Line #80 Literature/QuestForFire


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/quest.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:Cover of the 2020 English translation.]]
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4	''Quest For Fire'' (French: ''La Guerre du feu'', literally "The War for Fire") is a 1911 Belgian HistoricalFiction novel by "J.-H. Rosny", a pseudonym of two brothers.
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6	[[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Somewhere in Eurasia]] [[AmbiguousTimePeriod around 100,000 years ago]], the Oulhamr horde have lost their precious fire in a raid. Not knowing the secret of fire-starting, they send three warriors (Naoh, Nam and Gaw) on the titular quest. Along the way, they encounter fierce beasts and fiercer men.
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8	The novel is notable for predicting the coexistence of multiple human species inhabiting the earth at the same time during the Pleistocene long before this was known to be the case with some of the speculative races strongly resembling later discovered species.
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10	Was [[AdaptationDisplacement famously]] [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted into a film of the same name in 1981]] by Creator/JeanJacquesAnnaud. [[Film/QuestForFire The film]] is not a faithful adaptation but is considered [[AdaptationDistillation a classic in its own right]].
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12	!!Quest for Fire provides examples of the following tropes:
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14	* AllCavemenWereNeanderthals: An early aversion of this trope. The protagonists resemble neanderthals but the various tribes they encounter clearly represent separate species. The afterword of the 2020 English edition identifies the Kzamm, Wah, Red Dwarves, Blue-haired men and Men of the trees as ''Homo antecessor'', ''Homo sapiens'', ''Homo luzonensis'', ''Gorilla''/''Gigantopithecus'' and ''[[AnachronisticAnimal Pierolapithecus catalaunicus]]'' respectively.
15	* AmbiguouslyBrown: The Oulhamr are described as "tan like the deer, not black like the panther".
16	* AmbiguousTimePeriod: "Maybe a hundred thousand years ago" according to the dedication.
17	* AnimalGenderBender: The chief of mammoths is apparently male. Mammoths likely lived in matriarchal societies like modern elephants do.
18	* AnimalMotifs: Aghoo the Son of the Aurochs is brutish and violent. Naoh the Son of the Leopard is more clever and cunning. The [[EvilIsBigger physically imposing]] and [[CannibalTribe bloodthirsty]] Kzamm are compared to bears.
19	* ArtisticLicensePaleontology:
20	** The giant lion is portrayed as a species on the brink of extinction. 100,000 years ago which predates the earliest known cave lion remains.
21	** There are a couple instances of mammoths impaling people and other animals with their tusks. This would have been difficult if not impossible for a woolly mammoth given the curvature of said tusks.
22	** At one point, Naoh deflects a thrown spear with his axe. Hafted axes weren't invented until the neolithic and paleolithic hand axes wouldn't have done much good against any kind of thrown projectile.
23	** Given the patchy record of human prehistory at the time, Rosny was required to take huge liberties to even tell such a story. As is sometimes the case with science fiction, some of the speculative aspects held up surprisingly well! See the trivia section for more details.
24	* BarbarianHero: Naoh, a courageous and formidable paleolithic warrior.
25	* BearsAreBadNews: The protagonists have two harrowing encounters with bears: one grey bear (Ursus arctos) and later two cave bears. It is noted that the cave bear is usually the less dangerous of the two, being a herbivore, but it becomes terrifying when provoked by starvation or sheer anger.
26	* BeastMan: Downplayed but the Kzamm are believed by the Ouhlamr to be descended from bears and one is even described with [[RedEyesTakeWarning eyes that glow red in the fire]] and wolf-like movable ears. Interestingly, the Oulhamr initially perceive anatomically modern humans as beast-like as well due to their seeming lack of shoulders and body paint which resembles scaly skin.
27	* BigBeautifulWoman: Gammla's round belly is considered a desirable trait.
28	* BlackAndGrayMorality: The Oulhamr are warlike and misogynistic raiders but at least they aren't cannibals like the Kzamm.
