Through fantasy anything, no matter how far-fetched, can become real. And yet, despite the elf ears or red skin, fantasy characters in video games still manage more often than not to fit into the idealized body types for humans. In a game such as World of Warcraft, a player can choose from a variety of fantasy races: everything from elves to anthropomorphic bovines, and yet no matter how divorced from humans a race might be, in the end they all share most of the same characteristics that are found in idealized human bodies.
This paper explores the rationale behind making fantasy creatures conform to narrow standards of beauty/strength in games such as World of Warcraft, and examines what this may imply for our conception of fantasy as a genre by investigating the delicate balance between emulated reality and fantastical escapism found in video games. (more…)
