Non-European Magical Traditions you want to see in fantasy?

I'm a fan of the Chinese elemental system (metal, wood, fire, water, earth) over the classic Greek one.

I know I got quite a bit of inspiration for my current project from the magical traditions of various Native American tribes. You could also look into Aztec and Mayan mythology, which are very different and underused.

Vodou done properly (i.e. not how Hollywood does it) is fascinating. I love a lot of Chinese Taoist mythology too, as well as what I've managed to learn about the native Australian traditions.

There's a lot of world out there to play with if you look for it - I read a really cool urban fantasy last year that mixed Hawaiian and Korean mythological gods with a sort of Old Western spirit (Hang Wire by Adam Christopher) and that worked really well.

All the same don't forget that the majority of readers like something they're at least vaguely familiar with - not many people will want to have to keep looking up references to understand what you're talking about so if you're going to go non-western you'll need to put things in a context your readers will get.

More displaced spirit / spirit house stuff in the southeast Asian vein. So much potential to play with there, especially considering all the detail they go to with miniatures and offerings and whatnot.

I loved the movie Sprited Away, which (I think) incorporated some Shinto beliefs. I'd love to see some novels that explore that kind of world.

Also, it would be interesting to see some fantasy or alternative history stories that are based on Hindu beliefs. I haven't run across many in fantasy, aside from some cartoonish (and almost certainly inaccurate) representations of some of their "evil" gods who aren't (as far as I know) regarded as evil by people who practice the religion.

But I tend to read secondary world fantasy more than historical fantasy or alternative histories, and that's what I write, so I try to make things up from scratch as much as anyone ever can (given that we're products of our own cultures and have been influenced by our past reading). When I set out to create a magic system (if that's the right word), or a religion, I want it to be one that drives (or at least affects) the story and its conflicts in ways that feel compelling to me. I don't think my magic systems are usually based on any particular culture or tradition, or if they are, the resemblance is accidental.

I actually feel a bit shy about borrowing beliefs and systems from the real world, especially if they're from a culture or religion that's still extant or part of the heritage of a culture I know just a little about. It's so easy to think you're just playing with, even paying a tribute to something fun and different, then to learn that you've warped or trivialized something fundamental to another person's identity or culture.

I'd really prefer to see made-from-scratch traditions. But if we're gonna limit it to plundering the real world, seconding the desire to see more Shinto stuff, whether intended to be related, or just structurally similar.

Some of the heroic age stuff from the Native American mythology could also be cool. Some of the rare European mythology, like the Slavic stuff. Some of the pre-Islamic middle-Eastern stuff.

I read Akata Witch a while back, which can best be described as 'Nigerian Harry Potter'. Excellent, authentic look at African belief systems and how you can cobble them in to working magic.

^whoa! cool

I like the idea of using real-world magical beliefs as a starting point. You don't even have to take a whole "magic system." Take one aspect you find very interesting and then twist it in such a way that you still know what it is but it has taken on a life of its own.

I often like to take real-world inspiration for my magic systems. I've been toying around with one based on physics and other sciences. (On a similar note, I'm pretty sure Brandon Sanderson got his ideas for Mistborn from his time as a Biochemistry major. It seems like the metals in Mistborn are a pared down version of magic based on the Periodic Table of Elements.)

Inspiration is out there everywhere. It's simply a matter of having the creative vision to take something from the real world and twist it into something that's both familiar and unexpected.

Kjbartolotta said:

I read Akata Witch a while back, which can best be described as 'Nigerian Harry Potter'. Excellent, authentic look at African belief systems and how you can cobble them in to working magic.

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That sounds awesome. I will be looking that up.

I wouldn't mind seeing more West African based fantasy. Anansi the Spider is a very interesting legend I'd like to see in a fantasy novel.

Anansi Boys by Neal Gaiman may or may not fit the bill here.

Roxxsmom said:

I actually feel a bit shy about borrowing beliefs and systems from the real world, especially if they're from a culture or religion that's still extant or part of the heritage of a culture I know just a little about. It's so easy to think you're just playing with, even paying a tribute to something fun and different, then to learn that you've warped or trivialized something fundamental to another person's identity or culture.

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+1

I'm more in favor of diversity of authors writing from their own cultures.

When you're talking about lesser-known cultures, it's easy to get things wrong, and when representation is at a premium, getting it right is all the more important. IMO, this becomes even more important in fantasy and magic, because you're almost certainly going to be taking some liberties, which means you need to be comfortable enough with the culture to go somewhere potentially dangerous with it.

