Since I was very young and first started to read, I have greatly
enjoyed reading books from the genre of epic fantasy. The epic fantasy genre is
loosely defined as fictional novels set in a medieval setting that lacks modern
technology. The most defining characteristic of the epic fantasy genre is that
the author must build a unique world and universe, and this allows for great creativity
and originality on the part of the author. In the past decade, I have read
hundreds of fantasy books, from common authors like J.R.R. Tolkein to books
that few people have ever heard of or read. The epic fantasy genre is the
classic example of the hero's quest. Almost every fantasy book has some form of
a hero or antihero who typically must complete a quest or achieve some goal.
In the beginning, starting with
Tolkein's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and Ursula Le Guin's Wizard of
Earthsea, fantasy books had well-defined "good" and "bad." Often,
the villain that the hero was trying to defeat was the pure essence of evil.
This is definitely true in The Lord of the Rings, where Sauron is not as much a
single being as the embodiment of evil and greed. However, in the past decade,
the fantasy genre has evolved to include more complex heroic types. The genre
still includes plenty of classical hero high fantasy novels as well as many
antihero novels, but many authors in the genre have turned to a darker, more
foreboding type of fantasy. In these books, there does not exist a definitive
hero, but instead each character is somewhere in between good and bad. Each
character is often doing what he or she believes is "good," and some
novels even have main characters fighting against each other, leaving the
reader to decide who is "good" and who is "bad."
Because epic fantasy novels are set in a
world that is different than our own, I have always felt a certain level of
detachment towards the heroes in these stories, and this has partially
translated over to how I regard heroes in our society. When I think of heroes,
I think of Legolas and Samwise Gamgee, characters who literally saved a world
by their actions. In contrast, I view people who do great things in our world
as great people, but I am hesitant to apply the word "hero" too
hastily.
