Why Fantasy?

This posting is in response to anybody who has asked (or wanted to ask) somebody (somebody like me) why they read fantasy novels.
Too often, i feel like people just do not understand why somebody would want to immerse themselves in the stories of wars and empires, elves and dwarves and hobbits, orcs and goblins, witches and spells, princesses in peril and knights sworn to protect them, dragons and treasures and voyages into danger.
And, quite honestly, that lack of understanding completely blows me away at times.
So, for all of you out there, i write this piece as an explanation...

A good fantasy novel is much more than just a story. It is much more than just fiction. And it is certainly not "just a waste of time"!
More than any other authors out there, the writers of fantasy fiction carry on a long-standing...uh, i lost the word i was looking for [post-note: I think the word i was looking for was "tradition"].
Anyways, what i mean is, most authors today tell stories. Most authors entertain (or try to).
But fantasy , works of fantasy, have been around for centuries upon centuries. These are the same sort of stories, in the same vein, as those told about hearths and campfires many decades and centuries ago. They are re-telling olden stories, with new twists.
Where would our society be without fantasy? Can you imagine what the world would have been like without the stories that we all know and love? Stories like Snow White, many of our best-loved fairy tales, characters both loved and hated (like Baba Yaga the witch, Jason the Argonaut who sailed to find the golden fleece, Rapunzel, Peter Pan, Hercules, to name but a few)?
Fantasy authors take and reshape and retell these stories, carefully adding to their works of old by using many of the same elements to fashion stories that still today carry the most amount of good.
Consider this - what books but fantasy novels can take you to a place where any ordinary person can become a hero? Where there is great beauty, but also great peril? Where we can take heart and believe in the goodness of humanity, and then turn around and see the destruction that same humanity can bring about? Where good deeds bring good rewards, and where an evil thought or word can lead to a lifetime of lost innocence?
Really, is there any other book(s), other than the Bible itself, that i would trust to teach my children... to see a higher power in the world around them, to trust those whom they love, to flee away from evil, to do good because doing good is always it's own reward, to understand that in order to preserve peace and freedom you must sometimes use a heavy hand and ride to war, that what you love is always worth fighting for, to know that courage and sincerity and honour and forgiveness and love are things to seek after and cherish and highly regard in your life, to hold on to those friends who stick by you in times of trouble, to treat nature with respect, to love your fellow man? These things, and many more, are still being taught today, by many fantasy novel authors. Yet way too many parents never even teach these things to their children themselves, hoping against hope that their kids will just "pick up goodness and love somewhere along life's way."
Sometimes, we look at the little things, we nit-pick, and then...to quote an old saying, we "throw the baby out with the bathwater." We see one thing that we do not like, so we empty out and get rid of things that we cannot do without.
Tell me, what is the TV teaching the kids today? What are advertisers instilling in our children? Movies? Anything good? Anyone out there to speak up on behalf of these great institutions? Do these things make our kids better human beings?
So, maybe we should take another look at the fantasy novel and fantasy author. Oh, they may not be perfect. They may deal in magic, in make-believe, in war, and they take an open and honest (and sometimes scary) look at evil. But is this enough reason to get rid of them, or poo-hoo them, and ignore the good qualities that they may be instilling in our future generations?
Most (make that, all) everything good that i have learned in my life, i owe to God. However, i know that He used fantasy novels to help me to have a greater understanding of good and evil, a better working knowledge of how a Kingdom works, and to see the qualities of love and honor and worship in action.
And that is why i read fantasy novels. And i am proud of it.