That's why I get uncomfortable and nervous whenever I see people writing about Native American traditions for this reason.

kuwisdelu said:

+1

I'm more in favor of diversity of authors writing from their own cultures.

When you're talking about lesser-known cultures, it's easy to get things wrong, and when representation is at a premium, getting it right is all the more important. IMO, this becomes even more important in fantasy and magic, because you're almost certainly going to be taking some liberties, which means you need to be comfortable enough with the culture to go somewhere potentially dangerous with it.

That's why I get uncomfortable and nervous whenever I see people writing about Native American traditions for this reason.

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Yeah... I'd definitely like to see some diverse authors writing about their own cultures, and maybe less people writing about other cultures they may not understand like a native.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Yeah... I'd definitely like to see some diverse authors writing about their own cultures, and maybe less people writing about other cultures they may not understand like a native.

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I wonder how many bad anime-influenced versions of Japanese magical beliefs are out there in the world of unpublished/self-published fantasy.

kuwisdelu said:

+1

I'm more in favor of diversity of authors writing from their own cultures.

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Me too, though I've read some good non-western-inspired fantasy that was written by white people. The problem, of course, is there are things I probably miss.

It is hard, however, when the word on the street is that European-inspired fantasy is rather saturated right now. I'm pretty sure that anything I write will, at some level, show my own cultural roots or influence, even if the characters aren't white and the story takes place in (say) the tropics or another setting that doesn't resemble Europe.

Does this mean white writers like me should take a hiatus from fantasy for a while?

kuwisdelu said:

That's why I get uncomfortable and nervous whenever I see people writing about Native American traditions for this reason.

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I also wonder if some non-European cultures may be more off limits to white, western writers than others. Native Americans, for instance, have been so marginalized and abused that some people think they're fair game in the way that bygone civilizations like the ancient Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, or Egyptians, are.

It's one thing to write a goofy story about a society that's inspired by Ancient Egypt, even if you get many details about that culture wrong (or change them to suit your story), and one that misrepresents a culture or religion that still exists and is sick of being alternatively, exploited, and misrepresented. In the former case, some historians may stick forks in their eyes if they read it, but you won't be hurting a group of people in the same way.

And how powerful and prominent does a culture have to be before their historical stuff is fair game in the same way European cultures are fair game? If someone wants to write a fantasy culture that's kinda sorta inspired by Han Dynasty China, but departs from it in many of the particulars, is that all right, even if they're not of Chinese descent, or even an expert on that culture?

Roxxsmom said:

It is hard, however, when the word on the street is that European-inspired fantasy is rather saturated right now. I'm pretty sure that anything I write will, at some level, show my own cultural roots or influence, even if the characters aren't white and the story takes place in (say) the tropics or another setting that doesn't resemble Europe.

Does this mean white writers like me should take a hiatus from fantasy for a while?

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Personally, I feel like Americana-inspired fantasy is a huge wide-open sub-genre right now.

But beyond that, why do things always need to be inspired by real-world cultures? Seriously, fuck that. It's boring. It's copy-cat. Forget it.

Come up with something truly fucking original. Not just a re-hash of some world culture.

Is that really so hard?

kuwisdelu said:

Personally, I feel like Americana-inspired fantasy is a huge wide-open sub-genre right now.

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I think you're right, but I have little interest in writing fantasy set in something inspired the colonial period, or the old west, or the gold rush or other US history inspired times. I kind of like the whole swords and sorcery, quasi-classical era, and early gunpowder-era vibe.

Also, I struggle with how to write something that has an early Americana feel without addressing the issues of colonialism and the treatment of Native Americans (I don't want to just pretend they don't exist). One fantasy book I can think of that kind of tried to do this is a secondary world was Robin Hobb's Soldier's Son trilogy. There were some things I really liked about this, but the way she portrayed one of the native cultures (it felt kind of like an "all plains Indians stand in") bugged me. I'm not sure what her inspiration for the Speck culture was, or if it was more or less made up from scratch, but it felt a bit clumsy too. The most interesting part of the story for me was Nevarre's relationship with his father, cousin, his best friend, and the woman he met later on, and those could have taken place in any setting. But imo, Hobb's strength always was in writing relationships in her other books too.

But beyond that, why do things always need to be inspired by real-world cultures? Seriously, fuck that. It's boring. It's copy-cat. Forget it.

Come up with something truly fucking original. Not just a re-hash of some world culture.

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That's sort of my thinking too, though I know my sense of general aesthetics is still very influenced by architecture, clothing and other trappings of certain times and places, even if I change a lot of things about the cultures and history of my world. I have a novel set in a sort of early gunpowder technology level, though with quite a few changes (it's a matriarchy, for instance, and of course there's magic, and a religion that's not, as far as I know, like any particular real world one).

