"Write what you know" is overrated advice, but it's a good idea to know what you write.
The eponymous genre of fantasy fiction turns out to be more varied and nuanced than its popular image.
In Genre: Swords and Sorcery is a two-decades-old (as of this writing) column in rpg.net; it's aimed mostly at tabletop roleplayers, and showing its age pretty badly. Still a useful overview. Notably, it includes Tolkien's most famous books, which fit their definition surprisingly well. One detail that stood out to me was the notion that even back then many other authors had a nuanced stance on magic, rather than always making it the tool of evil.
By way of contrast, the SF Encyclopedia entry on the genre is a scholarly take, that nevertheless makes many of the same points. Notable for the remark that sci-fi and fantasy mostly differ through the fact that one tries to rationalize the unreal. Also, it turns out that heroic fantasy was nothing more than a rebranding of sword and sorcery (which in turn started out as a marketing term, before it was called marketing — how ironic).
Interestingly, the TVTropes page claims the exact opposite happened.
See also: Principles of Tolkien's Magic
I spent years exploring the concept of freedom in my stories, and no matter how I looked at it, one conclusion imposed itself every time: there is no freedom without belonging. If you don't belong anywhere, that doesn't make you free, but adrift. Conversely, if you belong where you are, are you really a prisoner? It's not like you'd leave even if the door was wide open.
This, by the way, is why I find the Stockholm Syndrome a dubious notion at best. It's predicated on a gung-ho conception of freedom that only flies in Hollywood movies. And we all know what happens every time a certain world superpower tries to force this brand of "freedom" on other, older countries.
Freedom, you see, is a political concept by definition.
Western culture has a conflicted relationship with violence. On the one hand, we glorify it: in history, in fiction, and when it comes to bombing the hell out of not-so-white people from distant countries. On the other hand, we're terrified of the idea that an angry demonstrator might (the horror!) overturn a garbage bin. Or punch us in the nose if we insult their grievances. My personal theory is that most people in developed countries haven't so much as been bullied once in their lives. Hence why they keep giving kids dangerously useless advice such as "just ignore them" (which only makes it worse) or "tell an adult" (which results in the victim being blamed).
That's why on the one hand people in this half of the world insist that "conflict is what drives stories" (no wonder they don't get anime), yet on the other hand seek to blame violent videogames every time there's another armed massacre. While in older cultures they get that strife is a part of life, that no amount of civilization can or should eliminate entirely. Which isn't the same as wantonly beating on the helpless! That's portrayed just as negatively in Japanese media as it is in Europe.
Yet somehow we keep demanding impossible fantasies of stopping tyrants with kindness, even as we consistently fail to come up with even imaginary ways to do so. Go figure.
To fellow sci-fi writers who still think we'll ever colonize other planets. Never mind that it's a horribly problematic notion. Never mind that we tried building arcologies right here on Earth and they didn't work. Small underwater habitats that weren't even autonomous. It's still too hard. More people live and work in the Antarctic, where they can at least get fresh water easily, than in the Gobi desert where it's otherwise friendlier.
Consider the time it took to build the International Space Station, at a time when the world's superpowers were actively cooperating. Now do the math for a Stanford torus, a.k.a. the space station from 2001. Actually, I'll spare you the effort: assuming comparable means, it would take literally centuries. And it would be a much bigger target for solar flares, or you know, tiny pebbles fast enough to kill everyone.
Sure, going back to the Moon would be cool. To prove ourselves that we can do it again, that it wasn't a fluke; to see what time did to the equipment left there half a century ago. But what else do you think we'll do, actually build a Moon city? (sigh) And that's assuming the five-year plan stays on track. I mean, look how much the world changed in 2022 alone. This isn't a fluke. Things will just keep getting worse faster from now on.
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