Going Urban

I’ve just hatched a new theory.  Which is a callow, trembling thing just out of the chrysalis, but I may be onto something, so bear with me.

My theorizing was spurred by this last weekend at the Paradise Lost workshop, for which I read some of the stuff that is called “urban fantasy,” which is distinct from the other stuff that was called “urban fantasy” thirty years ago.  My theory concerns the former.  Mostly.  So here it is:

Urban fantasy is a fantasy and/or horror story, set more or less in the present day, in which the mysterious has been removed, and the occult made mundane.

Note that I am not saying this is a bad thing.  I’m being descriptive here.

I am, however, willing to state that this is probably a necessary thing.  Because the elements of urban fantasy (vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc.) have been the subject of popular culture for decades, and have featured in movies, television, theater, roleplaying and video games, etc., what was once mysterious has become mundane.  When Bram Stoker first presented Dracula to the world, Drac was a mysterious character, with unknown powers and an unknown agenda.  Much of the book is devoted to figuring out what a vampire actually is, and what it can do, and how you can stop it.

But now everyone knows the rules for vampires, and even if the author changes them here and there, everyone knows how they are changed from the standard model.  Ditto werewolves and zombies, and various sorts of Sidhe.

Now just because vampires are no longer mysterious, that doesn’t mean there can’t be a mystery about just what it is that any particular clutch of vampires is up to.  Actions can be a mystery, but the nature of the characters no longer is.  And that seems to be what happens in urban fantasy: the rules get explained early on, and then you get on with a story in which the rules and characters play themselves out.  A mystery is almost always presented, but it’s not a mystery about who these beasts are, it’s what these beasts are planning for the rest of us.  A 400-page epistolary novel in which a vampire is presented as a great unknown probably isn’t in the cards for a modern writer.  We’ve already seen the movie.

Since I’ve just come up with this idea, and have had less than twenty-four hours to think about it, I’m reasonably certain that my theory is incomplete.  It may not even be original.  So feel free to add/contradict/enlighten.

Enter freely, and of your own free will.