If you want to write a compelling opening in your fantasy novel, then check out my First Chapter Mastery program: https://firstchaptermastery.com/
(This also includes the option to get my personal feedback on your writing.)

One of the things that I’ve noticed in modern writing is that writers are more and more encouraged to start with the inciting incident. That misses the opportunity to show the world before it falls apart. It is possible to have conflict, stakes and choices in the normal world leading up to the incident that breaks it. It is hard to empathize with a character’s loss when we don’t get to see what it is that they lost.

the biggest flex of all time would be combining all or most of these and doing it well

My thousand-word prologue right before the chapter one dream sequence that doesn’t expressly state it’s a dream:

“Ben woke up. He was surprised by this because when he’d fallen asleep, he’d done so with a sword through his chest.”

(Sorry couldn’t resist 😂)

Imagine if we combine all of this into one and create the worst possible opening ever.

Hi im the one who sent the pinecones! Unfortunately it's an example from a real novel 😭 I wish i could take credit because it wouldve been so funny, but it really is the biggest fantasy writer in my country right now who does that. The first 3 pages had more than 10 neologisms & place names with NO explanation to any of them. And you were just expected to somehow follow along. Some of them weren't explained until several chapters later but they still kept getting mentioned. It was so hard to read fr.

The Lord of the Rings breaks at least five of these (a ton of characters, slow pacing setting up a freaking birthday, lots of made-up words, lots of exposition on Bilbo and the Shire, possibly irrelevant scenes of Shire life) and still manages to rock XD

"Readers are like baby ducks" !!! I have felt this way when reading an excellent story or novel book. I imprint soon and strongly.

I actually like prologues that "info dump" on me. It is like a "you need to know this in advance"-primer on the world or the events, and as prologues tend to be not very long, I know it won't take too much time to ingest it.

7:30 Prologues aren’t pointless, they often serve as a thematic or narrative framing device to help slowly introduce the reader to the world within the story.

Tolkien been real quiet since this came out

The novelization of The Last Jedi begins with one of those pointless dream sequences in which Luke dreams that he had never left Tatooine. It has no bearing on the story, is never referenced again, and doesn't really elucidate anything about Luke's character.

The Prologue That Worked:  “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

This simple setup set the tone of the whole book.  It was a good place to come from, and a good place to get back to.  Everything in between could be as fantastical or adventurous or horrifying as it would be, and this would be endured.  This told you everything you needed to know about why you might want to go Out There, but you would also want to go Back Again.

While Khloe fished in the pond, she caught a huge one.  She pulled it out.  It was a readerfish.

Thats how you hook your readers. 😂

Honestly about prologues... ASOIAF's first book A Game of Thrones has one of the most iconic prologues I know and it's overall pretty liked by the community... yet it's exactly what the readers you asked hate:
- First of all the prologue exists.
- Second of all the relevance of the Others isn't really there at all in the first book as whole. (they don't even appear at all in the second book if I remember correctly.)
- The characters immediatelly died, never appear again, weren't important in the main story whatsoever. Literally some people who "won't matter for the rest of the novel" and not only novel, the serie overall.

And it still is a GREAT prologue! So I disagree with this point, because... it depends really. If you know how to write prologues, even those with "possibly bad things" in them... it can still be great.

I was guilty of writing the 'confusing battle scenes' opening so many times when I was younger. I don't know why, but I seemed so intent to think it was a great way to open a story :P

"Starting with action"
The Sanderson Mafia would like a word with you

Readers: Prologues bad
Me looking at my Animorphs inspired/journalistic prologue: Oh no
Jed: Well, try to keep them short
Me looking back at my prologues: Thank goodness for your 300 words

One thing I thought of when you were discussing Prologues, is the potential for new writers to write their novel too much like a movie, and how there are things that just don't work as well when implemented into written form.
I hope one day you could do a video on avoiding these pitfalls