Editing Sword & Sorcery (section)

==What is it?==
Sword & Sorcery is a hard genre to define for many; it overlaps heavily with, if is not the same as, [[Heroic Fantasy]] - focusing intimately on a singular protagonist or a small group of protagonists, and concerning itself with personal issues, rather than the grand, sweeping, world-shaking threats of [[High Fantasy]]. Sword & Sorcery is larger-than life and action-focused, and usually characterized by the antiheroic nature of its protagonists - they are almost always motivated by matters of self-interest. Many S&S protagonists are [[murderhobo|aimless wanderers of life, drifting from battle to battle driven by little more than whim and chance]].

Some (Wikipedia) have defined Sword & Sorcery as a mixture of fantasy, horror and mythology with historical romance, action and swordplay; the most famous of the S&S worlds ever published, [[Hyperborea]] and [[Zothique]], are a lost primeval Earth and a far-flung future Earth respectively. 

Likewise, some argue that a "true" S&S setting is distinctly low magic; the iconic vision of a Sword & Sorcery protagonist is a driven, grim, hard-bitten warrior who stands against [[fiend]]s, [[aberration]]s, [[dinosaur]]s and evil [[mage]]s armed with nothing more than grit and a trusty sword. Others argue that this isn't so; [[Zothique]] featured magic or even spell-wielding protagonists fairly extensively. Fritz Leiber's protagonist "The Gray Mouser" had originally trained as a wizard before becoming a sell-sword. And [[Elric]] was a demonblade-wielding [[warlock]] from a highly magical world.

Sword & Sorcery tends to shamelessly incorporate pulp-era science fiction into its ostensibly fantastical world; [[Frazetta Man]] was born in this kind of setting, tentacled monsters out of the Cthulhu Mythos make frequent appearances (although rarely to the bleak outcomes Lovecraft envisioned), and [[dinosaur]]s often stand in for [[dragon]]s.

===80s S&S vs. Classic S&S===
During the 70s and 80s, and to an extent even the 90s, [[/co/]] media generated a number of series that resemble Sword & Sorcery in many ways, but diverted from them in very clear ways. As noted above, S&S is often thought of as a [[Low Fantasy]] subgenre, with only [[human]] protagonists and magic being restricted to long-winded, esoteric rituals mostly aimed around [[Conjurer|summoning beings from other planets and dimensions]], assuming it even works at all as opposed to being largely smoke, mirrors, psychology and trickery. But these shows and series presented a new kind of S&S; one that mixed in elements of [[High Fantasy]] without fundamentally losing their S&S feel - wizards were introduced with strong magical powers, even protagonists might use magic (usually not the main protagonist, but at least one sidekick or ally was frequently a wizard or mage of some sort), and non-human protagonists were also featured.

There are arguments that "80s Sword & Sorcery" isn't actually S&S at all, but its own new genre, but nobody has yet come up with a satisfactory name for them.

Examples of 80s S&S include:
* [[Masters of the Universe]]
* Thundercats
* Galtar and the Golden Lance
* Thundarr the Barbarian
* [[Conan the Adventurer]] (a rare 90s example)