There are a lot of reasons that people have to hate fantasy. This is just a form of a complement.
Fantasy is one of the most popular genres of all time. Whether it is on the big screen, the little screen, cartoons, or books, you will find one thing; fantasy stories. Everyone is always watching magic powered people doing magic powered things, all over the world.
So it is only natural that there would be more opinions than just positive, from the exposure that people have of fantasy.
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A good reason why people hate fantasy could be how fantasy tends to push extremely strict racial stereotypes, and how fantasy magic can often be used to negate any stakes within the story. These are the most obvious, but other reasons why people may hate fantasy could include: a dislike of the fantasy fan’s over enthusiasm, the repetitive nature of some fantasy tropes, the meandering nature of some books, and maybe even the length of some stories.
In general, people just do not like stories that shoot themselves in the foot with their indulgences.
This is an unfortunate weakness most unique to fantasy, for reasons that we will discuss. On top of these, there are a lot of other reasons of course, but in this article, we will be going over these specific reasons. We will also go over more reasons, and get into details.
So, let’s get into it:
1. It’s fans
The first good reason people have to hate fantasy is sadly enough, its fans.
Fantasy fans can be one of the most enthusiastic fans around.
There is nothing wrong about that. But I believe everybody appreciates that harassment can be annoying, and frustrating to deal with. Unfortunately, a lot of fantasy fans can fall into this category. I grew up as, and still am, a massive fantasy fan myself. Growing up, I never had any people around me who I could talk to about the fantasy stories that I enjoyed.
This meant I was lonely yes. But, it also meant that if there was even the slightest glimpse of interest in my passions from someone, I would would rain on them like a waterfall.
Eventually, people draw away from all that has to do with you, and with fantasy. They begin to associate fantasy with the fan’s own exhausting excitement. Which may make people not want to deal with them anymore.
What could be said is that people should try not to judge a property just because of an unpleasant experience they had with something adjacent to it. I can’t start hating McDonald’s because I stumbled and fell outside their doors. It just would not be fair.
2. It Pushes Stereotypes
The second good reason people have to dislike fantasy is because it tends to standardize stereotypes, and lock people into specific positions.
Fantasy books tend to have stereotyped races, characters, and people, which is a little uncomfortable.
We all know about the senseless cruel orc.
Or about the graceful, ever good, and perfect elves. The point is that fantasy tends to have a lot of stereotyping of entire groups, and even worse, races. They then assign powers to specific races, while others can’t have any powers. This is somewhat awkward.
So, it can be a far enough reason for people to find themselves uninterested in fantasy. However, this fact tends to be even worse from a literary writing technique level.
3. It’s repetitive
The third good reasons people could have for disliking fantasy is that it is too repetitive. Which is also a bit far.
Fantasy stories tend to have a lot of similar characters, places, and even plot points. This could make people tired easily from reading to much, and make them hate fantasy.
So, we have already spoken about how fantasy tends to have stereotypical races, groups, and characters. However, fantasy may also have stereotypical places. For example, we recently went over why most fantasy stories tend to take place in medieval Europe, and we also spoke about how there are new fantasy books being made that do not take place there.
But the truth remains the same: fantasy stories tend to show the same repetitive things.
This can hurt stories in their telling.
4. It Is Too Long
The fourth reason why people could hate fantasy is because the books are too long.
Fantasy books are some of the longest books that are being released in recent times.
The longest fiction books that I’ve read are fantasy books. These books are extremely fun to read. However, I’d be a liar, liar, pants of fire if I claimed that I did not find myself being weighed down a number of times.
These books are long as hell. And even worse, they do not even have to be sometimes.
5 It Is Meandering
The fifth reason why people tend to hate fantasy books is because fantasy books tend to be so long, and meandering that some parts of the books just lead to no where of consequence.
Fantasy books can have some elements of them that are long for no reason, instead they just have characters walking around in circles getting nothing done.
