All right, I would be lying if I said that Valentine's Day was special holiday for me. Indeed, the last time I did anything to mark the occasion was never, because today is the first time – and I do so within the context of this Star Uncounted blog (obviously). Anyway, I will celebrate Valentine's Day by reiterating just how important love is in Fantasy.
Perhaps most famously these days, it is the one thing that Voldemort in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series did not understand and in the end was key in ending him. Indeed, we owe Rowling a great debt for making love such a powerful theme in such a masterful tale, for as said Albus Dumbledore, "Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love." Parents' love, the love between friends, between siblings, and the romantic kind that is what Valentine's Day celebrates. I prefer to acknowledge them all, though, as each is no less crucial than the other and should one be taken away it would leave the other two scarred (even if only slightly depending on the situation).
Not that it cannot leave scarring in other ways on the characters and readers both, for as Cadvan of Lirigon from Alison Croggon's Books of Pellinor says, "To love is never wrong. It may be disastrous; it may never be possible; it may be the deepest agony. But it is never wrong." I wont get into specifics so as to avoid spoilers, but this quote is one of the truest I have ever encountered on the subject; that and one of Terry Brooks, "Love supplies a kind of strength that can withstand even death." Ironic, this quote, in the case of Voldemort seeing as death was what he had bent his soul over backwards trying to avoid but, as the great J.R.R. Tolkien notes, "To crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face." and "The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater." Why all these quotes? To make the point that love ties Fantasy literature together no less than the use of magic. That is why it is the Final Lesson. Happy Valentine's Day!
A fantasy author is just another name for one who has a foot within the borders of Faerie
Hall of Fantasy
- Home
- The Spirit of Tolkien
- Types of Fantasy
- The Nine Magics
- Faerie
- I am Ian E.S. Adler
- The Bookshelf
- Hidden Gems
- Fantasy Book Tiers
- R.I.P.
- Quotes
- Song Triad
- Riddle Mastery
- Heroine Archetypes
- Champions of Light
- The Role & Proper Usage of Magic Thingamajigs
- GRRM the Anti-Tolkien
- Rumors of the Wheel
- Race in Fantasy
- Here Be Dragons
- The Power of Names
- LGBTQIA+ in Fantasy
- The History (& Golden Age) of Fantasy
- Artist vs. the Art
- Magic vs. Mental Illness
- How to make your own System of Magic
- The Final Lesson
- Golden Sun
- Contact Me?
- AI's impact on Fantasy Art & Writing
- Misc
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