Talk:List of fantasy worlds

Suggestions
Maybe turn this list into a table, with column labels: Name, Divisions, Source, Type, etc. to padronize additional information. And it should list the name the place gets in the material, not the name it gets in the real world. E.g., Abeir-Toril is the planet and Faerûn is the subcontinent, of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of the Dungeons & Dragons RPG; so Abeir-Toril is the world, with Faerûn, Zhakara, Kara-Tur, etc. as divisions. Not "Forgotten Realms" as listed. Similarly, Tolkien's Middle-Earth is a fraction of Arda; the world then should be Arda, with Middle-Earth as a division, together with Aman (Undying Lands), Dark Lands, Númenor, etc. --Ed.capistrano (talk) 12:44, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Fictional fantasy vs mythologic
Well, somebody just included "EA" as from Sumerian/Babylonian mythology... well, we ought to define "fantasy" (as in from old tales that are forentertainment or little kids) from "mythology" (with serious and/or religious overtones) because I don't feel the two should be left to mix. and if you don't agree, let me know too, it can't hurt. --Svartalf 00:10, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Descriptions?
Maybe we should add some short (3-4 lines) descriptions after each world in the list (see the list of heroic fictional scientists and engineers)? I know it isn't easy to summarize an entire world in three lines, but at least a few destinctive features would be mentioned (like that Drakan is a world once dominated by dragons who later disappeared from view or that ZanZarah is a world of magic supported by countless fairies). At the very least, we could mention to which fantasy subgenre each world belongs. What do you think? --Koveras 11:14, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, I think, it wasn't such a good idea after all... PS: I just tried to write something about Middle Earth. =) --Koveras [[Image:Flag of Russia.svg|25px]] 13:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Alagaësia?
Why is this fantasy world at the top of the list?

Shouldn't "Middle Earth" From the Lords of the Ring trilogy be at the top of the list?

Anker99 21:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Alphabetical order, not order of importance Shandristhe azylean 00:07, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Moree links
I am adding links to external lists of Fantasy Worlds, but I think more sites or wikis need to be added. It will be good if someone can add more sites.Solar Apollo (talk) 16:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I am removing the links to external websites on imaginary worlds. The consensus of merging Fantasy and Imaginary world was "not merge", so it has no use here anymore.200.46.133.196 (talk) 00:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Earths
Do Gothic Earth (from the old AD&D Masque of the Red Death setting), the Urban Arcana world (for D20 Modern) and White Wolf's World of Darkness count as fantasy worlds? Or does it have to be a completely invented world, rather than "Earth with magic"? 92.19.46.241 (talk) 21:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Malazan world.
This is a list of fantasy worlds. In Steven Erikson's fantasy series the world is not "Malazan Book of the Fallen", that is the name of the series. Alan 16 talk  09:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Star Wars planets
Should Star Wars planets be included in this list of fantasy worlds? Although Star Wars has I number of fantasy elements, I would rather classify it as science fiction. Star Wars planets already appear in Planets in science fiction. Therefore I would vote not to include them in this list. Any opinions about this? Daranios (talk) 15:07, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * As no other opinions have appeared, I have removed Star Wars locations from the list. Daranios (talk) 18:59, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I was going to ask the same about the Jurassic Park section. Not only is JP technically soft science fiction, not fantasy, I'm not sure it really counts as a "world" per se. Most of what happens only takes place on a couple of islands. 74.243.14.152 (talk) 15:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I would vote to also exclude Jurassic Park, as it is science fiction, not fantasy. Daranios (talk) 19:29, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have removed the Jurassic Park template. I agree that the topic has no place in this list but even if it did that template doesn't. MikeEagling (talk) 01:58, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Clean up
Okay this is gonna take some work but I want to do some general cleanup on this mainly involving whittling this down to a more productive amount of content. I would like to start with all black listings (neither the named world nor the small descriptor for it have any links. I am also gonna get rid of other entries that appear to advertisement such as "Caelereth, fantasy world created at the world creation project Santharia.com".  Any other suggestions for some cut down criteria? tyvm Pudge MclameO (talk) 06:21, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Davy Jones' Locker?
Is "Davy Jones' Locker" really a fantasy world?

The answer is "no" btw. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.10.157 (talk) 22:32, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Changing wording of lede to avoid duplicate entries
During the current cleanup, I've noticed that there are many entries listed multiple times in the different sections, largely due to a fantasy setting appearing in one medium, before having books spun off from them, or vice verse. Examples of this include things like the D&D worlds and various video game settings. Since the repeated entries all link to the same article, this does not seem particularly useful, and makes the list appear more bloated than it actually is. I was thinking that if we changed the wording of the lede a bit from simply "according to the medium they appear in" to something like "according to the medium they first appeared in", it would allow us to limit each fantasy world to only one listing. So, for example Abeir-Toril would only appear under the "Table-top gaming" heading and Hyrule would only appear under "Computer and Video games", rather than appearing under multiple headings. Any thoughts on this? Pinging User:Daranios, User:Dream Focus and User:Clarityfiend for their feedback, as they've been heavily involved with the cleanup. Rorshacma (talk) 16:15, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't mind the duplication we have now, but I don't really have a problem with Rorshacma's suggestion, either. Just wondering if for Krynn the RPG or novels would come first. Another way to avoid duplication might be to make this a sortable table with first appearance and other appearances as columns. But I am not sure how to organize this in way so that it looks ok. Daranios (talk) 19:17, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Something like:

