Genre Conventions: What is fantasy?

[Celebrim]

...Do you see why I have little patience with your methodology?...

No, but I see why you have little patience with what you think is my methodology. I think you keep projecting on to me your feelings about 'literary criticism' and that you are reading my text no more carefully than you seem to read the texts of any authors that have come up in this discussion.

I'm a Tolkien geek so you don't have to lecture me about how an allegory isn't an allegory unless everything in the allegory has a one to one and onto relationship between the thing and the thing it stands for, first because I don't need convincing, and second because the minute you start making that kind of argument it becomes painfully apparant that you aren't arguing with me but some teacher you had in an English Liturature class. Nothing I've argued for requires a story to be allegorical, as I've already said, its only interesting how often they are and the reason that is interesting is that if every fantasy story were recognizably allegorical then it would make my argument very strong indeed. But, again, 'The Lord of the Rings' isn't allegorical (by the author's definition which I accept) and yet everyone agrees that it is fantasy. On the other hand, no one has disagreed with me that my definition would apply to something like LotR either, the only disagreed on the universiality of the observation.

I really don't want to explain myself on the whole Messiah themes in The Wheel of Time, because I do not want to turn this into a religious discussion or even something that might be mistaken for a religious discussion. Suffice I think to say that I think it really really unlikely that Robert Jordan invented those themes whole cloth, but is rather deliberately drawing on them for whatever reasons he has to draw on them - even if only to give the work 'false gravitas'.

 

[Celebrim]

Akrasia...Deleuze...Heidegge...Parmenides...Heraclitus...haecceity...Guattari...Foucault...Gadamer...Cleanth Brookes...Searle's

Ok, so who let the professionals out? All I hear now is the yip yip yipping of the highly educated speaking in short hand (and naturally going right over my head). Back. Back. Back into your ivory towers and drunken symposiums, I say. Can't you see this was meant to be a discussion forum for the ignorant and bombastic? We can't have anyone who actually knows something making comments. This is a message board for crying out loud!

 

[Gentlegamer]

Peanut gallery comment: This is just the kind of discussion I enjoy! Well done all!

 

[Desdichado]

No, but I see why you have little patience with what you think is my methodology. I think you keep projecting on to me your feelings about 'literary criticism' and that you are reading my text no more carefully than you seem to read the texts of any authors that have come up in this discussion.

I think I read it carefully enough. You defined fantasy by the presence of morality tale symbolism and the presence of iconic figures. In order to do that, you have to find symbolism and iconic, mythic figures in every work of fantasy ever published. In order to do that, you'll have to go look for tenuous and weak connections.

I'm a Tolkien geek so you don't have to lecture me about how an allegory isn't an allegory unless everything in the allegory has a one to one and onto relationship between the thing and the thing it stands for, first because I don't need convincing, and second because the minute you start making that kind of argument it becomes painfully apparant that you aren't arguing with me but some teacher you had in an English Liturature class.

It should also be painfully apparent that I wasn't making that argument, though. What I said was that unless the connections are near allegorical in strength, they automatically are too weak to be held up as definitive.

You may well disagree, but that's the argument I'm making. I know you're not saying that the story has to be allegorical, but I question how useful the definition is if the symbolism is weak. Assuming that I accepted your definition, yet didn't accept your symbolic interpretation of a work, which seems certainly plausible, I would exclude a work from the genre that you would include. And I'm not talking about isolated instances, outlier cases and deliberate gray areas; I'm talking about your normal, mainstream, regular stuff here. I can accept a certain amount of outlier, hard-to-define gray areas, but I can't accept that gray area swamping the majority of what's out there.

Suffice I think to say that I think it really really unlikely that Robert Jordan invented those themes whole cloth, but is rather deliberately drawing on them for whatever reasons he has to draw on them - even if only to give the work 'false gravitas'.

Just because he borrowed some themes doesn't make Rand into a Christ figure, is my argument though. I have no doubt that Robert Jordan borrowed some ideas from the iconic Christ figure for Rand, just as he borrowed warrior soldalities from the Plains Indians for the Aiel. That doesn't mean that Rand is Christ anymore than it means the Aiel are Apaches and Comanches. Everybody borrows. To me there's quite a difference between an element in a story that borrows from the iconic Christ figure archetype, and an element in a story that is symbolic and representative of the Christ figure archetype.