29	* BodyPaint: The Wahs are covered in body paint that the Oulhamr mistake for scaly skin. The Red Dwarves also appear to paint themselves with ochre.
30	* CallASmeerpARabbit: The 2020 English edition has an odd case where a tiger is illustrated as a saber-toothed cat. Calling machairodonts tigers is pretty common but it's odd considering the text itself averts this trope. Fauohm clearly differentiates tigers from "saber-toothed beasts" when he lists the various dangers the Oulhamr are vulnerable to without their fire. [[RuleOfCool It's a cool picture though]].
31	* CannibalTribe: The Kzamms.
32	* CarpetOfVirility: The aptly named Aghoo the Hairy. The Kzamms are a whole tribe that are just as hairy as him.
33	* ClashOfEvolutionaryLevels: Averted, as there are many hominid species clashing but none of them are portrayed as inherently superior and the classic neanderthals vs cro-magnons conflict is completely absent.
34	* CoversAlwaysLie: The 2020 edition's cover shows a tundra environment complete with reindeer, muskoxen, arctic foxes, ptarmigans and a wolverine carrying off an [[MisplacedWildlife arctic hare]]. The story takes place in a temperate climate during an interglacial period.
35	* CrapsackWorld: A brutal primitive world full of warlike hordes and ferocious beasts.
36	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The Oulhamr are a warlike patriarchal society who have no problem with killing their enemies and raping their women. They don't treat their own women very well either.
37	* TheDiscoveryOfFire: A variation: The Oulhamr have a basic understanding of how to control fire but their inability to actually ''start'' a fire condemns them once the fire they keep burning at all times is extinguished. The Wahs who have fully domesticated fire teach them the final step: how to start a new fire from scratch.
38	* EndangeredSpecies: Cave lions and more surprisingly modern humans are both portrayed as such.
39	* EveryoneHasStandards: The Oulhamr may be a violent horde of primitive raiders but they draw the line at cannibalism.
40	* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Lions, giant lions, leopards, panthers, wolves, giant hyenas, tigers, saber-toothed cats, bears, other humans...
41	* EvilIsBigger: The Kzamms are the tallest men known to the Oulhamr before they encounter the Blue-haired men.
42	* FatBastard: Aghoo is the fattest of the Oulhamr and also the nastiest.
43	* FieryRedhead: Aghoo and his brothers.
44	* FlowersOfFemininity: Gammla wears flowers in her hair.
45	* FrazettaMan: Played with. The man-eating Kzamms are hairy and bestial with ape-like limb proportions but have somewhat more sophisticated fire-keeping methods than the Oulhamr. The Blue-haired men are even more ape-like but much less bloodthirsty. Aghoo and his brothers are the straightest examples, being brutish and hairy, but they are merely three individuals who are despised and feared by the rest of their tribe.
46	* GentleGiant: The Blue-haired men are noted to be big and strong enough to dominate all other kinds of men but they are peaceful herbivores.
47	* HairyGirl: Gammla's body hair is [[MaleGaze lovingly described]].
48	* HerbivoresAreFriendly: Played straight with the cave bear and giant apes but averted with the aurochs who are just plain nasty. The mammoths are portrayed more complexly: They are easily befriended by the human protagonists because they have no fear of predation but they can be downright lethal if provoked.
49	* HonorableElephant: The herd of mammoths with whom the Oulhamr forge an alliance against the Kzamms. In particular the chief who becomes a friend to Naoh.
50	* TheHorde: The default human society in the setting.
51	* HumansAreBastards: The hordes fear other men far more than they fear beasts.
52	* HumansAreSpecial: Averted with the Wahs, the only tribe of anatomically modern humans encountered in the story. They have some superior tools and the ability to start fire but they are no more intelligent than other kinds of men and physically much weaker (see: PunyEarthlings below). This is one of the few early depictions of prehistoric man that doesn't play this trope straight in regards to the "cro-magnons".
