While this blog post I read conflates a number of issues that I think are unrelated, it raises an issue that I think is valid for most authors to think about. It is the nature of most fiction, especially genre fiction, to focus on a central character, the protagonist. This is generally whom the story is about, and it is who the author tends to invest the most agency. The more dire and far reaching the story the author wants to tell, the greater the temptation it is to raise this single character above the general population, make them special. The epitome of such the impulse is in the trope of the “chosen one,” the person with the skills, the destiny, the bloodline, the prophecy. . . yada, yada, yada. Sometimes this makes sense, when you’re talking about a trained soldier going into a critical battle. Sometimes though, when the farmboy is told about his special inheritance and destiny to fight the powers of evil, it comes across as wish-fulfillment at best, and problematically elitist at worst.
I want to see an Epic Fantasy where the rebellion says to Hell with it, we’re not waiting for the prophesied savior to actually take down the Evil Empire.
