Genre Conventions: What is fantasy?

[Wayside]

Absolutely incorrect.

No, it's absolutely correct. You said "once I show a single SF work with a certain characteristic, that characteristic exists within the set of all SF." That's utter nonsense if you're asserting it has anything to do with a definition of SF, which is the entire point of this thread. What is F? What is SF? The answer isn't 'well here's a diagram of every work of F or SF ever written, and F and SF are everything included in these works.' Before you can even draw your diagram, you need a way of deciding what is and is not SF in the first place, which the all-in approach is decidedly incapable of giving you. So the question remains: how do you decide?

If you really believe what you said however many pages back ("There are portions of each circle that do not touch any other. In other words, you can have pure Fantasy"), then why are you talking about all-inclusive sets? The point of defining SF and F is to locate the portion of the circle that does not touch the others, so again, it seems to me you're muddying the issue by fore-deciding what SF is, then saying everything that is part of every work of SF is part of SF. What is SF in the space where F and Horror and whatever else are not present? Which was my point when I said: a definition of SF contains only what is essential to all SF (and not everything that has ever been included in every remotely SF story ever but which is in no way obligated to be a component of any SF story at all).

Something can be within SF but not be an essential quality of it. If it is not essential, then it cannot be used to define the limits of the genre. The fact that I can find (as you say) squirrels in SF just means that there are squirrels within SF- once I find squirrels in other, non-SF fiction, I know that squirrels are not an essential quality of SF.

I don't know whether you're quibbling over semantics or just dancing around the issue. I've already said that all writing is mixed, meaning SF can have elements of other genres. You're saying no, all writing is homogenous, and everything that is part of every SF work is part of SF, only inessential to it, so unusable as far as defining SF goes. So you agree that squirrels are inessential to defining SF, lovely--what the hell was the point of talking about sets and inessential qualities then? Just to say that, in your opinion, everything that's part of a SF work is SF, though not essentially, whereas in my opinion much of a particular work of SF may belong essentially to another genre, which is in that work mixed with SF, and the only thing that is SF is what is essentially SF?

Instead of squirrels (is there something going on on the boards with all this talk of squirrels?), a better example might be swords. Swords show up in all kinds of fiction: SF, Fantasy, Civil War fiction, Japanese modern and imperial-period historical fiction. Swords can thus be said to be part of any of those genres, but they don't even begin to define any of them. Including the presence of swords as part of the definition of Fantasy (or any other genre) doesn't help because it allows the inclusion of things that are not part of that genre- it is insufficiently exclusive.

A sword is nothing whatever--it's a prop. A genre can make the sword its centerpiece and be definable in terms of the sword, but then we aren't even talking about the sword anymore: we're talking about its iconography, or its uses, what it does or could do, who it belongs to, what it represents. The sword in itself, as mythusmage was saying, is mere staging. It could just as well be a broom or a chainsaw. This is surface stuff.

THAT is the point of my discussion of taxonomy: to illustrate that its the differences, not similarities, that define species as apart from other species.

Why is this the point? Nobody's claimed, as far as I've seen anyway, that the difference between a dog and a wolf is what they have in common. I thought we covered this when you said "By defining something as a genre, then, you are taking for granted that it is unique," to which I responded "Yes, I am, otherwise it's undefinable: for every class α1 and definition β, if α1 is β then α2 is not β ( (α1) [βα1 → ~βα2] ), otherwise α1 and α2 are the same thing, i.e. there is no α2." In other words if chair and cushion have the same definition then there is no difference between a chair and a cushion; in order for there to be two different classes of object, chair and cushion, their definitions must differ somewhere; as totalities their relation to one another is one of difference. At what level this uniqueness emerges is unimportant; it's simply a tautological fact that if there are two different classes, the two classes are different.

Analogously, we can't say that "X" is a defining characteristic of SF if "X" is not unique SF.

Are you just deferring the debate from "genre" to "characteristic?" Honestly, at the biological level we're all made from the same components, and our differences emerge farther up, that's a bit duh. Genre and biology aren't the same thing, unless you're sticking to imagery, in which case maybe the comparison highlights the ridiculousness of that approach. In terms of content, not all writing is made from the same stuff; meaning always emerges uniquely, and doesn't necessarily have anything in common with any other writing at any level, really. There've been a few movements that claimed otherwise, like structuralism, but those always died out rather quickly for a reason.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

No, it's absolutely correct. You said "once I show a single SF work with a certain characteristic, that characteristic exists within the set of all SF." That's utter nonsense if you're asserting it has anything to do with a definition of SF, which is the entire point of this thread.

and

Why is this the point? Nobody's claimed, as far as I've seen anyway, that the difference between a dog and a wolf is what they have in common.

You clearly misunderstand my position.

My position is this: "once I show a single SF work with a certain characteristic, that characteristic exists within the set of all SF." means that the characteristic exists within the set, not within each member of the set. 0 (Zero) exists within the set of real numbers, yet has properties (under any mathematical system of which I'm aware) which are unique, nor do those unique characteristics remove it from the set of real numbers.

So, a work of SF may have property "X," placing property "X" within the set of all SF- but unless its unique to SF and a nearly universal feature of SF in general, it is not an essential property of SF, and cannot be used to define SF as a genre.

Example: Travel between worlds is pretty common in SF, but it isn't unique (you can find the theme in F), and it isn't required (for every 3 SF stories of interplanetary travel, I can probably name 2 stories that don't include interplanetary travel). While the theme of "interplanetary travel" is a part of the set of all SF- it is neither essential nor unique. Thus, a definition of SF cannot be structured: "SF is a genre about interplanetary travel."

