57-616: The Shannara Chronicles is an American fantasy drama television series created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar . It is an adaptation of The Sword of Shannara trilogy of fantasy novels by Terry Brooks . It follows three heroes as they seek to protect an ancient tree to stop the escape of banished demons. The series was filmed in the Auckland Film Studios and on location elsewhere in New Zealand. The first season of The Shannara Chronicles premiered on MTV in
114-819: A behind-the-scenes feed and MTV Hits went dark. The nominations were announced on July 21, 2015 via Apple Music 's Beats 1. Nominees for the social media-driven category, Song of Summer, were announced on August 18, 2015. Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar were tied with most nominations, 10. Ed Sheeran had 6, Nicki Minaj had 4. Taylor Swift (featuring Kendrick Lamar ) – " Bad Blood " Mark Ronson (featuring Bruno Mars ) – " Uptown Funk " Taylor Swift – " Blank Space " Fetty Wap – " Trap Queen " Taylor Swift – " Blank Space " Fall Out Boy – " Uma Thurman " Nicki Minaj – " Anaconda " Taylor Swift (featuring Kendrick Lamar ) – " Bad Blood " Kendrick Lamar – " Alright " (Directors: Colin Tilley and
171-461: A city in the clouds with the birds and challenges Zeus 's authority. Ovid 's Metamorphoses and Apuleius 's The Golden Ass are both works that influenced the development of the fantasy genre by taking mythic elements and weaving them into personal accounts. Both works involve complex narratives in which humans beings are transformed into animals or inanimate objects. Platonic teachings and early Christian theology are major influences on
228-690: A feudal society hindering the modernization of China. Stories of the supernatural continued to be denounced once the Communists rose to power, and mainland China experienced a revival in fantasy only after the Cultural Revolution had ended. Fantasy became a genre of pulp magazines published in the West. In 1923, the first all-fantasy fiction magazine, Weird Tales , was published. Many other similar magazines eventually followed, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ; when it
285-564: A large audience. Lord Dunsany established the genre's popularity in both the novel and the short story form. H. Rider Haggard , Rudyard Kipling , and Edgar Rice Burroughs began to write fantasy at this time. These authors, along with Abraham Merritt , established what was known as the "lost world" subgenre, which was the most popular form of fantasy in the early decades of the 20th century, although several classic children's fantasies, such as Peter Pan and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , were also published around this time. Juvenile fantasy
342-471: A main plot element, theme , or setting . Magic, magic practitioners ( sorcerers , witches and so on) and magical creatures are common in many of these worlds. An identifying trait of fantasy is the author's use of narrative elements that do not have to rely on history or nature to be coherent. This differs from realistic fiction in that realistic fiction has to attend to the history and natural laws of reality, where fantasy does not. In writing fantasy
399-412: A new style of "fuzzy" supernatural texts. The fantastic is on the dividing line between supernatural and not supernatural, Just as during this time period the women were not respecting the boundary of inequality that had always been set for them. At the time, women's roles in society were very uncertain, just as the rules of the fantastic are never straightforward. This climate allowed for a genre similar to
456-613: A single source. The Welsh tradition has been particularly influential, due to its connection to King Arthur and its collection in a single work, the epic Mabinogion . There are many works where the boundary between fantasy and other works is not clear; the question of whether the writers believed in the possibilities of the marvels in A Midsummer Night's Dream or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight makes it difficult to distinguish when fantasy, in its modern sense, first began. Although pre-dated by John Ruskin 's The King of
513-474: A teaser trailer was revealed, giving audiences a first look at the sets and characters. A television version of the trailer was shown during the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards . The Shannara Chronicles premiered on MTV in the United States on January 5, 2016, with a two-hour series premiere. New episodes were broadcast every Tuesday at 10 pm ET . The third and fourth episodes were released online after
570-399: A teen-friendly Game of Thrones ." The second season received a 100% approval rating based on five reviews. Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times wrote: "So give this reasonably absorbing series a little credit, even though it often seems to be merely reworking various fantasy formulas. It moves quickly and does a nice job of weaving together two story lines involving an elfin world that
627-674: A wide audience, with the success of Robert E. Howard 's Conan the Barbarian and Fritz Leiber 's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. However, it was the advent of high fantasy , and most of all J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , which reached new heights of popularity in the late 1960s, that allowed fantasy to truly enter the mainstream . Several other series, such as C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia and Ursula K. Le Guin 's Earthsea books, helped cement
