The Worth of Fantasy

What good could anyone get from writing fantasy? This is an important question, for either fantasy has an end worth pursuing, or it is a waste of time. So, for anyone out there who’s interested in reading or writing fantasy, here’s my take on it based on my own experience.   

About two thanksgivings ago I promised a friend of mine that I would help her with a movie based on a fantasy story she was making up. Over the next few months we sweated over the script for the film. Unfortunately, we were unable to implement her idea due to a shortage of money, props, costumes, people, talent, etc. However, we did continue to write the story and discuss it.

Here’s what I got out of the experience. I found that when we talked it over, I always tested our ideas against those of the real world. I found myself trying to make the fantasy not just believable, but true.

This, I believe, is the whole point. Fantasy writers are supposed to base their worlds on truth, on reality. They do this by creating a mythical world that may be different in many ways from ours and yet follows all of the same moral laws. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, for example, is unlike our world; it is full of wise elves and evil orcs and magical rings. It is also like our world; the One Ring, like any evil thing, always corrupts those who use it regardless of their intentions. The moral laws are just as inflexible there as here.

Fantasy authors also have a great responsibility on their hands. The medium they are using is meant to convey truth, but it can also be used to teach falsehoods. It may be tempting to force reality to conform to fantasy, but we must not do this. Fantasy instead must conform to reality, to truth. Indeed all good fantasy conforms to reality. This is why George MacDonald said that “if you understood any world besides your own, you would understand your own much better.” (Lilith, Chapter V.)

So my conclusion is this: fantasy is well worth writing, as I have found through making it up. It is a vehicle with which to convey truth with a power that few other methods have, for not only is it true, it is also fascinating. What do people like better than an exciting, well told story about elves and dwarves and wizards and valiant men?