D&D 4E 4e Design and JRR Tolkien

[Raven Crowking]

I never read the first two books, but was anything said about Professor McGonagall's love life? How about Professor Trelawney? Or Professor Sprout? If so, are they all lesbians?

You realize that you just inspired 100 fledgling fanfic slashfic writers, don't you?

The only real evidence that Dumbledore is gay, IMHO, is that the author says that he is gay, and that she envisioned him as being gay while she was writing him. To me, that is sort of lukewarm in the evidence-o-meter, but I accept it because it doesn't contradict the remainder of the work, and it is unlikely that it will ever be contradicted.

When retconning Star Trek or Doctor Who, though, I use the rule that "What Is Seen On-Screen Is All We Actually Know".

Statements of authorial intent, especially after the passage of time, are questionable at best. Does anyone really believe that George Lucas had midichlorians in mind when the first Star Wars film came out? Does anyone really believe that JKR had the plots for all seven books when she wrote HP&TPS? Authors lie. Often, authors lie because they think it is what their readers want to hear. Some authors, like Stephen King (in On Writing) even admit later that some of their earlier statements were lies.

If JKR ever re-visits the HP universe, I think it likely that she will continue along the "Dumbledore is gay" line. But she might not. Does it really matter?

RC

 

[Desdichado]

Of course, if you accept that, it stands to reason that McDonalds knows more about what a hamburger is than anyone else.....?

:shrug: It stands to reason that someone involved day in and day out with the manufacture of hamburgers would, yes. But your analogy has a big flaw, IMO, in that McDonalds are all about mass-producing hamburgers with completely unskilled labor, not about exploring the various aspects of what it means to be a hamburger.

EDIT: There is certainly a question as to whether mythological or folkloric texts were fantasy or not. In many cases, these texts are considered "taproot" texts that inform later fantasy, without necessarily being fantasy themselves. The difference is, of course, whether or not the original "authors" of these stories believed that they were possible within the world they inhabited.

Yep. Sure. I'd buy that. I don't thank anyone has suggested the contrary.

? And what, exactly, had you laughing there ?

Or is this an "argument by ridicule"?

No, no, not at all. It just struck me as funny. Reducing our discussion to a mathematical formula for clarity only to say something that I don't disagree with in the least.

If we're going to get hung up on who is or isn't an expert, I'd like to point out that PeterWeller hasn't yet produced any evidence (other than his own statements) to back up his expert opinion, and since it contradicts what I've heard from people that I do consider true experts, not just "guys on the internet" I'll happily ignore the academic chest-thumping exercise and simply evaluate proposals put forth on their own merits, not on whether or not someone that I consider an "expert" or not has said them.

Book publishers, so far as I know, are experts in selling books, not experts in critiquing them.

Yes. Indeed. Since a big part of my point is that simply ignoring experts because they're not in the "critiquing" business is introducing false bias, I dont' accept that only literary critics are qualified to speak on what genre is, though.

I think perhaps I've been talking in circles a bit and some clarity has been lost. That right there is the gist of what I'm saying. Since you've gone to the trouble to quote a nice little checklist of the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy (although based perhaps on misunderstanding my point, I'll happily utilize that to make my point. I'd argue that these three that I retained all apply to the idea that only literati can define genres or "correctly" categorize works by genre.

* Is this a matter which I can decide without appeal to expert opinion?
* Is the authority biased towards one side?
* Is the authority's opinion representative of expert opinion?

IMO, there's no need to consult an expert when anyone can go to any bookstore and see how books are categorized. Granted, there's a great deal of room for error in that method, but by and large, non-"experts" have just as much to say about the topic as anyone else and always have. Also, if you speak to authors or publishers (also, IMO, certainly experts) then you tend to get different answers than if you speak to literature academics, suggesting very strongly that these groups have biases and agendas to pursue in their definition of the various relevent genres. Also, given this disparity, then there is no "representative" opinion that speak of. Also, as I've already stated, the opinion put forth as fact here doesn't even meet the lesser standard of being the consensus opinion I've seen in literature textbooks and from literature professers when I was in college. Like I said, unless there's been a dramatic change in the field of literary study, that is not a representative expert opinion.

Now, I would posit that "What does the term fantasy mean, in relation to the fantasy genre?" and "What is the fantasy genre?" are questions which, while we certainly can have opinions on, are questions that cannot be answered objectively. It is, IMHO, a topic to which study allows a greater understanding, and thus one to which authority can speak. It is not, IMHO, a topic where everyone's opinion is as good as everyone else's.