Media key:
 * In chronological order
 * A: anime and manga
 * C: comics and graphic novels
 * F: film
 * G: gaming (tabletop)
 * M: music
 * N: novels and short stories
 * T: television
 * V: video games

Clarityfiend (talk) 19:57, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Of course, many of the columns should be sortable, but you get the idea. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:00, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, a chart like that would also solve the issue quite nicely, and actually make it a lot easier to find information on what media sources the locations have appeared in. I would definitely support a format like this.  Rorshacma (talk) 20:41, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Looks nice to me, thanks! Would we need another column like "Series/Franchise" or something? Because in many instances that's what we currently have rather than the first appearance. E.g. Randland, where "First appearance" would be The Eye of the World, but the broader and more well-known picture is The Wheel of Time series. Or would we rather allow under "First appearance" the first book/game/whatever OR the most well-known book series, etc.? But if so, how to communicate that? Daranios (talk) 15:39, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I think adding an extra column for "Franchise" would be the better choice than having the "First Appearance" column be multi-purposed. Obviously there are a few entries that would be an "N/A" for that, since they are standalone works, but the vast majority are part of a franchise of some sort, so I think having that extra column would be worthwhile for navigational purposes.  Rorshacma (talk) 16:14, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thinking about it, the franchise/series could also go into the "Description" column if we like. "The world of the Wheel of Time series." would be a much easier description to come up with than summarizing many a fantasy world in a few words. Just an idea. Daranios (talk) 17:03, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea. I had actually been thinking that the "Description" column might wind up being a lot of work, which may not be strictly necessary since the purpose of this list would be providing a direct link to readers to the full articles/section describing the worlds already.  Using that to simply state what franchise/series it is from seems like it would fulfil that purpose without being overly difficult. Rorshacma (talk) 17:14, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I've started the conversion with the biggies from the novel realm. Feel free to add to it and correct my mistakes. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:51, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
 * First mistake: Barsoom is science fiction. D'oh! Clarityfiend (talk) 21:55, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The A Princess of Mars article calls this science fantasy, given the stories' sometimes magical quality, so I think inclusion in both lists of sci-fi and fantasy would be no problem. Daranios (talk) 14:57, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * That article is a bit self-contradictory. It labels it a planetary romance, which defines itself as "a subgenre of science fiction". I've read a fair number of books in the series. There's plenty of swords, but no sorcery nor anything supernatural that I can recall. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:48, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Question: Should Middle-earth be listed? Arda is the world, and Middle-earth is only a continent in it. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I think Middle-earth should be included somehow: On the one hand Arda (Tolkien) is only a section in the cosmology of Tolkien's legendarium, and on the other hand to quote the Middle-earth article/Tolkien scholar Michael Drout: "Arda is the name of the world. However, "Middle-earth" is widely used for the whole of Tolkien's legendarium". It's also my personal experience that Middle-earth is much more widely known than Arda. Thanks for your work, Clarityfiend! Daranios (talk) 14:57, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree that "Middle-Earth" should be the entry listed in the article. While technically "Arda" is the name of the world, the name Middle-Earth is way more well known.  I took a stab at integrating the Video Game section into the chart.  If I made any mistakes, feel free to correct them!  As a note, I did leave the entry for Planescape off for now, as I was not quite sure what to put for the information on its first appearance (would we count it as when the Planescape Campaign Setting was released?  Or when the concept of the planes was introduced in D&D?), and figured someone like Daranios might have a better idea on how to include its information.  As a note, I used the company that produced the games as the "Creator" for these, unless a creator of the world was explicitly specified in the article, such as the case of Ivalice.  Rorshacma (talk) 17:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I've tried to do the Planescape Multiverse. I didn't find the question easy and settled for a compromise for the first appearance: To my knowledge, the concept of the planes was introduced in The Dragon #8, already in 1977, but only as a 2-page article, and briefly mentioned in later books. The Planescape Campaign Setting is of course the first appearance with the setting name, and most in-depth. But the AD&D 1st edition Manual of the Planes already does a book-length treatment, so I've settled for that, put Planescape in the description, and would let those interested in the finer points look at the linked articles. I guess there will be editorial judgments to make in a number of cases, where one has to decide if "First appearance" should be first mention anywhere, or first extensive/well-known treatment. Daranios (talk) 10:49, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about the primacy of Middle-earth this morning. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:48, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Science fantasy
Should entries in this genre be included (e.g. Darkover, Barsoom, Pern, maybe Pellucidar)? I'm leaning toward no. Where's the magic? Clarityfiend (talk) 19:33, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I'd say definition-wise science fantasy belongs to both genres, and therefore for navigation purposes should be included. Well, at least if there's a reliable source saying it's sience fantasy.
 * Abou the individual suggested settings, I can't really remember specific instances of magic that were not in the end explained as disguised science in what I know of the Barsoom series, so I would defer to your deeper knowledge there. I have read one novel of the Darkover series a long time ago, and I remember that I very much percieved it as fantasy until there was a revelation in the end that it was a planet reached by spaceships, etc. It has the medevial society tropes of fantasy, and there is the "laran", which is supernatural (magical, if you will, even though it seems mostly telepathy, which is a trope that regularly appears in sci-fi, too). So here I'd judge more on the fantasy side of science-fantasy. Don't personally know the others. Daranios (talk) 14:35, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

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