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Fantasy has always been denigrated as a genre that promotes escapism and detachment from “true reality”, but I think this opinion is largely born out of ignorance and the negative associations that fantasy is always over indulgent in promoting unrealistic desires and that the human faculty of the imagination is mostly redeemed as a childish trait.

Personally I think this is crap, the fantasy genre simply demonstrates a means for the author to discuss some of the undesirable aspects of the human condition in a context that deters a direct association to real world issues; fantasy is simply a metaphoric mode of expression. For children especially, it has a special role in evoking responses towards themes that cannot be understood by them if they are presented in a realistic or explicit way (for instance, themes about maturation, war or even sexual development. Look at how C.S Lewis addressed the social events of WWII and the Cold War in say The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, or even the re-enactment of the crucifixion)

All fiction is on some level a work of fantasy in the sense that fiction is invented, but I think that the fantasy/sci-fi genre itself has the power to take the issues and reality of everyday life and impose them into a fantastical setting in order to highlight and examine more closely socially intimate issues about human nature, it disguises real world issues into otherworldly plots in order to offer an alternative perception in a non didactic or instructive manner so that it may be more willingly applied when confronted in ‘real-life’. In this way, fantasy is able to take the reader to a deeper sense of reality and safely show them the raw truth of the world they live in.

tl;dr = Discussing the belief that the element of ‘escapism’ in fantasy negatively detaches the reader from the ‘real world’ and its issues, and that those of us who read fantasy are bound to be dissociative space cadets because we don’t read “realistic” novels with “realistic” issues *barfs*

But that's what I mean, no offense intended when I say this, but your inclination to "escape into your own little fantasy world" is not a direct manipulation of fantasy literature but simply a condition you have yourself to shy away from reality.

It is the same when someone says that violent games produce violent inclinations in people because of the exposure to such themes; if a false reality can so easily subject itself onto a person then isn't it obvious that the inclination was already there?

Fiction literature is written in order to tell a story and make a point about something; the medium isn't what matters its the message that should produce a reaction!

I would have to say, that in a way, each person lives in their own "fantasy world". Where else do dreams come from? How else could there be multiple ways of looking at the same problem? Escapism, I believe, is a concept derived by those people who cannot and will not allow themselves to accept their own inner child...and yes I do think everyone has one. The idea that fantasy is not, in a way, also realistic, comes from the people that have never lay in the grass on a beautiful day and imagined that the clouds were different things. Or had others before them decide that such things were a waste of time and discouraged 'idealistic and frivolous things" that take away from more "fruitful pursuits" such as the "perfect" job. But there are always those that will break away from these conventions and restrictions, and they are said to be airheaded and badly misunderstood.

Sorry about the slight rant there. It just irks me a bit and makes me wonder about the world when the fantasy worlds that others bring to life are disparaged, even so far as to call them a way of escaping the "real" world. After all, for the time that they are being read, they are real to those of us who can "see" these worlds as they revealed.

What element do you think exists in different people that goes towards designing their views on fantasy?

Is it a pursuit of happiness?? Do we "escapists" find our feelings of happiness hidden away in the folds of a good book? I mean I 'feel' a lot when I read, sometimes more than in my normal life. I have cried out of grief from books and laughed so hard that I thought I WOULD cry again, and also read a book so moving that I have floated around for days afterward still trapped in that exulted feeling.

Or is it imagination? Can some people see these worlds or create them so easily when others (people who hold prejudice against it) cannot really understand where the elation comes from? Cannot see what it is we see when we read?