And maybe in that distinction is where we are not seeing eye to eye.

And I still owe you a detailed response to your analysis of the definition I favor; but it'll take me a good half hour or so to type that out, and I've been too busy with work to spend that kind of time on it. But just because I haven't responded yet, I do mean to! As soon as I get a chance...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A question about Star Wars specifically: What are mitichlorians? Are they ever explained by Lucas (I couldn't stomach any of Lucas' new crap after the entirely flushable Phantom Menace).

I ask because the impression I got was that mitichlorians were a detectible, biological feature- either a natural part of a Jedi's body or some kind of symbiote.

Symbiosis is how we wound up with mitochondria in our cells. Mitochondria are organelles in our cells that act like power plants, and have been shown to have once been organisms that were originally distinct from other life forms.

If Mitichlorians are little beasties that allow one to "tap into the life-force that surrounds us all"-read: manipulate the Force- like little biological power transformers, then this moves the Star Wars series even further into the realm of sci-fi, IMHO. (That is, its still Space Opera, but its doing a better job of justifiying its tech.) How do they do it? I don't know.

Perhaps its analogous to Faraday's Law: when a conductor of electricity is moved into a magnetic field, Faraday's Law of Induction would lead us to expect an induced electrical current in the conductor and its associated magnetic field which would oppose the applied field. (BTW: this also works backwards- you can create a magnetic field by moving electrical currents a certain way.) Thus, just like moving the electrical conductor in a magnetic field allows for wireless transmission of power (and makes it possible for us to have electric guitars), mitichlorians passing through the fields of "life-force" can convert it to energy.

Just a thought.

 

[Desdichado]

Celebrim, before I start, let me summarize what I understand of your objections. That way, at least, everyone will know to what I'm making a rebuttal. If I am substantially misrepresenting what you are saying, well, then I misunderstood you and portions of the rest of my post will be irrelevent. I'll have to cross that bridge if and when I come to it.

1. Not everyone has the same understanding of what is or is not scientifically plausible, leading to an inability to classify science fiction vs. fantasy based on scientific plausibility. Related to this is the fact that practically no science fiction is rigorous about scientific plausibility, shrinking the genre that fits this definition so small as to make the definition all but useless.
2. A science fiction writer can be rigorous in one field, yet sloppy --or more likely, merely uninterested-- in another. Your cryogenic faith healers, for example. Someone interested in genetics or biology may be rigorous about that aspect of his alien life while making embarrassing gaffes about his astronomy or vice versa. I know you didn't strictly raise this point in those words, but I think your point about where is the line in the sand about suspension of disbelief is, if not the same objection, at least very closely related to it.
3. Because that line in the sand is arbitrary for the reader, the definition cannot be extended beyond the reader and therefore becomes useless as a working categorization scheme for the genre.

Let me being by addressing the last point first. This at least, is patently untrue. As I've said many times before, "my" definition isn't really my definition; it's one that I've picked up from several books on science fiction authorship, written by a variety of science fiction authors. It is nearly identical in content to the Library of Congress distinction between the genres. It is the one I found with a quick Google search on several literature professor's online syllabi and notes.

It is impossible to claim that the definition is too arbitrary and personal to broadly work, because "my" definition is the working, mainstream definition that is commonly used by authors, libraries and academics. This objection fails the practical lithmus test of, "if you claim its impossible, why do we see it actually in practice so frequently?"

Technically, I could stop there, my point demonstrated, but your other objections are too interesting, frankly, to not merit some response.

For your first point about differeing levels of knowledge, suspension of disbelief, and belief patterns in general, while I think that's an interesting objection, I also think it's a bit of a red herring. Part of that is based on my own lack of clarity up front in using the word plausible, I think. Science fiction has pretty much always been about exploring the cutting edge of the theoretical framework provided by scientists. When I said that FTL was plausible, even if we can't get there, it would have been better worded as, "we have a theoretical framework for FTL travel (several, in fact) but no idea how to bridge the gap between theoretical framework and actual practice." That is what I meant by plausible, but I think you're using it differently (and more accurately, I may add) by stating that if we have no idea how to bridge the gap between theoretical framework and actual practice, then how can it be considered plausible?

