The World-Ending Threats Are Easier In Fantasy

The World-Ending Threats Are Easier in Fantasy

I talked with a friend about this last night and I thought I could share this with you. We talked about Baldur's Gate and DnD campaigns, as well as fantasy in general and the tendency of a lot of fantasy to deal with world ending threats. And I thought I would share, because it is an interesting topic.

Spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3

In a lot of fantasy stories there are potential world ending threats. Sure, often enough the world is not literally gonna end, but it would cease to be the same world we know it to be. In Baldur's Gate 3 the villains basically plan for world domination. Or at least Sword Coast domination. But it is bad enough I would argue. Which is why in a good playthrough you got to stop them at all costs. So, in the end you defeat them, one by one. And then you go up to the big evil netherbrain and you kill that thing, too, after which the world is gonna be saved once more.

And themes like this are fairly common in fantasy. How many fantasy stories do you know in which the bad guy wants to rule over the world or reshape it entirely. Sure, it is fairly rare that the villain outright wants to destroy it - that is usually only something that "force of nature" villains want to do - but the fate of the world is kinda always on the line and of course the world tends to be saved by our fearless heroes.

For the longest time this went so far into that power fantasy aspect of it, that we never actually did consider how it would feal for those fearless heroes to have the fate of the world on their shoulders. Only fairly recently fantasy has turned more to dealing with the trauma our heroes would face during their quest to save the world, while having to kill and seeing their friends killed. In fact we are so used to heroes being impervious to trauma, that there are still a lot of people who will get very cranky when presented with a fantasy world where trauma does actually affect the heroes. (I just will remind you of how angry the nerds became to see traumatized Luke in The Last Jedi.)

But even so... the fantasy apocalypse is a lot nicer than the real world apocalypse, isn't it?

I mean that seriously. Because especially our younger generations do not know a world before the apocalypse. I am a millenial and I fairly well remember that moment when I was just 16 and realized how fucked the world was. Like, literally, I remember the exact day and time at which I realized that climate change was real and was going to fuck us all over. But at least I do remember a time before that. I do remember having normal winters and mild summers. Gen Z often doesn't.

And here is the thing: The real world apocalypse is not as easy to stop as the fantasy apocalypse. In the fantasy apocalypse it is fairly easy to stop it. Sure, the questline might be convoluted, but in the end it is "destroy magical item in vulcano" or "blow this one bad guy up". Once the main baddy has been defeated usually their troops will just give up - or remember they had better things to do.

But this doesn't really work in the real world. I cannot just go, assassinate Netanjahu and stop the genocide of Palestinians. And I cannot just take some magical item, throw it into mount Etna and stop climate change. And I also cannot throw Elon Musk into a portal and stop capitalism like that.

And sure, I do not have to deal with goblins, dragons, orks at the same time. Great. But... Like... We are all still getting traumatized, right? Like, we all get traumatized and especially between marginalized left-wing folks I do not know a lot of people who did not witness at least one violent encounter with evil goons (police).

And we are all traumatized. Losing a house in a wildfire is traumatizing. Seeing loved ones die of a pandemic the politicians are not taking seriously is traumatizing. Being in constant survival mode because you are too poor for anything else, is traumatizing as well. Most current workplaces are also traumatizing in their own little ways. School is traumatizing for so many of us. We are all getting traumatized by the world being fucked up.

To be perfectly honest with you: I would rather pick up a fight with a dragon, a netherbrain or whatever. Because a dragon or a netherbrain at least gives me something concrete to do. Because a dragon I can slay. Capitalism I can't. No matter how much I protest, I cannot kill capitalism - and I cannot stop climate change. And even if we did a revolution... It might work, yes, but really... slaying a dragon would be so much easier.

This is of course the entire function of fantasy as escapism. Because fantasy allows us a world where the end might be stopped fairly easy. When I DM a DnD campaign and let my players stop the end of the world, it is so we all can have the catharthis of this ending.

I just... wished that the real world would make it a bit easier.

Sorry for rambling. But yeah, it was something we talked about yesterday and I thought I might share.