Great article comparing the two here:
It’s an interesting question. As an example in the article above, even our fantasy tales, such as Wizard of Oz, ends up with Dorothy revealing the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz as a charlatan.
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That’s a very interesting article. I grew up with mostly British tales — my parents read us Narnia, Tolkien, Winnie-the-Pooh, Wind in the Willows, Beatrix Potter, etc etc etc — and (while Tolkien was and still is the strongest influence) that’s what has shaped my writing and imagination. Ursula LeGuin has this wonderful defense of fantasy/sf as escapist:
“When an insurance broker tells you that SF doesn’t deal with the Real World, when a chemistry freshman informs you that Science has disproved Myth, when a censor suppresses a book because it doesn’t fit the canons of Socialist Realism, and so forth, that’s not criticism; it’s bigotry. If it’s worth answering, the best answer is given by Tolkien, author, critic, and scholar. Yes, he said, fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape? The moneylenders, the knownothings, the authoritarians have us all in prison; if we value the freedom of the mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can.”
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Wonderful quote by LeGuin!
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