Fantasy from A to Z: Q is for Quests

What is your quest in life? What is your driving goal, the thing that gets you up in the morning? What do you hope to accomplish before you go the way of all the Earth and depart this mortal coil?

Quests are huge in fantasy literature, because they resonate so much with our own lives. Most of us are not just merely existing, drifting aimlessly from one life event to another—or, if we are, there is something deep within us that yearns for greater meaning and purpose in our lives. Quest stories give us that sense of meaning and purpose.

I asked Grok to define “quest” in the context of fantasy literature, and this is what it told me:

In fantasy literature, a quest is a narrative framework where a protagonist or group embarks on a challenging journey to achieve a specific goal, often involving adventure, trials, and personal growth.

Grok then gave me a list of five things that all quest stories typically include:

• a clear objective,
• a journey,
• challenges and trials,
• some kind of character transformation, and
• some kind of symbolic meaning.

One of the best-known examples of this is Frodo’s quest in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which is actually a subversion of the traditional quest story, because instead of seeking to acquire the object of the quest (in this case, the ring of power), Frodo is seeking to destroy it. 

The objective is to take the ring to Mount Doom and drop it into the lava, because that is the only place where it can be destroyed. 

The journey takes Frodo far from his home in the Shire, across nearly the whole length of Middle Earth to the desolate lands of Mordor, where the Dark Lord is gathering his forces. 

Frodo faces all sorts of challenges and trials, from the attack of the ringwraiths at Weathertop to the near-death experience with Shelob the spider. But perhaps the greatest challenge comes from the ring itself, which is constantly tempting him to submit to the Dark Lord’s will.

The story transforms Frodo so completely that by the end, he finds that he cannot return to his former life in the Shire. He leaves Middle Earth for the Grey Havens and sails with the last of the elves to the Undying Realms beyond the western sea.

As for symbolic meaning, the whole book is rife with it, from Gandalf as the Christ figure to the ring as a metaphor for the temptation of absolute power.

But what does an epic story like this have to do with us? How and why does a quest story like this one resonate so deeply with us? After all, very few of us have been attacked by giant spiders, or had a murderous experience with a ghost-like entity from beyond the veil. So why do we resonate with the idea of a quest? 

I can only speak to my own experience, but this is how my own life has resembled something of a quest:

My objective, ever since my college days, has been to make it as a professional fiction writer.

The journey has been more of an internal one than an external one, though I have traveled a bit for conventions and the like. I also spent a year teaching English overseas, not only to make ends meet, but to gain the sort of life experience that I thought would lead to better writing. In fact, I’ve taken a lot of odd jobs along the way, all of which have given me experiences that I’ve later drawn on.

As for challenges and trials, it’s been an extremely difficult road, because the vast majority of aspiring writers never manage to make a living at it. I’ve made just about every mistake that it’s possible to make (except writing porn—though some people would argue that not writing porn is the greater mistake). Overall, I can say that pursuing this writing career has been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done in my life.

Has it transformed me? Yes, it has—and I know this because one of the major things that attracted me to my wife was my passion for writing, and the diligence with which I have pursued it. If I’d taken the path of least resistance instead of pursuing this difficult quest, I probably would have ended up as a morbidly overweight slob, addicted to porn and video games—in other words, the kind of person my wife would have never given a second glance.

As for symbolic meaning, I’ll say this: when my first child was born and I held her in my arms for the first time, I had the distinct impression that “this is her story now.” As a writer, I’ve pored over lots of writing advice, and one of the best pieces of advice I’ve received is to remember that every character is a hero in their own story. So when I had this powerful experience of holding my child for the first time, is it any surprise that one of the lessons I’d learned from my quest to become a professional writer helped me to understand the deeper meaning of that moment?

Those are some of the ways that quest stories resonate with me. I’m sure it will be different in your own life, but the main points are likely all there—which is why the quest story has become such a powerful archetype.

Of course, not all fantasy books involve a quest of some kind. In recent years, “cozy fantasy” has become something of a thing, where the story is less of a quest than a low stakes, slice-of-life sort of tale. Perhaps the most successful example of this is Travis Baldree’s Legend and Lattes.

Why do those stories resonate so much? Frankly, I think it’s because so many of my fellow Millennials feel like they have failed to launch. We came of age during the Great Recession and the Global Financial Collapse, saddled with way too much student loan debt. With all of the bankruptcies, mass layoffs, hiring freezes, and delayed retirements, many of us struggled to find meaningful work. As a consequence, many of us were forced to move back in with our parents and put off major life decisions like buying a home, getting married, and starting a family. Far too many of us have sadly put off those decisions indefinitely. And things haven’t gotten much better in the decades since. Indeed, our Boomer parents have the dubious distinction of being the only generation in American history to enjoy more prosperity than every generation before and since.

But I do think that is changing with the rising generation. There are a few key ways in which Zoomers are the diametric opposites of Millennials, and one of them has to do with this hunger for stories about quests. Just compare Epic: The Musical to Legends and Lattes. The contrast is stark. So as Zoomers come into their own, I think this subgenre of cozy fantasy is going to fade. It may stick around for a while, but I don’t think it’s going to be more than a tiny niche.

After all, what is your driving goal in life? What is your own personal quest?