Fantasy with Friends is a weekly meme hosted by the good people over at Pages Unbound. Fantasy with Friends poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.
This week’s prompt is:
Sometimes people talk about fantasy as allowing readers to see or realize things about our real world that they would not otherwise have seen (that is, they argue that fantasy can more effectively help us see reality than realistic fiction or even nonfiction can). Has this happened to you? Is there something you think about differently now because you were initially inspired to by a fantasy story?
When I read this prompt, I thought something like, “Well, obviously. That’s one of the side benefits of reading anything–especially SF/F because they take us out of our world. This’ll be a piece of cake.” And then I sat down a couple of times to jot down some initial thoughts, and now it’s time for me to write the post–and…I haven’t been able to come up with a single example. Nothing concrete, anyway.
I think at the end of the day, I’m going to have to say it’s people. I think about people, relationships between people, obligations that exist inherently between them–and those we take on ourselves. Fantasy has–and likely will continue to do so–help me think about other perspectives, seeing inherent worth in the individual (which is always easy in the abstract to say one holds to, but is sometimes more difficult in practice). Parenthood, neighborliness, hospitality, relationship of child to parent, love, commitment, care for animals, care for those less fortunate or Other (thankfully, I don’t have to deal with literal trolls or goblins–but the principles apply in not seeing them as necessarily bloodthirsty hoards), seeing nobility where one doesn’t expect it, in seeing the absence thereof where you would be inclined to expect it. Seeing heroes in the little things as well in the big moments.
There’s something about people that you can and ought to see differently in the most paint-by-number Tolkien rip-off, the laziest “this one D&D campaign that I loved” novelization, the “I want to be Travis Baldree” cozy, to the mind-blowing epic of epic that leaves you panting for the next doorstop in the series. Any fantasy novel is going to make you look at people, creatures, magic/tech, and life differently.
(and yes, this should be applied to any other genre in multiple senses, as well–just one of many reasons I wish I’d been able to come up with something more Fantasy-specific)
Go read some of the other responses to this prompt, they’re likely better thought-out and consider different works/angles.
aquavenatus
Myths were stories that explained the creation of the world.
Fiction allows the audience to experience experiences that are not their own.
Fantasy allows an escape towards an idealized interpretation of solutions to bigger problems.
Throughout my reviews, I say, “The reality within the fiction.” That’s intentional for a reason.