Oathbreaker, and A Wise Man’s Fear were some of the most anticipated books. When they were finally released, and first, reviews showed that people enjoyed the books. However, it was only a matter of time before not so pleasant reviews came out. These were all complaining about the same thing.
The books were meandering.
Now, this could be something surprising to hear.
These are books written by arguably the best writers of our generation. Yet, they had these obvious slumps in them. However, it is not so surprising, considering this is fantasy we are talking about. Fantasy stories tend to create their own massive world, and the only way this world can be shown to the reader is for the characters to travel this world. So what do writers do?
Writers begin telling the story in a way that allows the characters to meander around the world aimlessly.
6 It Does Not Connect Them To The Stakes
The sixth reason why people may hate fantasy books is simply because they struggle to connect with the stakes of the story.
Fantasy book’s stakes tend to be destruction of a massive scale, which is something that a lot of readers may fail to comprehend.
There is a famous saying, ‘One man dies it is a catastrophe, and a million men die it is a statistic’.
When a single man dies, it is easier for us to understand the terror of what happened. A parent loved that person, and they had a wife too. Their children will now have to go to school by themselves, while the mother works as a maid. The man’s death, and the hole he leaves behind is easy to understand.
So when one person’s life is threatened, it is easy for the reader to understand the stakes and be scared.
But a world?
When a world is threatened, or a city, or a planet, it is not as easy to comprehend. As a result, it is not as easy for the readers to fear for the life of the people about to be lost. Unfortunately, a lot of fantasy stories tend to feature the death of millions as a stake.
This is not good stakes. So the reader’s may not be able to relate or care about the story.
7. It Uses Deux Machina Magic Systems
The seventh reason why people may hate fantasy stories is because the story uses the magic to fix all the problems that need to be fixed.
Fantasy stories tend to have magic. This magic can be used to fix, and cure a number of the problems in the world, and this could be complex for the reader to handle. This is due to 2 reasons.
The first reason magic could be used badly is when the writer uses the magic to break their character out of a perilous position. Sometimes, a writer may write a character into a position that is hard to fix. This may lead to the writer then coming up with some magic excuse to pull the character out.
This writing is bad. It betrays the reader, and makes them not trust your writing ever again.
The second mistake that could stem from this is that the readers may begin to wonder why the character’s don’t just use the magic.
Dumbledore could teleport. He figured out that Voldermort tricked him in the first book, and he spent 6 hours flying back home. Why didn’t Dumbledore just teleport back to Hogwarts? Obviously its because the story wouldn’t have taken place if he did that.
So if a person hates fantasy for this reason, then it is a good and fair reason.
8. Its Surprisingly Simple Worldbuilding
The eight reason why someone may hate fantasy is that a lot of fantasy ironically have a rather simplistic surface level worldbuilding, in spite of the fact that it is supposed to be the best.
Fantasy books tend to have some of the most surface level world building, where they have massive life altering environments, and yet there is no change in the economy.
When it comes to worldbuilding, there is an intersection between the environment, the social world, history, and the economy. When one moves, it usually affects the other. For example, if there were to arrive a new material making people have super powers, this would change the dating landscape. It would change the economy of the world. And it may even redefine the history.
Yet, a lot of fantasy stories don’t have these.
A lot of fantasy stories have no complexities. They will have a new mineral, and have no company taking advantage of it. They will have something happen in the past historically, and have the present day people know exactly what happened, word for word.
This is all unrealistic, and as a consequence, it can be a let down.
What Writers Can Learn From The Good Reasons To Hate Fantasy
Writers could learn that there is a lot you can learn about writing a book from listening to the supposed haters.
A lot of the times today, we like to think we are the main characters.
We like to think that we have our own squad around us, and as a result, we need out mortal enemy. The truth is different. The truth is that everyone else has their own interests, and likes. They are after their own thing. We could vilify them. Or we could start seeing them as humans, thus we can improve our own writing from their advices.
Once you have learned how to use the good reasons people hate fantasy to your advantage in your writing, you will be that much closer to mastering mastery.
