When you experience dramatic fantasies—whether that be in the form of novels, movies, etc.—which include situations that are dangerous and life-threatening, when is it that you can actually truly say that what you are witnessing is fantasy? If we are reading, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, it is told that hobbits do exist, but disappear when humans are around. It is assumed that this applies for all creatures within Tolkien's "middle-earth." So, at least from the standpoint of Tolkien, "middle-earth" does really exist but the creatures that make it seem so different within The Hobbit are in hiding. Tolkien's justification for humans in our world not being able to see the creatures of "middle-earth" is an example of maintaining what Michelle L. Eilers calls an "illusion of reality" (Eilers 318). Tolkien is really trying to make you feel as though what he is writing could be real and is pushing away the fact that it is a fantasy. That is, until the "illusion" is broken, and Tolkien doesn't have a justification for what occurs. But then, when is it that Tolkien doesn't have a justification for what occurs?
To Tolkien, magic was a natural part of the real world. For instance, how can we explain the rise and fall of the sun? We see it happen certainly, but then why does it move? Another example is the body. We know that it functions, but then what drives it? It is not that Tolkien has a justification for why magical events occur, but since he does have proof for magic's existence in the real world, magic is no indication that the story is a fantasy, so a more eloquent question emerges: What is not justified by Tolkien in The Hobbit with consideration to his definition of magic? Under Tolkien's definition of magic, magic is something of the real world that consistently and noticeably happens the same without an explanation as to what drives it. Something that Tolkien does not have an explanation for is fortune, particularly the good fortune of characters when they are placed in fatal circumstances. In reality, people consistently meet their death when staring death straight in the face. But for characters in fantasy, when they face death they somehow manage to survive through the most unrealistic of odds. This is when stories become fantasies.
For example, take the Gollum-Bilbo scene, which is the point at which The Hobbit becomes a fantasy. This is a scene that haunts many fans because it is so eerie. But then, why is it so eerie? The reason is because, for the only time in the book, the stakes are raised to a definite life and death scenario. Gollum proposes a life and death riddle-game to Bilbo. If Bilbo wins, he gets to go free. If Gollum wins, Bilbo becomes his next meal. Eventually, the riddle-game gets to the point where Bilbo can't answer one of the riddles, and as he starts to feel the pressure of Gollum bearing down on him, he blurts out "Time!" (Tolkien 78). Of course, Bilbo was simply asking for more time to answer the riddle, but time just so happened to be the right answer. Make this a riddle-game in real life and it's hard to believe that such luck would ever come to a human being. Then Tolkien doubles down on the fortune. Bilbo technically wins the riddle-game but Gollum still tries to eat him. Out of pure luck, Bilbo not only possesses a ring that he picked up merely because it looks pretty, but then accidentally touches the ring, which miraculously has invisibility powers and allows for his escape from Gollum. In real life, Bilbo would be dead, but the story is allowed to continue in a sudden realm of fantasy. So then, what does the continuation of stories into a realm of fantasy tell us about the real world?
Personally, this is not a question I can answer just by using The Hobbit. The lesson as it pertains to the real world actually comes at the end of The Return of the King—the final book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Since I am not well read on The Return of the King and only have brief SparkNotes knowledge on its conclusion, I will instead mostly use the trope of a similarly designed fantasy. This is Christopher Nolan's 2014 movie Interstellar. The movie naturally gives us an "illusion of reality" in a relatively near future where the world is suddenly becoming less and less livable for humans, which is a reality that people fear with the sudden shifts in climate change. There is an attempt to go out and find a new planet, which is an expected outcome, though their plan is very suspect. The plan is to use a wormhole that has mysteriously been placed around Saturn that would allow them access to another galaxy of potentially habitable planets. It is something that even the movie suggests being too perfect, though it is not quite life or death yet. The next questionable scene is also one of the most memorable scenes in the movie. It is when Dr. Mann—played by Matt Damon—destroys the piece of the landing ship specific for the main characters to dock their ship. Cooper—played by Matthew McConaughey—miraculously manages to dock the ship, while consistently being reminded by a robot named TARS that what he is doing is impossible. Cooper doesn't deny the impossibility of the circumstance, but he responds to TARS by saying that what he is doing is "necessary" (Nolan). Perhaps this is giving the audience a feeling of what they want. That despite impossible odds, things can be overcome through perseverance and a human being's stubborness to never quit. The grim reality is that for that docking to occur there had to have been some type of massive fortune. Cooper's co-pilot, Amelia Brand, appears unconscious when the pressure in the ship builds. I'm no expert in docking ships, but that has to account for something in the precision of an operation that absolutely has to be done perfectly. But despite what qualms I have with this scene, it is still not one that is completely life and death. Though minimal, there was still fuel left on the ship. The situation was dire certainly, and their only legitimate chance of survival was to dock that ship, but it's also not out of the realm of possibility that the characters could have landed the ship.
