Fantasy Cons

     Hey ya’ll, last time we talked about the advantages of fantasy, so this time we’re talking about the DISADVANTAGES. This can be a bit more obvious than the pros category, because when it is bad usually it is BAD. So what is it that separates good fantasy from bad fantasy? I posit it is the mythical creature known as AUDIENCE RELEVANCE.

     Alright, picture a bad fantasy story; it’s not hard, with a genre as popular as fantasy the sheer amount of stories out there guarantees that you’re going to have to dig through some schlock to get to the good stuff. So what are you picturing? Some chosen one sword-wielding knight with a wizard and hot babe clinging to his feet a la Frank Frazetta painting? Do they have ridiculous names like Shmendrick the Wisened? Do they have any discernable character traits outside of handsome dude on a quest to save THE WORLD? No? This, my friends, is the problem.

     You see, one of the best parts of fantasy is the world-building. You can come up with ANYTHING and as an author you can make it so. But with great power comes great responsibility; sometimes authors get too caught up in their own worlds, which in turn leads too: THE ERAGON EFFECT. This is when a story gets so damn caught up in its’ own universe that before you know it they are ranting about some ancient war with no relevance to the plot that the audience has no reason to care about and, what’s more, likely cannot relate too. Have you, personally, ever been a wizard? Known any wizards? No? Kind of makes it hard to give a shit about Margo the Great of the seventeenth order of the Melkors who once fought against Dagbad the Dark right?

     The thing about Fantasy is that like any other story we stick around for the CHARACTERS and PLOT; yes we read it because wizards are AWESOME but having a wizard without a personality or character is like a filmmaker going around filming some random joe without letting us know anything about him, save maybe an extensive history lesson on his ancestors. We don’t care about him just because he is a wizard, we care because he is a wizard we personally can relate to. Game of Thrones works because Daenerys has to overcome her oppressive family and rise up from being the little guy to defeat the injustices of her world, not because she is the princess of the ancient Targaryen line who ruled for 300 years in the land region known as Westeros.

     And that’s the danger of fantasy; because dragons and magic are so far removed from our daily lives, authors have to be careful to make sure that their stories still relate to us personally, and don’t devolve into obscure history lessons we can in no way connect to. When done right it works wonders (Re: J.K. Rowling, all of the money), but lose sight of the relateability of the core story and you may have just entered into the DANGER ZONE.