You argue that fantasy readers and writers prefer magic because it’s more exotic, but contend that, were they ever to find themselves living in a world of sword and sorcery, it would automatically become mundane. However, you also contend that our actual reality is fascinating despite its familiarity: that living with digital technology and science has failed to put a dent in our curiosity about it. In order for these two statements not to be contradictory, your argument seems to be predicated on a notion that fantasy readers are all intrinsically uninterested in the world around them, and are therefore incapable of being fascinated by any reality in which they find themselves, regardless of whether it’s scientific or fantastic in nature. Certainly, there are incurious people in the world, and some of them are fantasy readers, but when it comes to judging the whole of fantasy and the reasoning behind it as a whole, I’m fairly sure we can do better than that.
The common element across all stories, fantastic or otherwise, is character: being a reader therefore means being curious about other people. This is just as valid and worthwhile a curiosity as being interested in (say) science or mathematics, but the two states are far from mutually exclusive. Building a new world, as per a fantasy story, requries believability: we must know why a city or culture functions in accordance with this bias, that assumption, why it values these traditions and abhors those. Yes, there is an enormous amount of creative leeway in determining the above, but it will fail if the reader cannot be made to believe that people would really act that way. The idea is to build a society that supports magic, not to use magic as a substitute for society: in other words, the world still needs to function even without magic, because magic isn’t the most important element.
In hard SF, the aim is often to detail the parameters of a particular technology and then describe how society works around it. Magic can fulfill a similar narrative function, but without the in-depth analysis that accompanies hypothetical technology: it’s a shortcut, a way of using ‘what if?’ sans close scrutiny of whatever mechanism is making it possible. That’s not analogous with a lack of curiosity: it’s simply enabling the reader to be curious about something else—the result of the experiment, not underlying logic which created it. This is a primary difference between fantasy and SF, but both stories are still an exercise in imaginary worlds.
Let’s be honest: all fiction is a form of escapism. Magic has no monopoly on people wanting to live different lives, do exotic things and visit exotic places. If I am not a doctor in everyday life, but still like to read medical dramas, that is not the same as saying that I am uninterested in my own job, or that I lack curiosity about what it is I do. It doesn’t even mean I want to be a doctor, or that I somehow think I’d be happier if I were. Yes, that’s always going to be the case for some people, but prejudging all of fiction on those grounds seems like a pretty poor analysis. The very heart of escapism is that it is temporary—a break from the norm, a curiosity to learn new things, not an out-and-out desire to become the subject of whatever book I happen to pick up. Being a reader in any genre is not synonymous with being dissatisfied with reality, so why should fantasy be singled out as the exception to the rule?
It’s one thing not to want to read about imaginary creatures and false worlds. Different stories contain different degrees of fiction, and I completely understand and appreciate that my preferences are not the same as the preferences of someone else; nor should they be. But I am heartily sick and tired of people going the extra step further, to argue that the books they read aren’t really about escapism, because there are no dragons. Escapism is an attitude the reader takes to the book, not a genre in and of itself. Take your preference of reality and have welcome to it—but don’t pretend it’s a morally superior choice.
You argue that fantasy readers and writers prefer magic because it’s more exotic, but contend that, were they ever to find themselves living in a world of sword and sorcery, it would automatically become mundane. However, you also contend that our actual reality is fascinating despite its familiarity: that living with digital technology and science has failed to put a dent in our curiosity about it. In order for these two statements not to be contradictory, your argument seems to be predicated on a notion that fantasy readers are all intrinsically uninterested in the world around them, and are therefore incapable of being fascinated by any reality in which they find themselves, regardless of whether it’s scientific or fantastic in nature. Certainly, there are incurious people in the world, and some of them are fantasy readers, but when it comes to judging the whole of fantasy and the reasoning behind it as a whole, I’m fairly sure we can do better than that.
The common element across all stories, fantastic or otherwise, is character: being a reader therefore means being curious about other people. This is just as valid and worthwhile a curiosity as being interested in (say) science or mathematics, but the two states are far from mutually exclusive. Building a new world, as per a fantasy story, requries believability: we must know why a city or culture functions in accordance with this bias, that assumption, why it values these traditions and abhors those. Yes, there is an enormous amount of creative leeway in determining the above, but it will fail if the reader cannot be made to believe that people would really act that way. The idea is to build a society that supports magic, not to use magic as a substitute for society: in other words, the world still needs to function even without magic, because magic isn’t the most important element.
In hard SF, the aim is often to detail the parameters of a particular technology and then describe how society works around it. Magic can fulfill a similar narrative function, but without the in-depth analysis that accompanies hypothetical technology: it’s a shortcut, a way of using ‘what if?’ sans close scrutiny of whatever mechanism is making it possible. That’s not analogous with a lack of curiosity: it’s simply enabling the reader to be curious about something else—the result of the experiment, not underlying logic which created it. This is a primary difference between fantasy and SF, but both stories are still an exercise in imaginary worlds.
Let’s be honest: all fiction is a form of escapism. Magic has no monopoly on people wanting to live different lives, do exotic things and visit exotic places. If I am not a doctor in everyday life, but still like to read medical dramas, that is not the same as saying that I am uninterested in my own job, or that I lack curiosity about what it is I do. It doesn’t even mean I want to be a doctor, or that I somehow think I’d be happier if I were. Yes, that’s always going to be the case for some people, but prejudging all of fiction on those grounds seems like a pretty poor analysis. The very heart of escapism is that it is temporary—a break from the norm, a curiosity to learn new things, not an out-and-out desire to become the subject of whatever book I happen to pick up. Being a reader in any genre is not synonymous with being dissatisfied with reality, so why should fantasy be singled out as the exception to the rule?
It’s one thing not to want to read about imaginary creatures and false worlds. Different stories contain different degrees of fiction, and I completely understand and appreciate that my preferences are not the same as the preferences of someone else; nor should they be. But I am heartily sick and tired of people going the extra step further, to argue that the books they read aren’t really about escapism, because there are no dragons. Escapism is an attitude the reader takes to the book, not a genre in and of itself. Take your preference of reality and have welcome to it—but don’t pretend it’s a morally superior choice.