“I hate fantasy”-10 bad reasons why people hate fantasy
We’ve been talking a lot about fantasy in this blog lately, and mostly we’ve been speaking about the positive things. Understandable, since I am such a massive fantasy nerd. However, I am not oblivious to the fact that fantasy is not everybody’s cup of tea. Again, I have covered in other articles the criticisms that some people have of fantasy. criticisms that are fair. It must be said though, not all criticisms of fantasy is fair, which is what we will be discussing to day. What are some bad reasons to hate fantasy? The primary reason why people hate fantasy is because they say it is unrealistic. This leads people to say that those who watch fantasy end up being unproductive in the real world. They may then say that fantasy can’t connect to people because of its unrealistic nature. Some dislike fantasy because it desensitizes people to violence. Others may argue that fantasy is childish. These all have the same thing in common, in that they misunderstand it. All stories exists to make a single point. Sometimes to make your point, you need to extend your metaphor vocabulary, and conjure scenarios that don’t exist. As long as the point you are making is sound and valid, then your point was successful. That’s absolutely a mouthful, so I will try to break it down for you guys as easily as I can. We will be breaking it down into these 10 basic arguments, and explaining how each is answered by our explanation. 1. Fantasy Is Unrealistic The first reason bad reason we could give to dislike fantasy is to argue that it is a bit unrealistic for us. Now, I know exactly what we are talking about here. The talking animals, elemental manipulation, dragons, magic weapons, and the magical creatures all around us. People who argue fantasy is unrealistic tend to not even be bothered by the medieval European setting, even the made up nature of the world. What bothers them is the people flying through walls, and just the general magic. This however misses the point of fantasy, as it is not meant to be taken as real. All stories are an argument. The story possess 5 elements; characters, setting, POV, plot and the theme. All these things work to show us a central lesson. Basically, a central argument. Our character starts of as arrogant, and through the plot, the setting, the POV, and the themes, we see the character become humble. The central message in the story could be something like, ‘Humility makes you a better, happier person’. This is how all stories work. They make an argument. However, sometimes you can’t make an argument using just recognizable means. I could try to teach my sibling not to play with a stove by retelling the time I got burnt. But what if I had to tell my youngest child something more abstract such as “keep your word” in a way that is simple to understand? Well, I use the Pied Piper story. Even for adults, we have biblical stories to tell teach them about keeping your word, such as the story of Jonah. The point is, sometimes you need to come up with extra ordinary situations but as long as it works towards making your argument, then it absolutely is real. Maybe its not real that you can call rats with your flute, but is it not real that you should keep your word? 2 Fantasy Readers Are Unproductive In The Real World The second poor reason we can come up with for disliking fantasy is that it makes the readers unproductive. Now, this is an argument we can only reach if we kept to the first point. We would argue that people who watch fantasy only see horses, and people breathing fireballs. Therefore, how could they know how to have everyday interactions? There is no breathing fireballs in the real world. Instead, if they watched a drama they would see people in relationships, and how complex those could get. Thus they would know how to behave properly in a relationship, or risk their partner being unfaithful. However this makes a terrible mistake again, as this is based on the misunderstanding that fantasy is made for those magic things. Instead of the truth, which is that fantasy is made to teach life lessons. And any good fantasy fan is definitely up for learning these lesson. A survey was conducted in 2015 which found that 72.2 % of the fantasy readers were employed or self-employed; 70,5% were in a relationship, and 82,4% had a university level education. Why are fantasy readers doing so well? Because they learned great lessons from fantasy. Hard-work, loyalty, honesty, discipline, self-sacrifice, comradery etc. It would be easy for us to assume that fantasy readers who do not watch other shows like crime shows or drama shows are a bit behind in learning social behaviors. This way they will probably be ruined, and taken advantage of, or never have a comfortable life. The thing is we neglect to realize that learning these things does not help us avoid these things, instead it attracts these things into our lives. Those who learn honest, attract such too. 3. Fantasy Does Not Connect Well The third bad reasons is because it does not connect well to the people. Now when it comes to this one, we have to admit that some people just connect to things differently. Fantasy is one of the most successful genres in the world today, if not the most. This would show how it is very good at connecting to people. Many people see themselves in a lot of these characters. They see traits they wish they could imbody in their lives in some of the characters. Not necessarily wishing to embody the trait of being a billionaire, and having an iron suit, then flying to school everyday (though i am sure this is absolutely a common fantasy.). Rather, traits like constant improvement,
Why People Love The Fantasy Genre
