The way I see it, a lot of fantasy stories have some kind of simple aspect that propels the story. In the wood between the world it's the discovery of Walter's cheating wife, in the Hobbit it's the need to restore the King Under the Mountain. While story propellers like these may not seem to have any connection, I believe that there is a lot of correlation between fantasy stories. While I am not able to definitively identify this commonality between stories, I definitely recognize one transcendent idea: the human condition. Some stories in other realms don't even have humans in them, but it is shockingly evident the humanity bleeding through the pages we read. In some way every story I've read has had some aspect of humanity addressed; whether it's sexuality, tragedy, bravery, or even life and death, fantasy has a way of helping us to explain or even ignore the deepest traits of what it means to be human.
The funny thing to me is that I don't think I'll ever be able to explain what it truly means to be human, but that's what I love about life! I read stories such as the ones I am reading in this class and I love to see how the author is expressing his or her humanity. That's what I think is so amazing about fantasy is that it is such a broad tool of expression. Fantasy reaches to the deepest and sometimes darkest places of the mind and it is such a joy to peer into the structures and worlds that others conjure. For me that's what fantasy is all about, to discover the point of motivation that propels some of the characters in these stories is why I read them. Perhaps I am searching for some other kind of motivation in my own life and possibly the characters of these stories can help me find it.
"A fourth factor influencing individual motivation is fantasy, which plays a role when learners use mental images of situations that are not actually present to stimulate their behavior."
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