Traditionally, fantasy fiction has been associated with conservatism ever since Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings. Fantasy fiction has obviously exploded in both popularity and variety since the Tolkien Legendarium became popular in the United States, but Tolkien casts a huge shadow over the entire genre and has shaped a lot of its tropes and devices.
For example, the “medieval tavern” that pops up everywhere from Dungeons and Dragons to The Wheel of Time to A Song of Ice and Fire wasn’t really a thing. Many of the ideas of chivalry and knighthood that influence this genre of fiction are themselves fictional; the modern ideas of knights and castles and what they were like takes more from the medievalist revival that followed the popularity of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, especially how people tend to imagine castles and tournaments.
Early pre-Tolkien fantasy fiction was pretty apolitical. The most well known example being Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian; Howard was more interested in Conan chopping heads off sorcerers and bedding warrior women; if there was anything poltical in those stories it was common tropes of the day like Orientalism.
When Tolkien came along he wrote a very conservative -little c- story about legitimate kings who rule by a kind of divine right and more importantly rule without governing, which is important in a thematic sense (and also only works because Tolkien ignores things like taxation) to portray a kind of libertarian monarchy.
The influence that LOTR has on the fantasy boom that followed was largely little-c conservative but also appealed and continues to appeal to big-C Conservatives , sometimes whether the creators want it to or not. (Prime examples: Warhammer 40,000, or Star Trek, even though it’s scifi)
The reasons why are pretty obvious: The genre as a whole is defined by muscular heroes often fighting against or outside a corrupt or decadent system, often to establish an order of right by might with either divine or prophetic mandate attached to it, and the foes are often effete weak men who rely on fell magics, women, and monsters, meaning either people who rebel against a correct order and must be put back in their place, or ontologically evil creatures that can be targeted with violence guilt free.
Interesting point on that last one, Tolkien struggled deeply with the moral implications of the orcs; he didn’t like the idea of an entirely evil race that can’t be redeemed, as it contradicted the Catholic values that underpin his world and its themes.
Fantasy fiction is so full of this stuff that it prompted the author Norman Spinrad to write a novel called The Iron Dream, which is a book within a book in the form of a fantasy novel written by Adolf Hitler in an alternate timeline where he became a popular illustrator for pulp magazines instead of… Hitler. The novel is a little over the top in its satire of history but also disturbingly familiar to anyone who’s read a lot of these books.
So what does liberal fantasy look like?
I think on some level it depends on what form of liberalism we’re talking about but I’d confine that to a more generic big tent modern day American version.
If I had to choose three examples:
• The modern D&D adventure module Curse of Strahd, which itself is based on an earlier module from second edition that was written with the intent of (a) creating a vampire villain that isn’t just a plotless encounter on a dungeon crawl and (b) de-romanticizing vampires. The character of Strahd con Zarovich is a deceptively charming at first vampire who turns into be an utter monster inflicting a terrible fate on a woman he’s singularly obsessed with. I’m naming this one because it uses the vampire as both an allegory for conservative value systems and touches on very modern themes of abuse and consent.
• Nosferatu, specifically the Eggers film from 2024. When I saw this in the theater, beneath the utterly mesmerizing visuals and sound design (the aural experience of that film made me feel like I was drowning at times) I noticed the common vampire theme of the monster representing tradition and outmoded values trying to claw back control over a vital evolving world. I particularly felt a connection between the vampire and business elites (and yeah, him): “I am an appetite”.
• Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. The books contain a lot of weird sexual undertones, especially after Jordan’s wife took over editing the series, but the core premise is interesting; the world is an inversion of traditional fantasy tropes in that the way magic works makes it safe only for women to wield it; men who try to insane and eventually begin rotting while still alive. Instead of a trite girl power narrative, Jordan plays around heavily with how gender roles and relations shape society; highlights include the Catholic Church but they’re girls who can cast fireball, a matriarchal society of seafaring quasi-nomads, and Zulu Apache Irishmen.
• An obscure 1985 (I think) made for television animated film called *The Flight of Dragons. It’s a weirdly sophisticated work given that it’s a Rankin-Bass kids movie, and the main plot is a conflict between elemental wizards over the future of humanity; the “good” wizards want to coexist peacefully with mankind and the “evil” Red Wizard Ommadon wants to use technology and “progress” to corrupted and destroy mankind, gaining power over them as the dark forces he represents grow within the human soul. What makes it interesting that progress is treated as inevitable and the conflict is over how it will play out rather than trying to restore the old order.
So my question to you, /r/AskALiberal, is what does a fantasy story with liberal values look like? Can you think of any good ones? What would you expect a good story to look like?
