I’m certain that fantasy fiction and real life are inseparable. First of all, I should say that real life is full of conflict, split-second decisions, emotional upheavals, villains, and monsters. Real life is about doom, redemption, joy, and sorrow. Loss, power, injustices, and morality are all part of real life.
Unless you are completely unacquainted with fantasy fiction or movies, you will agree that fantasy fiction includes all the above and more.
Thus, fantasy fiction and real life are one and the same.
But some readers and critics say fantasy fiction is mere escapism. They want something “real”. Well, I’ll say it is a good escape as are other sub genres in fiction, but it is so much more than that. It is about real-life issues, but most time these real-life issues are displayed with more color and, perhaps, in a more satisfying way. There, I said it.
It’s a Mirror
In fantasy fiction, writers use supernatural, whimsical, and bizarre settings primarily to reflect our lives and everything within them in a relatable and intriguing way.
Dragons aren’t just creatures that spit fire; they symbolize something larger and sometimes more sinister. Other times they represent something entirely the opposite. The evil sorcerer isn’t just some strange outsider to ignore but represents the evil and injustices we should stand against. Living in 2025, we should be able to connect with, as well as look for such symbolism in fantasy fiction.
Universal Themes
If you’re human, you can relate to themes such as power, loss, social injustice, death, birth, love, and hope. Using symbolism the author shines a light on these themes as they are brought to life for the reader to ponder, but with some distance. This distance is what lies between the symbol and what it represents. It makes us think—to feel—rather than the representation being spelled out.
This distance is powerful.
The reason readers keep coming back to fantasy and fiction of all sorts is that universal themes are the engine that propels not only a good story, but gives our lives substance.
Here’s Why Fantasy Fiction Can Feel so Much Like Real Life
Commentary of our world
You may have heard the term “world-building”. Authors may design a fictional world to critique real-world social structures to include the political climate, the social focus and the internal landscape within the character to project a very human story.
Sometimes these worlds depict oppression, rebellion, inequality, and other injustices. These fantastical worlds are thought-provoking and real.
Belief Systems
We all have them. The structures we need to build walls around our lives and to make sense of them. Hopefully, these walls have doors and arches so that we may pass through them and attempt to understand other belief systems that we don’t hold as our own.
These structures are religions, politics, and various other associations we “need” or seek out in our lives. Fantasy fiction uses these structures that are near and dear to us to tell a story. Good versus evil comes to mind.
Basic Human Emotions
Fantasy stories are deeply embedded in the human experiences. Love and loss, trust and betrayal, ambition and indifference and the mere struggles we have getting from one point to another.
The Characters
Like in all fiction, fantasy fiction allows us to experience life through the eyes of a character that we have come to love, and by doing so, we feel for that character. Our empathy grows while reading fantasy fiction we become the hero of the journey. As our compassion grows we begin to understand and are open to others and their struggles beyond the fantasy workd and into the real world.
Although fantasy fiction on the surface seems to many as pure escapism, it is so much more as it reflects our own lives and the world we live in. Like other types of fiction, the aim of the author is similar, but fantasy writers choose to use other ways to tell the story.
Fantasy fiction and real life are the same. There is no way to get around that.
Other posts about fantasy: Why Fantasy is. a Good Read, The Time We Have, From a Struggling Reader to a Writer of Fantasy, About Fantasy (category)
About E.G. Kardos
I am a fiction writer and the author of five books. My writing draws inspiration from the beauty surrounding us all—both in nature and in each other. Spirituality, friendship, love, and our connection to the universe inspire me to write. Here’s more about me and my books.
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