A few months ago I had a post up about Game of Thrones, where I argued that
to a great extent the book and the world that George R. R. Martin created was racist because that's true to how pre-modern worlds generally are constructed structurally.
When fantasists create a 'secondary world' they are almost always using our own universe as a prototype, often shading or refashioning some aspect here and there to taste. A true fantasy which is totally counter-intuitive and lacks familiar coherency is without any anchor for a reader, and so lacks narrative power. Fantasy stripped away of injustice or oppression would be without dramatic tension. Utopia does not sell. Additionally, the speculative element in this literature is sharply bounded by precedent. Modern fantasy in its origins is simply an elaboration of the epic literature which is often at the root of contemporary civilizations. J. R. R. Tolkien ...
