Anti-Climacus

This is the best explanation I've come across of the difference between realism and fantasy. It doubles as an excellent explanation of why I couldn't even finish the first Lord of the Rings book:

Modernist ambiguity, or realist emotional ambivalence, is unknown to Tolkien—the good people are very good, the bad people very bad, and though occasionally a character may be tossed between good and evil, like Gollum, it is self-interest, rather than conscience, that makes him tip back and forth. Betrayal and temptation happen; inner doubts do not. Gandalf and Aragorn never say, as even the most patriotic real-world general might, “I don’t know which side I should be on, or, indeed, if any side is worth taking.” Nor does any Mordor general stop to reflect, as even many German officers did, on the tension between duty and morality: there are no Hectors, bad guys we come to admire, or Agamemnons, good guys we come to deplore. (Comic-book moralities, despite their reputation, are craftier; the “X-Men” series is powerful partly because it’s clear that, if you and I were mutants, we would quite possibly side with the evil Magneto.)

...

And the truth is that most actual mythologies and epics and sacred books are dull. Nothing is more wearying, for readers whose tastes have been formed by the realist novel, than the Elder Edda. Yet the spell such works cast on their audience wasn’t diminished by what we find tedious. The incantation of names is, on its own, a powerful literary style. The enchantment the Eragon series projects is not that of a story well told but that of an alternative world fully entered. You sense that when you hear a twelve-year-old describe the books. The gratification comes from the kid’s ability to master the symbols and myths of the saga, as with those eighty-level video games, rather than from the simple absorption of narrative.

I'm not sure comic book moralities are any more subtle. At the very least, X-Men is the wrong example: Magneto might be right, but all this does is suggest that the 'right' and 'wrong' labels might need to be reversed. Nor does Joss Whedon-style "everyone is justified in their own eyes" nuance work: that just makes everyone think they're right. The closer examples, like Batman and Spider-Man, still fail because they have their genuine turmoil in a universe stacked clearly to one side. However angsty they might be, when the Big Bad shows up, they will still do The Right Thing because That's What They're Supposed To Do and/or This Time It's Personal. Because really: "should I use my fabulous wealth, intelligence and fighting ability/superpowers to fight crime when I have previously demonstrated great aptitude at it?" is not much of a narrative question. When, to choose an example at random, Huck decides not to turn Jim in as a runaway slave, it has its power and subtlety because Huck believes himself to have chosen the immoral option. I'm not sure that's something fantasy could do. But feel free to prove me wrong.