I was watching a modern Netflix TV show last night and I realized that the "good guy" character's signature attribute was an inability to set or enforce healthy limits. There was once of those scenes where a character is about to give up in self-doubt and everyone else rallies around him to tell him what a great person he is.

Every single example the other characters brought up was an incident in which the "good guy" was a doormat.

Both Chesterton and Lewis speak to this question in depth, and I think Zelazny and Powers both put it into practice in their fiction.

There are several principles that I think are important for writing "realistic fantasy" or what I call Hard Weird Fiction.

https://twitter.com/TrueConnallyite/status/1539082325409120258

First, something Fantastic should be presented with a maximum of mundane detail. This is the direct opposite of the Lovecraft parody of things being "indescribably hideous".

If you want me to believe in a dragon, show me the texture of its scales. Tell me how it smells.