The question has been asked many times; why is it that fantasy is so familiar? Or, to phrase it another way, why are dwarves thought of as mountain dwelling smiths and elves nature loving forest folk? I posit that the reason we resonate with these familiarities in genre fantasy is because they are simple retellings of core mythology from hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of years ago.
This may seem an obvious thing to state. It should not be hard for anyone to say that Tolkien, the father of the genre, drew heavily from myths and legends. Yet the question is a tad more specific. Why do we as modern people view fantasy as a genre? It could be argued that Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory is Fantasy, yet we would not find it listed with Elric and Drizzt. We recognise that the genre has certain mythological elements.
Reading backward through time one might begin to see traces of modern Fantasy’s beginnings in Arthurian legend. Or in the tales of Homer. Or even in the text of the Bible and other ancient religions.
Genre Fantasy is an amalgamation of all of human spirituality and idealism over the last ten thousand years. It puts the unknown of dragons, fairies, and magic back into the world and makes possible again larger than life characters and daring adventures. Dwarves are a mountain folk not because it is a tired trope but because the traditions passed down to us declare them to be so. All of the folk lore of all the world’s people’s can be housed in many forms over varying fantastical worlds.
Fantasy is a universal language. One in which the deepest depths of the human condition may be explored and explained. Grand heroes defeating great evils, or great evils conquering helpless victims, monsters in the dark, and mirth in the light; all of it contained within this one genre in a myriad of forms.
Suffice it to say that Genre Fantasy is a Mythos for the Modern Times. Douglas Adams, the author of a Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, once said in regard to religion;
‘Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?‘
Fantasy authors of all creeds and beliefs placed those fairies back in the garden. The garden was much improved.
Lost Lore Library 