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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1209904" data-attributes="member: 5171">This argument gets kicked around a lot on writing websites. My personal opinion is that most writers arguing about it should shut up and write, and most readers are not going to convinced of one thing or the other.I've read plenty of Science Fiction that wasn't idea fiction, to the point where I could with some internal justification call it "The Literature of Tropes" rather than the literature of ideas -- almost every issue of Asimov's SF and the Magazine of FSF has yet another story that uses quantum physics in some overly cute way, yet another future-slice-of-life story that uses Internet extrapolation and wearable computer research to spice up a "Divorce in the Hamptons" story, and yet another been-there-done-that-idea story by a writer who is famous enough to look good on the cover.  This isn't a dig at those magazines -- they only publish it because people want to read it.By the same token, saying that Fantasy is the literature of characters is unsupportable.  You could say the same thing about Romance novels.  They both use archetypes rather than actual characters most of the time.  You can't throw a rock in the fantasy section of Borders without hitting an oft-scorned scullery lad who is castigated for having 21st-century ethics in a Middle Ages setting, as well as a birthmark shaped like a phoenix holding a crown in one claw and a flaming sword in the other, who then goes on to save the world six times from progressively more horned-and-scaly manifestations of that guy who bullied the author back in middle school -- or the orphan girl who is amazingly beautiful but odd in some way that causes all the locals to call her ugly until some incredibly handsome (and also possessed of 21st-century ethics despite living in the Middle Ages and being tutored and raised by people with Middle Ages ethics) young man in a position of power falls for her and realizes that her gift of using song/poetry/dancing/weaving to control/predict/talk to/feel the emotions of the savage and untamed dragons/whales/rainbows/unicorns/star-magic-people is precious and wonderful, and then he makes her into a princess, and everyone is happy.EDIT: And there are exceptions in every genre.  There are really original SF novels and amazingly real Fantasy novels -- and really funny and realistic and enjoyable Romance novels, too.  So what we've established is that some people have generalizations one way, some people have generalizations the other way, and there are exceptions to all generalizations. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />So, really, writing is writing.  Genre is only useful in helping you find what you like.  Using it for sweeping philosophical judgements is great for starting arguments and not much else.</blockquote>

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