Genre Conventions: What is fantasy?

[Gentlegamer]

Not to mention a shameless borrower himself, for that matter. Hamlet, which you use in your example, is a retelling of the story of Amleth, which is an old Danish story from the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus. And likely, it was and old tale when old Saxo put it on paper for the first time as well.

In Shakespeare's time plots were common property; it was the telling that mattered! That is largely true today, as well.

 

[Desdichado]

In Shakespeare's time plots were common property; it was the telling that mattered! That is largely true today, as well.

Yep. And as you say, that's hardly changed. Which is part of my point; if plots are freely borrowed and recast into different genres, then plots can't really be a defining element of those genres.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In case you haven't guessed, count me in on Joshua's side!

 

[Desdichado]

In case you haven't guessed, count me in on Joshua's side!

A wonder if it'll take another seven pages before someone else agrees with me!

 

[Psion]

This is a silly argument against defining them.

No, it's a prefectly sensible argument that we should not pretend, despite knowing their definitions, that they are a dichotomy.

I can define "red" and "orange", but that doesn't let me ignore the fact that there are innumerable hues between the two, many of which would be so fuzzy in definition that many people would get a variety of different answers if you asked them if they were red or orange.

 

[Wayside]

No, it's a prefectly sensible argument that we should not pretend, despite knowing their definitions, that they are a dichotomy.

I can define "red" and "orange", but that doesn't let me ignore the fact that there are innumerable hues between the two, many of which would be so fuzzy in definition that many people would get a variety of different answers if you asked them if they were red or orange.

You probably want to reread the posts in question (there's more than the 1 line I quoted and responded to directly), as bifurcation is not an issue in my statement. "Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins?" asks Melville; "Distinctly we see the differences of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other?" I know that position by heart--sadly it has nothing to do with what I said. In fact Dannyalcatraz's argument against definition relies more on dichotomizing, because he mistakes the idea that all writing is mixed for the idea that no writing is definable. In order for writing to be mixed, it has to be a mix of something. If the something it's a mix of is merely a mix of something else and so on, we might as well stop talking and just wave our fingers menacingly, since behind every word is another word and we can never get anywhere that way.

SF and F don't have to be opposed to one another for us to define them. It's a question of content, not polarity. We don't need the equivalent of a spectrum of colors to think about them, though that is precisely what an aesthetic approach, like imagery, wants to require in some formulations. No, defining SF and F in terms of imagery is no less problematic than defining it in any other way. We just aren't examining the imagery very closely here; that is to say, it's easier to handwave "I'll know it when I see it" arguments when we're talking about something as simple as whether or not there are spaceships. If you really sit down and try to hammer out an image-based definition, you're going to run into just as many problems as you would looking for a thematic or plot-based genre continuity--as if it were any easier to tell SF from F, at a certain middle point, than it is orange from red, as you say. You're actually making my point for me in a different way.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Wayside
In fact Dannyalcatraz's argument against definition relies more on dichotomizing, because he mistakes the idea that all writing is mixed for the idea that no writing is definable. In order for writing to be mixed, it has to be a mix of something. If the something it's a mix of is merely a mix of something else and so on, we might as well stop talking and just wave our fingers menacingly, since behind every word is another word and we can never get anywhere that way.

This is an aboslutely incorrect statement of my position: I am not against definition! I personally believer SF/F to be distinct from other genres, but I, like others, am struggling with the best way to define them.

I am against the idea that a genre can only be defined by its storytelling styles or particular plot types (and that such is superior to "setting/trappings") BECAUSE various storytelling styles appear in all genres.

ASSUMING the following is correct:

Wayside
I assert it invalidates them because there's nothing left to talk about but scenery.*edit* SF should be perfectly capable of incorporating other sorts of narratives, but it should also have some kind of narrative of its own. If SF is nothing but a container for other narratives then there is no point to it because SF, as such, does not exist; it's merely a backdrop, it has no content. It's a surface, a facade. (And that also means, among other things, that people who read SF because they like SF are a little confused.)

We cannot define fantasy Zander and Andor do in part:

Edited
Andor:
A backward looking aesthetic. If the glories of the past can never be reached, but only dreamed of, if progress is only illusion, then the work is fantasy (And anti-thetical to the central trope of SF.)

Heros. Individuals can shape the course of events by sheer willpower/chutzpah/coolness. as backwards looking with heroes

Zander
I would add that fantasy is triumphalist. *edit* Triumphalism isn't found uniquely in fantasy but does characterise most works in the genre.

...Since those 3 are clearly found in the majority of Westerns, Pulp adventures, Noir detective novels, etc.

