Tolkien's Lord of the Rings brings us right into the cosmic struggle between good and evil. That is why there is no clear dividing line between fantasy and parable. Parables are shorter and have a more obvious twist or punch line to make a point. In both cases a story is imagined by someone to captivate and shock us into seeing life from an unexpected point of view. But we can also choose to do our own creative imagination.
People often claim that they have no imagination.
But all of us can imagine the most complex good and bad situations fast asleep in our dreams. And we certainly began with a powerful gift of imagination as little children. The first fantasies came to us from our parents and grandparents. They took the form of bedtime stories, fairy tales, legends, heroic adventures. When we learned to talk we developed the ability to invent our own fantasies and to act them out in games and mock adventures.