Why Do People Fear Dragons? What Fantasy Can Do Today—Sketching a New Map of Imagination in an Increasingly Homogenized Society (Gamers' Book Guide: Issue 47)
Note: the original Japanese article can be found at:
https://www.4gamer.net/games/113/G011358/20251009001/
Writer: Okawada Akira | 2025/10/09 03:00 (UTC)
Image Gallery No. 001 thumbnail / Why do people fear dragons? Creating a new map of imagination for an increasingly homogenized society: “What fantasy can do today” (Gamers’ Book Guide, Issue 47)
“Gamers’ Book Guide” is a biweekly series that broadly introduces books of interest to gamers, as well as works that help deepen understanding of motifs used in games. From casual book introductions to deeply researched and richly detailed essays, the series varies widely in style depending on theme and author.
If you’re listing masterpieces of fantasy literature, Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Earthsea Cycle” is almost always mentioned. The fundamental premise—magic users who can control others by knowing their true name—is gradually deepened as Ged progresses through life stages from youth to middle age and old age across the volumes. Though the series originally concluded with its third volume, “The Farthest Shore,” a fourth installment titled “Return to Earthsea” was published over a decade later, introducing bold new directions that revealed the author’s relentless pursuit of innovation.
Earthsea Complete Set (7 Volumes) in Deluxe Case (Amazon Associates link). Note: “Firelight” is a separate volume independently edited in Japan, including an essay from the critical collection “Night Words.” Image Gallery No. 002 thumbnail / Why do people fear dragons? Creating a new map of imagination for an increasingly homogenized society: “What fantasy can do today” (Gamers’ Book Guide, Issue 47)
In Japan, the series has been cherished across generations. The renowned director Hayao Miyazaki openly acknowledged its influence, and an episode from “The Tale of Shuna” is especially well known. In June 2025, a new volume titled “Firelight: Earthsea Special Edition”, containing the final unpublished episode posthumously revealed by Le Guin and previously untranslated short story “The Daughter of Odren,” was published in Iwanami Junior Bunko, alongside the release of a complete 7-volume deluxe case set.
This week’s featured book, “What Fantasy Can Do Today,” is a collection of relatively recent essays and lecture transcripts by Le Guin. Though it’s a compact paperback, this volume poses profound questions to both writers and readers: How can exceptional fantasy be created?
What Fantasy Can Do Today
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Translator: Akemi Tanigaki
Publisher: Hayakawa Publishing
Release Date: February 8, 2022
Price: ¥1,089 (excl. tax)
ISBN: 978-4-309-46749-8Purchase Links: Honya Club.com
e-hon
Amazon.co.jp
※Amazon Associates
Hayakawa Publishing’s “What Fantasy Can Do Today” Introduction Page
Le Guin was primarily known as a writer whose major works were fantasy (or science fiction). Critics like the notoriously authoritarian Edmund Wilson harshly dismissed such genres, calling them childish and suitable only for immature readers. In this book, Le Guin decisively refutes such prejudice, stating it is “a significant mistake.” She argues that fantasy is not primitive (primitivist), but primordial (primary), asserting that “many great texts of fantasy are essentially poetry.”
Regarding Tzvetan Todorov, whose work “Introduction to the Fantastic Literature” is widely cited as a foundational text in academia, Le Guin remarks: “Anyone familiar with the literature Todorov should have read would be astonished by his cleverly sidestepping of themes—his stubbornness.” She criticizes him for getting lost in fine distinctions while missing the essence.
Moreover, Le Guin argues that precisely because our world is rapidly homogenizing—with every block featuring identical burger and coffee shops repeated without variation—we must create new maps of imagination. This, she asserts, is exactly what fantasy can do.
