Blog: Why Fantasy Today Sucks.

One of the questions I think is being asked the most in the world of fantasy is: “Why does so much of it suck nowadays?” If it’s not the same, formulaic plots and tropes we’ve gotten a million times before, it’s just the most depraved smut you’ve ever read all aimed at women. What gives? How did we go from J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis to George R.R. Martin and Sarah J. Maas?

I think what happened was the rise of secularism and greed. Fantasy as we know it as a genre is relatively new. Depending on your views, it started with writers like L. Frank Baum and George MacDonald, though most people consider Tolkien to be the Father of Fantasy. However, the genre’s origins stretch back to ancient days, with myths and fairy stories being the original sources of fantasy. In fact, Tolkien and Lewis both took much from mythology when writing their books and wrote essays about the importance of fairy tales on understanding the world and their deep connection to faith.

Because of this, when fantasy as we know it thanks to people like Tolkien and Lewis became popular in the 20th century, one of the reasons why it was great was because it was inspired by and tied to faith, particularly Christianity, even if it was subtle. In Tolkien’s case, his Christian faith was more implied in his work, as opposed to C.S. Lewis’s very overt allegories, as seen in The Chronicles of Narnia. Thanks to this, the values in these books are Christian values and are meant to reflect Christian beliefs.

That’s also why the theme of hope is so prevalent in these books. Terrible things happen in Tolkien’s work and the work of C.S. Lewis, much of which draw from their experiences in the First World War (fun fact: they both fought in France in the trenches of the Somme). Fighting in the trenches of the Somme, and later living through WWII, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis both saw the worst parts of humanity. They saw Man’s brutality, his evil, his greed, pride, and lust for power, but they also saw Man’s great capacity for good. That’s why the words of Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings hit us so hard: “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.” Though we see some of the depravity of Man in Tolkien and Lewis’ work, we also see the most noble parts that are fueled by hope in an objective good.

[Author’s Note: This also is what makes these secondary worlds so much fun to be in. Because of the objective standards of the good and beautiful, during the long meandering chapters through the forests of Middle Earth, we can better appreciate Tolkien’s world. Not everything is a tool to be used or something that can kill us. Even with Sauron’s forces on the move, we still want to just lie down in a grassy field in the Shire and take a nap. When that’s threatened, we have good reason to want to defend it alongside the main characters.]

However, towards the end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st, we saw something shift. As church attendance began falling and we began further moving into post-modernism, that post-modern worldview began infecting the world of fantasy. I would argue that this is best seen in the work of one of the most popular and controversial fantasy writers today: George R.R. Martin. Martin is a self-proclaimed “soft atheist,” who, while interested in Christianity and religion, does not believe there is a God. This has made its way into his series Game of Thrones, which while well-written and full of political intrigue, is ultimately hopeless. The only mostly good and noble character in the entire series is Eddard (Ned) Stark, who is killed at the end of the first book and even then, he isn’t without flaws, having a bastard son. After that, innocence is quickly destroyed in Eddard’s children, the line between the heroes and villains is blurred, and everyone is evil to varying degrees.

While this is more realistic than some of Tolkien’s work, where the most famous characters are almost impossibly noble, we never really see any true good or hope in any characters, just depravity. Yes, Martin’s work draws from history, and history is full of morally grey heroes. However, Martin takes it so far that good becomes relative. For example, compared to his scheming, incestuous, power-hungry tyrant sister, Cersei, Tyrion Lannister is a stand-up guy, even though his main hobbies are drinking and sleeping with prostitutes. There is no good in anything. Everything is just a tool to be used to get your way, no matter if it’s morally wrong. There is no recognition of any sort of objective truth, morality, or good to give the characters or us any hope.

[Another Author’s Note: I say “some of Tolkien’s work” because if you read The Silmarillion, many of his characters are similarly morally grey. However, there is still an overarching hope that objective good will prevail, as in the chapter “Of Beren and Luthien” in which love and goodness defeat even death. Tolkien’s belief in objective good allows for there to be hope even if some of his characters are flawed.]

This type of belief has also been echoed in other fantasy writers, as almost every character you read has to be morally grey for some reason and there’s no objective truth to give any hope. In fact, to some extent, fantasy writers post-Martin have taken it even farther than Martin has in that objective truth has been replaced completely with what I can only describe as sexual hedonism, both for the characters and the reader. This has created the romantasy genre, which has quickly overtaken traditional fantasy. In these books, it doesn’t matter that the main character is in what we would consider an extremely abusive relationship anymore. As long as the love interest is attractive, has an unrealistic fat-to-muscle ratio, said he loved the heroine once, and the smut scenes are so unrealistically graphic that they’re laughable, then somehow, this is justified.

The great tragedy that has stemmed from this is that because we’ve fallen from objective truth in stories, to post-modernism, to straight up hedonism, publishing companies have almost stopped looking for objectively good writers entirely. Instead, they’ve started looking for writers that are willing to write those laughably unrealistic sex scenes because they know that the more smut is in a book, the more likely the people will be willing to compromise on the story’s quality as long as it feeds their addiction (and yes, it is an addiction). In fact, this has become such an issue that the romantasy book industry is worth $610 million as of 2024 and has only been growing. Once again, it doesn’t matter if you’re actually a talented writer. As long as your book is sexually graphic, they will publish it, often without even trying to hide the content of the book.

Because of this shift to post-modernism and sexual hedonism, the fantasy worlds that authors today are writing are not only lower in morals but are lower in quality overall. They’re not pleasant second worlds to be in anymore. They all feel the same. They’re dark and formulaic, poorly written, and just there to make a profit rather than write because you’re passionate about writing or want to give people hope. It’s the sad truth and until we move back to a culture of objective morals that determine what is good, beautiful, and high, then we’ll continue on this steep decline in fantasy and writing in general.

Until next time,

M.J.