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#1732787690369684-624: Is One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) , which is a compilation of many ancient and medieval folk tales. Various characters from this epic have become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin , Sinbad and Ali Baba . Hindu mythology was an evolution of the earlier Vedic mythology and had many more fantastical stories and characters, particularly in the Indian epics . The Panchatantra ( Fables of Bidpai ), for example, used various animal fables and magical tales to illustrate
741-726: Is also often used to refer to this genre by the Anglophone literary critics. An archaic spelling for the term is phantasy . Fantasy is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these can occur in fantasy. In popular culture , the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that emulate Earth, but with a sense of otherness. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy consists of works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians from ancient myths and legends to many recent and popular works. Many works of fantasy use magic or other supernatural elements as
798-476: Is threatened when a giant tree, known as the Ellcrys, begins to die." Maureen Ryan of Variety wrote: "Sure, Shannara , which harks back to the golden age of syndicated genre fare, is a standard quest journey in which there are trolls, gnomes, living trees and magic books, and characters say things like, 'If Allanon is here, there are dark days ahead.' But there's conviction in the show's execution." The series
855-632: The Epic of Gilgamesh . The ancient Babylonian creation epic, the Enûma Eliš , in which the god Marduk slays the goddess Tiamat , contains the theme of a cosmic battle between good and evil, which is characteristic of the modern fantasy genre. Genres of romantic and fantasy literature existed in ancient Egypt. The Tales of the Court of King Khufu , which is preserved in the Westcar Papyrus and
912-521: The Elder Edda and the Younger Edda , includes such figures as Odin and his fellow Aesir , and dwarves , elves , dragons , and giants . These elements have been directly imported into various fantasy works. The separate folklore of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland has sometimes been used indiscriminately for "Celtic" fantasy, sometimes with great effect; other writers have specified the use of
969-639: The Forbidding—locked by an ancient tree called the Ellcrys. The series chronicles the journey of Wil, Amberle, and Eretria who, with the guidance of the last druid Allanon, must go on a quest to protect the Ellcrys from dying and prevent releasing all the banished demons back into the Four Lands. Sonar Entertainment and Farah Films acquired the TV rights to the Shannara universe in 2012. In December 2013, it
1026-600: The Golden River (1841), the history of modern fantasy literature is usually said to begin with George MacDonald , the Scottish author of such novels as Phantastes (1858) and The Princess and the Goblin (1872); the former is widely considered to be the first fantasy novel ever written for adults. MacDonald was a major influence on both J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis . The other major fantasy author of this era
1083-769: The Little Homies) OK Go – " I Won't Let You Down " (Choreographer: OK Go , air:man and Mori Harano) Skrillex and Diplo (featuring Justin Bieber ) – " Where Are Ü Now " (Visual Effects: Brewer, GloriaFX, Tomash Kuzmytskyi and Max Chyzhevskyy ) Snoop Dogg – " So Many Pros " (Art Director: Jason Fijal) Beyoncé – " 7/11 " (Editors: Beyoncé , Ed Burke and Jonathan Wing) Flying Lotus (featuring Kendrick Lamar ) – " Never Catch Me " (Director of Photography: Larkin Seiple ) Big Sean (featuring Kanye West and John Legend ) – " One Man Can Change
1140-592: The RPG products sold in 2005. The science fantasy role-playing game series Final Fantasy has been an icon of the role-playing video game genre (as of 2012 it was still among the top ten best-selling video game franchises ). The first collectible card game , Magic: The Gathering , has a fantasy theme and is similarly dominant in the industry. Fantasy encompasses numerous subgenres characterized by particular themes or settings, or by an overlap with other literary genres or forms of speculative fiction. They include
1197-689: The Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson , and the Harry Potter films, two of the highest-grossing film series in cinematic history. Fantasy role-playing games cross several different media. Dungeons & Dragons was the first tabletop role-playing game and remains the most successful and influential. According to a 1999 survey in the United States , 6% of 12- to 35-year-olds have played role-playing games. Of those who play regularly, two thirds play D&D . Products branded Dungeons & Dragons made up over fifty percent of
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#17327876903691254-476: The Supernatural in the 1890s and 1920s , Lizzie Harris McCormick, Jennifer Mitchell, and Rebecca Soares describe how the social climate in the 1890s and 1920s allowed for a new era of "fantastic" literature to grow. Women were finally exploring the new freedoms given to them and were quickly becoming equals in society. The fear of the new women in society, paired with their growing roles, allowed them to create