But that's where the handwaving of science fiction authors comes in. They rarely handwave the theoretical framework, or else they'll be roundly accused of no longer being considered science fiction. But the details of how the technology works can and in fact, usually are handwaved. Naturally we wouldn't know how to accomplish FTL travel, or we would be already exploring the stars. And there's some basis for that as well. Most of the really world-changing technological advances were completely unanticipated, so it only seems natural that although we don't know how to bridge the gap to the theoretical framework, it's possible to be bridged by something that hasn't occured to us yet. That's not unlike Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, where folks are still calculating their spaceship's flight paths with a slide rule. The breakthroughs in computing were yet to come, even though the theoretical framework, heck, even the early mainframes, were already in place. Casting a spell, on the other hand, has no theoretical framework around it whatsoever. Therefore, a story that handwaves FTL travel is science fiction, while a story that handwaves the fireball spell is fantasy.

It's possible you'll see that as a dodge, or perhaps a back-pedaling, but that's where I was going with this all along, and it's pretty much in line with the industry, I think.

The second part of my rebuttal to your first point about differing knowledge levels and suspension of disbelief thresh-hold is where I really feel you've tossed up a red herring. The fact of the matter is, that practicing, professional scientists don't agree on the science itself, so naturally fiction that extrapolates from that will be even more contentious. To use your own example, based on your work on genetics, you think the possibility of life spontaneously generating is so statistically small that it would literally take a miracle for it to occur. However, I read a summary not longer than a year ago --or at most two-- of an article published (in Nature I believe) by a team of biochemists, astrochemists and others who believe that the possibility of life is so statistically high that life is probably prevalent across the universe (although they do admit that complex, multicellular life is extremely unlikely.) When the pages of peer-reviewed academic journals with articles written by professional, practicing scientists outright contradict each other, why do you demand a greater homogeneity of agreement for science fiction than we see in actual science? Your reduction of scientific plausibility down to the individual level is unwarranted, I believe. Science fiction doesn't require blessing by a panel of experts in the field. It doesn't even require that the science in the science fiction necessarily be the mainstream model accepted by most practicing experts in the field. I could write a science fiction story based on the tenets of M-theory and the interaction of various branes of reality on our own. The fact that M-theory is still a highly controversial outgrowth of already contentious and controversial variants on string theory is beside the point. M-theory is far from a totally accepted theory. Heck, I could write a science fiction story about how life on earth is the product of bio-engineering of aliens from a planet around Rigel. Despite the fact that this kind of Erich von Danniken theory has practically no mainstream support, it would still be science fiction. Although hardly anyone really believes it, few scientists would argue that there isn't a theoretical framework that couldn't at least admit the possibility.

If a story has, behind its setting, a scientific framework, based on theoretical models predicted by scientific analysis, then it's science fiction, not fantasy.

Your other objection is a little more difficult to address directly; that of science fiction authors who stack up scientifically unlikely, or even incorrect, notions until suspension of disbelief snaps. However, I think you're combining two concepts here: not science fiction and sloppy science fiction. An author who is really interested in the prospect, potential properties, etc. of intelligent life may get all the biological details as close as he can, while, as I did above, simply picking some place for them to be from. Rigel, as a blue supergiant with another stellar companion, is actually an extremely bad choice. The reader may very well object to the fact that complex life could develop on any planet of a short-lived blue supergiant, or even the possibility that any type of habitable planet could maintain a stable orbit in a binary system. Those would be good objections too. But it's not a case of the author inserting fantasy elements into the story, it's just a case of him being sloppy on elements that didn't interest him.

I agree that it's a bit of a gray area to try and define when such a work slips into the realms of space opera rather than merely sloppy science fiction, but I don't agree that there is any grayness between fantasy and science fiction in that case.

What this model doesn't really address is the fact that there are works that deliberately skirt the boundaries of science fiction and fantasy and contain elements of both. But since those are purposefully genre-benders, I don't feel the model breaks down because they're not easily classified.

