#i'll only read modern portal fantasy for a year out of spite

[darkwood-hollows]

I get so frustrated when some fantasy snobs disparage the Portal Fantasy genre because like literally any genre done well is done well and any genre done bad is done bad and portal fantasy has brought us some of the most iconic and popular pieces of work in the genre in both books/movies/tv like... Narnia, The Dark Tower, His Dark Materials, Spirited Away, Coraline, Doctor Who, Howls Moving Castle (the book), fucking Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Gregor the Overlander, Percy Jackson, Outlander, Inkheart, Peter Pan, STARDUST, even Harry Potter could technically be classified as such due to the portal like nature of entering the wizarding world and so many others. Literally those are just the ones I can see on my bookshelf/dvd collection right. now. The way portals/secondary worlds are used in these words is varied and different, sometimes its referential, sometimes its not.

And I spend my time on lots of writing forums and I get tired of hearing that “portal stories are lazy/outdated because if your writing was tight the character would just exist in your world already” and to that I’d argue that’s not true. Some of the best aspects of portal fantasy is being able to experience the exploration and wonder or horror of a new world with a character, to me I find that exploration wildly interesting to see how people from our world would cope with that scifi-esq idea of another parallel universe/world/moment in time. Idk sometimes I feel these people haven’t read a relevant portal masterpiece since they read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe as a child and it SHOWS. Like character preexisting in a fantasy world can also be done cliche and bad, the piles of absolute garbage Tolkien derivative fantasy on the shelves at the book store or for kindle from self-publishers on Amazon is a testament to that.

Maybe, just maybe, good writing is good because it is good and bland writing is bland because it is bland no matter the genre.