On Fantasy...

The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.

They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth." - George R. R. Martin

I was recently asked to fill out the following questionnaire – a nice young student from Sweden wandered on to The Fantasy Forum asking for some help with her school project. The goal was to examine why people are interested in fantasy, and why the genre has stuck around for so long. An interesting question, especially considering that if you take mythology into account, fantasy is the oldest genre and has literally been around nearly as long as the human race. We evolved alongside fantasy…

Anyway, since it seems relevant, I thought I’d post my answer here.


1) WHY DO YOU LIKE FANTASY?

I'm not going to deny that escapism is a factor...I think everyone has wished they could live in a magical realm at some point or another. But more importantly, the reason why I like fantasy, why I write fantasy and illustrate for fantasy stories, is that it is a way to bring out the things that are important. It seems like modern reality has so many little things that clutter life up, that get into the way - but using fantasy, you can strip off all those little distractions until you have the pure ideas and concepts, both good and evil. Every day, people find themselves in positions of strength, and must decide whether to use that strength to help or harm. Every day, people find themselves in positions of weakness, and must figure out how to overcome that weakness. Every day, someone somewhere starts thinking of people as things, and takes the first step on the road to becoming a monster - and every day, someone somewhere commits an utterly selfless act. We hardly pay any attention to these pivotal moments (if we even hear about them) because there is so much distraction, so many of us, and so much "background noise"... However, in fantasy, we can throw these concepts into stark relief and pit the darker parts against the lighter. Which side wins depends on the author. Some try to show what isn’t, but could be; others show things that shouldn’t be, yet are. I think both are helpful for making us look at our world and dreaming, striving, for something better.



2) WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE FANTASY book/movie? WHY?

A book called Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams. I have been in love with this book forever, I think because it proves what I was trying to explain in the answer to Question 1. The actual story is about talking cats and their quest to save their friend from a dark magic taking over the land, and is about as far from reality as you'd care to get. But the story beneath the story - the actual depth of emotional changes/issues - has just about everything you could ask for. It deals with feeling overwhelmed and small in the great crowd of people in the world, the difficulties we have tolerating people who are really not so different than we used to be (or still are!), the loss of friends and the gaining of new ones, and learning that we weren't really in love with someone we thought we'd stay with forever. Fantastic book - I reread it every year.



3) WHAT IS AN IMPORTANT "INGREDIENT" IN A FANTASY book/movie?


No contest - depth and realism in characters. I will follow an interesting character doing his laundry for ten pages, but I won't follow an unconvincing, "fake" feeling character fighting a horde of magical sword-wielding demons for two paragraphs. Characters have to feel like real people, not invincible fighting machines or perfect heroes. That means they should be human inside (even if they are elves, dwarves, goblins, ect on the outside) and have flaws, certain petty or mean habits, and struggle with difficult choices. The path from joining the fight to standing triumphant on the field of the final battle should be a rocky, slippery, winding trail - not a stroll across the parking lot - and I want to see it.

Note: This is largely why I could never really get into R.A. Salvatore books or the Lord of the Rings series, although I admit Tolkein's work is iconic. I feel about Tolkein the way I feel about the Beatles - both of them deserve a tip of the hat for revolutionizing their genre and bringing it to the attention of the world, but both have been surpassed by the writers/musicians who followed in their footsteps.



So those are my thoughts. Those are the reasons why I read, write, and draw fantasy, why I dream fantasy, and why I started this journal. Take from it what you will.


~Blue Nephelim Out