The Power of Fantasy

I once did a research paper on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I realized then how fantasy can easily be underestimated. It is often dismissed as fluff or escapism by those who read more "serious" fiction. But I believe fantasy can be incredibly applicable to real life and influential for those who read it. While the "classics" are all well and good, their influence is somewhat limited because they are targeted towards a specific audience (often academics). Most fantasy, on the other hand, is directed towards anyone with a long enough attention span to read it. The best fantasy, therefore, is both entertaining for most people and applicable. With the original worlds and cultures of fantasy books, the characters need to be more human in order to give the reader something to relate to. And the more relatable the characters, the easier it is (for me at least) to really delve into the story and find something personally relevant in it. My problem with many of the classics is that the characters are so alien even if the setting and plot are more realistic. So fantasy really has an advantage because the characters have to be "real" enough to hold the reader's interest. And simply because it's more interesting. Simply put, good fantasy is powerful because it can engage the reader's mind with the new worlds and magic systems but still feel real with realistic characters, even if they are facing unrealistic problems.