 

[Celebrim]

A question about Star Wars specifically: What are mitichlorians?...If Mitichlorians are little beasties that allow one to "tap into the life-force that surrounds us all"-read: manipulate the Force- like little biological power transformers, then this moves the Star Wars series even further into the realm of sci-fi, IMHO...How do they do it? I don't know.

The answer to your question is mitichlorians are a plot device. The writer needed a way to show how and why the Jedi found the boy impressive and important.

Beyond that, mitichlorians are technobabble, in that they sort of sound scientific and lead people to go off on all these implausible theories about how they work. But there is actually nothing at all scientific about technobabble. It's just a trick being played on the you in order to get you to accept something fantastic as plausible. This becomes obvious when you consider that you know absolutely nothing about midichlorians, but you have done your best to fit them within the scientific knowledge you do have - even if it means doing a little stretching to make it all fit. But its just as possible that mitichlorians are a form of microscopic blue faerie creature, and even if they aren't, what's the difference really?

Let me explain how Evocation magic works in my world.

One of the central features of my campaign's cosmology is the idea of the Great Cascade. The Great Cascade is a higher dimensional structure in which the lower dimensional universe is 'hanging'. So where ever you are in the universe, you are standing in the great cascade and are continually being effected by it, even if you need magical sight in order to see it. Now, everything in the universe is made of strands of thread. In fact, the universe is hanging in the cascade by a really might strand of thread which is supposedly attached at the other end to the hand of the nameless Creator (though noone really knows for sure).

Wizards study the art of spell casting, one of the few surviving arcane arts. Spell casters learn how to manipulate the threads of reality using the power of Important Numbers, Significant Runes, and True Names. Each of these devices allows the user to grab hold of the threads of reality in some fashion, and create resonances in the strings using his thought, his voice, and the rhythmic motions of his hand and body. Using these resonances to twist and warp the strings, the Evocation mage can temporarily enlarge one or more of the many microscopic gateways that allow the interchange of energy between the universe and the Great Cascade. As a result of this open gateway, energy from one of the separate flows of the cascade which we in this universe see as 'elements' pours into thie universe. In the case of a spell like 'fireball', all that is necessary is to briefly open a spherical gate to the flow we know as the Plane of Fire, and there is an immediate flash of fire in the area.

This doesn't violate conservation of energy. The ammount of energy required to open the gate is small compared to the ammount that flows in (though 'bad things' happen if you try to keep a gate open too long and don't arrange for the flow to have places to go). The total ammount of energy in the local universe increases, but the total ammount of energy in the multiverse remains constant, and the concentration of energy locally will quickly be compensated for because it will tend to increase the flow of energy out of the universe as the cascade 'sucks' the power back out again.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

he should go for it. As Aristotle said the proof of a good theory is that it's teachable. A good internet theory has a couple of other correlaries, but I think he should go for it. This thread isn't going anywhere, we've got time.

I don't think he was interested in the particular facets of this discusion. He was more interested in amusing parallels. If we were to break-down the boundries of our rather 'binded' or 'cyclical' arguments and focus more on the pure abstraction of an individuals recognition of other 'things' compared to those 'things'' innate characteristics--that make it a 'thing'--we might be able to draw him back in...but only if he had enough time. And I'm sure we would lose the interest of several other people...and be terribly off topic.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

But its just as possible that mitichlorians are a form of microscopic blue faerie creature, and even if they aren't, what's the difference really?

The difference is, if the technobabble is a bio-energy equivalent to Farraday's Law of Induction, then we're getting DAMN close to science, and a HELL of a lot less theoretical than extrapolating macroscopic effects from quantum observations.

Living bodies DO generate energy fields: Electrical, Heat, etc. Why not have some microbe (Mitichlorians) that convert bio-energy to other usable forms via induction?

(For the records, I HATE MITICHLORIANS- mainly because they were added in the new movies and that addition makes no sense in the light of the mysticism of the original films. Characters who should have known of them- Obi-Wan, Yoda- were completly mystical about the Force, when they could have said "Its the bugs in your blood!" In other words: Mitichlorians are BAD WRITING!)

One of the central features of my campaign's cosmology is the idea of the Great Cascade. The Great Cascade is a higher dimensional structure in which the lower dimensional universe is 'hanging'. So where ever you are in the universe, you are standing in the great cascade and are continually being effected by it, even if you need magical sight in order to see it. Now, everything in the universe is made of strands of thread.

