The fantasy fiction chicken and egg question?

In the UK there have been an interesting series of programs (on the BBC) by Andrew Marr looking in-depth at why we love reading fiction.  The first program concerned the genre of detective stories and the second Fantasy (I haven’t watched the third yet).  Now, as a science fiction writer I found the discussion on fantasy the most interesting as, in many ways, much of it could apply to sci-fi as well.  There was some talk about the escapism etc. and that so much of fantasy is set in almost an alternative middle ages (obviously does not apply to sci-fi), usually with magic added in, in some form or other.  This to me was all pretty standard.  However, what I found most interesting was the concept of deeper meanings in fantasy fiction.

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