Cataline on Game of Thrones

Cataline Sergius has an excellent observation on fantasy vs horror.

But heroic fantasy is all about the action. It’s about battle and the being in the now that comes from knowing you are on a three day roller coaster ride and it has no tracks. The feeling of triumph from looking at the body of a guy who was doing every fucking thing in his power to end your life and you made him fail that...

...But here is the thing about horror. It’s all powerlessness. Whatever is after you has all the power. It’s all about the build up and your protagonist’s coming dread as he realizes there is nothing he can do to defeat the thing that is coming for them all. It’s all about fear and powerlessness. 

 -=ad=-

The Murder of the Sword and Sorcery Genre

Jim Fear makes some excellent points.

Nobody who doesn't really care about your pet issue is going to think it's anything but you preaching, and that isn't what they came to sword & sorcery for. They came here to watch good guys bash bad guys (or at least reasonably okay guys bash bad guys), airship pirates conducting daring raids, wizards of vast and deadly power hurl spells, monstrous creatures eating people, underwater kingdoms threatened by ancient evil, unthinkably valuable artifacts stolen by intrepid thieves, and on and on the list goes of things you could be doing rather than putting people to sleep with your boring message fiction that seems to be trying to take up the majority of fantasy literature these days.

I've said something similar in the past; if your story is more focused on "the message" than "the plot," then you are preaching instead of telling a story.  And the only people who don't mind being preached at are the already converted--to whom preaching is a total waste of time anyway.