That's true even if it's an objectively bad place -- Gotham City looks like a shithole, but who wouldn't trade their current life with a chance to go there and fight supercriminals with Batman? Of course, that's part of the frustration, too -- we'll never actually see the Shire or Mordor firsthand. But you can come pretty close, because it turns out a lot of these fantasy settings were based on real places. For instance ...

Part of what makes fantasy and sci-fi appealing is that it's not just a bunch of characters -- it's a whole world. One you want to live in.

6 Middle Earth from The Lord of the Rings

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The Fictional Setting:

Of course, Middle Earth from The Lord of the Rings isn't just one setting. There are storybook forests and blackened volcanoes and menacing towers. All of it is pretty fantastic, like Isengard, with its tower and surrounding circular stronghold:

TheOneRing.net

From the air it looks exactly like some dude got hit in the eye with a dart.

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The Real Thing:

Birmingham Mail

Actually, it's more like a dude in a skirt with a hard-on.

As it turns out, Middle Earth - that is, the Shire, the forests, Isengard, even freaking Mordor -- all came from author J.R.R. Tolkien's surroundings growing up in and around the city of Birmingham, England. Seriously. The above image is what the University of Birmingham looked like back when Tolkien was in town.

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OK, so what about Mordor? That charred, ruined country is pure fantasy, right?