I (somewhat) disagree, as I've already stated.

Therefore, I tend to think that the EoF is a pretty good authority to use, and I will attempt to copy out some of the text thereof (esp. Def. of Fantasy) over the course of the week, if you'd like.

I can tell that you think so; you've referred to it as if it were the sole repository of expert opinion on this subject repeatedly in this thread.

I am curious what it says, but I should state up front that I'm not inclined to be as accepting of its authority unquestioning as you appear to be, especially if it contradicts what I've known, heard and read repeatedly on the subject from other sources.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Finally, as for publishers, I never said that they have no place in the definition of genre, but for practical and pragmatic purposes, they developed the concept of category as a separate but related system to genre to stay out of the mires of this sort of discussion.

Given that publishers routinely publish works of fantasy under other genre titles because they believe that sales will be higher that way (ex., Red Earth and Pouring Rain, http://www.amazon.com/Red-Earth-Pouring-Rain-Novel/dp/0316132934, was not sold as fantasy). Most publishers are pretty upfront about this, and you can simply email them to confirm.

I suggest going to any mid-sized book retailer and having a discussion about how books are shelved. It may be enlightening.

RC

 

[PeterWeller]

I never read the first two books, but was anything said about Professor McGonagall's love life? How about Professor Trelawney? Or Professor Sprout? If so, are they all lesbians?

To be honest, I always got the impression that McGonagall is a lesbian.

 

[Raven Crowking]

If we're going to get hung up on who is or isn't an expert, I'd like to point out that PeterWeller hasn't yet produced any evidence (other than his own statements) to back up his expert opinion, and since it contradicts what I've heard from people that I do consider true experts, not just "guys on the internet" I'll happily ignore the academic chest-thumping exercise and simply evaluate proposals put forth on their own merits, not on whether or not someone that I consider an "expert" or not has said them.

Sure. And you'd be right to expect credentials before simply accepting someone's opinion. Which is why, as I said, I'll try to transcribe some of the EoF text over the course of this week. And perhaps the next.

IMO, there's no need to consult an expert when anyone can go to any bookstore and see how books are categorized.

Excepting, of course, that bookstores don't categorize books on basis of genre alone. They often categorize on basis of how publishers solicit a book, and that is often based on how a book is thought to appeal to potential customers. Would you say that Wicked isn't fantasy? Yet if you wanted to purchase a copy, it is extremely likely that you'd have to go to the Literature section of most bookstores. Likewise Kingdoms of Elfin.

While I agree that non-experts have just as much to say about ANY topic as anyone else (and always have), I don't believe that saying so implies that all opinions are of equal value. There's a humorous exchange in The Wizard of Oz when the Tin Woodsman says that he doesn't have a brain, and Dorothy asks how he can talk then. The TW says "I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?" Which describes, IMHO, most of the Interweb, including most of my own posts. We all have opinions on all sorts of topics; that doesn't mean that they are informed opinions.

Also, if you speak to authors or publishers (also, IMO, certainly experts) then you tend to get different answers than if you speak to literature academics, suggesting very strongly that these groups have biases and agendas to pursue in their definition of the various relevent genres.

Certainly, authors have many different opinions. However, I think if you actually talk to authors and publishers you will find that, in terms of how the genre is defined, you will discover that there is less disparity than you imagine. Publishers place books in different genres based on where they will sell; that doesn't mean that they don't recognize that a book could just as easily (and correctly) be shelved elsewhere.

I've had some sf and fantasy short stories published. Although I am by no means an expert, I have had discussions of this nature with other writers and publishers.

I am curious what it says, but I should state up front that I'm not inclined to be as accepting of its authority unquestioning as you appear to be, especially if it contradicts what I've known, heard and read repeatedly on the subject from other sources.

I am accepting of its authority because I have read much of it, and because I trust on the basis of both its arguments and its authorial intent. If I get the opportunity to do some real transcription of the work, you should be able to judge from that alone.

RC

 

[Desdichado]

You're accusing me of a few things with this post that I think I should address. First of all, I'm not putting myself out as a standard. I've pointed out the terms by which I have been taught that genre is defined. Namely, it is a convenience using sets of tropes to say this is like that. I've shown how the titles in question fall into the fantasy genre under that definition. Problem is, Hussar claims they aren't, but hasn't put forth an argument to say why, except to say, "no, they aren't." If anything, he's the one putting himself out as the yardstick by which genre is measured. He hasn't defined what genre is.

