Fantasy as an Act of Resistance

In her article "Fantasy, Reading, and Escapism," author and Tor.com contributor Jo Walton writes, "If your life is bounded and restricted, seeing that more options exist helps, even if they’re all theoretical and imaginary. Escaping doesn’t mean avoiding reality, escaping means finding an escape route to a better place." This defense of Fantasy (and we might add Science Fiction) is one that many of us first encounter in print through J.R.R. Tolkien's On Fairy Stories, but it is also something that many readers and writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy know intrinsically. There is value in getting away, in witnessing another world's epic struggles of good against evil and putting our own problems aside, if for a moment, so that we might recharge.

It's something I've felt, too, but when I sat down to create the world for my latest Work in Progress, I thought: Fantasy can be more than that.  It can be equipment for living. It can be an exploration of identity. Fantasy can be resistance.

Fantasy as Equipment for Living

Often, Fantasy is thought of as a genre apart from others, but there are several theories that might be applicable to all Literature that also relate to Fantasy. One of these is Kenneth Burke's "Literature as Equipment for Living." What Burke argues is that stories help us recognize certain 'types' or patterns that may reflect patterns in our own lives. For example, V.E. Schwab's Shades of Magic series explores the complex rivalries of sibling relationships and the struggle between self-interest and duty. Similarly, Suzanne Collins's Mockingjay has motifs connected to the trauma of prolonged conflict, and the significant sacrifice of one's spirit as a result of her leading a resistance. These books are not escaping the problems in the real world; they're dressing the problems up in different robes. In this way, when we see Katniss or Kell victorious in their struggles, that too is equipment for living   it repairs the armor, repairs the spirit, and affirms that success is possible (though at a cost).

Fantasy as an Exploration of Identity

Building off of Burke, perhaps one of the most common patterns in Fantasy, especially YA Fantasy, is the coming-of-age story. We see this no matter the subgenre. It is in high fantasy, as Lila Bard awakens her magic in A Gathering of Shadows. It is in portal fantasy, going all the way back to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, or The Thief of Always, all books where, by the end of the protagonist's adventures, he or she is returned to the world changed, the lesson learned. Lastly it is in low fantasy, where the protagonist discovers a new side to their world (and eventually becomes an expert of that world) as is the case in Percy Jackson, Akata Witch, and The Serpent's Secret. 

In Fantasy, we get to see characters explore the world, their family's histories, and ultimately, their own place, role, or identity within that space. This is the work we're all doing in our lives, and to read the way others go about it is not an escape, it is a confrontation from a different angle.

Fantasy as an Act of Resistance

In her book We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom, Dr. Bettina Love explores the role of art in Abolitionist teaching by providing students of color with the space to critically engage with injustice, to find a homeplace, and to dream of a better world (Love 99 - 101). Within this section, she cites the work of author activist adrienne maree brown who says, "'All social justice work is science fiction. We are imagining a world free of injustice, a world that doesn't yet exist" (as cited in Love 100).

More and more frequently, I am seeing how this is the case. One place we see this is in the desires of agents like Rebecca Podos of the Rees Literary Agency. An author herself, Podos recognizes the importance that Fantasy can play in doing social justice work by normalizing queerness. She writes, "I would truly love an SFF, YA or Adult, with queerness so baked into the world a la She-Ra that nobody even blinks."

Why this is so important, and what this does, is help readers imagine a world where these issues don't exist, and if we can imagine these spaces today   a kind of freedom dreaming   then we can work towards them as we move into tomorrow. Returning back to Dr. Love, who is herself channeling Robin D.G. Kelley, "'any revolution must begin with thought, with how we imagine a New World" (as cited in Love 101). 

Fantasy as a genre provides us with the space for this freedom dreaming, and many writers of the queer Science Fiction and Fantasy world are responding. In this way, Fantasy can resist white, euro-centric, cishet norms. Authors in the queer SFF community are already doing this work. Authors in the BIPOC SFF community are doing this work.

Fantasy can be revolutionary. If someone suggests that this freedom dreaming, the imagining of a better world, is escapist, then they are missing the point. The imagining is only the first step; what comes next is the work to move reality towards that idea.

A Word of Caution - Fantasy as a Weapon of Hate

But we need to be cautious. For too long, Fantasy has not been a means of resistance, but a means of oppression. We see this in the way tabletop games reinforce race as a biological concept instead of a socioeconomic construct. We see this in the way darkness is too often used interchangeably with evil. How, in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, the Haradrim (or Southrons) are the ones who ally themselves with Sauron, and whose main defining characteristic as men is their darkness.

We see this in the failure of imagination that Ebony Elizabeth Thomas lays out so well in her book The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games. How, in those few moments where a black or brown character is given power in Fantasy, they are killed, pushed out of the narrative, paralyzed, or are met by a wall of white rage from fans crying about realism.

We see this in the way Whites try to place themselves in the narrative of the oppressed instead of the oppressor. In a critique of Blade Runner 2049 in her book of essays titled Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, Cathy Park Hong looks at the problem of "science fiction as magical thinking," or "whites fear that all the sins they committed against black and brown people will come back to them tenfold, so they fantasize their own fall as a preventative measure to ensure that the white race will never fall" (Hong 198). 

As I write this, I have to reflect on myself. I'm a white cishet male who writes Science Fiction and Fantasy. With that awareness, I want to commit myself to using my Fantasy writing as a means of resistance, not to prevent the fall of whiteness, but to abolish the systemic advantages whiteness has made for itself. I understand that there are privileges I have that are unearned (if one needs evidence of that, one need only to look publishing statistics). I want to align myself with other authors who want to see equity and justice in publishing, in creative spaces, and in the worlds we allow ourselves to dream.

Aligning Oneself

In the end, that's what it comes down to: how do you wish to align yourself? What will your reading choices say about you as a reader? What will the authors on your list say about your publishing company? What will the worlds you create say about you as a writer, and as a person?

If we approach reading, writing, representation, and publishing from this angle, one thing becomes clear: Science Fiction and Fantasy can be so much more than escapism. There can be resistance and revolution here, too.