As the work puts more and more distance between itself and reality, the risk of becoming simply a "diversion" increases. Certainly, the reader should be on the lookout for deeper messages, but that having been said, it's hard to really expect a deeper message from a lot of authors in the genre.

Jordan certainly provided a diversion and little more. The interesting thing is that Sanderson's novels show a much higher level of insight and thought, and so the series might end a bit "deeper", so to speak, than it would have if Jordan had written it.

To take the analogy of dwarves and racism, while such a story could prove a point, it also distances people from the historical realities of racism in the real world, which robs the issue of much of its complexity. On the one hand, it may make certain ideas about the inherent injustice in racism plain to people who wouldn't have thought about it that way, but on the other hand, many could dismiss it or see it as inapplicable to a real-world situation where they or their friends may be more emotionally involved. Of course, it might be very interesting to read.

The real point of this post is to try to encourage people to go beyond reading simply fantasy and science fiction because an incomparably large portion of it is little more than diversion. If it stirred a healthy debate, all the better. If people start to analyse their reading choices and wonder, "Am I missing something?" then they benefit.