A good point, Mr dave.
A genuinely good work of fantasy is something very rare. The genre has quite a stigma attached to it and many associate it automatically with half hearted attempts at something Tolkienesque. Because The Lord of the Rings has itself become such a bench mark by which almost all other fantasies are measured, it is inevitable that anyone writing in the field is going to be drawn to it in some measure. Positively or negatively. Tolkien was doing something right. This has, in some ways, been a sort of restriction on fantasy, in some ways. But the imagination can go further. Owen Barfield says something along the lines of;
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“[Myth] is intimately bound up with the early history of meaning. It is the same with innumerable words; if one traces them back far enough, one reaches a period at which their meanings had a mythical content ... [such as] "panic", "hero", "fortune", "fury", "earth", "North", "South".”
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I think that's sort of what I'm trying to say.
A world with a green sun, for example, is a physically different world. As is one with Elves, Dwarves or Deamons. The trouble comes when you start putting ideologies into it. This is the same for all genres, in my opinion, and one cannot single out fantasy. Although, writers with less about them have often given rise to the general none-subtle nature of the revealing of the ideologies. I have said it before, but I think a repetition is in the right place here. I think that when a writer has the idea of writing with a certain message in mind, it can sometimes be difficult to make it subtle, for fear of people missing it. Even Allegories can, at times, be blatantly obvious as to what they are referring to. This can also limit the range of the imagination in fantasy, I think. One must admire Tolkien, for, while there may be a message, or messages, the story is always the important thing. Therefore, you don't get the preachy, rambling speeches of a character talking with the author's mouth which can happen so often. It is better, I would say, to let the reader decide on the moral issues raised in a story, especially a fantasy one. This, in tern, can not only lead to the reader's further engagement with the story, but can also free up the imagination. A lose end is always fun, I think.
A writer called Sean Penn said something that subs it up, for me:
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“When everything gets answered, it’s fake. The mystery is the truth.”
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The imagination can run away with a lose end. But as for what is written down, I don't think there should ever be any limitation on what the mind can conjure up. But it is hard not to fall into Tolkienising* or being preachy. Interestingly enough, in my opinion, C.S. Lewis, in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe at least, is quite clever and subtle with his message, more so than Pullman who whacks you over the head with it. I still get surprised looks from people if I tell them that Narnia can be called 'Christian literature'. I think it is the use of the word 'witch' that puts people off though.
*See, I can make up words too!