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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 2278436" data-attributes="member: 2205">If they are incoherent, or are contradictory, they can't very well embody an abstract idea.I've never held literary criticism in high regard, and if you are an example of reading works critically, I have affirmed my prior suspicion that it is a completely useless "discipline" of academia.  You take the most tenuous of links and inflate it to ludicrous proportions in an attempt to "prove" the overarching themes and symbolism that doesn't exist.In many cases, you do this in spite of the author's stated intentions, or you simply ignore what the author was likely doing and look for symbolism anyway, because you're so ingrained to do so by the literary establishment.  And then, you take these completely fabricated overlays of what you believe works to be about, and go on to create completely spurious theories of genre, such as, what fantasy is all about.Fine.  I'm not good at reading critically the way most English departments teach it.  In fact, I've purposefully eschewed the methodology, because I find it to be useless.  In your opinion, I'm completely blind to obvious textual symbolism.  In my mind, you're so desperate for hidden meaning and symbolism that you make it up.  The divide between how we read will probably never be bridged.  I highly doubt you will ever come around to my point of view, and I know for certain that I will never come around to yours.You say those as if they are the same thing.  Steeped in mythic imagery is not the argument you were making for defining fantasy, and it has nothing to do with whether or not they stand in for abstract ideas.  Just because Artur Hawkwing is transparently King Arthur, for instance, and thus a mythic figure, does not mean that he stands for anything in The Wheel of Time.  In fact, I can't see that he does.No, that's absurd.  If Rand al'Thor was supposed to stand in for Christ, then he wouldn't have such glaring differences to the iconic Christ figure.  He clearly has some aspects of Christ-figure, but clearly diverges wildly in others.Also, Christ was not an abstract principle either, he's a historical figure.  You seem to be freely mixing abstract principles and mythic figures, at least in this post if not in general, which doesn't help the coherence of your position at all, nor the clarity of the "definition" of fantasy.Those "deep ties" are little more than superficial surface features of the story, actually.  You haven't even made any attempt to show how the Wheel of Time is in any way tied up with morality.  I still argue that it most certainly is not.  Robert Jordan clearly borrowed lots of mythic imagery and resonance, but he makes no moral statement about any of them.</blockquote>

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