Fantasy novels are in a sub-genre of romance. The fantasy genre was given it's title to supply the storyteller with an idea that entertains and enables him/her to put an ideological story across that the audience will conform to.
Fantasy stories provide the reader with a story of an unlikely hero and their quest, an escape from reality into a world that includes magic, obstacles, deception, and mystery, and in doing so, provides an opportunity for the reader to develop a creative mind. Two examples of these fantasy novels are The Hobbit and The Neverending Story. .
The Hobbit revolves around the hero character Bilbo Baggins. However he did not show his hero personality until later on in the story. At the beginning, Bilbo was introduced as weak and defenseless. He kept to himself most of the time because the other hobbits in Hobbiton thought he was queer. "Still it was probable that Bilbo, although he looked and behaved exactly like a second edition of his solid and comfortable father, got something a bit queer (italics mine) in his make-up from the Took side, something that only waited for a chance to come out" (Tolkien 13). He showed no qualities of a traditional hero character of a romance novel. However, the author continues throughout the story to build up Bilbo's character to that of a hero by having him save his friends, the dwarves, on several occasions, either with his quick thinking or his tremendous courage. "There is more to him than you guess (italics mine), and a deal more than he has any idea of himself" (Tolkien 34). He was also armed with a powerful .
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sword made by elvish magic and the Ring of Power that enabled him to make himself invisible. He rose up from being a small, weak, defenseless character without many friends, to a hero who along the way made life-long friends with the elves and the dwarves. "I have done everything everyone had said I could not. I pity them, for they are the ones who will live an un-lived life" (Tolkien 358).
