Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Ten Things Tuesday

My favorite type of book to read is fantasy. I recently discovered that the fourth and final book of one of my favorite series is available, yay! As I'm waiting for it to come, I've been re-reading the first three books of the series. This got me thinking...I already know the outcome of the final book. Why? Because all fantasy books are the same. So, my list for today is entitled "10 things a book must have in order to be considered fantasy"

1. A main character who is just coming into adulthood (age 16-18).
2. Said character obviously must save the world from impending doom.
3. Said character must whine and complain "why me" for at least the first book of the series.
4. Said character will have a mentor, usually an old man, who will guide him/her.
5. This mentor will die, although sometimes they come back or turn out to have never died to begin with.
6. There will be some sort of humanoid monsters (orc, goblin, or similar) who are trying to find and kill the main character.
7. There will be dwarves and elves in addition to the human race.
8. A main character will fall in love with someone who is of another race (such as human and elf) or someone of royalty.
9. There is an object of immense importance that either needs to be found or needs to be kept safe.
10. Against all odds, and after surviving every possible situation, the main character will succeed in conquering evil and save the world. This is usually through no skill of his/her own however.

2 comments:

Sharyl Williams said...

Great job on the list - I think you pretty much nailed it!
One other thing I have noticed about fantasies - some of the characters names are hard to pronounce. (of course they usually have their own language!)

gdub said...

Sounds like Star Wars to me :)