If you really believe what you said however many pages back ("There are portions of each circle that do not touch any other. In other words, you can have pure Fantasy"), then why are you talking about all-inclusive sets? The point of defining SF and F is to locate the portion of the circle that does not touch the others, so again, it seems to me you're muddying the issue by fore-deciding what SF is, then saying everything that is part of every work of SF is part of SF.

Look at a Venn Diagram as I described it in Post#23 (quoted Post#300, supra). Properly drawn, its 3 circles overlapping each other, forming a small, equilateral convexly-rounded triangle in the center with 3 other "triangles" (each with one concave side) formed on each side of the center triangle.

When a story is within that center area overlapped by SF, Horror and Fantasy, it is still within the circle constrained by SF- thus, it is still within the set of all SF. That same story can also be said to be a part of Horror and Fantasy as well, and the properties of the story can be said to be within the set of all Horror and the set of all Fantasy. What cannot be said of that story is that its fantastic or horrific elements define its SF-ness.

Elements within the overlapping areas do not help us define the genres because they are not exclusive to any genre. To define SF, Horror or Fantasy, we have to find those elements that exist outside of the overlaps, and when someone tries to use an element from an overlapping area to define one of those genres, it is perfectly valid to point out that problem.

 

[Wayside]

I don't misunderstand your position in the least. You're saying there's a set of all works of SF, and everything that's a part of one of these works is a part of the set without being necessary to any member of the set. What I'm doing is drawing out some of the consequences of your position, which you don't seem to want to acknowledge. One assumes that all this talk about sets has something to do with actually defining SF, after all.

Your diagram demonstrates shared space between genres because it takes the shared space for granted by virtue of the kind of diagram it is, not by virtue of anything to do with the genres themselves. It's a methodology that produces, rather than deduces, its conclusions--bad theorizing, in other words. And it continues to rely on comparison of particular works of SF with other works in and outside SF, none of which can demonstrate necessarily what SF is in itself, if it is anything, since SF, if it exists, is more than a sum of these works.

Worst of all, you already need to have definitions of SF, F and H laid out for the diagram to succeed. Your argument against Celebrim and barsoomcore can thus be reduced to the mere fact that their definition disagrees with yours, and, at least for me, your definition isn't valid because you haven't given me any reason to agree with that definition in the first place. But you're going to say: no, it's the fact that a work of SF and a work of F can both contain their (barsoomcore's and Celebrim's) definitions of one or the other--to which I reiterate: you've already defined SF and F then, and your counterargument is based on the assumption that the work of SF is SF and not F, and that the work of F is F and not SF--but what if they're both really SF, or both really F, or the one we thought was SF is F, or the one we thought was F is SF?

And this all goes back to Celebrim's point about exceptions. You want to decide them in advance and forbid various definitions accordingly, when we don't even have to agree with you about what is or is not an exception in the first place. And if we don't, this simple disagreement deflates almost everything else you've said. Ideally I'd rather be charitable and not argue from that position, as I said to Celebrim earlier when he initially brought it up, but the amount of sidestepping going on here is astonishing, so maybe such a move is unavoidable.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Your diagram demonstrates shared space between genres because it takes the shared space for granted by virtue of the kind of diagram it is, not by virtue of anything to do with the genres themselves. It's a methodology that produces, rather than deduces, its conclusions--bad theorizing, in other words.

Not at all.

Now, one caveat: There IS another way to draw the Venn diagram covering SF/F/Horror. Since Horror, AFAIK, always seems to have elements of fantasy or SF, you would draw 2 large circles (representing SF & F) and a single, smaller circle, completely circumscribed by the 2 larger ones (the 2 points of intersection define Horror's diameter). This diagram would mean that there is no such thing as pure horror.

The diagrams merely show that there are representatives within each genre that are purely of that genre (relative to each other). It says NOTHING about the actual sizes of the pure areas. In fact, the pure areas could have only 1 representative work within them.

There are SF works that have no F or Horror elements: so-called "Hard SF." For example, Ben Bova's Planetary series of novels has nothing supernatural: Simply put, the series is about the early stages of Human civilization into the rest of the Solar System. I challenge you to find a fantasy or horror element of any kind within that series. The tech used to move from one planet to the other is all within NASA's current grasp or current theory- pure Newtonian Physics and crafty telemetry: no hyperdrive, warp drive, tamed black holes as power sources, etc. The only characters are human- no intelligent aliens or alien tech here. There is no super-tech that bends the rules of physics. The one tech used that doesn't currently exist is cryo-sleep, and even that is still a tech with problems: it usually results in brain damage of some kind- and it is only used for 1 character. There are no horror elements either: no monsters, escaped psychos, etc. The main conflict exists between a wealthy technocrat who wants to be the one who profits from the expansion and those who are more altruistic- expanding the horizons of human civiliaztion for ALL to live within and profit from. There is industrial espionage, there are races to particular planets...but the storylines are entirely within the possible..

Similarly, it is easy enough to find representatives of pure Fantasy: LOTR and Earthsea spring immediately to mind.

Of course, I AM ignoring all other forms of fiction, since all I'm addressing is distinguishing between SF/F & Horror. This I freely admit.

Were I to draw a Venn Diagram of all fiction, there would be a single large circle drawn around numerous other circles...kind of like you'd get by going nuts with a Spirograph. Assuming an infinite # of possible genres, it is likely there would be no area unique to any genre.