Spaces & Flows: Ninth International Conference on Urban and ExtraUrban Studies

Abstract

The myths and the fantastic tales are the most popular stories from past to present.The different fantastic characters and strange happenings in these stories have transformed through time. They have changed in accordance with human needs and improvements in science and technology. The audience of these fanatical stories include kids and teenagers. Of course the different kinds of fantastic elements and the amounts of writer’s imagination can be under the effect of factors such as the time and place of the story, the special beliefs of the writer, the atmosphere in stories, and the age of the audience. They have different levels of believability. To have a more tangible comparison some elements used in imaginary world of The Arabian Nights and Sandbad from the old stories have been compared with the fanatical elements of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. The differences and similarities among them are surveyed. The existence of some similarities such extraordinary misplacements and travelling in time and place, a tendency to become invisible, employing fanatical creatures by the hero and using them to reach their goals. Also the presence of negative and positive characters whose conflicts make the story full of activity. The prescence of charms and prayers in the two old genres are of among other aspects surveyed in this study.