What actually IS Romantasy?
Been awhile but I got another bookish rant.
One thing that's driving me up the wall right now is how there is so much dissonance and disagreement over what Romantasy is.
I was always under the impression that Romantasy is a mix of fantasy and romance, like equal parts one and the other.
But people have told me several times that what I described is fantasy romance, not romantasy. Romantasy is actually romance first, fantasy second. Or at least, some people have, cause some agree with my take too.
We should also consider how the romantasy bestsellers present themselves. Half the overdone tropes in the genre are not romance related at all. Lightlark and ACOTAR advertise themselves on their WORLDS as much as their characters. Blood of Hercules talks a lot about the ancient world and demigods!
And that's just off the top of my head! Making this even more confusing is the Blood of Hercules series (I refuse to call the series Villains of Lore, that's a stupid god damn series name) uses the term dark fantasy romance and dark romantasy interchangeably!
So, who has the correct definition here? Who's voice matters more? I would argue it should be the bestsellers. And by that metric I reject the idea that romantasy is romance first, and to say so is more reflective of what YOU are coming to these books for, not what the authors envisioned. And I respect author intent more than misreads by readers.
This is one of several issues unique to Romantasy from my experience. I've never seen a space so big that has no clear idea what it even is. You don't see this kind of nonsense in other genres, at least not to this extent.
The most laughable thing is that I've probably put more thought into this topic than most of the actual readerbase has. They say romantasy is romance first cause that's all they care about. But like it or not, the books are supposed to be more than that.
And they utterly fail at it.
Look, if you like these books for the romance only... well to be honest these books suck with that aspect too, but even putting that aside, if you like it, that's... fine.
But if someone like me tears it apart for aspects of it... maybe don't call me misogynistic for it? (Yes, that happened and I'm still livid over that) Maybe understand that these books are trying to be more than romance and it's perfectly fair to criticize them for their flaws.
