Ben Domenech

And I think that's really key because for Tolkien, these other worlds do exist at some level of the imagination.

And when we engage in fantasy, when we read fantasy or when we write fantasy, we are opening a window to these other worlds and we're seeing these other worlds.

Um, that's the way I interpret that.

And so there's why that's important is because there's, there's truth there just because these, these other worlds, and I'm going to, I'm going to get into secondary world here a little bit, but just because these other worlds don't exist in the same way that our primary worlds exist, doesn't mean that there's no truth there.

Again, the bit from mythopoeia, you know, he responded to CS Lewis, you know, lies breathe through silver was CS Lewis's claim of myth.

No, there is truth to these other worlds.

And fantasy is a way of showing them, of finding these other worlds.

That is fascinating.

I didn't know that route.

And of course, you would.

I'm not surprised.

I think just to follow up on that, for me, fantasy is often more easily defined by what it's not.

And Tolkien does a really good job in On Fairy Stories of describing all the things that we might think that are fantasy, but aren't.

And he talks through all the different sort of genres of literature that you might think are sort of fantasy adjacent, but they're not.

So that's a really good place to start, too, if you're trying to figure out, okay, well, I get this nice definition of what it is, but does that fit this or does that fit this?

And he really does a good job there.

I think the problem with the definition of fantasy that Tolkien sets forth is that

And I'm not going to name specific titles, but there's a lot of stuff out there that's fantasy literature that really is not fantasy the way Tolkien.

Yeah, not the way he defines it.

The way Tolkien defined it.