You have such a unique and important perspective on this issue! I LOVE the point about romantasy's cultural detachment. Made me think about the controversy of Rebecca Yarros using Gaelic-inspired names in her very non-Gaelic world.
I really appreciate your succinct deconstruction of the homogenization of folkore that many romantasy series perpetuate, rather than a general scalding criticism of the genre itself. Romantasy absolutely can do better, and readers who enjoy the romantasy genre deserve better. Amazing article!
This was such clarifying read, equal parts folkloristic sighing, academic precision, and the kind of exasperated affection only someone who actually cares about tradition can muster. I found myself nodding through nearly every paragraph. Truly: romantasy can do better, and your articulation of why hits the nail directly on its glittering, vaguely Celtic-Norse-Slavic-all-at-once head.
As someone who also works with folklore, medieval narrative structures, and the stubborn regional specificity of old tales, I feel the same internal dissonance you describe; that jolt when a selkie suddenly functions like a swoony life coach or when fae who historically existed to terrify farmers are reduced to horned personal trainers with wings. A little research really does go a long way, not because writers must be rigidly faithful to source material, but because understanding the cultural purpose of a motif gives you so much more freedom to transform it in meaningful ways.
Your points about world-flattening especially resonated. The enchanted court, the alluring forest, the fated-mate village, these feel increasingly like prefab backdrops where nothing ever presses back against the characters. It’s wild to me how seldom these stories let their worlds have teeth or texture. Folklore is so deeply rooted in landscape and communal anxiety, and yet in much of romantasy the landscape is essentially a well-lit hallway the characters flirt in.
And the monomyth issue. Yes. Folktales thrive in variation, in the weirdness of the teller and the needs of the community. Romantasy often feels like the same cauldron of tropes reheated at slightly different temperatures, even though contemporary writers have more freedom than ever to experiment, subvert, and expand the frame. As you say, the ingredients are extraordinary; it’s a shame to see them continually stirred into the same stew.
All that said, I completely understand the genre’s appeal. Comfort, predictability, emotional payoff; these are real pleasures, especially when the world feels unstable. But escapism doesn’t have to flatten the traditions it borrows from. It can also be the place where those traditions are reimagined with care.
Your closing metaphor is perfect: the well is deep, the water is rich, and the ingredients are abundant. Here’s hoping more writers drink from it with intention. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Thank you for your kind words! So pleased to see this makes sense to others. Still awaiting a romantasy writer who knows the enormous weight of their reference material and treats it kindly!
Thank you for writing this. I read the first ACOTAR novel and hated the fae. I am Scottish and the fae in her books seemed so insipid compared to the Scottish sithichean. I am thinking of creatures such as the Boabhan- sith. I read that in Scotland there was a correlation between the loss of folk tales and the loss of the ancient Caledonian Forest. Sorry, I can't find the source at the moment. I keep saying, if we are going to use folklore in our novels we need to tie it back to the land. Folk tales are ecological blueprints. Many of the Scottish folk tales mention different winds that appear at different times of the year. They explain the days and seasons. But for many people coming from the New World countries they are disconnected from the lands that their ancestors came from. Perhaps they do mot understand the significance of the land to these precious tales. That is why your post is important. Folk tales are for everyone but please connect them to the land.
Highly, highly recommend Uprooted and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik for folklore-based romantic fantasy novels! Her work doesn’t fall into the cliche traps that most romantasy does, and the world-building and fae/magic are by turns beautiful and terrifying, which feels much more accurate to the source material :)
There are a good deal of readers who are disappointed at the lost potential of Romantasy to bring the deeper themes and romance together in a way that complements the world, characters and plot. A youtuber (vanessa gamoo) made an interesting remark about Romantasy being like a dating sim, such that the reader gets to experience the MMC as a 'book boyfriend' - which is why the FMC is bland in order to facilitate the reader insert concept. It was tragic how much sense it made, was a very good one-line summary of the genre and why a lot of the research and depth is left by the wayside.
And yet I find the most fun is to do the research (as an author) and to experience (as a reader) how other writers would incorporate it into their worlds. Seems like both sides are robbed in Romantasy as it currently stands.
You are completely correct. I have faith in the genre’s recovery, but most of these romantasy books take only the aesthetics of a place or a folklore and use it to tell what is in fact a modern 21st century story. i think this is an issue of the modern world, where people really don’t want to think too deep, and honestly we are not expecting authors these days to do research on folklore, story structure, myths (even if they’re not folklorists themselves) and it’s showing in the Romantasy genre.
