by Jonny Jimison
I need a map.
Whether a story is set in a fantasy world or the real world, I want to be able to chart it with my eyes, to follow the contours of the journey and anticipate where it might head next. So I want to cheer every time I see that a storyteller has included a map of their fictional world. The map of Aerwiar, for example, in Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga, or David Peterson’s map of mouse settlements in Mouse Guard. When I was young, I even had a map of the Star Wars galaxy, showing a two-dimensional representation of all the planets. I’m no hyperspace navigator, but I’m pretty sure that outer space doesn’t work that way. I spent an awful lot of time staring at that map, though, daydreaming about hopping between planets in a space freighter.
C. S. Lewis really blew my mind with his Chronicles of Narnia map, for here was the English-fairy-tale kingdom of Narnia next door to the Arabian-Nights-style empire of Calormen. That’s a whole different genre! Is that even allowed? When we cross the border into Calormen, I suddenly expected entirely different things from the story, because the setting was so different.
And then—you knew we were headed in this direction—there are, of course, J. R. R. Tolkien’s maps of Middle Earth, in the epic Hobbit tales that first inspired my own fantasy, The Dragon Lord Saga.
With Tolkien as my guiding light, The Dragon Lord Saga has always been a fantasy story. A very English, medieval, fairy-tale-type fantasy story. And I haven’t played fast and loose with genre conventions, either—it’s all here: the old bearded king in the regal castle, the beautiful princess with a fiery disposition, dragons and knights, and a band of outlaws. Call it what it is: It’s the Renaissance fair, it’s Dungeons and Dragons. It’s Merry Olde England.
But in The Dragon Lord Saga, we’re going to call it Westguard.
Located in the fertile valley between the great sea and the Eastern mountains, Westguard is situated in a prime spot for agriculture. Lush fields yield generous crops and provide excellent grazing land for livestock. The rivers that run through the land are broad and boat-friendly, and they lead to the sea by way of a towering pillar of rock, upon which has been built the capital city of King’s Haven. From the rich forests and orchards of the Eastern foothills to the renowned wrights and craftsmen of the Western villages, this slice of the world is truly a paradise for native and traveler alike. —Olive Eggers, Admittedly Biased Historian of Westguard
This version of Merry Olde England features everything I love about the setting: The people live a quaint, pastoral life, tending to their crops and livestock and gathering each evening for stouts and stories at the local inn. Adventurers roam the countryside—knights and bandits and seekers of fortune. And what would a version of Merry Olde England be without a Robin Hood? We’ve got one, and I even named her Robin.
Wait. Why am I sticking so fiercely to the tropes, instead of charting someplace new?
Well, let’s go back to that Robin Hood example. Since the 1400s, stories have circulated about the mythic outlaw, and he’s become a thousand things along the way—every generation and culture to pass down his story has shaped and reshaped the myth to fit how they see themselves and the world around them. But along the way, some of Robin Hood’s characterizations have been left behind, while others have risen to the surface as evergreen elements of the Robin Hood mythos: There’s always a band of outlaws, always a forest hideout, and always a mission to fight the tyranny of corrupt authority on behalf of the common folk. The character has grown beyond his origins to represent something more elemental.
It happened to a character. The same thing can happen to a setting.
One of my favorite books, Celluloid Skyline by James Sanders, explores the relationship between real-life New York City and the mythical movie version of New York City. In the days of early Hollywood, any time a film was set in the Big Apple, the action and drama of a Hollywood script brought out a side of the city that felt larger than life. Later, when silent films gave way to talkies, a host of playwrights were lured to Hollywood—because, after all, they knew how to write dialogue, which was what the talkie audience wanted. These transplanted New Yorkers were disillusioned with the culture shock of Hollywood, so they rhapsodized about New York with a nostalgic fervor, further coloring the mythic Hollywood version of New York. Each new generation of writers, directors and moviegoers shaped and reshaped the myth, and, over time, New York City became larger than life.
The same goes for what I’ve been calling Merry Olde England. Over time, the castle turrets and thatched cottages have come to be shorthand for some very big ideas. For example: The pastoral village is a perfect setting for our heroes to leave behind, pushing themselves beyond its quaint familiarity into the dangers of the unknown. And as soon as we’ve entered the familiar setting of the fairy-tale kingdom, the tone is set: This is a story with swords and dragons. We’ve entered fairy-tale world, and it’s time to get mythical.
