I’m grappling with how to avoid formulaic fantasy tropes in my fiction writing. I lean into a nuanced character-centered novel with depth, set in a fantasy milieu, vs. a violent battle between good and evil (the popular paradigm).
Ursula K. Le Guin’s notes are helpful…
Immature people crave and demand moral certainty: This is bad, this is good. Kids and adolescents struggle to find a sure moral foothold in this bewildering world; they long to feel they’re on the winning side, or at least a member of the team. To them, heroic fantasy may offer a vision of moral clarity. Unfortunately, the pretended Battle Between (unquestioned) Good and (unexamined) Evil obscures instead of clarifying, serving as a mere excuse for violence — as brainless, useless, and base as aggressive war in the real world.
I hope that teenagers find the real heroic fantasies, like Tolkien’s. I know such fantasies continue to be written. And I hope the publishers and packagers and promoters and sellers of fantasy honor them as such. While fantasy can indeed be mere escapism, wish-fulfillment, indulgence in empty heroics, and brainless violence, it isn’t so by definition…
— source: https://www.ursulakleguin.com/some-assumptions-about-fantasy