A vendetta against fantasy genre expectations Part 1
Many fantasy genre expectations have shaped modern-day thought in the real world, and not in a good way. Time to rant.
Fantasy is supposed to be the genre of imagination with new worlds, innovative magical systems, and new possibilities.
But in many ways, it’s one of the most intellectually stagnant genres out there.
Beneath the dragons, magic systems, and sprawling maps, fantasy keeps recycling the same assumptions over and over again about authority, violence, and who gets to rule and why.
If you step back for a second, you start to realize something uncomfortable: a lot of fantasy isn’t challenging power. It just repackages and re-sells it.
Let’s start with the most obvious one.
Glorification of war
Fantasy reveres war. It’s where heroes forge their legacies, find meaning, and where the story proves itself.
You see it constantly: the reluctant hero who “has no choice,” the climactic battle that determines the fate of the realm, and the emotional payoff tied to victory on the battlefield. These massive climactic battles get treated as heroic turning points while wars get framed as unavoidable destiny.
Upon further review, war is almost never treated as a systemic failure. It’s not the result of incentives, bad leadership, or power structures clashing, like we see in today’s world.
It’s framed as necessary and noble, and that framing subtly turns mass destruction into a rite of passage. Millions can die, entire regions can burn, and the story moves forward as if this was the cost of doing business.
No one really asks: Why was this unavoidable, or who benefits from this continuing?
If you ask those questions, the whole structure starts to crack. But guess what? In many books I write that involve war — and I have a lot of them — I ask hard questions regarding consequences.
Following BattleFront’s climax, Mina Hirai is horrified at the destruction her actions caused. In Wind Keeper, Sion Zona realizes that his faction’s only interested in taking out a global superpower so they become the superpower. And in Astray Mage, the ramifications are so bad that the entire main cast becomes fugitives following an unspeakable climax.
Most of my characters feel sick to their stomachs.
The “Chosen One” and the myth of justified rule
Fantasy loves the idea that some people are simply meant to rule based on prophecy, bloodline, or destiny. Think the farm boy turned king or the hidden heir reclaiming the throne.
But the conclusion is always the same: this person has a right to power. It’s monarchy with a narrative facelift, and the audience is conditioned to accept authority because it’s special, it feels earned through hardship, that the character is likable, or because they’ve suffered enough to “deserve” it.
But none of that answers the real question: Why should anyone have that kind of power over anyone else in the first place?
Fantasy rarely explores that. It skips straight to coronation; something I’ve done one measly time with my main characters. Mainly because that character was already a crown prince.
Most of my work has chosen ones with no interest in ruling. Instead, they’d rather metaphorically take a flamethrower to the State; not become part the key shot-caller in it.
Benevolent authoritarianism
Closely tied to the “chosen one” is the idea that power itself isn’t the problem—bad people are.
If the ruler is wise, just, and strong enough, then everything “works.”
You get the noble king, the compassionate queen, and the hardened leader who makes “difficult decisions” for the good of the realm. In other words, the wise ruler who “fixes everything” once corruption is removed.
Readers are encouraged to trust them and say to themselves, “Man, if only we had the right people in power here in the real world…”
This is one of the most persistent fantasies (pun intended) in the genre: the belief that concentrated power is safe as long as the person holding it is virtuous.
That’s a gamble, because the moment the “good ruler” is gone—or wrong—the entire structure becomes a weapon.
Fantasy rarely interrogates that. It assumes the right person will stay in control long enough to fix everything and “live happily ever after.”
History tends to disagree.
Going back to my old-world fantasy, my crown prince turned king was technically coronated because he committed something called a coup and overthrew his father. He’s got enemies in his own nation.
Centralized control of magic
If there’s one trope that should set off alarm bells, it’s this one.
Magic—arguably the most powerful force in these worlds—often ends up controlled, restricted to guilds, councils, or state-approved institutions.
On the surface, it’s framed as safety, regulation, and responsibility. But functionally, it’s gatekeeping.
It creates artificial scarcity, concentrates power in the hands of those who attain it, and ensures that access to knowledge—and therefore influence—is controlled.
And most stories just accept that. They don’t ask who ultimately benefits from that system, how it can be abused, or what happens to people locked out of it. Think magical academies deciding who is worthy, or councils that restrict knowledge “for safety.”
They treat control as common sense, and it’s something I rail against in most books I write. Wind Wielder, my very first novel, shows this front and center, where elementals—branded as mutants—must have the element they control noted on their government-issued IDs.
Flip over to Civil War, and we learn that the State Culls Elementals (yes, it’s spelled with a capital ‘E’ in that series) the second they show off their ability. Culling in that world’s lore is simply conscripting them into the military—even at age five.
Before you ask, no, the “good guys” don’t take control of and “redistribute” the magic…
Collective guilt and bloodline morality
Another quiet assumption baked into fantasy? People inherit moral responsibility.
Entire groups are judged based on history, characters are blamed for what their ancestors did, and races are written as inherently good or inherently evil.
Does this sound familiar to what we’re seeing in today’s world, by the way? It shows me how powerful fiction can be at times.
It simplifies conflict, raises stakes, and erases the individual.
Once you accept collective guilt, you open the door to collective punishment for permanent underclasses, and cycles of revenge that never end because no one is judged on their own actions.
It’s one of the easiest ways for a story to justify brutality without having to wrestle with it, and it shows up far more often than people realize.
It also shows up in my own series, but I critique collective guilt. Elementals have shaped the World of Terra (our world) into the perpetual warfare-welfare state we see today. But those looking to change the system also aren’t saying, “Well, need to pay ramifications to all those Benights (non-Elementals) for causing hundreds of millions of their deaths in the 20th century because our chosen puppets did our bidding.”
No, that would be stupid. Those Elementals are trying to end the bloodshed for good, but they’d also rather keep their powers secret.
I will always subvert fantasy genre expectations
I don’t write to market. Instead, I write fantasy to provide an alternative voice. One that those who share my own views can read and appreciate.
It’s why libertarian thought, Rothbardian-style societies, and my characters’ sickened reactions at the constant war they face reign supreme. If it keeps subverting expectations, then so be it.
I’m not seeking to write bestselling novels on Amazon or approval from mass market readers because it would rail against so much of what I value. Instead, I’d rather be unapologetically myself, let my worldview show, and keep up with that alternative voice—attracting readers who’ll say, “Finally, an author who’s not scared to write outside the box.”
If you’re one of those readers, check out my backlist at The Rebel Lore Vault—an alternative to Amazon that doesn’t cater or conform to algorithms.