1311-505: The United States on January 5, 2016, and consisted of 10 episodes. MTV originally greenlit a second season in April 2016 and in May 2017, it was announced that the series would relocate to Spike (now Paramount Network ). The second season premiered on October 11, 2017, and concluded November 22, 2017. On January 16, 2018, it was announced that the series had been cancelled after two seasons and that
1368-505: The air of uncertainty in its narratives as described by Todorov. Jackson also introduces the idea of reading the fantastic through a psychoanalytical lens, referring primarily to Freud's theory of the unconscious, which she believes is integral to understanding the fantastic's connection to the human psyche. There are however additional ways to view the fantastic, and often these differing perspectives come from differing social climates. In their introduction to The Female Fantastic: Gender and
1425-438: The author uses worldbuilding to create characters, situations, and settings that may not be possible in reality. Many fantasy authors use real-world folklore and mythology as inspiration; and although another defining characteristic of the fantasy genre is the inclusion of supernatural elements, such as magic, this does not have to be the case. Fantasy has often been compared to science fiction and horror because they are
1482-591: The central Indian principles of political science . Chinese traditions have been particularly influential in the vein of fantasy known as Chinoiserie , including such writers as Ernest Bramah and Barry Hughart . Beowulf is among the best known of the Old English tales in the English speaking world, and has had deep influence on the fantasy genre; several fantasy works have retold the tale, such as John Gardner 's Grendel . Norse mythology , as found in
1539-433: The ceremony's airing on the flagship MTV network alone had one of the lowest audience in the ceremony's 31-year history (with the following year's ceremony being the lowest of all time). According to Nielsen , it logged 5.03 million viewers on MTV, 39% less than the previous year, while cumulative viewers drew 9.8 million with the nine other simulcasting networks. The lowest viewed edition since Nielson began tracking in 1994
1596-644: The circular effect that all fantasy works, even the later The Lord of the Rings , were therefore classified as children's literature . Political and social trends can affect a society's reception towards fantasy. In the early 20th century, the New Culture Movement 's enthusiasm for Westernization and science in China compelled them to condemn the fantastical shenmo genre of traditional Chinese literature. The spells and magical creatures of these novels were viewed as superstitious and backward, products of
1653-646: The convention. The first WFC was held in 1975 and it has occurred every year since. The convention is held at a different city each year. Additionally, many science fiction conventions, such as Florida's FX Show and MegaCon , cater to fantasy and horror fans. Anime conventions, such as Ohayocon or Anime Expo frequently feature showings of fantasy, science fantasy, and dark fantasy series and films, such as Majutsushi Orphen (fantasy), Sailor Moon (urban fantasy), Berserk (dark fantasy), and Spirited Away (fantasy). Many science fiction/fantasy and anime conventions also strongly feature or cater to one or more of
1710-469: The difference of critical traditions of each country have led to controversies such as the one led by Stanislaw Lem . Rosemary Jackson builds onto and challenges as well Todorov's definition of the fantastic in her 1981 nonfiction book Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion . Jackson rejects the notion of the fantastic genre as a simple vessel for wish fulfillment that transcends human reality in worlds presented as superior to our own, instead positing that
1767-495: The end of the show. During his acceptance speech, Kanye West announced that he would be running in the 2020 United States presidential election . Taylor Swift won the most awards with four, including Video of the Year and Best Female Video. The VMA trophies were redesigned by Jeremy Scott . This 2015 edition was seen by 9.8 million people in the United States during its simulcast across ten Viacom -owned networks. However,
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1824-566: The event was held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles , California , and hosted by Miley Cyrus . Taylor Swift led the nominations with a total of ten, followed by Ed Sheeran , who had six, bringing his total number of mentions to 13. Swift's " Wildest Dreams " music video premiered during the pre-show. Cyrus also announced and released her studio album Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz , right after her performance at
1881-514: The fantastic is a liminal space , characterized by the intrusion of supernatural elements into the realistic framework of a story, accompanied by uncertainty about their existence. However, this precise definition is not the predominant one in English critical literature, and the French term fantastique is used to differentiate the French concept from the broader English term of fantastic, synonym of fantasy. The restrictive definition of Todorov and
1938-429: The fantastic represents the unspoken desire for greater societal change. Jackson criticizes Todorov's theory as being too limited in scope, examining only the literary function of the fantastic, and expands his structuralist theory to fit a more cultural study of the genre—which, incidentally, she proposes is not a genre at all, but a mode that draws upon literary elements of both realistic and supernatural fiction to create
