Nerione Agrawal: "Dear Bridget Smith: Why Fantasy Novels are Horribly Boring (But I Love Them Anyways)"

Dear Bridget Smith: Why Fantasy Novels are Horribly Boring 

(But I Love Them Anyways)

By: Nerione Agrawal

“At last the three companions turned away, and never again looking back they rode slowly homewards; and they spoke no words to one another until they came back to the Shire, but each had great comfort in his friends in the long grey road… He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.”

And so ends one of the most famous fantasy stories – The Lord of the Rings. Widely acclaimed as the Father of Fantasy, Tolkien created an extensive world based on Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Wizards, and Evil Eyes.

Well, one Eye, but an evil one, nonetheless.

Past his fairly typical ending, there are aspects of his story that are familiar to the fantasy reader. Namely, the monomyth – Joseph Campbell’s explanation of the hero’s journey in a fantasy novel.

Now, while the monomyth allows readers to have a sense of familiarity with the story, there is a certain predictability to these stories that make them – how do we say this? – boring.

Yup, I just called The Lord of the Rings boring. Don’t kill me yet – I’m going to go a step further.

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin, Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman! Say it ain’t so!), Harry Potter (Now that’s just blasphemy.) All are B. O. R. I. N. G. Okay, now you can scream at me.

You done? Great, let’s continue.

All of these books follow a very accustomed pattern: there’s “quest time!” followed by “no can do. I’m happy right here.” Then there’s the push – sometimes literal – that gets the hero or heroine going on the quest or into the alternate world. (A big, hairy half-giant can really do that.) The journey’s always long and hard, riddled with obstacles and temptations. (A wine-loving, fallen angel and his sadistic mercenaries can certainly be problems.) The hero or heroine gets some sort of aid from allies and delays from their enemies. (Getting captured by orcs, perhaps?) Maybe there’s a traitor. (Wormtail, Wormtongue.) But despite everyone striving to stop them, they manage to complete their goal, save the world, blah blah blah.

That should sound familiar – it’s the basic plot of almost every fantasy novel ever. And because this basic plot is commonly used, readers find that their predictions are almost always correct, leaving little in the form of surprises. Now, who doesn’t like surprises? They’re said to make life interesting after all. And they do so for books, as well.

Okay, let’s back up a step. Despite everything I said here, I love fantasy and science fiction. If it falls under one of those two genres, I will add it to my reading list to search up. From Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series to Catherine Fischer’s Incarceron. From Marie Lu’s Legend series to Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. All are brilliant, in my opinion. But all follow the same basic pattern – the monomyth.

For me, what differentiates those books that I remember from the myriad of other books is how they diverge from the monomyth. Maybe it’s by having one of the narrators get retrograde amnesia, like Marie Lu does. Maybe it’s from having the narrator not actually thrive in both worlds. Maybe the quest changes half-way through the book as the characters realize they have a new goal. For me, a good author is one that will not completely follow the monomyth. They will change it in some sense and fully immerse the reader in their world. They will make their book stand out from the rest.

The monomyth is great – it allows the reader and writer to have a basic outline of the story. It can help the reader focus on other aspects, but the story should be different. It shouldn’t be a copy of Tolkien, Beowulf, or Homer. I don’t want to read more than one series about a teenage wizard who is considered “the boy who lived” by an evil lord. I don’t want to read two books about London Below. The monomyth gives an overview, but a writer needs to write their own book by diverging from it.

Fantasy is one of my favorite genres, and I will (hopefully) never stop reading it. I’ve read so many books, but the ones I remember are the ones that distinguish themselves, usually through the plot. By not being normal enough for me to predict. That is why I love them.