fantasy with friends | romantasy rambles

Romantasy has become a popular subgenre in the last five-ish years, since its official inception as a genre/subgenre category that publishers actually pay attention to. Of course, arguably romantasy has been around for far longer than the last five years, but the popularity of the subgenre has boomed in the last five years. And with that popularity, there have, of course, been a lot of readers and book influencers with Big Opinions™ about romantasy and its value.

First, let me define what I mean when I discuss “romantasy.” In my opinion, romantasy (also known as “fantasy romance”) is a novel wherein the setting may be fantastical and the characters may have fantastical powers, but the main plot focuses largely or completely on the romance between two or more characters. What romantasy is not, in my humble opinion, is any fantasy book featuring a romance. If you want to define it that way, then almost all fantasy—including classics like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and even grimdark novels/series George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, among others—would be categorized as a romantasy. The presence of a romantic subplot is not the requirement. The presence of a romantic main plot is. In that way, I think of romantasy much more as a subgenre of romance than as a subgenre of fantasy. So, now that that’s clear, let’s get onto the juicy part: my thoughts on romantasy!

First of all, I think there’s nothing inherently wrong with romantasy in essence. A lot of people complain that romantasy is terrible because it’s always poorly written. To that I say: that’s not an issue with the subgenre, that’s an issue with the authors writing in the subgenre, as well a subjective matter of the reader’s own taste. In other words, I’m not a believer that a book being categorized as a romantasy automatically dooms it to being “poorly written.” That said! I do think that because romantasy is the latest hot/popular genre, that there is an issue with traditional publishers wanting to make the most of the current market and thus pushing out a large number of romantasy novels without giving the authors and editors the proper amount of time to make the novel its best. Again, that’s not really an inherent issue with romantasy as a subgenre, that’s an issue that’s completely on the publishing company and, let’s be real, is ultimately a function of a capitalist economy. The same phenomenon occurred with dystopian and paranormal romance back when I was a teen many moons ago, lol.

I do also think there’s something to be said about the level of misogyny imbued in conversations about romantasy as well. There are a lot of readers—male, female, any gender of readers, btw—who automatically dismiss romantasy because of its heavy association with the romance genre, and the romance genre’s seemingly unshakeable identity as “low brow fiction solely for women.” This is reflected in the constant accusation that romantasy is just “fantasy porn for women”—an accusation which is incorrect and ignorant in so many ways that if I started down that path of discussion right now, well, we’d be here for a good while, let’s just say. Bottom line for me is: as someone who is an intersectional feminist who also believes in the value of consensual sex work as well as the value in smut and sex in and of themselves, I find this track of argument to be complete bullshit, to say the least, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, having a large amount of sex scenes isn’t necessary for a book to be a romantasy; rather, the presence of a romance is—regardless of whether that romance includes sex or not. Second of all, even if romantasy did require lots of sex scenes as part of the genre’s stipulations (which, to be clear, it doesn’t)—okay…so, what? What is wrong with sex on page, so long as the reader is comfortable reading it? And if someone isn’t comfortable reading smut, it’s not like they are being forced to read it. There is an option to just, ya know, not read the book. No, the issue people making this argument really have is that they don’t want to see the fact that most women are equally as sexual as men typically are. And that, dear friends, is one of the negative ramifications of patriarchy and purity culture—that both make everyone terrified of their own being and body, leading to things like rape culture and other awful sociocultural standards. And that’s that on that!

The last point I want to talk about is that the romantasy subgenre is currently doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of giving publishers the funds to publish fantasy in any fantasy subgenre. As a fantasy lover, I think this is amazing! The more money a publisher makes, the more “risks” they can take on publishing any variety of books. So, in the current economic structure, a win for romantasy is a win for all of fantasy. And that’s something we all should celebrate!

So, dear friends, that’s all for my rambling rant on romantasy, at least for today. I hope that you enjoyed and that I gave you something to think about. I’d love if you share your own thoughts and opinions in the comments!

What do you think of the romantasy subgenre? Do you like it or dislike it? Do you think it’s had a positive impact in the literary community or a negative one?

Learn more the author of this post:

Lila @ Hardcover Haven

Lila is a 30 year old anthropology student and lover of literature who's been book blogging for an eternity. Her hobbies include reading, singing, writing, arts and crafts, and snuggling her two cats, Snoopy and Clementine.