I have a weird obsession with fantasy worlds. I think it’s the coolest that people have used writing and their imagination to build an entire world, an entire living breathing universe; it’s like an extended dream.
I'm talking about fantasy worlds from literature, movies, and games such as "Harry Potter," "Lord of the Rings," "Avatar: The Last Airbender," and "The Elder Scrolls." Each of these constructs their own world with their own subcultures, customs, and history.
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In the case of Harry Potter, we're getting a new movie trilogy in the form of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," an enrichment upon all we already know about the wizarding world. Now we get to learn a bit more about wizards in other continents and in a different time period. We'll learn how their culture differs from British wizardry in the modern day.
What's fascinating about this is how J.K. Rowling isn't just telling a story. She's slowly molded and created a living and breathing fantasy world which exists primarily in our mind and imagination but at the same time can feel real as we yearn to explore, seek adventure, and learn more about this world.
The same can be said for the other works of fiction I mentioned. The nations in "Avatar: The Last Airbender" have their own histories stretching back to the start of bending, with many obvious cues and references to various real life cultures. The show creators have taken influence from aspects of Buddhism and Chinese history and combined them with new elements such as elemental bending and the Avatar cycle to craft a world which feels excitingly new and different. It leaves our minds wanting to learn more, our bodies wanting to visit new places, and our imaginations constantly pondering over what goes on in this world.
As with Rowling, Tolkien, and other writers and content creators, we can create our own worlds in our head, or in a book, or in a movie, or in a game. I think that is amazingly powerful.
