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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/20899
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/20899
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

All stories are morality plays. That is, they all deal with moral questions and moral choices. They may express very different moral viewpoints, but to make a satisfying story, they have to speak to the moral concerns, beliefs, or experiences of real readers.

Because stories are fundamentally moral in character, you are free to change the settings and the physical rules of the universe in order to create a stage in which you can contrive a particular morality play. Thus you can come up with just about any physical characteristics you like in a character, but you have to give them a recognizable human moral character.

In fact, the moral character of fantasy characters often tends to be very clear and simple. Think of LOTR or Harry Potter or Star Trek. Their worlds are fantastical but the morality is very straightforward, and the stories are often quite on-the-nose morality plays. Certainly that is not universally true, but I think it is demonstrably true of the most popular examples of the genre.

So, you don't need physical realism, because stories are not about the physical -- that is merely set dressing. But you need moral realism, because stories are always moral at their core.

Original score: 2