Discussion I propose that all fantasy is wish fulfillment.

As far as I can see the whole point of fantasy is wish fulfillment. The only question is which wishes the particular reader wants fulfilled, and how the author goes about fulfilling them. Some people might wish for dark gritty things, and some wish for more bright cheerful things, but either way people are looking to fantasy to fulfill the wishes they otherwise can’t fulfill.

I think a good metaphor for a story is a dish of food. The ingredients of the dish are the wishes people want fulfilled, and the cooking is the plot. If it's poorly cooked people won't like it no matter what the ingredients are, and even if it's well cooked if it doesn't have the ingredients the person likes they still won't like it. You need both to really satisfy someone, and of course you can’t satisfy everyone with only one type of dish. People all have their own particular preferences. For food preferences might include things like Chinese and Italian, and for stories preferences might include certain tags, and genres.

Anyways, these are my current thoughts on the matter. I’m curious to see how others see it.

 

Applies to all writing, not just fantasy.

 

If you use that logic all fiction is wish fulfilment.

 

Isekai is wish fulfillment but the authors tend to give their MCs major learning disabilities.

Its not fun to read about constant stupid decisions.

 

In simplest terms, Wish Fulfillment is basically just using the control that being a writer affords to create a story that addresses one or more outcomes that the author wishes would come about. Human beings have needs, and some of these needs are psychological in nature.
said google sensei~

yeah~ sometime this cat have no idea a term may evolve into what definition on future

 

When we say wish-fulfillment, we usually mean self-insert, and not all fantasy is self-insert. You can make a gritty and interesting story without the reader ever hoping he was in it.

 

The term is probably not precise enough to be a really solid criteria for classification, but people use lots of imprecise terms, and its not much of an issue if you can figure out what they're trying to express in that specific context. Most of the time people are using it to talk about stories that a person would wish to be in. Yes you can twist words around and say any story you're reading, you're reading because you "wish" to read what its about, but this just confuses the distinction they're trying to make, as there are lots of stories people find wish to read but wouldn't wish to be a part of.

I also notice when people use wish fulfillment as a criticism, usually their issue is not with wish fulfillment in general, but a specific kind of superficial wish fulfillment, where the author seems to only want to give the MC lots of cool stuff and be liked by attractive people and get more powerful. Ironically these kinds of goals don't end up being so fulfilling, which is why these novels end up endlessly repeating certain patterns, if the protagonist doesn't know how to develop meaningful and complex interactions with the people around them, what's left for them after they've gotten the cool thing and made the attractive person like them, but to find the next cooler thing and the more attractive person?

I just wish for my fantasy characters to develop healthy and meaningful relationships, but a lot of stuff people call "wish fulfillment" doesn't fulfill this wish of mine.

 

.... who wants to live in Warhammer 40k? Anyone? I'm sure it can be fun being eaten alive or go mad or have your skin melt off your bones. Some people do have those hobbies.

Just because one reader self inserts does not mean all authors and readers self insert. The world is big enough for different people to have different responses and motivations.

 

You are mistaking interest for wishes, those are very different things.

Just because an author find it interesting to explore an idea for a story doesn't mean they actually wish that would be reality.
For example you can hate racism and still write a story heavy on racism with a tragic end.

As for if the readers find it as wishfulfillment, some might, but that seem much less important to me than if the author does it himself.

 

As others said, according to your definition, all fiction is wish fulfillment.

 

It seems to me that either people don't have a very good concept of what wish fulfillment is or that they have a very narrow view of what fiction/fantasy is. There are tons of books out there and entire classifications of stories that have nothing to do with wanting to see the particular events happen. Obvious examples of this are tragedies and books set in dystopias, but there are tons of other kinds as well. The OP's claims would true only if all you read is self insert isekai fantasy, but that's hardly the only type of story out there.

 

For his defense, it's hundreds of times more easy to find a fast-food joint than a good restaurant.

 

In this case it's more like he has not any clear idea of what he is eating.

 

This was a perfect, 10/10 answer.

Fantasy is a genre of fiction, not wish-fulfillment. Wish-fulfillment is the author including things in their story that they wish they had e.g. "ohhh the MC gets a new power and becomes super OP and beats all the baddies! OMG AWESOME!" Or "yeah yeah, MC gets like a million sexy women! Damn, how cool would that be?!"

^^^ That's what I imagine goes through the author's head :/ Like 'All the Wrong Novels' said, the result is lacklustre writing with no real point.

 

Yeah, that's probably right. Matrix is a self-insert movie and yet it's good, probably because there was a whole team behind it.