Save the Fantasy, Save the World

This guy right here.

I never really thought of Terry Pratchett as a fantasy author. Pressed to describe his genre I'd call him a satirist: his worlds to me were as real and human as the one we're in now, just better annotated to give insight to the cosmic joke we're all a part of.

But my sister doesn't read fantasy (excepting the Bible, I'll playfully rib her), and doesn't like Terry Pratchett. When I asked her to just give it a shot and showed her an excerpt that had been in a newspaper advertising his then newly-released Going Postal, she giggled, but then pushed it away and reaffirmed that she had no interest in reading anything so silly. Silly, folks, not because it was funny, but because it's part of the fantasy genre. To my sister—and most people I know—what isn't real is nonsensical and impractical.

She certainly isn't alone, and there's a certain phrase that I've heard time and time again from so many sources that it just makes me die a little inside every time recognise it anew, with all it implies from a new acquaintance:

'I don't read fiction.'

Or its subtle, condescending, 'I've outgrown your childish phase because I'm a Serious Grown-Up™' variant:

'I've stopped reading fiction.'

As it happens the last one makes me die a lot rather than a little, and forces me to undergo a Fawkesian metamorphosis mid-conversation if I'm to continue with a big fake smile and a wide-eyed stare that doesn't too obviously say: 'You're crazypants,' but that has the side-effect of making me look like one instead. Fortunately by the time we've reached that point, it's likely been in response to me professing my love for fantasy and science-fiction, or I've foolishly answered a passerby's inquisition of 'What are you reading?' with something other than, 'Book.'

How Fawkes feels inside you say the phrase, 'I don't read fiction.'

Explaining the plot of any book that contains wands, spaceships and/or dragons is usually enough for most Serious Grown-Ups to classify you as 'special needs', by which point you're past the point of no return. Ideally, you should instead at all times be carrying a detachable cover of The Art of War or Who Moved My Cheese and master the art of swiftly drawing them from your sleeve to conceal what you're actually reading with something that will both impress and avoid awkward conversations. Both of these are rather thin volumes, though, so if you absolutely must read a doorstopper you should resort to a detachable Crime and Punishment instead. They'll be so astounded and terrified that they'll flee the conversation at their earliest convenience and recommend you for immediate promotion via the next available ape in a Serious Grown-Up suit.

But this world we live in makes me sad, just like it made poor Terry angry. I don't want to have to keep pretending I've read Crime and Punishment, though I promise to get around to it eventually, so instead in Terry's honour I'm going to make a last-ditch attempt to convince whoever's reading this (hey, Sis!) to shed some biases. Or if you're one of those people who's been saying to yourself, 'Golly, I really ought to stop rereading Harry Potter and get around to some "better", more Serious Grown-Up books like this inspiring business mogul's trifling, ghost-written autobiography where he says the same thing every other inspiring business mogul has ever said,' I'd like you to stop beating yourself up right now and follow your Disney dreams.

Why? Because I believe that the fantasy genre has the power to save the world. Really. But maybe I've just read too many fantasy books.

I thought all I had to do was save the cheerleader.

Let's put it in Sir Pratchett's eloquent words:

"Fantasy isn't just about wizards and silly wands. It's about seeing the world from new directions."

Thanks, Sir Pratchett. We miss you already.

To many Serious Grown-Ups who've stopped reading fiction, fantasy is a particularly heinous genre which is to be avoided at all costs, but there are variants of fiction which may at times be forgiven if approached with care and the correct protective gear: namely, a closed mind. Gone Girl is sort of okay, The Da Vinci Code is sensible as long as you aren't an offended Christian, and I suppose if you're a female applying for a job in journalism you're allowed to read Jane Eyre too. Excess frivolity and fantastical elements are to be dismissed, since goblins and demons are inapplicable to the real world and have no bearing on your life. Which is exactly the point.

Non-fiction books—by extension, fiction books set in the real world too—are cheating. They're telling you what to think, not working to convince you how. It isn't clever to read a book about the Holocaust and think, 'Gosh! Those Nazis sure were bastards,' or a book about your favourite business mogul and think 'S/he's so inspirational!' when that's exactly what you thought beforehand. This is a pretty easy way to sell, but that doesn't make it good. If you've been thinking to yourself that The Art of War is the progressive kale to The War of the Worlds' juvenile junk-food, think again.

Reading fiction forces you to:

• empathise
• experience
• and learn

...from a story that is outside your mental comfort zone. Don't take my word for it, there's research links right there, and here's a video for your convenience too:

There is nothing more exciting (okay, maybe a few things, but within this context...) than going up to a fantasy fan and saying, 'Hey, do you think Tolkien's portrayal of the orcs and the dwarves was sort of racist? Do you think the fact that hardly anyone's noticed says a lot about how we naturally dehumanise other cultures and view war politics in black and white?' Watch the argument ensue; I know diehard fantasy fans who could argue about the social implications of their favourite books for days. Try going up to someone and starting a debate about Hitler where you don't both solemnly nod your heads and concur, 'Yes, yes, awful,' and see how far that gets you.