1995-554: The fantasy publisher Tor Books , men outnumber women by 67% to 33% among writers of historical, epic or high fantasy. But among writers of urban fantasy or paranormal romance, 57% are women and 43% are men. Fantasy is studied in a number of disciplines including English and other language studies, cultural studies , comparative literature , history and medieval studies . Some works make political, historical and literary connections between medievalism and popular culture. French literature theorists as Tzvetan Todorov argues that
2052-478: The first time, women started to possess more masculine or queer qualities without it becoming as much of an issue. The fantastic during this time period reflects these new ideas by breaking parallel boundaries in the supernatural. The fantastic breaks this boundary by having the readers never truly know whether or not the story is supernatural. 2015 MTV Video Music Awards The 2015 MTV Video Music Awards were held on August 30, 2015. The 32nd installment of
2109-655: The first trailer debuted on July 10, 2015. Filming for the second season, which also consists of 10 episodes, began January 31, 2017, in New Zealand. The opening theme song, "Until We Go Down", from the EP "Up in Flames", is performed by Ruelle . Other songs featured in the show's first season include " Midnight " by Coldplay , "You Are a Memory" by Message to Bears, " Wave " by Beck and "Run Boy Run" by Woodkid. During The Shannara Chronicles panel at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2015,
2166-549: The first two episodes aired on January 5, 2016, prior to their original broadcast schedule. The series was simulcast on MTV in Canada. The two-hour pilot also aired on Bell Media sister network CTV on Wednesday, January 6, 2016. The series has also been licensed to a number of different countries, including the United Kingdom (airing on 5STAR ), Australia ( Syfy ) and New Zealand ( Sky TV ). On January 16, 2018, it
2223-536: The following: In her 2008 book Rhetorics of Fantasy , Farah Mendlesohn proposes the following taxonomy of fantasy, as "determined by the means by which the fantastic enters the narrated world", while noting that there are fantasies that fit none of the patterns: Publishers, editors, authors, artists, and scholars with interest in the fantasy genre get together yearly at the World Fantasy Convention . The World Fantasy Awards are presented at
2280-528: The genre is inseparable from real life, particularly the social and cultural contexts within which each work of the fantastic is produced. She writes that the "unreal" elements of fantastic literature are created only in direct contrast to the boundaries set by its time period's "cultural order", acting to illuminate the unseen limitations of said boundaries by undoing and recompiling the very structures which define society into something "strange" and "apparently new". In subverting these societal norms, Jackson claims,
2337-633: The genre's popularity. The popularity of the fantasy genre has continued to increase in the 21st century, as evidenced by the best-selling status of J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter series, Robert Jordan 's The Wheel of Time series, George R. R. Martin 's Song of Ice and Fire series, Steven Erikson 's Malazan Book of the Fallen sweeping epic, Brandon Sanderson 's The Stormlight Archive series and Mistborn series, and A. Sapkowski 's The Witcher saga. Several fantasy film adaptations have achieved blockbuster status, most notably The Lord of
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2394-415: The major categories of speculative fiction . Fantasy is distinguished from science fiction by the plausibility of the narrative elements. A science fiction narrative is unlikely, though seemingly possible through logical scientific or technological extrapolation, where fantasy narratives do not need to be scientifically possible. Authors have to rely on the readers' suspension of disbelief , an acceptance of
2451-510: The modern fantasy genre. Plato used allegories to convey many of his teachings, and early Christian writers interpreted both the Old and New Testaments as employing parables to relay spiritual truths. This ability to find meaning in a story that is not literally true became the foundation that allowed the modern fantasy genre to develop. The most well known fiction from the Islamic world
2508-414: The producers were shopping the series to other networks. The series was later considered officially concluded. Season 1 of The Shannara Chronicles roughly follows the storylines set out in the novel The Elfstones of Shannara , (the second book of the Shannara trilogy) set in the fictional Four Lands. As the series opens, demons start to return after having been banished from this world to a place known as
2565-458: The several subcultures within the main subcultures, including the cosplay subculture (in which people make or wear costumes based on existing or self-created characters, sometimes also acting out skits or plays as well), the fan fiction subculture, and the fan video or AMV subculture, as well as the large internet subculture devoted to reading and writing prose fiction or doujinshi in or related to those genres. According to 2013 statistics by
2622-676: The show. In December 2014, it was announced that Manu Bennett would star as Allanon and in January 2015 Ivana Baquero , Austin Butler , Poppy Drayton , Emelia Burns and John Rhys-Davies joined the show. Malese Jow , Vanessa Morgan , Gentry White, Desmond Chiam and Caroline Chikezie joined the cast as series regulars in season two. Filming for the 10-episode first season wrapped in New Zealand at Auckland Film Studios in June 2015, and
