Prolific fantasy author Brandon Sanderson recently delivered the Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Fiction at Oxford University, where he explored the enduring legacy of J.R.R. Tolkien and posited that the author's monumental impact may have inadvertently created a creative bottleneck for the genre. Sanderson, known for his own expansive fantasy series like Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive, and for completing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, acknowledged the provocative nature of his past essay, "How Tolkien Ruined Fantasy."
Sanderson explained that while Tolkien was a groundbreaking innovator, his masterful creation of Middle-earth set an almost impossibly high standard. This, he argued, led to a generation of fantasy writing that, in the 1990s, began to feel stale to readers. "Many of them talked to me about their experiences when I was first publishing," Sanderson recounted. "They’d say that they fell slowly out of love with fantasy, because it was no longer giving them the sense of wonder it used to."
Tolkien's meticulous world-building, including the creation of entire languages, mythology, and extensive lore, was instrumental in making Middle-earth feel profoundly real and immersive. This dedication solidified The Lord of the Rings as a cornerstone of epic fantasy, a status it maintains decades after its initial publication. Sanderson highlighted Tolkien's own articulation of three core emotions fantasy evokes: Recovery, Escape, and Consolation, suggesting these elements are key to the genre's appeal.
However, Sanderson urged contemporary fantasy writers to embrace Tolkien's spirit of innovation rather than merely replicating his success. He stressed the importance of exploring diverse narrative traditions and offering a variety of worlds to maintain the genre's sense of wonder and exploration. "It’s merely important that we offer a variety of places to explore, from a variety of diverse roots and narrative traditions, so that we preserve that emotion of exploration and innovation. Otherwise, our readers will look elsewhere for that," he stated.
Concluding his lecture, Sanderson reflected on what makes fantasy uniquely valuable. He countered the notion that fantasy is a lesser genre, asserting that it challenges readers' imaginations and fosters critical human traits. For Sanderson, fantasy ultimately offers "Empathy. And hope." He believes that even though fantasy deals with the "genre of the impossible," its impact can be profoundly real.
