Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing.
Interpretation
Fantasy allows for a clear discussion of morality, emphasizing the distinction between good and evil.
In the realm of fantasy, moral concepts such as right and wrong are explored with sincerity, enabling a straightforward dialogue about ethical dilemmas. Unlike many mainstream narratives that blur the lines between good and evil, fantasy provides a unique space to examine these concepts distinctly, highlighting the influence of perspective on morality.
In practice
In a discussion panel on the role of fantasy in literature, this quote can illustrate how genre shapes our understanding of morality.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Til shade is gone, til water is gone Into the shadow with teeth bared Screaming defiance with the last breath To spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day.
He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone. -from The Dragon Reborn. By Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, the Fourth Age.
The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.
Duty is heavier than a mountain, Dai Shan.' That time, Lan did flinch. How long had it been since someone had been able to do that to him with mere words? He remembered teaching that same concept to a youth out of the Two Rivers. A sheepherder, innocent of the world, fearful of the fate laid out before him by the Pattern.
Moiraine: It seems Ryne was wrong as well as a Darkfriend. You were better than he. Lan: He was better. But he thought I was finished, with only one arm. He never understood. You surrender after you're dead.
Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that "freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license," and they will define freedom out of existence.
The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.
I'm almost like three people. There's me the, Dolly, the person. There's me, the star. And then there's me, the manager.
Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love.
Surely, nothing can be more dangerous than the doctrine that the moral obligations of men change with the latitude and longitude of a place.
Tea...is a religion of the art of life.
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