You have such a unique and important perspective on this issue! I LOVE the point about romantasy's cultural detachment. Made me think about the controversy of Rebecca Yarros using Gaelic-inspired names in her very non-Gaelic world.
And in Scottish Gaelic folklore, dragons tend to be sea monsters or wyrms not winged dragons.
I really appreciate your succinct deconstruction of the homogenization of folkore that many romantasy series perpetuate, rather than a general scalding criticism of the genre itself. Romantasy absolutely can do better, and readers who enjoy the romantasy genre deserve better. Amazing article!
This was such clarifying read, equal parts folkloristic sighing, academic precision, and the kind of exasperated affection only someone who actually cares about tradition can muster. I found myself nodding through nearly every paragraph. Truly: romantasy can do better, and your articulation of why hits the nail directly on its glittering, vaguely Celtic-Norse-Slavic-all-at-once head.
As someone who also works with folklore, medieval narrative structures, and the stubborn regional specificity of old tales, I feel the same internal dissonance you describe; that jolt when a selkie suddenly functions like a swoony life coach or when fae who historically existed to terrify farmers are reduced to horned personal trainers with wings. A little research really does go a long way, not because writers must be rigidly faithful to source material, but because understanding the cultural purpose of a motif gives you so much more freedom to transform it in meaningful ways.
Your points about world-flattening especially resonated. The enchanted court, the alluring forest, the fated-mate village, these feel increasingly like prefab backdrops where nothing ever presses back against the characters. It’s wild to me how seldom these stories let their worlds have teeth or texture. Folklore is so deeply rooted in landscape and communal anxiety, and yet in much of romantasy the landscape is essentially a well-lit hallway the characters flirt in.
And the monomyth issue. Yes. Folktales thrive in variation, in the weirdness of the teller and the needs of the community. Romantasy often feels like the same cauldron of tropes reheated at slightly different temperatures, even though contemporary writers have more freedom than ever to experiment, subvert, and expand the frame. As you say, the ingredients are extraordinary; it’s a shame to see them continually stirred into the same stew.
All that said, I completely understand the genre’s appeal. Comfort, predictability, emotional payoff; these are real pleasures, especially when the world feels unstable. But escapism doesn’t have to flatten the traditions it borrows from. It can also be the place where those traditions are reimagined with care.
Your closing metaphor is perfect: the well is deep, the water is rich, and the ingredients are abundant. Here’s hoping more writers drink from it with intention. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Thank you for your kind words! So pleased to see this makes sense to others. Still awaiting a romantasy writer who knows the enormous weight of their reference material and treats it kindly!
Fighting words on the substack!
Thank you for writing this. I read the first ACOTAR novel and hated the fae. I am Scottish and the fae in her books seemed so insipid compared to the Scottish sithichean. I am thinking of creatures such as the Boabhan- sith. I read that in Scotland there was a correlation between the loss of folk tales and the loss of the ancient Caledonian Forest. Sorry, I can't find the source at the moment. I keep saying, if we are going to use folklore in our novels we need to tie it back to the land. Folk tales are ecological blueprints. Many of the Scottish folk tales mention different winds that appear at different times of the year. They explain the days and seasons. But for many people coming from the New World countries they are disconnected from the lands that their ancestors came from. Perhaps they do mot understand the significance of the land to these precious tales. That is why your post is important. Folk tales are for everyone but please connect them to the land.
Highly, highly recommend Uprooted and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik for folklore-based romantic fantasy novels! Her work doesn’t fall into the cliche traps that most romantasy does, and the world-building and fae/magic are by turns beautiful and terrifying, which feels much more accurate to the source material :)
There are a good deal of readers who are disappointed at the lost potential of Romantasy to bring the deeper themes and romance together in a way that complements the world, characters and plot. A youtuber (vanessa gamoo) made an interesting remark about Romantasy being like a dating sim, such that the reader gets to experience the MMC as a 'book boyfriend' - which is why the FMC is bland in order to facilitate the reader insert concept. It was tragic how much sense it made, was a very good one-line summary of the genre and why a lot of the research and depth is left by the wayside.
And yet I find the most fun is to do the research (as an author) and to experience (as a reader) how other writers would incorporate it into their worlds. Seems like both sides are robbed in Romantasy as it currently stands.
You are completely correct. I have faith in the genre’s recovery, but most of these romantasy books take only the aesthetics of a place or a folklore and use it to tell what is in fact a modern 21st century story. i think this is an issue of the modern world, where people really don’t want to think too deep, and honestly we are not expecting authors these days to do research on folklore, story structure, myths (even if they’re not folklorists themselves) and it’s showing in the Romantasy genre.