Fantasy: My Experience and Opinions on Escapism ✨

The Trojan Horse of Education 📚

My first meaningful experience with fantasy as a genre was in late elementary school with the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. It was something my mom had introduced to me as an idea for passing the time, so when I got into school the next day, I began to look for the book on the shelves. Found it! Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. This was actually the second book in the series, but I had no idea. When I began reading it during quiet reading time that day, I thought this book stinks. All of these random characters that were never introduced to me barged into the story like an old friend walking into your house. It took me about 30 pages to realize it was probably a series and I was reading the wrong book. Now, with a bad taste in my mouth, I picked up The Lightning Thief not expecting to enjoy it. However, I was hooked almost immediately.

While the story was engaging, I found myself enjoying learning more about Greek Mythology 🏛️. I never liked sitting down and being lectured at to learn things (and I still don’t), but something about reading this book made learning about the Greek gods and myths fun and engaging.

Here’s me at the Parthenon in Athens, Greece with my Percy Jackson book! 🇬🇷

For a solid year, I read all of the Percy Jackson books, all of the Norse Mythology Magnus Chase books, and all of the Roman Mythology Heroes of Olympus books. These books were like a Trojan Horse of education 🐎. I expected to just be reading exciting and engaging stories, but instead I got that and a deep knowledge of ancient mythologies.

After finishing all of these books, I stopped reading for a while. Middle school had just started, I began looking into clubs and other afterschool activities, and schoolwork started to pick up. Reading books became one of the last things on my mind, which is kind of sad. But that summer, with no real reason, I decided to pick up Harry Potter ⚡. By this point, I wasn’t sure if I would even enjoy reading such a long series or have the motivation to stick with it at all. But when I did, it was like a life-changing moment. It became my personality for a solid 2 months. I would find sticks outside and use my whittling knife to carve them into wands, even giving them to my friends who asked for them. I would talk to my friends about what was happening in the books and almost every night I would watch a different one of the movies (I probably watched each one like 5 times in those 2 months). With not much going on in my life at the time, the escape into such a fantastic wizarding world felt euphoric, like I was actually there experiencing it alongside Harry. But that now leads to my next point about fantasy as a supplement.

Crafting my own magic, inspired by Hogwarts. ✨

A Hot Take on Escapism 🤯

Here’s a simple analogy: imagine you have a lot of homework and you’re stressed out about it. Instead of doing the homework to relieve the stress, you start scrolling on Instagram Reels to drown out the feelings 📱. This is not a healthy way to deal with stress.

With this belief, sometimes I catch myself thinking: I have enough going on in this world, why would I care about something happening in a world I’m not a part of? 🤔

Fantasy as a Supplement for Self-Discovery 🌱

But that brings me to what I believe fantasy is good for and how it can supplement and improve our lives. One convenient way of explaining this is through the houses at Hogwarts in Harry Potter.Ravenclaw 🦅 is for the witty, Hufflepuff 🦡 for the empathetic, Slytherin 🐍 for the ambitious, and Gryffindor 🦁 for the noble. Everyone who has read Harry Potter has imagined themselves in one of these four houses, or has even taken a quiz online to find out which one they belong to. These kinds of internal conversations help us discover more about ourselves.

When debating the question “Am I Slytherin or Gryffindor?” it’s less about which house you’re in, and more about your values. Do you value resourcefulness and ambition over honor and nobility? Do you prioritize loyalty (Hufflepuff) or intellect (Ravenclaw)? This exercise in self-categorization helps us articulate who we are and what we aspire to be. It externalizes abstract concepts like morality and courage, making them tangible and easier to understand. When reading fantasy, we don’t always think about this directly. However, I believe it’s something that should be highlighted more. There is so much to learn about ourselves in the fantasy world, and it should be tapped into more often. 💡

My experience with fantasy has had its highs and lows. It began with the engaging world of Greek Mythology in Percy Jackson and has since led to a more deep and skeptical questioning of the genre's role in our lives. I have realized that escapism is not what we should focus on in fantasy but instead integration, and how we can help derive our purpose and meaning in life from characters and relationships in our favorite books. 💖