I've heard this sentence — or some variation of it — more times than I can remember.

Usually delivered with a certain air of intellectual superiority.

As if literature came with a hierarchy.

As if some books were worthy of reflection and others were merely entertainment.

As if reading Ulysses in the original language, preferably while fasting and suffering slightly, was somehow the final test of intellectual legitimacy.

The older I get, the less interested I become in those debates.

Because I've discovered that books rarely contain a single reading.

And readers certainly don't.

Over the past few months, fantasy novels have led me to reflect on topics as diverse as:

• honour when circumstances change,
• identity,
• leadership,
• guilt,
• responsibility,
• suffering,
• faith,
• redemption,
• and purpose.

On the surface, you see dragons.

Swords.

Magic.

Ancient prophecies.

Impossible wars.

But if you pay attention to the characters — and to what lives between the lines — you may find things that feel surprisingly familiar.

Emotional exhaustion caused by responsibilities we imposed on ourselves.

The question of whether a person can truly redeem themselves.

Fragmented identities.

The masks we wear at work, with family, with friends, and sometimes even with ourselves.

The dragons remain.

The magic remains.

But somehow they stop being the point.

Fantasy speaks about our fears, our doubts, our hopes and our contradictions.

It simply chooses a different stage.

And that's when knights become people.

Magic becomes power.

Monsters become fears.

And heroes become choices.

At twenty, I read the adventure.

At fifty, I read the people.

And that's when I realised something important:

The books hadn't changed.

I had.

This year I've read about dragons, storms and impossible wars.

And yet I've spent more time reflecting on leadership, guilt, resilience and humanity than I have while reading many management books.

Perhaps fantasy was never really about dragons.

Perhaps it was always about us.