Deborah Park's "Can I Have a Nice Cup of Fantasy with a Side of Meaning?"

Can I Have a Nice Cup of Fantasy with a Side of Meaning?

By Deborah Park

The world has an obsession with problems like the energy crisis or the healthcare fiasco. Flashing signs and large billboards advertise solutions like hybrid cars or cheaper medical insurance while declaring the prominence of these issues in our lives.

But I daresay that there is one crisis far more significant and engrained in the existence of the human race: the meaning crisis. We see it play role in the world around us with people striving to make their lives “meaningful.” A restless college student becoming a missionary in Indonesia. An insecure, middle-aged man taking out his savings to purchase a shiny sports car. A student studying for hours on end to maintain her near perfect GPA. People attempt to construct a sense of meaning in their lives because they ultimately fear a world void of purpose, where things simply happen because they do.

It is this insecurity that builds fantasy’s audience. In his blog post “Why Fantasy and Why Now?,” Scott Bakker states, “The wish-fulfillment that distinguishes fantasy from other genres is not to be the all-conquering hero, but to live in a meaningful world.” Through fantasy, readers are exposed to a world where one can live out a purposeful existence. We are able to forget our more practical and seemingly dry world while plunging into a different world.

Fantasy, a remedy for our uncertainties, can be broken down into two categories: low and high fantasy. The difference between high and low fantasy ultimately comes down to whether the author believes earth is a hopeless place for purpose, which influences how the author chooses to create the given world.

In high fantasy, meaning cannot be constructed in our world. Therefore, authors create an entirely different world detached from earth where characters can discover purpose. Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword serves as an example of a high fantasy novel through its world-building. Harry, the strong female heroine, is kidnapped in her sleep by the Hillfolk and taken to a completely different land: a place with no ties to our world. The world in The Blue Sword shows us objects like the Water of Sight that gives people rich visions and a magical blue sword that spews out fire strong enough to turn a valley into ”smoking rubble of broken stones and uprooted trees.”

In contrast, low fantasy seems to believe that the world is not void of hope and that with the intricate interweaving of fantastical elements in our reality, meaning can be discovered. Beloved fantasy author Neil Gaiman demonstrates this idea through his novel, Neverwhere. The protagonist in Neverwhere doesn’t leave the world when entering the realm of the unknown. Rather, Gaiman paints the picture of a London Above and a London Below: "'… understand this: there are two Londons. There's London Above-that's where you lived- and then there's London Below- the Underside- inhabited by the people who fell through the cracks in the world.'" London Above is the city in England that we know and London Below is a fantastical realm in the same general location. The difference between the two worlds ultimately is what exists in their reality. By intertwining the two worlds, Neverwhere proves its rightful place in low-fantasy.

The protagonists in both of these fantasy novels find a sense of resolve or fulfillment in the end. Harry in the Blue Sword, who “had always suffered from a vague restlessness, a longing for adventure, ” is able to discover that her restlessness was a power called kelar. The Hillfolk teaches her to channel her kelar into great feats of war and to ultimately find her purpose in life. Neverwhere’s Richard starts off just “getting by” in life and letting other people push him around. However, after journeying through the fantastical realm of London Below with sadistic assassins, life-sucking femme fatales, and a malicious angel, Richard finds that living in London Above is no longer enough for him. Somewhere down the line, Richard found a sense of confidence and purpose by living in London Below, prompting him to return. While high and low fantasy may present themselves differently either by abandoning or accompanying earth, they both return to the reason why fantasy exists: to find meaning. Harry finds it, Richard finds it, and I bet if we starred in our own fantasy novel, we would find it too.