Today’s literary heroines are always running, sparring or climbing their way to greatness.
The wildly-popular genre of romantic-fantasy, a.k.a “romantasy,” sees protagonists like Violet Sorrengail from the Fourth Wing franchise, battling across a brutal obstacle course to become a dragon rider. In the ACOTAR series, heroine Feyre Archeron enters a dangerous maze to prove herself.
The romantasy genre generated $610 million in book sales in 2024, according to Bloomberg, as authors like Rebecca Yarros and Sarah J. Maas amassed huge followings for their franchises among a once Harry Potter-obsessed generation of Millennials.
Fourth Wing is set to be adapted for the big screen, directed by Michael B. Jordan. Romantasy has also seeped into theme nights at Major League Baseball, revived book launch parties and spiked merch sales.
Now, fitness studios are cashing in with “romantasy classes” – where weighted “daggers” are incorporated into full-body workouts that also includes spinning, Tai Chi and High-Intensity Interval Training.
“I’ve had people who have said, ‘I haven’t felt inspired to move and now I’m so excited to move. I look forward to moving my body every day,’” Catherine Carter, founder of weighted dagger brand, Dragon’s Edge, told The Independent.
Carter was inspired to make the daggers after being bored at a workout class, herself.
“I was in these battle scenes in my head … and then I was in [the Warrior Two pose] with these little dumbbells and I just felt like the magic was broken,” she recalled. That’s when she started working on designs.
“It did not exist and so I sketched and prototyped and tested and experimented,” said Carter. “And now we have weighted daggers.”
In-person classes with the daggers are available at a few locations, including a studio in Massachusetts, but many fans appear to be seeking out online workouts.
Classes are engineered for a serious workout, Carter said, but are also rooted in romantasy storytelling. People who love romantasy books are being inspired to work out when they might not have gone to a regular gym class.
“This is finally a way to continue that emotional journey after we finish the last page,” she added.
The Independent decided to get involved – with daggers, of course. I’m a regular gym-goer but these classes were always going to appeal to me as I’m also a lifelong fan of fantasy novels. I once even traveled over 1,300 miles from a study abroad program in Australia to northern New Zealand to run through the hills and hide in Hobbit holes on the “Hobbiton” film location, in my own (very loose) reenactment of The Lord of The Rings.
The romantasy genre has me hooked – I’ve read Quicksilver, the Powerless trilogy and The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy – for those in the know.
So, I bought the daggers and tried out some online classes to hopefully reap both the mental and physical benefits.
The pair of daggers – which come in Onyx Black, Deep Forest or Ice Castle – are $135, not including shipping costs. Made of iron and coated in silicone, typical of other dumbbells, they weigh 2.6-pounds. And they aren’t actually pointed – and therefore not life-threatening – like actual daggers.
People in 21 countries have bought daggers, Carter said, but gave little else away about her customer base, earnings or how the products are made.
If you want to use the daggers with others, Boston’s Fit for Fiction – a studio that combines workouts with literary themes from ancient Greek epics and pirate tales – charges around $35 for an hour-long group class.
Free romantasy-style training videos can also be found on YouTube. The Micro Squad, a group of fitness instructors popular online, have created a playlist of 20-minute workouts.
The background music is usually dramatic and orchestral, but the workout room is white and nondescript with the exception of a few green plants.
Instructors are upbeat and workout alongside their audience, explaining the benefits of squatting or lunging with daggers.
The workouts are intense and include moves well-known to regular exercisers – mountain climbers and squat thrusts. The daggers are incorporated in twirls and jabs, as instructors describe how to slice down your enemies.
I know from experience that your arms will burn after just a few minutes. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
“Good lord I beseech thee pray, show mercy,” one class-goer posted in the YouTube comments.
Another participant applauded how instructors merged each exercise with romantasy stories they enjoy.
“I love the way you narrate what each exercise is like ‘in world,’” one wrote. Makes it so much more magical. Holy s*** am I sweaty.”
I also got lost in the workout. All of a sudden, it was as if I was pulling myself up using the scales of a massive dragon or moving with the swiftness of an elf in battle when spinning around my apartment’s living room.
The Micro Squad creates an immersive experience, relying on narrative and knowledge of the physicality of romantasy characters. It definitely felt better than being barked at by instructors and pumping tunes at bootcamps or spin classes I’ve been to in the past.
There’s something about the daggers that makes classes special, too.
“There is pretty much a universal reaction when somebody picks them up for the first time. It’s kind of a mouth-wide-open kind of laugh when they hold them because they’re like, ‘This is crazy. How can these exist?’” Carter explained.
Then users start intuitively moving with the daggers during workouts, she says, dodging, dipping and diving.
“Then about 30 seconds, maybe two minutes later, they’re like, ‘Wait, these are actually really heavy,’” she added.
Even one 20-minute session was enough to see results using the daggers. There was some muscle definition in my triceps, deltoids and biceps a day later.
There are major health perks from moving and lifting more. Strength training and aerobic fitness have been tied to living longer and better health outcomes later in life, including a lower risk of cancer and protection against cognitive decline. (Public health officials recommend American adults get 150 minutes of aerobic exercise and two days of strength training each week.)
Carter hopes that romantasy authors will support the vision behind these classes and her products.
She also believes her endeavor has longevity, if at least one blockbuster fantasy franchise is anything to go by. Harry Potter has its own workout craze in real-life Quidditch games, with long-running tournaments across the U.S., nearly 30 years after the first book was published.
“The worlds can change completely, but we still love courage, fear, love, friendship, sacrifice, hope, doubt, joy, grief, resilience, adventure, the desire to protect what matters and the possibility that there is more strength in us than we ever knew,” said Carter.