The essay “Why Do Americans Fear Dragons?” included in “Firelight” directly challenges the misunderstandings of so-called “reasonable” adults who view fantasy as only for children, and of authoritarian critics who fail to grasp its depth—pointing out that it’s not just fear but a deep symbolic response: they are afraid because dragons represent what we repress. Image Gallery No. 006 thumbnail / Why do people fear dragons? Creating a new map of imagination for an increasingly homogenized society: “What fantasy can do today” (Gamers’ Book Guide, Issue 47)
However, Le Guin does not blindly defend all fantasy. She identifies the core flaw in most “fantasy films and two-way games”: they remain trapped within clichéd moral binaries of good versus evil. Her life’s work has been to explore alternatives. For instance, before Earthsea, wizards were conventionally depicted as white-haired, white men—so Le Guin deliberately subverted this norm by giving Ged and his companions brown-to-black skin tones, turning the conventions upside down. Particularly from “Return” onward, her stories increasingly spotlight women’s roles.
In fact, she once received a deeply moving letter from a reader who wrote: “For the first time, I felt like I belonged in movies or fantasy worlds.”
Caught between critics’ ignorance and creators obsessed with formulaic patterns, Le Guin directly critiques Harry Potter, calling it “plainly formulaic and even imitative”—a point that is entirely understandable. While Harry Potter was praised for its originality in setting a story at a magic school, Le Guin herself had already depicted such a narrative in the first volume of her own Earthsea series, “A Wizard of Earthsea.” Nevertheless, she warmly welcomed the fact that this series broadened fantasy’s readership and helped many rediscover the fundamental joy of reading.
She then turns to children’s literature depicting animals—works where children read with excitement while adults discover new insights, revealing a connection to fantasy. Among these, Felix Salten’s “Bambi” receives especially high praise. Unlike Disney’s overly sentimentalized animated version, this novel avoids human perspectives entirely and instead offers detailed observations of how deer and other animals perceive their world and communicate—presenting fear and violence not merely for dramatic effect.
In contrast, Le Guin expresses reservations about Richard Adams’ “Watership Down.” While the book draws on R.M. Lockley’s research work “The Life of the Rabbit,” she argues that it distorts facts at crucial points. Lockley’s study describes a matriarchal society centered around females—accurate to real rabbit behavior—but Watership Down misrepresents this, reducing rabbit society into a militaristic hierarchy dominated by a male “Chief Rabbit” and his all-male soldiers.
Le Guin speculates that even in 1972—the time of the book’s publication—such overt male chauvinism was becoming less acceptable. Yet this regressive moral stance went unnoticed because the story is about rabbits, not humans—a point she implies applies to other works beyond animal literature and into fantasy as well.
First edition of T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, published in 1938 Image Gallery No. 003 thumbnail / Why do people fear dragons? Creating a new map of imagination for an increasingly homogenized society: “What fantasy can do today” (Gamers’ Book Guide, Issue 47)
This is why Le Guin places high hopes in works that are both fantasy and animal literature. Among them, she particularly praises T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone—a retelling of Merlin from the Arthurian legends.
Though later incorporated into his long novel The Once and Future King, Le Guin laments that “White cut out some of his finest passages,” a loss she deeply regrets. In fact, this very work has also captured my own interest—but to my knowledge, there is no commercial Japanese translation available. It now fuels an even stronger desire to see it translated and introduced.
In any case, this book offers rare inspiration not only to those who read or write fantasy novels but also to gamers and game creators alike. Imagining what Le Guin might say about your own work—and approaching it with such thoughtful tension—could very well result in creations that resonate widely across audiences.
■■Kazuo Okada (Translator, Literary Critic) ■■
A writer and translator specializing in science fiction, fantasy literature, and classic-style games. He began a serialized world literary critique from beyond the globe in Call Sack 123 (Call Sack Co.), and has also been involved in editing volumes related to this book’s themes—such as “Ariana Fantasy Revisited” in Knightland Quarterly Vol. 31, and “Viliconium: The Tale of a Pastel City” (both published by Atelier Saodo).