I recently read this interview with Gordon Walton (http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/595/595997p1.html),
dated March 2005. It's surprising to me how it still applies today, despite
being 4 years old.
There are a lot of MMO's that have come out, and that will come out. Most of
the ones that I've played fit the "medieval fantasy" bill. I wondered
why that is, and realized that the medieval period was a point in Western
history where the world was still a huge mystery, magic was a real phenomenon,
and the existence of unseen creatures was generally accepted.
Also, the stories and themes from that period are a significant part of the
cultural inheritance in the U.S.
So many times in elementary school, I remember feeling out-of-the-loop when
these topics were brought up. I remember class discussions on King Arthur: his
round table, the sword in the stone, and Merlin. Unlike me, my parents were
born and raised in Korea.
They know about those stories, sure. But they never shared them with me and we
never watched movies or cartoons about them. So when the stories came up in
class, I often felt stupid because it seemed that everyone else knew them and
were excited to hear more. I felt as stupified as the time when "What do
you eat for dinner?" was a journal topic in the second grade, and everyone
was surprised to learn that I don't have mac n' cheese, hamburgers, pizza, or
steak. Mind you, elementary school kids can be brutally un-accepting. It wasn't
cool to be different until I reached high school. And even then... there were
limits.
Honestly, I don't know how those kids each learned about the legend before
it was brought up. I assume they learned similarly to how I learned of various little stories,
fables, and cultural ideas from Korea.
I remember my father telling me little stories here and there. I remember the
illustrated books my mother gave me on Korean fables.
My point is that these themes appeal to the average American because they're
familiar, and yet flexible enough to allow almost anything to happen. There's
also something about magic... I think it's because magic appears to break the
rules that confine us in the ordinary. Rule-breaking just appeals to us at a
deep level-- whether it's about breaking laws, cheating in a game, or making an
exception in a daily routine.