The "illusion of reality" is yet again maintained when Cooper decides to disengage into the black hole—Gargantua— in an effort to conserve fuel on the landing ship. As he goes, Cooper records what is happening to him, trying to record as much unknown information as possible concerning what lies beyond the event horizon of black holes before he inevitably gets crushed by its gravity. It is a situation that seems to be impossible to overcome, but then a scenario that seems to be miraculous occurs. Cooper winds up falling down a tunnel in what appears to be something that is gray and spherical. Though there are debates about whether or not Gargantua could actually exist, scientifically something that has become accepted is that one of the ways black holes are created is from the collapse of stars. The grayish spherical body that Cooper blurily sees is the core of a collapsed star that has been infiltrated and made to be a safe haven in the chaos of the black hole. But this safe haven doesn't really exist. The safe haven is a figment of wishful thinking from Cooper as he reaches the end of his life, and the scene in the tunnel merely represents the regret that he has for leaving his daughter, reflecting that to stay would have been the right option due to the failure of his journey to find a new habitable planet. Cooper, therefore, doesn't wind up screaming in pain because he did something necessary. He screams in pain because he did something that was flawed. So, the scene in the tunnel doesn't break the "illusion of reality." The scene as it stood on its own would have brought a realistic and understandable end to what would happen to people if they tried to find a habitable planet to replace Earth.
However, what comes after does break the "illusion of reality" and makes the story into a fantasy. When Cooper wakes up, he finds himself in a new human civilization. Apparently, he has been saved in the black hole by rangers which makes this fantasy in itself. There is no way that rangers would have been able to save Cooper from a black hole. Murph is also apart of this new human civilization and is moments before death when Cooper sees her. This allows Cooper to keep his promise to his daughter of seeing her again, which is the promise that haunts Cooper in the "tunnel." The ending of Interstellar seems all too convenient to what Cooper desires. The grim reality is that Interstellar is not a movie of success where the original thesis of the film is achieved: "We are not meant to save the world, we are meant to leave it" (Nolan). Rather, it is a story trying to tell us that Earth is where humans will die, and that we should not worry about circumstances that we can't control. We should love what we have before it's gone. In other words, we are not meant to save the world, but we are also not meant to leave it. Cooper died in that black hole, realizing this truth.
Fantasy allows us to see what is unobtainable. It is the same way how in The Return of the King, the narrative ends in a "middle-earth" that has become boring without the ring, and boring without the adventure, teaching us that perhaps without chaos in the world, there is no happiness because the excitement is gone. There is a reason why people love thrillers. The same applies again for Interstellar. The characters go on this spectacular journey through the stars to end the chaos in the world. But if this is ever achieved, what comes next? At the beginning of Interstellar, Murph asks Cooper why she was named after Murphy's law, which means that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Cooper tells Murph that he likes to think about Murphy's law instead as whatever can happen will happen. Rather than think of the chaos in the world as something terrible, it is also important to understand that happiness and enjoyment come along with that too. One can't work without the other. If the world is cured of its chaos in a world of fantasy, a lot of what can happen goes away and Murphy's law dies as Murph does at the end of Interstellar.
Works Cited:
Eilers, Michelle L. "On the Origins of Modern Fantasy." Extrapolation, vol. 41, no. 4,
Winter 2000, pp. 317-337.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit. Del Rey Mass Market Edition. 2020.
Nolan, Christopher. Interstellar. Paramount Pictures. 2014.
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