[Giovanna Clairval]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

I think you are quite right on several points and have expressed them beautifully, but we may disagree on one point: I believe that certain archetypes turn up in fantasy over and over because people sense that they are metaphors for our deepest hopes, fears, or aspirations -- though we both know that they're often treated in a shallow, unthinking, meaningless way. For some readers, some writers, something as familiar as the fantasy quest can be a profound metaphor, or even the objects of the quest can have deep personal meaning. Or the quest can just be another setting (like a school, or a business office), but one particularly well suited as a backdrop against which the characters may act out a greater drama. Or -- and this is what I think you are talking about -- the quest simply becomes a comfortably familiar game, in which the characters collect magical artifacts like the property deeds in a game of Monopoly.

We agree on all points, Teresa. Archetypes are the stuff of which the human psyche is made. As you said, a theme that is recurrent in the genre (because archetypal) can be developed in original ways, whereas wonderfully original ideas can be treated poorly.

I was referring to what you call "the comfortably familiar games", the writer's escape pods.

If the emotions are true (rather than an affectation) and if we put them into our writing whole-heartedly, and if we succeed in communicating them to our readers, that can make up for a certain amount of technical imperfection.

Exactly. When we are true to ourselves, our emotions are true.