Fantasy lets us view our world without bias. None of us were born Lannisters or Starks: we have no natural tribal affiliation to either house. When you see a fantasy nerd proudly sporting a shirt that reads, 'The North Remembers!' It means that nerd right there has given the events of A Song of Ice and Fire (or realistically, just Game of Thrones on telly) independent thought and decided for themselves which ideology speaks to them the most. The same may not be true when you see a hat that reads 'Jesus take the wheel,' or when someone posts something political to their Facbeook. Like this:

When I was in school I was made to read An Inspector Calls. 'This makes a lot of sense,' young me thought to myself, or was told to think to myself. 'How sad that poor Eva committed suicide because of these selfish capitalist pigs.' It wasn't until years later that I thought to myself, 'Wait, hang on, that's completely ridiculous—you can't just blame everyone around a victim for their depression, regardless of politics.'

If there's really a genre that's heinous, absurd and should be avoided at all costs, I declare it to realistic-setting fiction that tells you what to think. If there's indeed any kind of book that should be banned from schools for indoctrinating children into cult-like thinking, it should be An Inspector Calls, not Harry Potter.

Saving the World

Alright, theoretical mumbo-jumbo aside, how does preserving the fantasy genre actually save the world? And from what?

To the impatient pragmatist reading this (hey, Sis!), for starters let me say that I think having a world of more open minds qualifies in itself as saving it. Stories we read, movies we see, shows we watch, even the music we listen to—every pop-culture icon in history—has an impact on the world around it. If it didn't, the concept of propaganda wouldn't exist. Telling people what to think about the real world is pretty much the definition of propaganda (but here's a link to the Oxford for you sticklers), whereas peeling back the biases and letting them draw their own conclusions about various tribe-free ideologies is the opposite. Even though I think Tolkien's evil race of orcs is a racist and dehumanising way to look at an opposing culture your people are at war with, I don't actually have a stake in the matter which could cloud the debate. This puts me better on guard when I see politicians doing the same thing, and if everyone was more on guard against it, we might not have wars. Imagine that. (As a spoiler alert: It's never going to happen. But hey, we can dream.)

Let's actually talk about dreams. What did you dream of doing when you were younger? Where are you now? If these mesh, congratulations, you either weren't very ambitious or you're uncommonly accomplished. For me, these dreams always have been and always will be bigger than what I can actually accomplish, for which I blame the fantasy genre. And yet, I'm here to tell you that's healthy.

Not every fantasy fan does this. For some it's just escapism, where for a bit they get to immerse themselves into a good dose of world-saving, heroism, fair maidens and all sorts of other nonsense that they could never actually do in the real world. Except... says who? If you can identify the deeper appeal the fantasy genre has for you, you can actually utilise that story and decide to live it. If you don't dig fantasy at all, your dreams may not stretch as far as they could to begin with.

Every person in the history of the universe (or rather, the little fraction of the history of the universe during which we puny humans have been around) who has ever been labeled 'extraordinary' has done extraordinary things. This should be considered intuitive, except for some reason it isn't. Let me repeat that in a way that sounds patronising (you can punch me later): They have done extra ordinary things. They have gone outside the ordinary.

People sit there reading Richard Branson and Steve Jobs and Nelson Mandela's autobiographies (ladies, I apologise for lacking representation, but mainstream media isn't there with you yet) and think to themselves, 'Wow, amazing,' and then they go on about their ordinary lives. Some read the story of a humble Hobbit who left the Shire on a quest for adventure, who used bravery and cunning to (sort of) save the world (actually he kind of just fucked it up for Frodo, but we'll let that slide) and yet when children in the school system voice revolutionary ideas or big pipe-dreams, they're given a pat on the head and told to focus on their algebra for now. That 'now' that becomes then and forever, until you're sitting in an office cubicle with no clue how you got there and your dream to go to outer space condenses into 'Ibiza with mates over Summer'.

I'm flabbergasted, ladies and gents, so let me be annoying again and repeat that phrase one more time:

If you want to be extraordinary, you have to do extraordinary things.

Maybe you don't want to be extraordinary, and that's fine. Read Richard Branson's autobiography and move on with your life. But I'm here to advocate saving the world, which is why I'm saying read fantasy novels and then live them. If your favourite heroes are martial arts badasses, go take a Kung-Fu class. If you've always wanted to explore the jungle, go look into a job, internship, study course, anything, and find out how to get there. There are a million fantasy things that you can decide to do that will enrich your life: join a political party, sign up for fencing or archery classes, picture that you're Bilbo and go backpacking dirt-cheap around Europe, or even stand up for what you believe in through a blog that no one will read. (Hi, Sis!)

So I decided to save the world. It's not as dramatic as it's been for any of my favourite fictional characters, but it's little things. I'm very passionate about environmentalism, and when I do my bit to reduce my impact on the planet or spread some advocacy, I feel a bit like a superhero saving the world. I'd like to imagine that I'll one day publish a good book or two that will change the world a bit for however many or few people end up reading it, too. My dreams are all ridiculous, but that's fine, because people said the same about the small ones I've already fulfilled. Fantasy is what drove me.

So what's your dream?

Creative Problem-Solving

Never underestimate the value of imagination. Thinking outside the box is a valuable skill, and that includes thinking outside the realm of the possible, too. Within reason, of course; I don't advocate believing in ghosts, because you should maintain a balance and cognisance between the Subjective and the Objective Reality.

But it never hurts to think about the absurd, about 'what if' scenarios, about inconceivable problems. Those are always the ones that stump you, after all, so it's good to get some practice in there. I'll leave you with this uplifting PBS Idea Channel video telling you why your dirty secret penchant for D&D prepares you better for life than most of your peers are, and drop another quote of one of my favourite, sadly gone authors:

"Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can."

Rest in Peace, Sir. Like something out of fantasy, you've become an immortalised God through your works, and are an inspiration to us all.