The Dragons have looked at rivalries and snobberies between different genres in previous episodes - it's endemic and baked in to the creation of literature. But they've never fully tackled the 'mythology' that has specifically risen around writing fantasy. This week Jules and Madeleine delve into how these strange and often nonsensical pieces of 'wisdom' came about, and why they stalk the genre to the extent that some fantasy writers deny they write fantasy even now. Does fantasy engage with important themes? Does it have value beyond mere entertainment? Can it cause the reader to lose their ability to tell between reality and fantasy? The dragons tackle all this and more. On the slab this week - Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and many more.
Title music: Ecstasy by Smiling Cynic
Episode 389: Beautiful Misery - The Hunger for the Afflicted Woman in Fiction
Episode 388: A Conflagration of Authors - AI, Audiobooks and Infringement
Episode 387: Complicated Runes and Ineffable Power - Hard Versus Soft Magic Systems in Speculative Fiction
Episode 386: The Art of Not Fitting In - A collection of Not Like the Other Girls Trope Observations
Episode 385: Both is Good - Examining Bisexual Representation in Speculative Fiction
Episode 384: Appearances Can be Deceiving - The Hidden Power of Modern Fairytales
Episode 383: Gaslit Magic and Immortal Monsters Hunters - Incorporating Strong Historical Elements in UF
Episode 382: Part of Your World - Tracing the Origins of The Little Mermaid
Episode 381: Hard Times in Magic & Logic - Examining the Parameters of Hard Scifi and fantasy
Episode 380: Will He Escape those Dastardedly Clutches - Why Cliffhangers Are a Bad Idea
Episode 379: Exuding Menace 101 - How to Create Menacing Villains
Ep 378: Separated by a Common Language - Examining the Differences between UK and US Urban Fantasy
Episode 377: Bringing in Dessert - Serving Up Delicious Endings Against Desperate Odds
Episode 376: In that Time In that Place - the Monomyth and Other Storytelling Modes
Episode 375: The Batcherlorette - Bookish Edition
Ep 374: Her Fatal Curiosity - Tracing the Origins of Bluebeard
Ep 373: Circe Morgana and Rosaline - The Problem with Feminist Retellings
Episode 372: Truth Fiction and Outright Absurdity - More Strange Author Mysteries
Episode 371: Breaking the Stained Glass Window - Language Storytelling Absolutism and Censorship
Episode 370: Running with th Wolves - Werewolves in Folklore and Speculative Fiction Part 2
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