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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jian" data-source="post: 9785738" data-attributes="member: 78087">I think it’s broadly accurate to say that a lot of English-language fantasy media created since 1930 or so has some elements of built-in romantic nostalgia. I think Tolkien’s main bits there are the clear nostalgia for the pre-WW1 England of his youth (the Shire) and maybe the whole “the true king will make everything right again” narrative (Aragorn). But the latter isn’t really nostalgic for anything, it’s more of a specific trope.Equally, there’s a certain amount of nostalgia in non-English fantasy I know about. Some Korean fantasy media is nostalgic for the pre-Japanese Joseon era as a matter of national identity (though others are quick to point out how unequal and corrupt it was) and wuxia fiction by Jin Yong etc are basically nostalgic for a medieval China that never was, from a sort of exile in Hong Kong in the 1950s, although they are also clear about how corrupt and turbulent it was. I guess fantasy by its very nature is using old stones to build and you must have some affection for the stones if not the temples they were once part of, so it’s easy for nostalgia and romantic assumptions to creep in. This may be easier at one remove, if you don’t live where your ancestors used to live.</blockquote>