Worlds of fantasy, whether in film, in books, in video games, or what not, help us to see our own world as it is. The could-have-been worlds reveal the sheer contingency of the way things are, and the corresponding craft of the Workman who has made them. For every instance of magic, of mystical spirits and walking trees, we learn to see that the everyday trees and creatures are no less wondrous, and that maybe our own world has been fitted to our own personal lives as little as the strange, alien realm of fantasy.
2 comments:
Cool. :-) Have you been reading G. K. Chesterton at all lately? He makes a very similar point in Orthodoxy.
It's actually been a couple of years since I've been through Orthodoxy, though I wouldn't be surprised if these musings could trace themselves back to comments by him, Lewis, and Tolkien.
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