53	* HumansAreWarriors: Played straight until we meet the Wahs who are a more peaceful egalitarian society like modern hunter-gatherers. The Blue-haired men further avert this but it's debatable whether they can be accurately considered human.
54	* InterspeciesFriendship: Naoh and the chief mammoth. His friendship with the Wah matriarch could also qualify depending on which anthropologists you talk to.
55	* KidSidekick: Nam and Gaw to Naoh.
56	* KillerGorilla: Subverted with the gorilla-like Blue-haired men. They initially appear aggressive but turn out to be peaceful vegetarians like real gorillas.
57	* LizardFolk: How the wahs appear to the Oulhamr. They have strange cylindrical bodies with arms that stick out without shoulders to speak of, [[BodyPaint seemingly scaly skin]] and a lethargic temperament.
58	* MaleGaze: Gammla is framed almost entirely through Naoh's desire for her. Interestingly though, he focuses on things that a modern man might not consider beautiful like her hairy arms and round belly.
59	* MammothsMeanIceAge: Played straight on the cover but subverted in the actual text. The story is set in the Pleistocene and mammoths do feature heavily but the environment is a temperate interglacial as opposed to a frigid glacial maximum.
60	* MisplacedWildlife:
61	** Agoutis (a South American rodent) inexplicably appear alongside distinctly old world animals.
62	** Hissing cockroaches (an exclusively Madagascan species) also make an appearance.
63	** The Blue-haired men appear to be based on gorillas (the recent discovery of the Mountain gorilla would definitely have been on the author's mind) but the story clearly does not take place in Africa. However, they do strongly resemble the later discovered ''Gigantopithecus'' [[TruthInTelevision which did live in Pleistocene Asia]].
64	* NatureIsNotNice: Nature is in a sense the main antagonist of the story. Without the titular fire, early humans are highly vulnerable to harsh elements and hungry carnivores. Nature is hard on the other animals too. Even the herbivores are killing each other.
65	* NobleSavage: Naoh is less savage and more thoughtful than his fellow Oulhamr warriors but still a brutal war chief by our standards.
66	* NubileSavage: Averted with Gammla. She's considered a [[InformedAttractiveness rare beauty]] but is described in compliance with paleolithic standards of beauty, being rather fat and hairy.
67	* PantheraAwesome: The giant lion which easily defeats two tigers and becomes a major antagonist for the trio.
68	* PeltsOfTheBarbarian: Naoh is said to be enveloped in bear furs. The other Oulhamr presumably dress similarly.
69	* PrehistoricMonster: The giant lion is portrayed as even more powerful than the woolly rhino.
70	* PunyEarthlings: The anatomically modern Wah people compared to other kinds of men. The Kzamms and even the Red Dwarves have massacred them so many times that they have become an endangered species.
71	* QuicksandSucks: Some of the Oulhamr are lost to mquicksand as they fle from their enemies in the first chapter.
72	* RapePillageAndBurn: What the Oulhamr do to their enemies and vice versa.
73	* RedEyesTakeWarning: A Kzamm warrior has eyes that glow red in the firelight.
74	* SceneryPorn: A good chunk of the word count is devoted to detailed descriptions of the prehistoric environments the character's travel through.
75	* ShallowLoveInterest: Gammla does not utter a single line of dialogue.
76	* WackyWaysideTribe: The grey bear and the Blue-haired men don't contribute much to the overall plot but they do make the prehistoric world more interesting.
77	* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Based on the wildlife, we can conclude that the story takes place in Eurasia, but it's hard to pinpoint the exact location beyond that. It's far north enough for woolly mammoths, south enough for crocodiles, west enough for fallow deer and east enough for tigers.
78	* {{Xenofiction}}: A mild example as they are technically human but the point of view characters are primitive humans who see anatomically modern humans as strange and alien.

Context Literature / QuestForFire