Genre Conventions: What is fantasy?

Joshua Dyal said:
You honestly think that if I wasn't just being stubborn that I would naturally agree with you? Look, you want to make symbolic connections in ERB's work, more power to you. I dislike that entire methodology of trying to craft symbols out of text, and I only tend to look for them when the author's deliberately put them there. Even then, I dislike the reductionist method of turning everything I read into a "message" fraught with symbols. So no, I don't really see them. No, I don't think they're obvious. No, I don't think that its necessary to draw them out of ERB's work.

May I ask why it is that if you actively avoid perceiving symbolism, you are completely and utterly sure it is not present? It seems to me as if you were to wear tinted glasses and then insist there is no white.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Wild Gazebo said:
Flimsy methodology. Hmm. Well, one author makes a claim...several people debate its merits and faults...a concensus is formed or fractured...the fractured or concentual idea is debated by several academics and is further fractured or a concensus is made... you see where I'm going with this, it's a evolutionary model of understanding--a structuralist argument if you will.. Each claim is not arbitrary. Each claim is backed up with textual evidence that is acknowledged or dismissed by the discourse community...very similar to science--albiet in an artsy-fartsy way. Your claim to the contrary appears far more arbitrary than centuries of critical analysis...but, I think your argument is based slightly more on poor experiences with terrible educators than with the authority of an entire discipline. A discipline should not hamfistedly promote dogma...it should illustrate the tecnique that created the dogma.
Not at all, although coming from a more "practical arts" background, as you call it, may have jaundiced my view of it. Even an opinion that enjoys fairly widespread consensus is still just an opinion, is what I'm getting at. It's not "factual" in the sense that a chemical equation is, for example, its an interpretation. Subsequent generations may interpret works completely differently. It's unlikely that we really understand Homer's works, for instance, all that well relative to his native audience, because we're too far removed from them in time and culture. We can make a better claim at understanding James Joyce's work, but even so, different people emphasise different aspects of his work, and thus interpret it differently, even if they don't strictly disagree with their collegues.

I guess my point is, that while "symbolic understanding" might be an interesting exploration in its own right, I think it takes itself way too seriously, and tends to forget that the methodology on which it is based is incapable of rendering "truth" about the work except in the context of the reader, or else by accident.
Wild Gazebo said:
I feel this is more of a self-defense mechanicism derived from a discipline that deals with more subjectivity than objectivety. You should not be offended, you should pity them.
:lol: Not offended, just turned off. :D
 

Andor said:
May I ask why it is that if you actively avoid perceiving symbolism, you are completely and utterly sure it is not present? It seems to me as if you were to wear tinted glasses and then insist there is no white.
My statement was that I don't see any need to interpret ERB as a symbolic "tutoring" exercise, in which John Carter represents the ideal gentleman, and is meant to teach young boys how to be one as well, or that any other aspect of JC of Mars is meant to do anything of the sort either.

I don't say there's no symbolism at all, merely that any that does exist are merely superficial surface features of the work, not the main thrust of them.

Of course, Celebrim will probably chime in and say that that's not at all what he's been saying all along after all, and so I'm arguing against a straw man. If so, perhaps we aren't so diametrically opposed after all. But based on his prior posts, I don't know what else he could possibly be saying.
 

Wild Gazebo said:
I'm missing something. How, exactly do you interpret text without reading it? Cause it would save me A LOT of time! :lol:
:lol: Yeah, you must be missing something. I never claimed to be able to do that! Although a good set of Cliff's Notes got me through many a reading assignment in High School. Saved my bacon on The Grapes of Wrath anyway...
Wild Gazebo said:
edit: Ok, I think I know where you are going. You are takling about universal acceptance of textual material...like imagery...and um...well, just imagery and titles...grammar...definitions. To me, that would be like defining the difference between signage and novels by saying a novel uses words. I don't think it is possible.
Most authors of science fiction and fantasy would disagree with you. As would most bibliographers and students of the literature. The definition I espoused in the very first thread is pretty much exactly the one delineated by Ben Bova, Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, and the Library of Congress.
 

Joshua Dyal said:
It is interesting how often they appear. It is not, however, essential that they appear, which is where I take exception to what you'd stated.

Fine. People can hold that opinion for good and valid reasons. You however don't seem to be willing to come up with them. You think I can't turn around and argue against my own theory? I know where it gets shaky. You however dont, but you sure are damn sure of yourself.

Ascribing an anti-racist agenda to ERB before racism as we knew it existed as an ideology, for one.

