Why Fantasy?

[roselire]

When you read or write fantasy, every so often, you get this question. Why? they ask you. What does it matter? It isn't real.For those times, when just this once, everybody lives

Comments

[athelyna]

*applause* Well said. Also, though not as noble or literary, because sometimes you just need to be able to read something and know it will all be okay in the end. And the people asking that question do realize that by definition all fiction, while potentially containing some facts, isn't real, right? *Cough* DaVinci Code *cough*

[azulsaber]

Hear hear lire. And I would argue that fantasy is perhaps the most literary of all genres. Hope, sacrifice, duty, they're all the real nitty gritty of life. They're all what we're struggling to maintain, to achieve, even through all of the junk that life throws at us.

In the end salvation is possible. It's not easy, but it's not impossible by any stretch of the imagination. And for that reason I'll keep writing fantasy as well as reading it too.

Because despite all the magic, sometimes silly stereotypes and cliches, the message matters. It is real.

[roselire]

Exactly. It's a much more hopeful message than a lot of the ones that get thrown around nowadays.

[arian]

Randomly found my way here. I just had to say that was very beautifully put and the most eloquent way I've heard it phrased. The most I've managed to come up with is that there are true things in fantasy.

[roselire]

Thank you for the compliment. You definitely made a bad day better. And exactly...fantasy is true in a way that many things aren't.