Today's ponderable

[swan_tower]

I'd like to talk about portal fantasies. Or rather, I'd like you to talk about them.

By that term, I mean the stories where people from this world go into another, more fantastical world. Narnia, for example. Once upon a time, these seem to have been more popular; now, not so much. And if I had to guess, I'd say that's at least in part because of the way a lot of them were transparent wish-fulfillment: Protagonist (who is an emotional stand-in for the author, though only in egregious cases a Mary Sue) goes to Magical Land where things are more colorful and interesting than in the real world. And maybe they stay there, maybe they don't.

Talk to me about the portal fantasies you've read. Which ones stick in your mind? What was your response to them, both as a kid and now? Which ones did the wish-fulfillment thing extra transparently, and how so?

(Yes, I actually have a special interest in the bad examples of this genre. In fact, if you approach this entire question as an academic curiosity of the structural sort paired with a authorly eye toward writing a deconstruction -- not a parody -- of the tropes, you'll be on the right track.)

Portal fantasies. Talk to me about 'em. Good, bad, ugly, laughably naive. What's your take?

Comments

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

I remember a specific subgenre of those: roleplayers get sucked into their own game. Sometimes the GM was complicit, and sometimes he/she wasn't. I don't know if the idea started with the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, but judging by the dates on some of these books, it really took off in the eighties.

From what I recall it was less about wish fulfillment and more about the characters thinking that's what it would be and having that belief bite them in the ass because the world they were in was darker than they bargained for.

I'm sure some were wish fulfillment. They're just not the ones that come to mind now.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

From what I recall it was less about wish fulfillment and more about the characters thinking that's what it would be and having that belief bite them in the ass because the world they were in was darker than they bargained for.

That too -- I suspect it might be a distinct sub-type of the trope, just as Mary Sues have their mirror-image, the Anti-Sue.

[xmurphyjacobsx.livejournal.com]

Anti-Sue! OO I've not heard that. Tell me more!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

There's a whole typology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue) of Mary Sues on Wikipedia.

[xmurphyjacobsx.livejournal.com]

To borrow a phrase -- Fascinating!