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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PeterWeller" data-source="post: 3886152" data-attributes="member: 55795">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.Also, I haven't invoked my credentials to take a condescending attitude and speak down to Hussar or anyone.  I brought it up because I got the impression he was using terms in a different manner than I was.  Neither have I said that literary critics hold genre as their exclusive domain to define.  We can be operating under different definitions of what genre and, more specifically, fantasy are, but then what is Hussar's definition of the two?Also, where did you get the impression that I was taking his invocation of Plato as anything but a metaphor?  I merely said that an invocation of Plato was incorrect because I was in no way declaring that their was a Platonic ideal that defined genres.Now, the definition of genre I have been taught is that it's merely a convenience, and something can be included in a genre if it evidences tropes from that genre.  I guess that is different than the one you learned.  The landscape of literary discussion does change, and there are different schools of thought at work and at odds.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.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.For the too long/didn't read crowd, I'm not putting myself up as the arbiter of what is and isn't genre.  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.</blockquote>

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