'The Abyss' Trope

Alternate title: It's okay to steal and why you should.

When it comes to crafting a narrative, even one that is made to be unique and explore untested waters, there are bound to be some basic themes and concepts that are borrowed from or inspired by other pieces of work; or maybe entirely separate concepts that line-up together from complete coincidence. These 'tropes' as we dub them may have a name commonly synonymous with a negative connotation, but they don't necessarily have to represent the mark of an unimaginative storyteller incapable of innovation and creation by themselves. Oftentimes, the fact that these concepts even become tropes in the first place is because they are so rich of ideas, with such range to them, that they can be used again in completely unique narratives, perhaps even to achieve a different purpose, and still be interesting. The very act of an idea becoming a 'trope' marks it as one of some value, worthy of revisiting or reconstructing time and time again. (I mean, as the adage goes: "Good artists take, great artists steal". Or something to that avail.) To celebrate and familiarise myself with that, I want to explore once such trope as it exists within a few prominent fantasy worlds; the 'Abyss' trope.

When it comes to creating various factions and world forces in a fantasy setting, purpose and function can really stretch the limits of the imagination as the storyteller can get to describing factions as mundane as trade blocks to forces as wild as governing bodies for the very laws of nature. 'The Abyss', as it most commonly exists in the examples I've noticed, generally leans towards that latter extreme; telling of a force, often somewhat conscious, made up of, or representative of, complete and total nothingness. An 'Abyss' between the material of reality whereupon nothing should exist, and yet does. Of course, it's not always called 'Abyss', that's just one of my more colourful names I've noticed for it, sometimes it has a more descriptive name in 'The Void'. A somewhat philosophical concept when you think about it: live substance representing the lack thereof, so you can already sort of see the legs of such an idea and how it gets around. Still, I've picked out four fantasy worlds who I believe all have examples of such a concept, to various extremes, to see the different ways one might approach it, and thus the variety with which any storyteller can approach any trope in general. (Savvy? Good.) 

First up, Genshin Impact. That's right, the game often accused of stealing it's very soul from Breath of the Wild, and the idea of various newer updates from other properties or games since. (I can definitely see the Windwaker comparisons for the Summer Island update) This game has it's own take on the 'Abyss' trope, and it comes in the form of the oft-ignored major enemy faction: The Abyssal Order. Rather than being anything as esoteric as a faction borne entirely from the lack of everything, there's an actual comprehensive, if still-in-process, explanation behind them that I think holds an interesting parallel to the Abyss trope. The order, as it is told, hail from the land of Khaenri'ah, the location of the upcoming penultimate chapter of the main Genshin story and the one land that doesn't actually exist in Teyvat.

That is because this land, unlike every other in the game, isn't ruled over by a god, or Archon, making it totally unique against everything else we've seen in the game so far and linking to the concepts of false god hood that keep being bought up in the story. This society ends up coming to ruin, and the Abyssal Order are it's remnants striking out at the god-ruled lands with some unknowable end in mind. For this instance, the concept of 'the Abyss' is synonymous with destruction, or even just the absence of Divinity. As though being without the guiding hand of some sort of god is to be lost, creating some interesting interpretations for the message; is freedom itself 'the abyss'? That questions like this can be even be derived by something as ostensibly straightforward as Genshin Impact speaks wonder for the effect of the trope on the narrative, although until the story of Khaenri'ah is expanded we're working purely with speculation at this point. 

Next I've bought up the Divinity franchise, classic Role Playing games that I've often lambasted for their callously noncommittal approach to worldbuilidng that leads to large swathes of the universe and the forces that govern it being rewritten on a dime. Point-in-case, it wasn't until the Original Sin series that the games suddenly decided that the big-bad entity you should be struggling against is 'The Void'. Here we're talking about a much more literal interpretation of the concept, with 'The Void' representing the absence of matter entirely, a place of nothingness between space and time wherein nothing can exist. 

Yet from that void comes agents intent on dragging all that does exist back towards nothingness, and thus the ultimate goal of this 'Void' always seem to lay down a blanket of nonexistence over everything. In this sense, the trope presents it's 'Abyss' as a force of primordial nature intrinsically opposed to all that is, almost in spite of common sense and reasoning. An approach that feels like it excludes deeper introspection but I'm sure we could wax lyrical about the meaning behind meaningless if we were really desperate to search for meaning. We're not, however, and I'd call Divinity's interpretation of 'The void' as the prototypical approach from which to compare all others.

And now onto my favourite; the world of Dark Souls. In this universe ruled by primordial flames, wisps of souls and the dark essence known as Humanity, it only makes sense that the approach towards 'The Abyss' and it's role in the overall narrative is atypical. This is one of those games that also, famously, has a highly interpretive foundation for the lore, thus nailing specific concepts such as this one are difficult without coming to one's own conclusions on the matter. 'Abyss' seems intrinsically linked the concept of 'Humanity', (otherwise known as 'shards of the Dark Soul') and seems to represent the other end of the spectrum to the 'hollowing' we see throughout the majority of the franchise. Hollowing represents someone who has lost all their souls and humanity and thus lost themselves in the process, whilst becoming consumed by the Abyss appears to be (again, up to interpretation) given oneself over to the chaos of Humanity and being overwhelmed by it's influence.

Some significant moments throughout the franchise present pockets of Abyss as this chaotic consuming force that constantly threatens to corrupt and/or swallow all around it. (Although, crucially, still distinct from the wild nature-tied force known as 'Chaos') 'The Abyss' is still represented as overwhelming darkness, but it seems to stand for something more than just total annihilation, more like pure selfish consuming greed, perhaps even the hungry tyranny of Humanity itself. There's a lot to be said for allegory and the way it works within Dark Souls, but the take away I want for this blog is the plain fact that even a trope ostensibly presented like normal can still underlie deeper and interwoven concepts and thus evolve the original trope.

Last but by no means least is the version of this trope that I understand least, as it comes from that font of lore just a little too deep for me to get a complete handle over it all; D&D. This Abyss, or 'The Infinite Layers of the Abyss, is actually a plane of existence, rather than just the space between planes, placing it line with other realms such as The Prime Material plane (main setting for most of DnD) and the various other 'building blocks of reality'-esque planes. This Abyss is actually full with a great deal of substance to it, being as how it's home to The Nine Hells and several other antagonist realms besides. It's not perhaps the singular source of everything bad within the worlds of D&D, but it certainly houses it's demons, and demons make for pretty tempting scapegoats in any story

Interestingly, D&D's interpretation of 'The Abyss' is a lot less matter-of-fact and passive than other contemporaries. Whereas the Abyss might still be threatening in other stories, it's usually out of unconscious compelling of nature rather than concerted malice. This Abyss, though not exactly a sentient force of it's own, still stands to represent some form of pure evil; giving us an actual tag of the antagonistic on this version of the trope.  

There we have different shades of the same concept in merely a handful examples that still manage to drastically change the form, role and even purpose of the trope in question; making the idea seem wholly distinct in many interpretations. Although the Void/Abyss always does seem to be something to fight against, perhaps indicative of that natural human desire to stave off oblivion and the call of the void, everyone had a different idea of what form that takes and even how active of a foe this Abyss/Void is. (I even suspect Genshin Impact might try to make us feel sympathetic of the Abyss for it's final chapter, whenever that eventually launches) Perhaps from that you've seen the utter deluge of complexity and choice still available to a storyteller from a single borrowed idea. In conclusion; don't be afraid to steal an idea, because the way you choose to bring it to life can rewrite it's entire identity.