Nor is this definition of Sci-Fi a true definition:

barsoomcore
SF is about the question, "Who am I?", "Who are we?", "What does it mean to be human?", and the method it employs is to speculate who we would be if we weren't who we are or who we would be (and what we would do) if we were someplace completely outside our ordinary experience.

...Since, but for setting, you can find the same questions answered in, as I pointed out, Japanese historical fiction (and other) genres.

What sets the Fantasy story apart from the Western or Pulp or Noir is "setting/trappings." What sets Sci-Fi apart from Japanese Historical Fiction is "setting/trappings."

Every plot formulation noted on this thread either has been or can be approximated/told in SF/F.

We have YET to find a plot, narrative, storyline or any other factor unique to either presumptive genre.

For instance, the novelized short-story, Asimov's "Nightfall" (1941, novelization in 1990 with the assistance of Robert Silverberg) opens with:

Asimov & Silverburg
Kalgash is an alien world and it is not our intention to have you think that it is identical to Earth, even though we depict its people as speaking a language that you can understand and using terms that are familiar to you. Those words should be understood as mere equivalents of alien terms- that is, a conventional set of equivalents of the same sort that a writer of novels uses when he has foreign characters speaking in their own language but nevertheless transcribes their words in the language of the reader. *edit* In other words, we could have told you that one of our characters pause to strap on his quonglishes before setting out on a walk of seven vorks along the main gleebish of his native znoob, and everything might have seemed ever so much more thouroughly alien. But it would also have been ever so much more difficult to make sense out of what we were saying, and that did not seem useful.

They then set forth to tell a story about a 1000 year cycle of the rise and fall of civilization on their planet which is in a 6 star solar system (which, btw, matters).

While this story is considered by many to be the quintessential SF story, the story it tells is about people and how they deal with discovery under an oppressive regime, as well as what actually causes the collapse of Kalgashi society every 1000 years. It could just as well be a fictionalization about one of the various lost civilizations of Earth...the Anasazi, for instance. Or the Mound People. Or the builders of Micronesia's Nan Madol (a grouping of ancient, artificially made basalt islands). Or the builders of Stonehenge. What distinguishes Nightfall is the complex solar system...its setting. In fact, the setting is the only thing that makes this particular story possible.

Although historical fiction often falls under Sci Fi, a books like Edward B. Hanna's The Whitechapel Horrors (Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper) is generally NOT considered Sci-Fi or Fantasy- its a Mystery. Nor would Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind be called Sci-Fi by anyone's definition- its a Romance. Fictionalization of history isn't inherently SF.

Either find me something unique to SF/F that will encapsulate all the works of the genre and yet eliminate those outside of them OR accept that they are genres worthy of being considered literature DESPITE their chimeric natures.

Edited to correct a spelling error...a BAD one!

 

[Wayside]

This is an aboslutely incorrect statement of my position: I am not against definition! I personally believer SF/F to be distinct from other genres, but I, like others, am struggling with the best way to define them.

To be fair, I was less stating your position than performing a reductio on Psion's reading of it, that is true.

I am against the idea that a genre can only be defined by its storytelling styles or particular plot types (and that such is superior to "setting/trappings") BECAUSE various storytelling styles appear in all genres.

There are certainly all kinds of ways to define genres (none of them being factually right or wrong, since there is no fact to be right or wrong about). My very plainly stated goal though was to define (or to think about what would be necessary to define) SF and F in such a way that they could end up on a syllabus at a respectable university, but for the right reason (you'll find Lewis Carroll's Alice books being read in classes on language philosophy, but not as literature--but at the same time, that's often the sort of literature they are).

We cannot define fantasy Zander and Andor do in part

That isn't true at all. As I said in the post you're replying to here, you're mistaking the idea that all writing is mixed for the idea that no writing is definable (i.e. pure). However we define SF or F, this does not preclude the elements of our definition from being incorporated into non-SF or F works, just as however we define tragedy, this does not preclude elements of our definition of tragedy from being incorporated into non-tragedic works. Elements of SF or F should pop up in frontier literature and vice versa; that's not a problem. The idea that you can't define SF or F as genres because a given work of SF or F will always contain elements of other genres is logically incoherent. This means your criticism of barsoomcore's definition fails as well (which is not to say I agree with it; I'm so far from having an answer here it's ridiculous. I wish I had the time to give serious thought to the question instead of just replying to other peoples' posts, le sigh).

...Since, but for setting, you can find the same questions answered in, as I pointed out, Japanese historical fiction (and other) genres.

