by Darrell E Phillips

Created on: April 15, 2008

There is a quality in every human being that has been endowed by our Creator. This is the quality of self-sacrifice. It is written in our DNA, and is as strong as it's other endowed counterpart, self-preservation. This is where we find our balance, in the center, and why many of us live the type of status quo lives that we live, not willing to venture out of the safe worlds we have built, but eagerly applauding those who do. For it is in our very nature to be this way. The whole point of this exercise we call life, is to move from one extreme, self-preservation, to the other self-sacrifice. At this point it is imperative that we recognize the that we are really talking about love. Love for ourselves that in our given lifetime, we must allow to come 180 degrees, becoming love for others.

If love were be graphed as a line, at one extreme would be selfishness or total self preservation, and at the other end selflessness, or total self sacrifice, the love of others. With this in mind, enter the film makers who know that loving others is the quality of a hero, and loving self defines degree of the villain.

The fantasy film industry also know something else about us, in that all human beings fantasize or have fantasized about being a hero of sorts. Add this to the fact that film makers want to make films that make money. Heroes sell movies.

Hasn't it has been played out in our imaginations ever since we first discovered we could turn a bath towel into a cape, and leap from our beds? Little girls want to be nurses, teachers, little boys want to be firemen. We are always and will forever be fantasizing about being the hero, the one who saves the day.

Fantasy is fiction taking reality to the previously unknown level. Fantasy films transport us from our status quo lives,and allow us to participate in wonderful new dimension. We get to taste the extreme including extreme self-sacrifice, with it's equal counterpart self-preservation in a world that is usually reserved for children. We get to step back in time, to the place we were before reality eroded our imaginations, and we settled into the business of living, and only wishing.

The use of self-sacrifice in fantasy films is the vehicle by which the film maker really kidnaps us, holding us hostage to our own deepest and often forgotten desire. It is here, alongside the hero, that we get to satisfy that coveted longing, the chance to once again put the bath towel cape on our shoulders, and leap off the bed crying, "I'll save you!"

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