Do You Sea What I Sea
Quick! Think of a fantasy map! What do you see?
I would be willing to bet that the image that popped into your head has a few key features. There's a long line of mountain ranges, deserts to the east or south, a frozen north, a huge land to the east extending far beyond the map, and an ocean or sea to the west.
Examples of this include:
Middle Earth from Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Alagaesia from the Inheritance Cycle
Faerun from Dungeons and Dragons
So, why is this? Why are so many of these maps so obsessed with just showing the west coast? I think there might be several reasons.
The first and most obvious of what might have influenced this is, as with many things in the Fantasy genre, J.R.R. Tolkien. As the father of nearly everything in fantasy, it's very likely that the maps in his books inspired later worlds and maps just as his interpretation of folklore races did. However, while that might be the direct connection, nothing is ever truly, completely original. Even the great Tolkien was influenced and inspired by something. That something is Europe.
Looks familiar, don't it?
This is further proof to the ethnocentrism that, whether through Tolkien or colonialism and the spread of the British Empire, has wormed its way into every corner of the fantasy genre, influencing even the very landscape of the worlds themselves. This even shows up when the audience is shown the entire map of the world as it puts the Europe equivalent near the center in the same way most of our square maps do for our world.
Granted there are examples of fantasy worlds that don't follow this rule. Narnia from C.S. Lewis's imagination and Azeroth from World of Warcraft are two of the best examples of this, along with Earthsea from Ursula K. Le Guin. Though Ursula K. Le Guin is no surprise here as she often went purposefully against the grain in nearly everything she wrote. Additionally, C. S. Lewis was a contemporary of Tolkien writing at nearly the same time, so it might be that he constructed his map as a counterpoint since there are records of members of their writing club putting subtle jabs at each other in their prose.
However, this trend toward a Western sea and a mysterious East also hints at two other social forces possibly at play. The first is the lingering ideals of Manifest Destiny, which specifically pointed toward the West as being a wide open, mysterious direction of exploration and wonder. While these ideas were primarily an American concept, and so might not have held strong influence over Tolkien, later writers from our country, such as Robert E. Howard, were likely doubly influenced by both Tolkien and Manifest Destiny. From there it spread to others.
The other social force is the much maligned, and rightly so, trend toward Orientalism in Western cultures. Setting the east as a mysterious, but dangerous place rather than the wonders of the West is nearly textbook in its depiction of the Orient. This is especially so when the East is characterized by a vast desert as Orientalism implies the entire Middle East to be.
All these working together have created a trend that is difficult to escape in constructing fantastical settings.
I would be willing to bet that the image that popped into your head has a few key features. There's a long line of mountain ranges, deserts to the east or south, a frozen north, a huge land to the east extending far beyond the map, and an ocean or sea to the west.
Examples of this include:
Middle Earth from Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Alagaesia from the Inheritance Cycle
Faerun from Dungeons and Dragons
So, why is this? Why are so many of these maps so obsessed with just showing the west coast? I think there might be several reasons.
The first and most obvious of what might have influenced this is, as with many things in the Fantasy genre, J.R.R. Tolkien. As the father of nearly everything in fantasy, it's very likely that the maps in his books inspired later worlds and maps just as his interpretation of folklore races did. However, while that might be the direct connection, nothing is ever truly, completely original. Even the great Tolkien was influenced and inspired by something. That something is Europe.
Looks familiar, don't it?
This is further proof to the ethnocentrism that, whether through Tolkien or colonialism and the spread of the British Empire, has wormed its way into every corner of the fantasy genre, influencing even the very landscape of the worlds themselves. This even shows up when the audience is shown the entire map of the world as it puts the Europe equivalent near the center in the same way most of our square maps do for our world.
Granted there are examples of fantasy worlds that don't follow this rule. Narnia from C.S. Lewis's imagination and Azeroth from World of Warcraft are two of the best examples of this, along with Earthsea from Ursula K. Le Guin. Though Ursula K. Le Guin is no surprise here as she often went purposefully against the grain in nearly everything she wrote. Additionally, C. S. Lewis was a contemporary of Tolkien writing at nearly the same time, so it might be that he constructed his map as a counterpoint since there are records of members of their writing club putting subtle jabs at each other in their prose.
However, this trend toward a Western sea and a mysterious East also hints at two other social forces possibly at play. The first is the lingering ideals of Manifest Destiny, which specifically pointed toward the West as being a wide open, mysterious direction of exploration and wonder. While these ideas were primarily an American concept, and so might not have held strong influence over Tolkien, later writers from our country, such as Robert E. Howard, were likely doubly influenced by both Tolkien and Manifest Destiny. From there it spread to others.
The other social force is the much maligned, and rightly so, trend toward Orientalism in Western cultures. Setting the east as a mysterious, but dangerous place rather than the wonders of the West is nearly textbook in its depiction of the Orient. This is especially so when the East is characterized by a vast desert as Orientalism implies the entire Middle East to be.
All these working together have created a trend that is difficult to escape in constructing fantastical settings.
Looking at all the maps you shown really helps to bring to light how many fantasy worlds not only burrowed many of the races and ideas of Lord of the Rings but its whole idea us of Europe as a basis for their world map as a whole. This bothering me due to the wide variety of areas around the world one can use for construction of their lands or even go as far as to make a unique one. Even after reading this I found Elder Scrolls to have their land of Tameriel to look like a partial destroyed Europe though they do try to change the climate in some areas. Hammerfell to be northwest but mostly a desert and Skyrim ,until the recent retcon in the Skyrim game, was a lush forest.
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