2679-465: The social structure to emerge. The fantastic is never purely supernatural, nor can the supernatural be ruled out. Just as women were not equal yet, but they were not completely oppressed. The Female Fantastic seeks to enforce this idea that nothing is certain in the fantastic nor the gender roles of the 1920s. Many women in this time period began to blur the lines between the genders, removing the binary out of gender and allowing for many interpretations. For
2736-494: The unbelievable or impossible for the sake of enjoyment, in order to write effective fantasies. Despite both genres' heavy reliance on the supernatural, fantasy and horror are distinguishable from one another. Horror primarily evokes fear through the protagonists' weaknesses or inability to deal with the antagonists. While some elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were a part of literature from its beginning, fantasy elements occur throughout ancient religious texts such as
2793-408: The way his story has been adapted. Much like the television adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire , the series was not a direct adaptation following the narrative order of the books , but featured a mix of the books' stories. The first book of the series to be adapted is The Elfstones of Shannara , the second book in the trilogy, with some elements of the other novels being gradually adapted to
2850-603: Was William Morris , an English poet who wrote several novels in the latter part of the century, including The Wood Beyond the World (1894) and The Well at the World's End (1896). Despite MacDonald's future influence with At the Back of the North Wind (1871), Morris's popularity with his contemporaries, and H. G. Wells 's The Wonderful Visit (1895), it was not until the 20th century that fantasy fiction began to reach
2907-400: Was announced that a series based on the books was being produced for MTV and had been given a straight-to-series, 10-episode order. On April 20, 2016, MTV greenlit a second season of The Shannara Chronicles . The series was produced by Dan Farah, Jon Favreau , Miles Millar , Al Gough , Jonathan Liebesman , and author Terry Brooks . Brooks has stated in an interview that he is happy with
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#17327876903692964-645: Was announced that the series had been cancelled after two seasons. Producers later announced that the series is being shopped to other networks. The series was later considered officially concluded. The Shannara Chronicles has received mixed reviews, receiving a 52/100 score on Metacritic , based on 15 reviews and a 54% for season 1 on Rotten Tomatoes based on 26 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads: " The Shannara Chronicles wears its influences heavily on its sleeve and needs to find surer footing before it can tap its true potential, but it still might suffice for viewers in search of
3021-483: Was considered more acceptable than fantasy intended for adults, with the effect that writers who wished to write fantasy had to fit their work into forms aimed at children. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote fantasy in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys , intended for children, although his works for adults only verged on fantasy. For many years, this and successes such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) created
3078-401: Was founded in 1949, the pulp magazine format was at the height of its popularity, and the magazine was instrumental in bringing fantasy fiction to a wide audience in both the U.S. and Britain. Such magazines were also instrumental in the rise of science fiction, and it was at this time the two genres began to be associated with each other. By 1950, " sword and sorcery " fiction had begun to find
3135-512: Was in 1996, with 5.07 million viewers. This broadcast, however, broke the "US Twitter record", being the most tweeted about non-sports program, with 21.4 million tweets delivered by 2.2 million people. It was also streamed live through the MTV app for authenticated users on mobile devices and television sets via iOS , Android and Chromecast . Through its website, viewers could also get to see un-aired audience shots and backstage coverage. mtvU aired
3192-537: Was nominated for a Saturn Award for "Best Fantasy TV Series" for the 2015–2016 season. Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction which involves themes of the supernatural , magic , and imaginary worlds and creatures . Its roots are in oral traditions, which became fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century, it has expanded further into various media, including film , television , graphic novels , manga , animations , and video games . The expression fantastic literature
3249-548: Was probably written in the middle of the second half of the eighteenth century BC, preserves a mixture of stories with elements of historical fiction, fantasy, and satire. Egyptian funerary texts preserve mythological tales, the most significant of which are the myths of Osiris and his son Horus . Myth with fantastic elements intended for adults were a major genre of ancient Greek literature . The comedies of Aristophanes are filled with fantastic elements, particularly his play The Birds , in which an Athenian man builds
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