I have always loved fairytales. From a very young age, my sister and I would look for fairies in the woods around our house. We read stories about wizards and magic and knights in shining armor saving the day. I do not think this is particularly unusual; everyone has some experience with fairy tales when they are younger. But, what happens when we grow up? Fairy stories are still here. We still read them. We are simply told they are silly and unimportant.
When I was about seven or eight years old, in the height of my "Harry Potter" obsession, I was encouraged by many people to take a break from fantasy and read about “the real world.” I do think that reading diverse genres is important, but the idea that reading stories set in fictional words were so different from reading stories set on Earth was somewhat confusing to me.
Fantasy stories are fairly popular these days, but I think the genre itself is often misrepresented. It is seen as almost a playful form of storytelling, similar to fairytales. People feel that they read fantasy to escape reality, and while that is certainly an appealing aspect of fantasy work, I think to simply say that fantasy novels only serve the purpose of freeing us from the cruel injustices of our own world does the genre a grave injustice. Fantasy stories do not just help us escape our world; they reflect our world.
It is no secret that issues of inequality are prevalent in our current society. Characters in fantasy stories also struggle with inequality, oftentimes the same inequality we struggle with on Earth. Their stories allow us to explore the issues plaguing our own lives but in new and interesting ways. By changing the world, and sometimes the rules of science and society, the problems of our own society become apparent. Fantasy stories are ultimately, I think, an examination of our humanity. Generally, we read literature to connect with the story and with the characters; stories set in other worlds take advantage of this idea and expand upon it.
The genre of fantasy can also examine a multitude of complex ideas. As one of my favorite fantasy authors Patrick Rothfuss said, “There is nothing I can’t do writing in fantasy. I can have romance, I can have mystery, I can have drama, I can have good characters, I can have everything you can do in any other genre, plus a dragon.” While other genres of fiction are limiting, fantasy is malleable. We expect a love story from a romance novel. We expect horror from a horror story. We expect crime and mystery from a mystery novel. Fantasy stories have few rules other than the fact that the world the characters inhabit needs to be a believable one. Fantasy stories not only take us on wild quests and adventures, but they offer a unique perspective on love, loyalty and what it means to be human. While it could be argued that this is the driving force behind all literature, I, personally, find that the genre of fantasy is most effective at both entertaining the reader with a fun and adventurous story that allows them to imagine things they did not know were possible and also provide an interesting lens through which we can critique our own shortcomings as a society.
So, read fantasy. It does not matter that you’re grown up. You might learn more about how to approach problems in our own world. You might come to your own conclusions about humanity and justice and what is right. You might learn nothing except that it is possible for the hero to slay the dragon. That, in itself, is a valuable lesson.
After all, out here in the “real world,” we all have our own dragons we need to slay.
