Fantasy itself is a genre that finds the supernatural and fantastical as a normal, everyday occurrence. Where these otherworldly elements coalesce creates tales of love, loss, and life, a journey a hardship and wonder forevermore. That being said, it would be remiss to simply regard all these stories as just “fantasy”, as it would be dismissive of the greater elements that better define what these stories have to offer.
Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride
HoyoVerse’s Genshin Impact
Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire
Kanehito Yamada’s Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
Fantasy is an all-encompassing genre that evokes a notion of worlds impossible to real life. Tales of fantasy have long existed within humankind’s existence as a method of explaining and making sense of the world. This can be seen in the lengths of mythology that permeate human history:
- The oral verses of the Prose Edda
- A collection of scriptures in the New Testament
- The tale of the Journey to the West
- Statues of the Buddha
- Prayers to the Greek Pantheon
- And far many more
In the modern day, we know fantasy as a work of fiction describing all sorts of supernatural elements. The classic knight saving the princess from the vicious dragon to the modern Marvel superhero films. The four examples above are various titles of fantasy media that all fall a little further from the initial fantasy lure.
The Princess Bride is a child’s storybook tale brought to life
Genshin Impact explores a pair of siblings’ attempt to reunite in a strange, unfamiliar world
Mistborn finds their protagonists attempting to survive in a world where the hero failed to save it
Frieren records the adventure of a new journey through the eyes of a long-lived Elf
A storybook children’s fantasy, an Isekai (translate: another world) fantasy, a hard fantasy, and a high fantasy all coexist and tell varied tales with varying degrees of fantastical elements to them. Continuing onward, I plan to dive further into various fantasy media and what makes them unique. How do they exist under the fantasy umbrella? What connects them to other forms of fantasy or makes them stand apart from other fantasy titles? What references may they pull from greater fiction? I hope you’ll enjoy the journey that I intend to ride and find out!
Featured Image from the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design5
- Goldman, W. (1987, October 9). The Princess Bride. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/ ↩︎
- Genshin Impact | Download and Play for Free. (n.d.). Epic Games Store. https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/genshin-impact
↩︎ - Noble, B. (2023, February 14). Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn Series #1)|Paperback. Barnes & Noble. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mistborn-brandon-sanderson/1100833141
↩︎ - Abe, T., Yamada, K., Tanezaki, A., Ichinose, K., & Kobayashi, C. (2023, September 29). Sousou no Frieren. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22248376/
↩︎ - EDDY. (2025, May 14). Exploring Fantasy Illustration: Bringing Imaginative Worlds to Life – RMCAD. RMCAD. https://www.rmcad.edu/blog/exploring-fantasy-illustration-bringing-imaginative-worlds-to-life/
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