I’ve been ruminating on something for the last couple days and I think I have my thoughts in order enough to share it. 

The genre of fantasy—specifically high fantasy—has this deep and almost all consuming shadow cast over it by Lord of The Rings (LOTR) and one John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. The influence of LOTR and Tolkien is undeniable, it’s practically a genre-defining series. But should it be?

I’m not going to say that LOTR isn’t a phenomenal series, nor am I going to say it doesn’t deserve its acclaim. What I want to ask is: from the perspective of a creatives who work within the genre, should we allow Tolkien to continue to define the genre? 

What I want to interrogate is the uncritical relationship a lot of writers have with the influence of Tolkien on the genre. There are certain expectations we have about a work of high fantasy that almost exclusively comes from Tolkien. Elves, dwarves, and orcs? Tolkien. Dragons? Tolkien. A complex and detailed history of everyone who’s ever touched this one specific sword? Tolkien. Worldbuilding so detailed it outlines the sign language the dwarves use to communicate because their forges are too loud for their voices to be heard? Ok that one’s a little specific but you see what I’m getting at.

These expectations of what constitutes a work of fantasy all eventually wind their way around to Tolkien. Even your stock-standard isekai setting traces itself back to Tolkien by way of Tabletop Roleplaying Games and Record of Lodoss War. 

The issue with these expectations primarily falls on the way that those of us who create within the genre interact with them. Far too often these expectations are met at their face simply as something that must be done by virtue of being a high fantasy story. You have to have this intricate and detailed worldbuilding purely because you’re writing fantasy and it’s what you do. But these expectations do not arise from a vacuum, they’re defined by a specific work which you can—and should—go read and analyze. These things are not simply a part of LOTR for no reason, they are constructed and implemented into the prose for a specific reason.

There’s a bit of a common joke about Tolkien that he’ll describe every leaf on every tree in a forest in agonizing detail, but the purpose of doing that is so that we can truly appreciate the beauty of the world that characters are journeying to save. All of these tropes are implemented with care and thought so as to construct a greater whole, rather than simply thrown into the book to complete some fantasy story checklist. No one cares about the trade routes and plate tectonics of your world, no one cares how the city gets its supply of wheat—not until you give them a reason to. 

We care about Tolkien’s worldbuilding because it makes the world feel more vibrant, more alive, and the life of the world is the explicit purpose of the narrative. We’re on this journey to protect that life, that vibrance. The intricacies of the language implies a complex relationship between people and culture that makes this world so much more precious because of how alive it is. 

The interaction the worldbuilding has with the narrative is what makes it effective, not the fact that it is simply there. The world you set your story in is a dramatic force, it’s alive and puts pressure on the characters and plot so if you want people to care about your trade routes make them important, make them serve the narrative. Don’t just use your pages and paragraphs to exposit irrelevant details about your world.

I suppose what I’m trying to get at here is that things don’t just exist without reason, these tropes exist because of LOTR’s success and influence but they began as mechanics chosen to serve a purpose in a narrative. The ideas may have existed as worldbuilding notes before the actual story took form, but the details that made it into the narrative were not chosen at random. Their use was intentional and that’s what makes them so impactful.

So when it comes to writing all I can do is encourage you to ask why those curtains were blue, because at the end of the day that’s what this all comes down to. I have often gotten up onto my soapbox and preached that “the curtains were just blue” has done incredible damage to the way that we interact with media—and I will likely do so until the day die—but the uncritical interaction that it promotes is a dark curse that we must purge from our minds.

When we navigate the world every single aspect of our space is determined by an incomprehensible chain of events that has resulted in the physical composition of the space we’re in. The curtains were never just blue because the person that hung them was informed by the entire collection of their life experiences that shaped their opinions on colors, on curtains, on how colors affect a space and so, so much more. And when we write, the world we’re communicating is inhabited by characters that we want to sell as having an internal life as rich as a real person and on top of that, we’re shaping a space that serves as a larger piece of a comprehensive narrative.

If the color of the curtains do not matter, then the words you use to describe them are wasted, the ink and paper that tells us what color the curtains are is wasted, because whether we do it intentionally or not, every word we choose informs the narrative, it informs the characters and the themes. You can not—no matter how hard you try—escape meaning. Because you are not simply spewing random words, every choice is made for a reason, even if it’s unconscious.

The unconscious emergence of meaning is not necessarily a bad thing, but when you can intentionally wield your words to curate the meaning of a scene, of a narrative, of a character you can begin having a conversation with your audience. And that interplay that occurs between creator, medium, narrative, and audience is what makes the pieces of art that stand the test of time. 

My genuine wish for fantasy as a genre is that those who create it have the confidence and pride in their work to make it with intention. I want nothing more than an earnest expression of what you believe matters. What you have to say matters, so think about, and say it carefully. Say it as best you can.