The trouble with a lot of romantasy right now is that both the fantasy and the romance are underdeveloped.
Because editors are overworked and underpaid, publishing houses are valuing profits over making sure the books are ready to go to market (which they did with YA dystopia and paranormal romance and they will do it again with the next trend because capitalism), and author careers are no longer being nurtured unless said author is an instant bestseller for their debut novel, books are being sent out underbaked.
As someone who loves romance and fantasy fairly equally, the people who love the concept of romantasy are the ones who are losing out the most. I have seen so many people who want to fall in love with romantasy comeback severely disappointed in how so many of the books are:
Pages and pages of nothing but internal narration that stops and starts the story in vicious cycles and doesn't actually amount of forward momentum or story progression. 'Lush' should not mean 'overwritten' and that's what it feels like it means right now
The love interest barely gets to feel like a character outside of their romantic interest in the lead. I don't like that. In a ROMANCE, ALL members of the romantic relationship need to feel like they are characters in their own right, with scars and dreams and stakes. Too many romantasy skip over this for the love interest, which contributes to the romance feeling underbaked.
All the cool plot stuff happens off page. There is death magic, assassinations, politics that impact the worldbuilding, etc. a lot of super interesting stuff that is used to sell the book to readers and we get to see absolutely none of it. It's infuriating.
A major aspect of romance as a genre is that everything is supposed to center the romance, which is why worldbuilding might not be as developed in romantasy and I think that's fine as long as the fantasy is still being shown. If the author doesn't feel there is room to talk about the religion in the society that story takes place in, fine, but do not hide the death magic from me. Show me the death magic.
There are a myriad of issues in romantasy right now that reflect what is currently happening in modern publishing, including but not limited to: authors of color barely being given chances, Sapphic books being very hard to find because 'it doesn't sell', discussions around classism being very shallow within the books, political commentary being stuck in 2010 and all preaching to the choir stuff, an over-arching expectation that the lead is likeable and can be used for the reader to self-insert to, etc.
Romantasy could be very, very cool. It has all the right ingredients and plenty of passionate fans because many romance lovers are also fantasy lovers. Romantasy, fantasy romance, and romantic fantasy are all different things (though nobody can agree on what the hell romantasy is) and are going to come with different expectations, but all of them are suffering from the fact that publishing wants to just sell, sell, sell and not actually spend time or money letting authors make quality books and the marketing publishing is choosing to push out makes me feel bamboozled as a reader almost every time (WHERE IS THE DEATH MAGIC I WAS PROMISED?!?!?)
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