At 2023, the top 10 most selling movies of all time are made up of mostly fantasy stories. In addition to that, the top 10 best selling books of all time, internationally, are all fantasy books of a sorts. As a consequence, the fantasy genre has become a juggernaut. Most people may feel this is fair. Although I have covered what elements make a good fantasy book, it does not explain why the fantasy genre is so well received. Which begs the question. What does the fantasy genre do better than every other genre? Fantasy is a unique genre, because it is the only genre in which the central conflict and themes of the story are physically exhibited. This is because fantasy has magic systems, which are the physical manifestations of not only the central conflict of the story, but also of the progression of the character. In addition, fantasy uses this to build a world that is internal consistent, allowing for a more immersive reading experience. Another reason why fantasy is unique is because it resonates with the Carl Jungian subconscious of all human beings in the world. These factors allow people of all ages, and lands to be able to connect to fantasy, and thus, it allows people to get the benefits of reading more easily from fantasy. A mouthful no doubt. But when you understand the first bit, the rest follow naturally. So, for you to understand exactly what we are saying, let’s start with point number 1 out of 9 reasons why fantasy kicks butts. 1. Fantasy Expresses the Themes In The Most Tangible Way Fantasy is the best equipped to show the more metaphysical aspects of the story through its magic systems. Thus it can portray things like themes, character progression through just the magic system. All stories have 5 main elements; characters, plot, POV, setting, and finally, themes. Most of these can be seen physically, such as characters, and setting. Even plot is observed as unfolding before us. POV is mostly just the character we see the story from. The one thing that is hardest to distinguish is the themes. It takes thinking, and observation to piece together the possible themes of a story. Unless of course you are dealing with fantasy. In fantasy stories, the themes are shown to us through the magic system itself. Characterization, and flaws are shown through the magic system. If the theme of the story is forgiveness, and our main character is an angry unforgiving person (flaw), then their powers could be something like fire powers. Fire is also fiery (angry) and unforgiving (burns indiscriminately). Then it could end with our hero finding a way to use their fire to create something new, to clean something, and to fix what was broken. At that stage, they are not angry anymore. But even more, observe how this is the process of forgiveness. It is all shown physically, which is just amazing to consider. 2. Fantasy Has The Deepest World Building The fantasy genre is unique in how deep its world building tends to be. Another extension of the fantasy genres magic system is the world building. Usually, there needs to be some sort of explanation why all these people are leaping mountains in a hop. So, the world is crafted in a way that describes this. And let me tell you, writers go nuts. Fantasies have their own history, their own environments, ecology, buildings, cultures, politics, and even their own religions. Point being, fantasies become truly massive things. The best part of this is that the fantasies are often an extension of the magic system. This means the world is usually an extension of the themes of the story, of the character’s flaw, and of the character’s progression. Also, this leads to consistency. Consistency good. Consistency necessary. Hail Consistency! 3. Fantasy Has The Most Psychologically Resonant Stories Fantasy is unique because it’s stories resonate with a great unconscious mind in all human beings, connecting us to our non-thinking ancestors, adn each other. The best part about fantasy is something that has been observed by Swiss-Psychologist, Carl Jung. Carl Jung was a student of Freud, and he’d learned about the unconscious mind, which was a revolutionary idea at the time. Most people did not realize there were powers beyond our control in our mind that dictate out actions. Carl Jung studied this deeper, to the point where his studies started to diverge from Freud. Jung noticed that in a lot of stories, there were certain figures that kept reappearing. For example, the wise wizard, who appears in African stories, European stories, and Asian stories. Jung surmised that these stories represented a further deeper subconscious mind that was shared by all human beings. This was considered pseudoscience by others, while others considered it the holy grail. One of the later was Joseph Campbell, who went out of his way to write ‘A Hero With A Thousand faces’. This book observes stories from all over the world, and proves that there is some sort of connection between these stories. The only genre that corresponds with these findings is the fantasy genre. Fantasy adopts all the archetypes and creates stories that not only resonate with people of that culture, but with people from all over the world. So fantasy creates stories that connects with all human beings. 4. Fantasy Is The Best At Teaching Morals Also, fantasy is a unique genre because it helps teach children and people morals in the most direct way. There was a study conducted that found fiction literature assists people to develop a deeper EQ. Emotional intelligence. The reason for this was theory of mind, but sometimes, it can be a phenomenon known as cognitive closure. When people see something that they do not understand, or it does not fit into the things they know, they will either see it as a threat, or prematurely assume it is something else. This is because something that is unknown