Are you saying that racism didn't exist before people invented a particular term for it? Are you saying that until people invented for racism, that people couldn't be offended by and opposed to the sort of behavior that today we call racism? Because that sure sounds like what you are saying. Look, the man was the son of a prominent Republican abolutionist who detested the racial biases that we now call 'racism'. But I have already addressed this point.

And ignoring his more obvious racism prevelant in his work when his characters are not on some alien planet.

And again, I have already addressed this point. I heard you the first time. I refuted the point. I don't and never have expected you to accept what I have to say, but I do expect that if you are going to continue to debate me that you would offer some counterpoint to my rebuttle. So again, Edgar Rice Burroughs is not a racist. Edgar Rice Burroughs is a culturist who believes in the superiority of a culture. So when Edgar Rice Burroughs paints a particular group as savage or barbaric, he does not think that they are savage or barbaric because of thier membership in a race. He thinks that they are savage and barbaric as a result of being the products of a barbaric and savage culture. He thinks that if you remove that person from his culture and raise him in a more enlightened one, that you get a enlightened person regardless of his racial identity. Now, of course, if you think that culturalism is just another form of racism, then you'll have to prove to me that it is. But I think that there is a subtle but very important distinction. And I think that I could if I had the time and inclination do the research and show to you with the man's own words that that is exactly what he believes, but I have neither time nor inclination so I'll stick to what I do know - which is the text of the man's fiction.

On Barsoom, the role of the racial savages is played by the Green Martians. These are the Martian equivalent of primitive savages which people his stories elsewhere. But, if we read the text, what does the author say is the reason for their barbarism? It's because they are ugly green skinned bug eyed monsters? No, because we find in the text characters like Sola and Tars Tarkas who by the special circumstances of thier upbringing - ei they were raised in what the author finds to be a more civilized fashion become fast and honorable friends.

ERB said:
"But this counts for little among the green Martians, as parental and filial love is as unknown to them as it is common among us. I believe this horrible system which has been carried on for ages is the direct cause of the loss of all the finer feelings and higher humanitarian instincts among these poor creatures. From birth they know no father or mother love, they know not the meaning of the word home; they are taught that they are only suffered to live until they can demonstrate by their physique and ferocity that they are fit to live...I do not mean that the adult Martians are unnecessarily or intentionally cruel to the young, but theirs is a hard and pitiless struggle for existence upon a dying planet, the natural resources of which have dwindled to a point where the support of each additional life means an added tax upon the community into which it is thrown."

He then later goes on to introduce a green Martian hero, Sola, who according to the character, "hated cruelty and barbarity; I was confident that I could depend upon her..." We soon learn the reason she is different from all the other Green Martians - it's her upbringing which has caused her to transcend her culture.

ERB said:
"Tears are a strange sight upon Barsoom," she continued, "and so it is difficult for me to interpret them. I have seen but two people weep in all my life, other than Dejah Thoris; one wept from sorrow, the other from baffled rage. The first was my mother, years ago before they killed her; the other was Sarkoja, when they dragged her from me today."

"Your mother!" I exclaimed, "but, Sola, you could not have known your mother, child."

"But I did. And my father also," she added. "If you would like to hear the strange and un-Barsoomian story come to the chariot tonight, John Carter, and I will tell you that of which I have never spoken in all my life before. And now the signal has been given to resume the march, you must go."

Or consider the speach of Dejah Thorus to the Tharks, is this the speach of someone that believes the Green Men of Mars are irrecovably dumb brutes by nature, or as the result of thier natural inferiority?

ERB said:
Why, oh, why will you not learn to live in amity with your fellows, must you ever go on down the ages to your final extinction but little above the plane of the dumb brutes that serve you! A people without written language, without art, without homes, without love; the victim of eons of the horrible community idea. Owning everything in common, even to your women and children, has resulted in your owning nothing in common. You hate each other as you hate all else except yourselves. Come back to the ways of our common ancestors, come back to the light of kindliness and fellowship. The way is open to you, you will find the hands of the red men stretched out to aid you. Together we may do still more to regenerate our dying planet. The grand- daughter of the greatest and mightiest of the red jeddaks has asked you. Will you come?"

Would a racist proclaim common ancestory with a brute? No, Dejih Thorus is a culturist extending the hand of enlightment to a people she believes are here brethern.

It is a patriarchal and condescending view by our standards which reeks even to me of 'white man's burden', but such a view point does not at all perclude believing that ideas like racial hatred, racial supremacy, racial arrogance, and most especially those things taken to (what the author would regard) as a radical extreme are things which are wrong and to be strongly denounced - which he follows his father in doing but in life and in his texts. Yes, this is a complex arguement. You have to hold a nuanced view of ERB, because his personal feelings to Arabs, Africans, and Indians and all such (to his mind) disadvantaged people is as complex as his character's feelings toward the Green Martian people. Read the damn books and stop pretending to yourself that there is nothing in there.

