Common Elements of Fantasy: Quest

From my MLA 2012 Fantasy presentation

Quest

·       Character(s) are on a mission to find something– spell, item, person, information, etc., for a definite and significant purpose. Sometimes to destroy it instead of use it, like the ring in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The purpose might not be clear in the beginning, but the importance is.

·       Not lightly undertaken. Sometimes preordained or spiritual, but always requires struggle, danger, sacrifice, and hard work from the questor. Basis for characters’ internal quests.

·       Internal (control of magical abilities) or external (Holy Grail), explicit (Knights of the Round Table spending decades looking for the Grail) or implied (wizard working towards being High Mage – of course she’d need to be in control of her magical abilities).

·       Often the element around which the rest of the story – or at least that thread or phase of it - revolves.

·       Many characters in fantasy are on a quest for something even if the story is primarily about something else.