Student Essay on Characteristics of the Fantasy Genre

The fantasy genre consists of many interesting features that allow the reader to float into an imaginary world were you can have an unthinkable adventure through walls and misty mountains or across a new un explored world that is protected by a force of power willed by the place. This assessment will explore the unique fantasy characteristics in the following text types. The Hobbit, Shrek and the book cover of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone are all fantasy text types that all have unique fantasy characteristics to watch individual story. Some are a quest, good and evil characters and that it is always set in an imaginary land and there are new undiscovered animals and language lay waiting to be found.

One of the most important things of fantasy characteristics is that the main character (Leader) has a quest to find an object or something which could be treasure or for personal gain.

In the hobbit, a fantasy text type that is based on a quest to find the treasure under the mountain that the evil dragon named Smaug had stolen when he was raiding the lands where the dwarves were living in there peaceful place. This is one of the songs that dwarves sing of the dragon "Far over the misty mountains grim; to dungeons deep and caverns dim; we must await ere break of day; to win the harps and gold from him." Which basically tells part of the story in there songs.

The book cover of the order of the Philosophers stone shows a Train shows it is on a weird platform that is going some where and the main character is on a quest in search of this new power he can now preform.

Shrek is another example of a fantasy story where the main character goes on an adventure to seek a beautiful princess for an evil prince all because he wants to get his space in the swamp back.

Another important aspect of the fantasy genre is that there is a good and evil character in every story that is normally having battle with the good guy; these are normally main characters and they do not have to be human so they could be animal or other. The main characters are normally totally different to the other characters in the story. One may be good and one may be evil, one may be a hero and the other a super villain, the characters are always working on a plan to get the other into some sort of trouble that they may never get out of. The hobbit for example; there is an evil and mean dragon who tries to kill thirteen dwarves that all have rhyming names and a little hobbit named Bilbo Baggins. In this story the good characters are the dwarves which help Bilbo and the evil character is not human, he is a dragon named Smaug and he wants to kill the dwarves and destroy the town of the river men. Another example of a good and evil character is Shrek and the book cover of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. In Shrek an ogre that is actually quite nice compared to other ogres. His name is Shrek and his companion is a talking donkey named Donkey. The evil character is a man named Lord Faraumiere and he sends all of the fairytale creatures that live in or near his kingdom to a swamp where Shrek lives and he calls it his territory. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone book cover only shows three characters but by the looks of the characters most people would say that that magical experience is evil mainly because of the background that it is full of magical powers. The magical bird may even be the one thing that caused the flames to burst up into the sky but only those people that have read the book can really tell if that is true. The battle may not be between two characters. It may be inside a character such as Bilbo Baggins when he is inside his hobbit hole and cannot decide whether to go on this adventure or not. This is what he was thinking. "We don't want any adventures here; you might try over the hill." Then he thought a total different thought and this is what it is. "Something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains... and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick."

All Imaginary lands are always to be found when is comes to fantasy text types. In these strange and misty magical lands which the weirdest most eccentric magical creatures would be found in the land. The creatures would have there own languages which they would speak between them and to others. In the hobbit there are fascinating ways of doing many things eg. A secret Letter through the moon which is called Moon Letters. Also lighting fires because 2 dwarves in the hobbit can light fires. In both the hobbit and Shrek dragons can be found and in the book of the Harry potter and the Philosophers Stone a dragon was showed. There are also strange places and lands in the hobbit such as the hobbit hole a house in the ground for peaceful hobbits to live and not worry about anything.

The Fantasy genre consists of many interesting and exciting strange worlds which have creatures, languages and quests. These characteristics make up a fantasy text type and all are featured in my essay. The fantasy characteristics are shown a lot in The Hobbit, Shrek and the book cover to Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. These fantasy characteristics are the most commonly found.