Actually, the problem is that he has absolutely done so; he indicated the Wikipedia article and said that although recognizing the weaknesses of wikipedia in general, he more or less agrees with what it says.

To say that he hasn't provided his (and as a matter of coincidence, my) definition of what the Fantasy genre is is outright false. He did so, very specifically. You just have a follow a link to read it.

I'll quote two relevent parts, which seems to be a defining difference of opinion between us:

The hallmarks that distinguish the modern genre from tales that merely contain fantastic elements are the logic of the fantasy workings, the acknowledged fictious nature of the work, and the authorship of the elements, rather than their source in folklore.

Works in which the marvels were not necessarily believed, or only half-believed, such as the European romances of chivalry and the tales of the Arabian Nights, slowly evolved into works that showed these traits. Such authors as George MacDonald created explicitly fantastic works.

Even the most fantastic myths, legends and fairy tales differ from modern fantasy genre in three respects:

Modern genre fantasy postulates a different reality, either a fantasy world separated from ours, or a hidden fantasy side of our own world. In addition, the rules, geography, history, etc. of this world tend to be defined, even if they are not described outright. Traditional fantastic tales take place in our world, often in the past or in far off, unknown places. It seldom describes the place or the time with any precision, often saying simply that it happened "long ago and far away." (A modern, rationalized analog to these stories can be found in the Lost World tales of the 19th and 20th centuries.)

The second difference is that the supernatural in fantasy is by design fictitious. In traditional tales the degree to which the author considered the supernatural to be real can span the spectrum from legends taken as reality to myths understood as describing in understandable terms more complicated reality, to late, intentionally fictitious literary works.

Finally, the fantastic worlds of modern fantasy are created by an author or group of authors, often using traditional elements, but usually in a novel arrangement and with an individual interpretation. Traditional tales with fantasy elements used familiar myths and folklore, and any differences from tradition were considered variations on a theme; the traditional tales were never intended to be separate from the local supernatural folklore. Transitions between the traditional and modern modes of fantastic literature are evident in early Gothic novels, the ghost stories in vogue in the 19th century, and Romantic novels, all of which used extensively traditional fantastic motifs, but subjected them to authors' concepts.

By one standard, no work created before the fantasy genre was defined can be considered to belong to it, no matter how many fantastic elements it includes. By another, the genre includes the whole range of fantastic literature, both the modern genre and its traditional antecedents, as many elements which were treated as true (or at least not obviously untrue) by earlier authors are wholly fictitious and fantastic for modern readers. But even by the more limited definition a full examination of the history of the fantastic in literature is necessary to show the origins of the modern genre. Traditional works contain significant elements which modern fantasy authors have drawn upon extensively for inspiration in their own works.

Which is what I think is going on here. I've come from a school of thought that views genres as ever changing groupings of mere convenience. You and Hussar appear to come from a school that sees them as more concrete than that. Therein lies the crux of our argument, but the problem is one side of the argument is working from a definition and the other side is saying it is wrong without providing a counter definition. Neither side is wrong, of course, this is nothing but literary ****-waving on the internets, but we deserve a counter definition by which the provided definition can be said to be wrong.

Another of my "amateur passions" is dinosaur paleontology, and I see something very like it there too. Taxonomy---the art of assigning labels and categories to fossil remains---is largely divided into two types of personalities; "lumpers" and "splitters." I think perhaps that is where we differ; you are advocating a "lumper" strategy; defining genres in very broad strokes and adding anything that fits those broad interpretations in. I'm much more of a splitter by nature; I like having much more numerous, but much more narrowly defined and exclusive categories to sort what I see of the world. Neither is more correct than the other, both have much to recommend them, both are equally valid (I suppose ) yet the two points of view are not very compatible in certain regards.

Thus, to me, the fantasy genre is synomous with the modern fantasy genre, and does not admit just any story that includes fantastic elements. Modern fantasy certainly takes many cues from such sources and Arthurian story cycles, medieval chansons de geste, mythology and a variety of other sources, but none of those are fantasy per se, because the term fantasy (as a genre tag) is defined by a more explicit and exclusive set of parameters than that.

I've put forth a definition and have been told its wrong without receiving a counter definition under which it is wrong. The only problem here is two schools of thought butting heads, and neither is more valid than the other.

I'll agree with the latter sentence, but certainly not the first. Just because you didn't follow the link and read the definition submitted doesn't mean that it hasn't been proposed.