But I keep going back and forth on how people should dress. Since women have a great deal of social freedom and mobility compared to the real early modern era, it's silly to think they'd be burdened with the kinds of clothes women were required to wear at a similar time in our world, but do I want men and women to dress exactly the same? That seems unlikely too. And what if men are the "pretty" ones in this world? That makes sense if women control most of the wealth and men have to prove their value to join a wealthy, female-centered clan when they marry. They'd be strutting around like peacocks.

But could most readers get into a story with a male main character who is more worried about his hair getting mussed than the female one is?

Then I start thinking about architecture and think winder why they should be living in houses that look like ones from England at that time, aside from obvious constraints of climate (it's kind of like the pacific northwest climate wise). Same for foods and other such things. Why can't they have turkey, yams and rice? No reason they have to come from different continents in this world.

But certain kinds of things are comfort food to me. Not boring. To be honest, brilliantly original fantasy like Updraft (with its emphasis on flight and living towers of bone) are something I admire, but not my go-to preference. And I prefer to imagine my characters in settings that are more ... comfortable, or at least a bit more familiar (since I also like to make them pretty miserable). I think it's because when I visit historical places, I really enjoy trying to imagine what it would feel like to live in a house or town like those and then I start to make up stories that twist things but retain a basic aesthetic.

Roxxsmom said:

But certain kinds of things are comfort food to me. Not boring. To be honest, brilliantly original fantasy like Updraft (with its emphasis on flight and living towers of bone) are something I admire, but not my go-to preference. And I prefer to imagine my characters in settings that are more ... comfortable, or at least a bit more familiar (since I also like to make them pretty miserable). I think it's because when I visit historical places, I really enjoy trying to imagine what it would feel like to live in a house or town like those and then I start to make up stories that twist things but retain a basic aesthetic.

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This is exactly how I feel too, and I think the vast majority of readers would agree. Everyone has a rough idea of what a castle is like so you can just picture something suitable and move on with the story rather than having to try and get your head around a living tower of bone. When I'm reading I'm always more invested in the characters and the plot than the setting anyway, so I must admit I like a setting that doesn't take an effort to visualise.

I always assumed the Specks were more like the Pacific Northwest? Or, at least, that was the goal, I thought, however inaccurate the execution prolly was. After all, America had a similar goal to get the railroads through to the West Coast as does Gernia to build their road through the Plains and the Speck's forests to give the country a coast again.



I actually don't think it's that hard to be original, or at least divorce your fantasy culture from the real-world one such that it's hard to recognize. But people are so enamored of the real-world cultures they're borrowing from, as shown by rwm's example of anime-inspired fantasy, to actually do that. Jay Kristoff's Stormdancer being a good example of an obviously Japanese inspired fantasy, down to the improperly-used actual Japanese words. It would have been relatively easy, given the glossary necessary to explain the Japanese terms, to take it a couple steps further, and be an inspired culture rather than a (poorly) copied one.


I have a Celtic-inspired project sitting around somewhere that I think would be very hard to connect to the original source-material, such that no one would know it was Celtic-inspired. It's obviously harder to hide some inspirations than others, of course, because our categories of inspiration are so entrenched: We have two famous empires used for inspiration of imperials cultures, such that not only are they obvious as sources of inspiration, but other sources of inspiration are transparent by comparison, such as the Mongol and Persian Empires.

kuwisdelu said:

Personally, I feel like Americana-inspired fantasy is a huge wide-open sub-genre right now.

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The only thing that I can think of (off the top off my head) that seems to be Americana-inspired is that Bioshock Infinite video game. Lot of red, white, and blue, patriotism, and good old racism, lol.

I don't know, I can think of a lot of Americana-inspired things in genre - Interview with the Vampire, Fevre Dream, The Stand, most of Joe R Lansdale's output and pretty much everything Poppy Z Bright ever wrote. Vampires especially might not be an American idea originally but none of those stories would be the same in a European setting.

American Gods is the most 'American-inspired' piece of genre fiction that comes to mind, though it borrows a lot from everywhere (which makes sense, given America's roots). It's a great read, though not without its flaws.

Poppy Z Brite's work, as PeteMC said, is a fantastic shout for American spec fic -- her vivid descriptions of America were a hugely inspiring thing when I was a wee goth reading her work. Urban Fantasy as an entire subgenre has a very distinctively American feel to me, as well: the whole tight, always-active, diverse supernatural cities in that genre are very American, and have such a different, distinct voice compared to urban fantasy from other parts of the world.