When an author writes a world with a lot of depth, it makes sense they want their story to skim along the peaks of many pillars, because it's exciting and diverse and conveys the breadth of their imagination. But without hinting at the subaquatic portion of each berg, that diversity just comes off as silly, shallow, and distracted. That's how I felt with LotR, GoT, Harry Potter, and The Once and Future King, before I learned their depths. They felt like a juvenile assortment of random fantasy cliches. The authors would do well to hint at more depth, without requiring you to finish the series and then go back and read between the lines.
Help me understand the reason these fantasy cliches are popping up, so they don't feel like arbitrary plot devices, or worse, lazy fan pandering. Careful world-builders justify each element of their periodic table, and Tolkien, Martin, Rowling, and White are just such architects, as far as I can tell. So it's lamentable that my first forays with them took so long to feel deep. They felt like nursery rhymes for a while.
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