[Extollager]

JDW, I think I get what you are saying just fine and find much to agree with. I particularly appreciated your comment to the effect that world-building (the creatures, the maps, the languages, the annals, etc.) is not "the point" of great fantasy. It may be that some readers use fantasy as a device enabling daydreams that go one for days. But there is much more to the best art that that. C. S. Lewis indicates that the real object is a "sheer state of being," in "On Stories" -- an essay that you should read, if you have never encountered it; you will love it.