Fantasy

[davem]

Actually, I just added this as an edit to my post on the Golden compass thread in Movies, but it got me wondering if its worth discussing in a wider context. The Edit was:

Actually, it brings up a bigger question - should the ideas & concepts that fantasy explores, whether in book or movie form, be restricted? Isn't fantasy, at heart, about asking the question 'What if?' If a fantasy novel or movie can't present a secondary world in which 'God' is not only evil, but actually a fake, then what can it do - what limits do we set on fantasy worlds - because whatever limits we set on fantasy worlds we are actually setting on the human imagination - we're saying 'You are not allowed to imagine 'X'.' - effectively Pullman's point.

It could be argued that those who object to Pullman's work on 'moral' grounds (not pointing at anyone in particular) are actually objecting to fantasy in general, & to the human imagination in particular. After all, in what way is imagining a secondary world in which 'God' is a fake from whom humanity must liberate itself & find its own way forward different from imagining a world in which the sun is green, or in which animals can speak with humans?

(For the record, I still found HDM (the book - haven't seen the movie yet) increasingly dull as it went on (nearly said 'progressed'!!) & found PP's repetitive haranguing just annoying by the end, so I'm not putting this argument forward as praise of PP.

So, is it right, or acceptable, to demand that Fantasy shouldn't explore certain ideas - if those ideas challenge, or attack, certain values or beliefs? HDM, apparently, has been removed from the libraries of some schools because of its 'message'.

And the question is, because Fantasy is the purest use of the human imagination, is it right to set limits on it, & refuse readers/movie-goers access to certain secondary worlds, or should there be no limits on what can be imagined? Isn't that the purpose of Fantasy?