John had written that normal fantasy ("normal" in the T.S. Kuhn sense) was written for the moderately educated class from suffering ennui. It was for folks stuck doing dull, repetitive work, growing old while not getting laid half often or variously enough, watching other, less deserving people (the privileged and the crooks) scoop up your share of fun. So then the fantasy generates the exciting world where you're given a heroic purpose and an opportunity to use those very powers you have suspected that you had but never have been able to locate and use, except in destructive ways when shit-faced.
Don Webb, The Double: An Investigation
aging, fantasy-fiction