I don't know what ERB's satire has to do with anything; as I've already said, that's not a "theme" of his work, that's just a minor footnote at best,

No, you don't do you? Yes, ERB's anti-racist agenda and his anti-religious agenda are just part of his themes, but they are hardly footnotes in the work. We could if I was a mind to go on and on and on in this vein, but its hardly the main point I want to get across.

and I've never read 'The Magic Goes Away.'

Well then, how do you know I'm getting it wrong?

But I do know the academic literary criticism methodology, and you are most definitely using it.

Thank you. I'm not sure the folks down in the literature department would agree with you, but I'm giving it the old college try. It's not really my field, and I thank to one whose field it is that it shows. But, I guess that's irrelevant since as far as you seem to be concerned the fact that I'm using anything like it at all seems to immediately disqualify my opinion.

I already know about Tolkien. I don't see what that has to do with anything; he hasn't come up in this discussion yet.

He has, but he's not been important to it. I'm just waiting for you to trot out all these things I'm reading into the text that the author didn't intend. Why do you think your understanding of what the author intended is so superior to mine?

Speaking of hyperbole...

It's hyperbole alright, but it isn't my hyperbole but Jordan's. There isn't one thing about the assertion that Rand Al'Thor is the eternally reincarnating savior of the world that isn't straight out of the text, and I'm not talking about symbolism here. The text says that he's the eternally reincarnating savior fated to shed his blood for the world. You don't have to read it into the text; it's there. That's why you seem so blind to the text to me. I'm not asserting symbolism here. It would be like me saying, "In the context of the story, the aliens in Clarke's 'Childhoods End' aren't symbols for devils (quite the contrary), they are devils", and then you accusing me of hyperbole and reading things into the text. (Sorry for ruining one of the twists for you out there that haven't read the text.)

Actually, the only reason I used the word 'deep' was because you had in the post I was quoting. If it's not your idea, you must be back-pedalling again, because it is exactly what you said.

I had to look for that. What I said was that in a particular case something was 'deeply steeped' (as in soaking like a tea bag) religious imagery. That is nowhere near saying that something is 'deep' in the since of heady intellectualism or whatever sense you mean it, much less implying that something had to be 'deep' to fit my theory ('deeper' maybe).

And here we come to the main reason I have such a problem with the "look for symbols" methodology. You claim that it doesn't even matter if the author intended to say anything. And ironically you claim, earlier in this same post I'm replying to, "Oh, good grief. Show me one example of me doing this despite the author's stated intentions."

How is this ironic? The claim that what the author intended is in general unnecessary to fit my larger theory is not at all incompatible with the claim that so far we haven't had one author under discussion where I've had to resort to the weaker claim that the author wasn't intentionally doing things that met my theory. And even you admit, right back up at the top of your post, "It is interesting how often they appear.", so don't pretend to disagree now. Again, show me one example of me fitting stuff into the text that isn't there? How are you so certain that its not there?

This methodology has very little to do with the actual work itself anymore and becomes all about the reader's biases and opinions.

Boy is that going to come back to haunt you.
 

Edit: to Joshua--I'm a slow typer.

I believe those are working definitions...not literary definitions. Which is a quibble...but relative I feel. There is quite a difference.

And I'm quite sure that those authors...and most definitly the librarians assoiciated with the library of congress would never dismiss symbolism as a minor affection of literature.

My somewhat playfull argument refered to the very minor amount of objective information literary scholars deal with. By all means they will claim far more information is objective, but quite honestly the only truely objective aspect of literature is grammar, definition, and form--and these all change over time. These three aspects can never--objectively--dictate the difference between genre simply because the blurred borders would be far larger than the body of texts. Only a certain degree of 'subjective embracement' (if you'll continue to allow me to develop my own terminology) can sufficiently contain these genres. I know...it sounds silly...be more subjective to be more accurate...just bear with me.

