A Defense of Fantasy Fiction

There's a time at every social event where a new acquaintance asks me, "So what do you do for fun?" It's not always this exact phrase, but inevitably a question of its ilk shows up in casual conversation. When I choose to respond honestly, I mention that I like to read, and I almost always get the same response: "Really? I hate reading." It's not like this is an unusual feeling - newest reports say that only 46% of Americans have read a book in the last year. Though it doesn't count nonfiction or memoir as having read a book, the point remains that many Americans don't read books. Perhaps they read the newspaper, or biographies, or gossip magazines, but they aren't reading fiction.

This isn't intended to be a defense of reading where I stridently declare that the decline of civilization is caused by the decline in readers and rise of television watchers. Instead, I intend to explain why fantasy fiction in particular is undeserving of the oblique mockery and borderline social suicide status it has somehow obtained. In fact, I hope to show why reading fantasy fiction is beneficial, both to the reader and to the greater press of humanity with which we all interact.

Of course, the most obvious hallmark of fantasy fiction is its eponymous characteristic - that the world and characters are fantasy and do not exist. Setting aside the point that all fiction is fantasy, fantasy fiction employs settings, worlds, plot devices, and events that do not exist in our own world. More importantly, they CANNOT exist in our world. While many fantasy novels are set in worlds that closely resemble the Medieval period in our own history, urban fantasy inserts elements of the unreal into our everyday existence. Whether in castles or high-rises, though, reading about things that don't exist revives our hope that there are wondrous things in the world, and that great acts of heroism are possible. Every day people go to work and watch the news about murders and car crashes, and while these things can happen in fantasy, they're usually caused by the forces of evil. In a world where very little happens to make people laugh and clap their hands in delight, it's a distinct relief to read about it and to believe, just for a little while, that it could be possible for the evil overlord to be overthrown and for the deliriously happy new king and queen live happily ever after - it's all too rare in our own lives.

Take a look around at the female characters in most literary fiction these days, and you'll find the four women from Sex & the City scattered in a myriad of incarnations and splashed around the pages of contemporary fiction like the unimaginative, 2-dimensional characters they are. Leave off Hemingway's refusal to grant agency to his female characters (itself a matter of debate) and look at contemporary authors. Many authors treats their female characters as stereotypes - even the female authors. While fantasy fiction has its share of male-heavy series, my experience has been that the great majority of fantasy writers employ strong, well-imagined and well-characterized female characters. Often, they (and their male counterparts) struggle with the same dilemmas of character and human condition as their more well-respected brethren in the 'literary fiction' world. For example, Lynn Flewelling's series about a girl who is put into a boy's body by dark magic to save her life is not so dissimilar to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex. Though the stories are of course different, the two main characters struggle with their identities and societal expectations in much the same way, and both authors allow the reader to experience how they imagine the character would react to such circumstances. The difference is that with Middlesex I KNOW that I'm suppose to learn something about the human condition, whereas Flewelling prefers to allow her readers to take in that aspect of the story as such, without bludgeoning them to death with the 'significance' of her work.

In that same vein, I have come to regard the authors of fantasy fiction as people who stubbornly cling to the hope that people are, at their most basic, equal-minded and able to judge others based on character rather than gender, race, or sexual orientation. I have a hard time calling to mind any fantasy novel that I have read (and lord, I've read a lot) that did not either have strong homosexual characters (both male and female) or make it clear that in that world, homosexuality was unusual but not looked down upon. Perhaps this acceptance is the most blatant indulgence of unreality by fantasy authors, beyond even the presence of magic - I for one find it easier to believe in dragons, werewolves, vampires and wizards than in a world that doesn't judge people for who they want to sleep with. But that's the point, in my view: literary fiction shows us the world as it is, but fantasy fiction shows us the world as it could be.

Fantasy as a genre is seen as simplistic and more suitable for young adults than serious grown-ups with houses and careers and kids (or at least pets) of their own. That couldn't be further from the truth. Okay, some fantasy fiction is simple in plot or message, but that's ok. A whole lot of contemporary literary fiction is too. Despite the almost universal plot device of 'good vs evil' employed by the genre, it's rarely that simple, in real life or in fantasy fiction. The shades of gray a reader sees on an everyday basis are there in the genre, too, but the difference is that in fantasy fiction, you get to read about the characters unraveling the evil plot and saving the righteous ruler of the realm and suchlike. The issues of modern life are there, but disguised, and maybe a little softened, and the best part is that at the end of the book there's resolution. The one thing that we can't get in real life is the sense that all the little loose ends are tied up neatly and tucked away in satisfying little bundles, and as such, that aspect of fantasy fiction is immensely reassuring to the modern reader. We spend all day struggling through continously evolving problems and dilemmas - why should we have to wade through it in our entertainment, too?

Fantasy fiction for me is intellectual cotton candy - it's light and generally unchallenging and allows me to escape the uncertainty of my everyday life. If I wanted to learn explicitly about the human condition, I'd do it by looking into the nooks and crannies of my own character, or watching the news, or reading a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Instead, I'll learn about it unwittingly, in a satisfyingly innocuous fashion - and I'll get to have unicorns and dragons, too.