Within high fantasy exists a range of fictitious beings. Yet there within the subcategory of “unreal” creatures there are some that are more or less real than others. What do I mean? While none of these monsters may live in any sense, some were developed based on the experiences of people in various cultures in the past (griffins, dragons, and giants, for example), while others are adopted from fictional accounts many years in the past so that they join the others in their mythical status (hippogriff), or those from modern literature which have no precedent (beholders from D&D, myrddraal from The Wheel of Time series). There is some overlap between categories, especially when considering that modern fantasy has been around for well over a century if you consider the work of authors such as L. Frank Baum, George MacDonald, and Lewis Carroll as the beginning of modern fantasy. The fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons further muddied the waters by incorporating creatures found in books such as The Lord of the Rings and altering the names slightly to avoid copyright issues from the Tolkien Estate (hobbits were renamed halflings, ents were renamed treants, and so on) which made the presence of creatures such as halflings in fiction much easier. One could argue that Tolkien’s use of elves and dwarves made these creatures his own invention; a fact largely ignored or not realized by the majority of fantasy readers who see them used in stories by authors following him. Despite the general impossibility of keeping each category completely distinct, I think there’s a question here worth asking.
Is it better to invent new monsters or use old ones?
The boring–and therefore most likely to be correct–answer is that it comes down to a matter of execution and that neither is better than the other. Since I’m not quite such a contrarian as to willingly choose to be wrong for the sake of being interesting, I will instead try to adopt a more specific view that is only slightly more controversial insofar as it is less general. My thesis in this case can be covered under a number of points:
- Original and adopted creatures differ almost entirely in their purpose and execution when they are done well.
- When an author attempts to mix elements innate to one group within the other it CAN cause problems for the reader.
- Mixing those elements works best when the reader’s understanding of the creature’s inspiration or name is low.
Regarding the first point, it may seem questionable to think that original and adopted creatures are anything other than simply “monsters.” What appreciable difference is there between using a dragon or a varlinhoi (i.e. a completely made up thing) if they are described the same way? Allow me to answer:
EXPECTATION.
A completely unknown creature carries with it a curiosity and sense of the unknown. When characters speak of it before I get to see it the anticipation and curiosity builds. When it is eventually shown, I get to wonder what it’s capable of and whether or not it’s friendly. My expectations for the monster are solely the product of the author’s foreshadowing. This is in sharp contrast to a preexisting monster. If an author mentions a dragon, I have some basic idea of what is meant. I have certain expectations for the abilities of a dragon based on years of seeing them in books, film, and art. If the “dragon” is described as a small, furry creature with a flicking tail that likes to nap and occasionally purrs, then I’m going to be disappointed that the author has conflated “dragons,” with “cats.”
The strengths of creating a new creature versus using an old one should be better explained so that one can see the merits of each and why they serve different purposes. New creatures allow us to visit a world much more alien than our own. The Dark Crystal illustrates this point perfectly. Every being in that film is entirely unknown to the first time viewer. The power of doing that means that the viewer essentially walks on unstable ground where everything is new, wondrous, and dangerous. This is a strength of original monsters. Another virtue of using an original creature is that one can use a mostly preexisting thing but change it in whatever way would normally not work. For example, imagine that I liked dragons but wanted something with fur instead of scales that exhaled fog instead of fire and had bird wings instead of bat wings. If I called such a creature a “dragon” others might feel (justifiably) misled. If, on the other hand, I refer to it as a catragon, then I suddenly have a cool original monster I can play around with! It doesn’t suffer from people claiming that it’s not what an *actual* dragon is, and yet it can still do stuff like destroy villages or get distracted by small moving lights. In this way, the original monster actually blinds the reader to its purpose and nature which works especially well in the novels of Brandon Sanderson.
What about using an old creature? Who wants to deal with the expectations of others? Well, for one thing, it’s a lot easier to attract readers with promises of griffins and dragons than with monsters no one has ever heard of. Why? Because the tradition behind these beings fascinates us. Most girls growing up preferred to be mermaids over gerbalabs. Do you know why? Because I just made that word up. No one has any reason to care about something they’ve never heard of before. The adopted creatures allow the reader to mostly ignore references to them assuming the reader has heard of them before. If I write “The vampires stole her father,” you don’t have to wonder whether or not a “vampire” is bipedal or quadrupedal, whether it prefers daylight or nighttime. Even if my execution of a vampire differs from that of others, it’s still going to be enough the same that readers will not need to memorize a new word while simultaneously trying to discern its meaning. If this sounds easier to do than inventing your own, then you’re right! Well, kind of. Not exactly. This leads into the second part of this blog post which will cover the last two points I made.