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Originally Posted by Talysia  This is more or less how I feel about it. I read more fantasy, so seeing a lot of swearing doesn't seem to fit (in my opinion, at least). The one exception I can think of is when an author makes up a set of swear words based around the culture and setting of the fantasy world they've created. I don't mind seeing bad language in books, but in certain settings/situations it doesn't feel right to me. |
This gets into what I was saying earlier... there is actually quite a lot of cursing and swearing in fantasy, but it isn't done using our contemporary words of this sort. It is modeled on the culture. I believe someone else brought up Conan's use of "Crom!" -- which was used in various ways in the stories (both by Howard and others: "Crom's beard!", etc.), which would be equivalent to a Christian using the word "God" as an expletive. Using older gods' names, or older words (bemerded, for instance, in Eddison, rather than a modern "covered in sh*t") allows for a fair amount of it... but as they aren't familiar in our society as cursewords, they almost become "white noise" or verbal coloring.
I do agree that, in most fantasy settings, it's a very dubious procedure to use contemporary curse or swear words, as they will seem out of place; other than that... try to make it realistic for that character, but don't go overboard....