and it should be definitely there.

FOUR: Multiculturalism

Alright, this one depends heavily on which particular culture you’re emulating, or if you’re going for a Pan-Hispanic vibe. Because Latin American culture can vary from place to place! Puerto Rico has Spanish, African, and Taino influences (the latter to the point that some Puerto Ricans act as if we’re all pure-blooded Taino, but that’s a rant for another time) on its culture. Mexico has Spanish, Aztec, Mayan, and other indigenous influences. And heck, if you even stick with Spain: Spain was inhabited by the Muslim Moors for ages, has a long Jewish tradition (albeit, one that was suppressed and kicked out, unfortunately), and other cultural representations. Do you know there were black conquistadors? There were black conquistadors.

My point is this: to feature the Hispanic world is to feature a multicultural one, even if you’re just focusing on Spain itself. Not all those cultures are going to get along, obviously, but they’re there, and they all made their impacts on the countries they shared. You can write stories about how those peoples all interact, and how they unite or separate in the conflicts of your fantasy world.

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