In addition to rejecting this argument for the above reasons, it is also inconsistent with the setting- or imagery-based approach. Are Geoffrey of Monmouth or other early Arthurians fantasy authors? Anyone who assents to this, I suspect, is doing so only to avoid contradicting themselves. No, as I've said before, definitions are inherently historical, not absolute--not even absolute in terms of setting or imagery--and at least part of this historical dimension has to do with the intentions of the author and the expectations of the audience. F makes use of a great deal of historical imagery, but none of that imagery, in itself, is F, as your example of Japanese historical also shows.

Every plot formulation noted on this thread either has been or can be approximated/told in SF/F.

I feel I must point out that plot is far more than a mere series of events. Your western version of Star Wars is enormously lacking; it isn't at all "Star Wars, but in the wild wild west."

We have YET to find a plot, narrative, storyline or any other factor unique to either presumptive genre.

We have yet to find a set of imagery either . There have been many statements to the effect that we should use imagery, but no arguments that weren't negative (we must use imagery because it produces the fewest number of exceptions, we must use imagery because there are no unique SF or F plots). Every argument for imagery that I've seen so far has failed to argue for imagery, rather they have argued against everything else, and I don't think, though I may have missed it, that there has been a single case where the argument against X wasn't also an argument against imagery.

Re: Asimov. Their comment belies an amazing lack of insight into the nature of language, if nothing else. For that very reason it strikes more as F than SF.

Either find me something unique to SF/F that will encapsulate all the works of the genre and yet eliminate those outside of them OR accept that they are genres worthy of being considered literature DESPITE their chimeric natures.

I don't accept your either/or, both because you cannot define SF and F in terms of imagery, and because if the essences of SF and F are their imagery, then SF and F as such aren't literary. Again, do not mistake this for my saying that particular works of SF or F aren't literary. That is not what this statement means. It means, quite simply, that whatever is valuable in a particular work of SF or F will be the elements it borrows from other genres. SF and F are invalidated as literature, but only at the level of a pure genre, not at the level of a mixed work. And as soon as you try to argue that SF or F as such are literary in their own right, you've come over, so to speak, to the dark side, since you've tried to isolate them in some way from the genres they borrow from.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Wayside, you can't have it both ways, and I'm not confusing anything. I'm not asking for a pure SF/F story without narrative elements of other genres. I'm asking you (or anyone else) to find an SF/F story that has any narrative element ABSENT from other genres, in order to satisfy your argument.

If, as you assert, "SF/F cannot be considered literature" if it has "no narrative of its own," then my critique of barsoomcore's working definition on the grounds that it is not a narrative unique to SF is valid. Ditto Zander & Andor's partial deliniations. By your own criterion- that any valid literary form requires a unique narrative- those working definitions cannot help to establish the unique nature of SF/F vis-a-vis other genres because they are not unique to SF/F. They may be popular themes found in Sci-Fi, they may be common features of Fantasy, but they cannot be the defining criteria because they are not SF/F's own narratives-they are shared.

If someone defined a dog as "furry and cute animals," then pointing out other furry, cute animals other than dogs destroys that as a working definition. Dogs may still be furry and cute, but it doesn't define them as distinct from other furry cute animals.

Your assertion has the form of "No "X" can be "Y" without "Z,"" where "X"= supposed genre, "Y"= literature, and "Z"= a unique narrative form. Uniqueness is a neccessary property of "Z." Anything proposed as a value for "Z" cannot exist anywhere else, or it is not truly "Z." Anytime someone asserts a certain factor as a unique narrative, call it "Z1," any proof that "Z1" exists elsewhere destroys its uniqueness. This holds true for all "Zn."

And that's what I'm doing- showing that "Zn" exists elsewhere.

I'm not conflating individual works with genres. I'm using individual works to refute assertions by noting that they are exceptions to proposed working definitions. In other words, an exception does not prove a rule, it is a refutation that something IS a rule.

If, on the other hand, we can/do find a unique narrative (and ANY single one will do) that nobody finds elsewhere, we will have found that core that distinguishes SF/F from other genres. As yet, we have failed in that particular endeavor.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If I may humbly suggest, lets try a different path: Like Master Miyagi said, "First learn walk, then learn run."

Lets define certain other genres, and work up to SF/F. Perhaps that way we will find their unique narratives.

Examples:

Romance = Any story that revolves around a deep, personal relationship between two or more sentient beings. The relationship can be constructive or destructive. The genre is setting neutral.

Comedy = Any story with the primary purpose of amusing the reader. Plot is a vehicle to tell jokes or depict humerous situations, character relations may be arbitrary. The genre is setting neutral.

Mystery = Any story that involves 1 or more persons trying to solve a crime (usually theft or murder) or uncovering a secret. The genre is setting neutral.