Think of the idea of context and content. Definitions are only limited to single words...by placing words in particular situations we can change their meaning. Therefore, the structure of a sentence at any time can blur the actuallity of a group of definitions. Further, place that sentence within a paragraph...the meaning of that sentence can change depending upon the placement and content of that paragraph. Again...I'm sure you know where this is going...any group of obvious 'knowns' can quickly become unknowns when a system is complex. The idea is using a similar complex system...like a type of unknown key in cryptography used to open a code...a subjective theory can be used to identify and predict other subjective situations. It's a matter of being more than a sum-of-parts...a mode of thought that scientists are increasingly beginning to realize...though perhaps kicking and screaming. A foundation in basics is important and a good way to be level headed but objecting to a quite workable idea as being "incapable of rendering truth"--truth being far beyond science even--seems a bit short sighted.

I think we are a bit off track regardless, I just hate to think that an entire body of knowledge is being spurned based on a technicality. I don't feel Celebrim's argument are sound--as of yet--but lets not dismiss an argument based on a mistrust of accepted dogma...even if it is heavily flawed. Most self important people take themselves too seriously--regardless of discipline. :)
 

Since its been a long time since we looked at it, I thought I'd repost what I believe is Josh's definition of fantasy and science fiction:

Joshua Dyal said:
Personally, I think this is complete rubbish. I've read dozens of books on authorship of science fiction and fantasy by folks like Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, Ben Bova and others, and they define the genres completely differently, and in a way that makes much more sense, IMO. Science fiction depends on scientific principles, or extrapolation of scientific principles. Aliens? Scientifically they are plausible, so they can exist. FTL space-travel? Sure, we have scientific theories that could explain that, even if its certainly beyond our reach today. Psychic powers? Uh, no. We have no reason whatsoever to believe that they exist. Therefore, they are not science fiction.

Technically, to be True Science Fiction, the plot itself of the stories needs to hinge on that bit of science, but I'm not that rigorous; plus I think that's a bit snobbish. But technically, if a story has only the trappings of science fiction, it is considered space opera, not science fiction.

Fantasy, on the other hand, is defined by including elements that are flat-out impossible to explain. It's not about imagery, it's about including stuff that cannot be. Magic, being a good example. Elves being another. It is not necessarily about knights in shining armor rescuing princesses, although it could be, and obviously often is. There's a whole slew of books about elves in the modern day slumming at Ren Faires, for example. Is it not fantasy just because it takes place in the modern day, doesn't have any knights or swords or dragons? Of course it is! How about Urban Arcana; the setting for d20 Modern? According to Zander's definition, that is also not fantasy; a notion that I find absurd. Star Wars is steeped in science fiction trappings, but features no science at all, and in fact a core element of the plot is this whole mystical Force thingy, making it a fantasy. Warhammer 40k has elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. in space in the year 40,000 A.D., and has magic, daemons, and whatnot, although the mages are renamed psykers. I find it telling that some of the "psychic powers" are (or at least were in earlier editions of the game) identical.

First, I'd like to say that Joshua sure dismisses alot of things as 'complete rubbish'.

Second, just for the record, I'd like to ask Joshua if this is in fact his definition? If it's not and I grabbed the wrong text, I apologize in advance for the roasting its about to recieve.

And let's not forget, that Joshua has just said, "I'm advocating genre definitions that are based entirely on the text, and not on the reader's interpretation of it."
 
Last edited:


Wild Gazebo: First, let me say that I'd rather be discussing this with you, as I think you are making the better points, but my blood is running abit hot right now and so I apologize if I'm not giving what you say the greater attention that it deserves. Talking with you, I feel I might actually learn something.

Wild Gazebo said:
Joshua, I feel his...and your lack of truely adressing the issue stems from the difference of ideologies rather than anything that could be considered a concrete argument.

I think that is absolutely correct. Speaking only for myself, I'm a Socratic thinker by nature, and so I desire a definition of science fiction and fantasy which is all encompansing and encompanses not only all the science fiction that is, but all the science fiction that ever will be. I will not be happy with an Aristolian definition of science fiction which is merely a list of setting elements added to whenever someone else - for reasons he cannot clearly explain - decides that this thing belongs on the list. I believe that despite his protests to the contrary, the method he espouses is actually a more arbitrary means of classification than mine because depends precisely on things which are to internal to the reader and even on things as fickle as the reader's emotional responce to the work.

Which is what I intend to show next. Not that I haven't already done this several times, but I guess I'm going to have to do this formally and at more length, because Joshua is not even offering an attempt to refute my objections but still parading out his claims as if I haven't made any argument against them.
 

Well, just call me a Sophist then...I'll take money for knowledge any day of the week! :)


p.s. Could we please leave Plato's (philisophical) offspring out of this...if we get into those old arguments I think my head will explode. Besides they were ALL such arch-conservatives that thinking about their take on this discusion makes my skin crawl.
 

Pets & Sidekicks

Remove ads

Top