How does one gain that magical sight? Is it inborn? If so, that is a distinction from technology. No one but a select few will ever have the power.

Wizards study the art of spell casting, one of the few surviving arcane arts. Spell casters learn how to manipulate the threads of reality using the power of Important Numbers, Significant Runes, and True Names. Each of these devices allows the user to grab hold of the threads of reality in some fashion, and create resonances in the strings using his thought, his voice, and the rhythmic motions of his hand and body.

Those are not "devices" in the strictest, mechanistic sense of the word- they are concepts and symbols. What you have described is the direct manipulation of reality without intervening mechanical devices. The mage is using special knowledge to accentuate his will, and things happen. He speaks, gestures and dances, and reality is radically altered. No levers, no pulleys, no nuclear generators, no nanites.

Magic, not technology.

In a sci-fi setting, he'd have to subvocalize to his nanotech transmitters, which would relay a signal to a weapon, which would fire at the target. Thought is transmitted to action, seemingly invisibly, but there are all those messy transistors, warheads and chemical reactions, etc. If the weapon is a rocket of some kind, its thrusters push it forward while simultaneously pushing its weapons platform backwards. If its an energy weapon, the weapon has to dissipate heat, recharge, etc. before reuse.

Technology, not magic.

This doesn't violate conservation of energy. The ammount of energy required to open the gate is small compared to the ammount that flows in (though 'bad things' happen if you try to keep a gate open too long and don't arrange for the flow to have places to go). The total ammount of energy in the local universe increases, but the total ammount of energy in the multiverse remains constant, and the concentration of energy locally will quickly be compensated for because it will tend to increase the flow of energy out of the universe as the cascade 'sucks' the power back out again.

Its still a violation. You have no entropy- there should be a net LOSS. At the very least, the Plane of Fire should get much colder (in at least one spot)...and piss off the locals!

In the real world, there is always a loss of energy when work is done. Here, you use a small amount of energy to get a huge amount on target- you have no magical equivalent to a lever or differential gears to convert low energy effort into massive results.

As was pointed out in a recent Scientific American, it takes more energy to produce fuel than we get out of it. We produce fuel because we are converting it from one form to another, more useful form.

 

[Celebrim]

Living bodies DO generate energy fields: Electrical, Heat, etc. Why not have some microbe (Mitichlorians) that convert bio-energy to other usable forms via induction?

Why not? It doesn't matter though, because the ammount of energy produce by these fields is too small to explain the observed effects.

Its still a violation. You have no entropy- there should be a net LOSS.

Actually, its an interesting theological question as far of the inhabitants of my campaign world are concerned whether the ammount of energy in the universe is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same. My point was only to show that magic could be made to work in a very mechanical fashion, and there really is no particular reason why I couldn't put such a system in a 'real world' setting. In doing so though, I wouldn't be making it any less magical.

At the very least, the Plane of Fire should get much colder...and piss off the locals!

Considering the ammount of energy in the cascade, such a minor draw on it has no noticable effect on the plane of fire, but yes in some immeasurably small degree the plane of fire gets colder whenever you force more energy out of it. A local on the other side in the vicinity of a fireball when it went off would suffer something like the effects of an implosion' as things in the vicinity were sucked out of the sudden hole in the universe, so yeah, it probably would tick them off. Also, its possible to suck elementals out of thier home plane with magic like this.

I don't really need a lever. The effect is more similar to glass shattering when a sound at its resonate frequency is emitted over some duration. The momentary energy of the sound is insufficient to break the glass, but the cumulative energy of the sound accumulates because its at the resonate frequency of the object. In the same way, the momentary energy of the wizards voice is unable to 'break' the gate, but the cumulative effects of six seconds of carefully controlled modulation is.

Again, this is not intended to show that my hypothetical universe isn't fantastic, only that in theory it would be plausible to come up with a plausible explanation for anything. All I've got to do is start throwing around nano-technology, quantum mechanics, and so forth and eventually you'll believe in wizards casting fireballs - even if (and especially if) I don't actually explain how it works but leave it up to your imagination to figure it out.