Educational Games and Fantasy - Can I use LOTR to teach algebra or social skills?

It is funny when sometimes you read a book you get an impression, you completely forget about it and then someone else comes along (in our case Lindsay Grace) and reveals that she actually shared the same thoughts with you.

When in the process of designing an educational game especially for my group of users (with intellectual disabilities) and your first scenarios have to do with fantasy and amazing new creatures and exciting strange characters with first seen powers (ok blame my fantasy-geeky background as well) how can you link them with everyday educational material and situations? Should a game be first highly entertaining and second educational or visa versa? What is the secret analogy between learning and fun? Should we first built a strong gaming scenario with fantasy and fun in high proportions and then add the educational analogy or should we focus on the educational architecture of the software and embed the gaming attributes afterwards? Is it a "chicken or the egg" type of question? Can I go vegan and choose a different answer? Should I?

Ms Grace discusses the challenges facing educational game design, and how the practical matters of education reality intersect the fantasy we expect from games. (@Game Career Guide)