#escapist fantasy

[frommybody]

What if you slept 9 straight hours and woke up refreshed. What if that happened.

[your-average-mess-on-all-fronts]

So back when I was in elementary school, I started writing an Isekai story with my friend. We rewrote it a few times since, but all those times, I was the one writing the scenes from the POV of the character getting isekaied. They were meant to be a fantasy nerd, basically- they always dreamed of having a beautiful, sparkling fantasy life. Not even going on adventures or fighting dragons, just moving in and opening a potion shop together with the cute sorcerer in the party. Why would it matter if they live basically the same life but magic? Because my little child brain viewed fantasy as an escape from the general sense of agony that was tied to being alive in this world. It doesn't matter what actually HAPPENS in your life, if you managed to move to a world with dragons in it, you have destroyed the symbol that you tied to your suffering, and instead focused on the symbol of adventure and excitement, and even if none of it actually happened in the story, the corresponding emotions need to arise.

And I remember that back then, I saw stories that explored the theme of "you got everything you wanted and it still doesn't magically make you happy", and I got ANGRY. Because why can't it work like that? Isn't that the whole point of wishes? And so when I wrote the scene of the character opening their eyes for the first time in the magic world, I wrote a whole page of description of how even though they've also read all those stories, it turned out to be a dirty lie, it didn't make them feel hollow at all, the very act of being in the magic world did make them happy, it made them ecstatic, and they were so, so relieved to watch as it simply washed away their pain and sense of alienation and not belonging once they got to simply abandon the thing that symbolized it, rather than actually changing their life in a way that would effect that kind of change. It was a fantasy of how I wanted the human mind to work, basically.

So I'm starting to think revenge fantasies might be a bit like that-

[agentrouka-blog]

Robert was obsessed about how he killed Rhaegar at Trident. Dany is obsessed about Rhaegar should have won at Trident. So much so she dream about being in place of Rhaegar and burn down the army.

It was the deciding battle of the war. For Robert it marks a hollow victory, for Dany it marks the point where her family's destruction became inevitable (in hindsight). For a traumatized child looking for easy answers, it would obviously be much more attractive to focus on this one deciding moment where a different outcome could have lead to a radically different, happier fate for herself. If only this ONE thing had gone right?

Unfortunately this means she's ignoring everything that the Targaryen side could have done (or, more importantly, refrained from doing) to avoid ever being dependent on the outcome of this decisive battle. All of which dismantles the theory that her family was wrongfully overthrown by a usurper. There is a psychological and political necessity to blind herself to that aspect of history, and focus entirely on the aftermath of the Trident, at which point her family became victims. The complexity of reality is unwelcome and intrusive.

The idea of Rhaegar as a powerful warrior is specifically important to her for this reason, and she is disappointed whenever Barristan contradicts Jorah on this account in ASOS. The questions really frames how Dany approaches her transaction at Astapor, especially after Jorah claims that while he may have fought with honor, he was defeated.

She dreams herself Rhaegar, she imagines carrying a banner like Rhaegar might have, she compares her nerves before the trade with his before the Trident - and we know this transaction ends with a trick and a bloodbath. The lesson she takes away from Rhaegar and the Trident is that she must decisively destroy the enemy above all else. She doesn't think beyond the idea of winning the "battle" at Astapor, just like she doesn't consider the political lead-up to the Trident, and we see the consequences of that in Astapor throughout ADWD. The simple solution she fantasized about is an illusion.

Anytime she receives more detailed information about her family history, it is a disappointing experience. Not illuminating on a historical level, which should be important for her political understanding of Westeros, but mainly personally disappointing, ranging from Rhaegar's moody personality to worry about Aerys' madness to distaste over their marriages being for duty. Her happy place fantasy of what might have been had Rhaegar won is being chipped away, and she tries to avoid facing that because she has based her life goals on it.

Which is also similar to Robert:

The mirth curdled on Robert's face. "The woman tried to forbid me to fight in the melee. She's sulking in the castle now, damn her. Your sister would never have shamed me like that." "You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert," Ned told him. "You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath. She would have told you that you have no business in the melee." (AGOT, Eddard III)

And to Cersei.

The escapist "What if..." is never an actual alternative or an actual truth. Only ever a fantasy. And it becomes a problem when it it given importance beyond that, beyond reality in the past and present time.

If I look back I am lost is a dangerous mistake.

[pinkmanmath]

Sometimes i just wanna go to bed and wake up in my very personal very made up world with my fictional closest friends and my family of choice to have wacky adventures around that solidly built made up world and at the end of the day chill with my very good friends and have fun in a way i never got to experience before and then fall asleep and wake up to that same world or maybe a completely new one that isn't the one i've been living in for most of my life but a mystical one that fulfills my escapist fantasies you feel me?

[askagamedev]

A common critique of games is how overwhelmingly they are about power fantasies. How could the industry shift to makong games that aren't overwhelmingly about that?

I’m pretty sure most puzzle games like Tetris aren’t really power fantasies. I also don’t really see many power fantasies in the survival horror genre; those games tend to be about disempowerment more than anything else. I’d argue that games tend more to be escapist fantasy than power fantasy. We tend to look for experiences that we can get away from our more humdrum ordinary lives. Power fantasies are certainly a subset of that (especially because it is pretty fun to feel powerful), but I think escapism is what we’re mostly looking for in games and I think that’s just fine.

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[a-guy-named-ben]

All I really want is to abscond to an organic yak farm.

Just me, my wife, the yaks. Some chickens and goats. Bees for sure.

No neighbors. No corporate job. No email. No commute.

Just yaks.

[kriskrakel]

escapist fantasies ive had since starting college

- becoming a tree.

- being a musician

- twitch streamer

- being a tree

- ya writer

- like being able to stand in the sun all day and do nothing

- pls let me become a tree

- teen mom

[ahikkineet]

i actually dreamed that i time-traveled back to childhood. like most dreams, the details didn’t match real life but in that dream i was so overjoyed. this second chance fantasy sustains me most days. living in lala land is better than external self harm right.

so yeah i was so fucking disappointed to wake up that day.