Of course, for all its use as a story setting, we could always dress it up a bit. When Bilbo Baggins leaves his village, it’s an idyllic Shire full of Hobbit-holes; when Luke Skywalker sets out on his quest, he’s leaving a backwater desert planet. Compared to that, Martin and Marco’s Westguard is positively medieval.
Maybe it all comes down to dragons. You really do need a medieval kingdom if you’re going to fight actual dragons, right?
Well, maybe not. It’s worth noting that another major influence on Westguard is the kingdom of Hyrule from the Legend of Zelda. Hyrule takes the classic fantasy story tropes and recontextualizes them, shuffling banners and parapets with elements of Eastern folklore, world religions, and modern children’s storybooks. In this kingdom, ye olde knights and innkeepers are neighbors with exotic people from exotic places, as the map expanded to include the tranquil rivers of the fish-like Zora and the volcanic homeland of the rock-like Goron.
This was a delight to me—who says a map has to be limited to one genre? Narnia shared a border with Calormen, Hyrule is up the street from Zora’s domain . . . Who says trolls and dwarves can’t meet spacemen? Or samurai?
Or cowboys?
So that’s how we got here. In volume three, Dragons and Desperados, we get cowboys. This book is a full-fledged, rootin’ tootin’ Western. Which is admittedly confusing, because it’s set in the South of the map, not the West.
On the very outskirts of the nation of Tema is a little town called Winchester. Tucked between the rugged mesas of the Eastern badlands, Winchester barely has any contact with the larger jurisdiction of Tema, existing instead on local trade and the mining enterprises of the Ozai family. Travelers are advised to avoid this town—the badlands are a lawless, savage and dusty place. Winchester is a town of splintering wood and peeling paint, and . . . it kind of smells funny. —The Mysterious Squidley Norkins
Like Merry Olde England, the Western genre has outgrown its roots to become something more mythic. Cowboys and their horses, sheriffs and saloons, the great frontier and the open range . . . the qualities that make a story a Western are a stacked deck. So stacked, in fact, that they can easily be transported from the original setting (the American West in the late 19th century) to other times and places, creating fun mixes like the Northern Western (set in the Alaskan frontier instead of the Western frontier), or the Space Western (like Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, or the best parts of Star Wars).
There’s even a Fantasy Western genre that explores Western ideas in a high-fantasy setting . . . but that’s not what I’m doing in The Dragon Lord Saga. Just like Merry Olde England, I imported my Western setting wholesale: desperados in the badlands, corrupt sheriffs and lawless towns, epic frontier vistas. I actually got a bit carried away and had to rewrite the book three times to keep the focus on our heroes and not get sidetracked by rabbit trails about gunfights and local politics.
When I finally whittled the Western genre down to the size of my book, what I found at its heart was a conflict of morality. Sometimes a Western hero has to take a stand against a black-hearted gunslinger; sometimes the hero is the black-hearted gunslinger, and he has to wrestle with his own conscience. Sometimes the conflict is with nature itself, and survival against the elements means grappling with the darkest parts of human nature.
Far from the pretense of civilized culture, out on the plains where there ain’t no law, the Western genre makes a solid case that the wild frontier always forces a clash between good and evil.
As Martin and Marco move forward with their journey, we’ve been digging deeper into their story and their hearts. What started as a simple quest when they left home has exposed their deeper story little by little, and when they return, they’ll be changed by the journey. That’s why we reached the wide desert of Zwoosh in book two, and now we’re in the badlands of Winchester in book three—our characters are being laid bare by the wilderness.
That’s the power of a mythic setting: Sometimes you’re in a royal kingdom, and sometimes you’re in the lawless badlands. And it shapes your story.
As for me . . . amongst the desk work and vacuuming and eating lunch, I think I’ve been to both the kingdom and the badlands today. It’s shaping my story, too.
Jonny Jimison is a cartoonist, writer and illustrator. In addition to his graphic novel series The Dragon Lord Saga, he is the illustrator of When Going on a Dragon Hunt for Bandersnatch Books and creator of the webcomic Rabbit Trails for the Rabbit Room.
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Photo by Jakob Braun on Unsplash