Advocating for the Defense of Nature

Fantasy generally describes worlds where nature is preserved and it worries about the disappearance of the supernatural beings and spirits that inhabit it. This caution stems from the arrival of the industrial revolution in the 19th century, when the English countryside was ravaged in the name of progress, but also with the First World War and the havoc it wreaked on man and nature.

In The Lord of the Rings, the wizard Saruman becomes the symbol of this modernity and the harmful effects of technology. In Peter Jackson's adaptation, he razes Fangorn Forest to launch his terrible Uruk-hai against Rohan. Nature regains its rights thanks to the Ents, who destroy Isengard. At the end of the book, it is Hobbit territory that Saruman tries to annex, to transform the charming County into a hellish industrial society, thus threatening its ecosystem.

In Princess Mononoke directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the god of the forest suffers the madness of humans who wish to destroy him. As he is beheaded, the deity's magical power triggers the beginning of an ecological catastrophe, finally stopped by Prince Ashitaka and the brave San. The Japanese filmmaker had already addressed the problem of human pollution with his friend Isao Takahata in Pompoko, where the Tanuki, spirits of the forest, join forces to prevent construction works in the west of Tokyo from annihilating their natural habitat.

Through Chihiro's journey of initiation into the spirit world, Hayao Miyazaki seeks to reconnect with ancestral values, particularly Shinto, a thousand-year-old religion where deities continue to invest the world of the living. The supernatural is not opposed to the real or the everyday here, the two cohabit naturally. As for Gorō Miyazaki, Hayao's son, he very freely adapts Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. His hero Prince Arren joins forces with the magician Sparrowhawk, who teaches him the virtues of nature and balance every day.

Following the invasion of the First Men, the natives of Westeros, the "Children of the Forest", decide to create the terrible Night King to protect their home. A few centuries later, the first climate refugees of the Kingdom, the Wildlings, try to cross the famous Wall to survive and escape the White Walkers. One way to stop winter is to use Daenerys Targaryen's dragons against the Army of the Dead. A double-edged sword for the inhabitants of King's Landing: in the series, their city will be destroyed by these same dragons.