Too much focus on the idea of fiction media as a causative agent of real life harmful behaviour, and not enough emphasis on the idea that what you get out of a work of fiction is heavily dependent on how you approach said work of fiction.
I can root for Aragorn to become king of Arnor and Gondor within the parametres of the narrative of LotR, without in any way supporting real life absolute monarchy, because I’m not a real life monarchist, a conclusion I reached at some point in my early teens while also consuming a healthy diet of fantasy fiction where the hero was the long-lost heir to some kingdom. Meanwhile, royalists who glorify the concept of returning to some imagined heroic past in real life are of course going to have their ideas reinforced by LotR, precisely because they seek out narratives that support their preconceived notions. In neither case is LotR the causative agent. Every story is a story, but every story is also a vessel for the reader to fill with their own idea of what the story is saying.
