Talia Moodley

Like it is such a classic of the genre.

So I think it makes sense that dark academia can kind of

play in the fantasy space as well.

Yeah, well, because that's a problem that you often run into with fantasy books, kind of more on the higher end of the spectrum, because how do you incorporate world building that's not in such a kind of clunky or obvious way?

Because if you have a character that's already so established in the world, they're not learning about the magic system or learning about their society.

They're just wandering through the world, off in a battle, and then suddenly you get this kind of back text history of the world so that you as the reader understand.

I think the schools do really help it feel more seamless to the reader as well.

relates to real world like there are real world world building empire building things that have happened in the past that it relates to and no one's being like this is a literary series yeah I think it's like it's such a thing as well um with the genres I think if there are people that aren't as familiar with reading fantasy I can see how dark academia as it pertains to fantasy is more appealing because it doesn't seem perhaps as I guess out there as a complete different fantasy world like there are kind of those familiar touch points in terms of a school

But, yes, at the same time, all fantasy is political, I guess, in a way.

And whether that's like intentional or not, right?

Because I think some books like in this one, I would say there's a very clear, like there are very clear topics that the author probably set out to explore because there are those kind of intense discussions, which you might not get so much in fantasy, like on the higher fantasy, epic fantasy scale, because

People are probably, you're seeing the actions play out rather than having necessarily these kind of philosophical or political discussions.

But like every author is influenced by the society that they grew up in and the things that are happening at the time.

Like I think with some long time series, like I'm thinking of Cassandra Clare.

Again, I don't know whether this was intentional or not, but the fact that she's been writing in the Shadowhunter world for

you know, more than 20 years, I remember kind of seeing certain books that came out, I guess, during, you know, changes in presidency and seeing different issues suddenly appear in her books of different topics that were clearly just related to what was happening in the world right now.

Like, I think authors can't help but be influenced by that and readers want to read it.

And it fosters empathy, right?

I think that's always going to be the way that I advocate for reading and storytelling because

Yes, you could read a nonfiction book about a topic and kind of get information that way, but being put in the world with the characters and feeling what they're going through, I think it just creates that connection that people might not get otherwise and kind of see a particular topic from a different way and have stronger feelings about it.