Primary source referenced: Brian Attebery, The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature, ISBN 0-253-35665-2

 

[Raven Crowking]

Thus, to me, the fantasy genre is synomous with the modern fantasy genre, and does not admit any story that includes fantastic elements. Modern fantasy certainly takes many cues from such sources and Arthurian story cycles, medieval chansons de geste, mythology and a variety of other sources, but none of those are fantasy per se, because the term fantasy (as a genre tag) is defined by a more explicit and exclusive set of parameters than that.

The EoF would agree with you here; a taproot text is not "fantasy" if the author(s) believed the events therein are/were possible in the real world.

RC

EDIT: I am certainly aware of the view that "Fantasy is as old as fear" (which I am sure that I am misquoting from the preface to Black Water 2). And, I would agree that it is very likely that some of the taproot texts were fantasy in the modern sense. The question, though, is what was considered "possible" in a pre-scientific world? I have some wonderful modern works that I am not 100% sure are "fantasy" because I am not certain that the authors didn't believe that what they were writing was possible.

There is another line of thought (also brought up by Alberto Manguel in the into to the Dark Water 2 anthology) that "realistic" novels are just another form of fantasy -- a fantasy of how we wish people interacted.

I tend to think that accepting either of these arguments (fantasy based on content, rather than what was believed, & "realism" as a form of fantasy) muddy the definition of the genre into uselessness.

YMMV.

RC

 

[PeterWeller]

Another of my "amateur passions" is dinosaur paleontology, and I see something very like it there too. Taxonomy---the art of assigning labels and categories to fossil remains---is largely divided into two types of personalities; "lumpers" and "splitters." I think perhaps that is where we differ; you are advocating a "lumper" strategy; defining genres in very broad strokes and adding anything that fits those broad interpretations in. I'm much more of a splitter by nature; I like having much more numerous, but much more narrowly defined and exclusive categories to sort what I see of the world. Neither is more correct than the other, both have much to recommend them, both are equally valid (I suppose ) yet the two points of view are not very compatible in certain regards.

Thus, to me, the fantasy genre is synomous with the modern fantasy genre, and does not admit just any story that includes fantastic elements. Modern fantasy certainly takes many cues from such sources and Arthurian story cycles, medieval chansons de geste, mythology and a variety of other sources, but none of those are fantasy per se, because the term fantasy (as a genre tag) is defined by a more explicit and exclusive set of parameters than that.

I'll agree with the latter sentence, but certainly not the first. Just because you didn't follow the link and read the definition submitted doesn't mean that it hasn't been proposed.

Primary source referenced: Brian Attebery, The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature, ISBN 0-253-35665-2

There we go, and I am a jerk for missing the link.

To me, the fantasy genre is not synonymous with modern fantasy. The former contains any and all stories that contain fantasy tropes, the latter contains only those written in the context of the modern world, and our modern view of what is and isn't real. I prefer the definition I am using because it opens discourse to both look at early works as antecedents to modern ones, and to look at them as members of the same grand continuity. Modern fantasy exists as a genre to differentiate from romances or myths or fairy tales. Fantasy is a broad blanket term that contains all of these. There's lumping and splitting involved. Anything exhibiting fantasy tropes is lumped into the fantasy genre, then split into a further sub-genre that differentiates based on further considerations, such as period, theme, style, etc. Really, though, our definitions aren't as nearly at odds as we would make them. Your definition often defaults to using the term Modern Fantasy, which can be presumed as a clarification to differ it from a perceived greater fantasy genre. So, whereas you and Hussar use the term Fantasy to refer to modern fantasy, I have been using it to refer to a greater continuum involving earlier romances, myths, epics, and legends. Your more specific term, modern fantasy, fits into the greater realm of my term, fantasy.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Either way, it should be noted that the Modern Fantasy genre as such exists clearly from the 18th Century on, and is not a product of 1980+.

RC

 

[Desdichado]

Well, you can have the discourse either way, you just need to get some housecleaning done in terms of "when I say this word, this is specifically what I mean."

Plus, any discussion of fantasy (from the more restricted definition) can ill afford to ignore what came before and paved the way anyway, IMO.

In any case, RC, I don't think anyone was claiming that fantasy didn't start until c. 1980, just that c. 1980 there was an explosion in the number of titles that were published each year.

I had actually hoped to (assuming that that is true; Hussar presented data to suggest that there was a marked increase roughly at that time) we could bang around some possible reasons why we think that may be. In any case, it's a curious thought. Although probably outside the scope of this discussion in this thread, although I do wonder if the popularity of D&D at that same time was related.