Genre Conventions: What is fantasy?

[Desdichado]

Conan and Fafhrd simply offer different definitions of what is heroic than the Judeo-Christian tradition, but that doesn't mean that Conan and Fafhrd aren't heroic examples. In fact, Conan and Fafhrd are the same sort of characters as Theseus and Oddyseus - both of whom are explicitly within the story moral models despite the fact that we (from our moral perspectives) might find thier treachery less than virtuous. There are several different ways that one can define 'virtue'. One of the classic ways to do it is through a narrative. Conan, Fafhrd, and (for example) The Count du Monte Cristo and John Carter are all classic boy heroes designed to enstill in boys a certain admiration for thier courage, perserverance, cunning, and other classic 'warrior virtues'. Sometimes this is explicitly the goal (it certainly is with ERB's John Carter and Tarzan), and sometimes this is merely a side effect of writing a story which appeals to those 'boyish virtues'.

Celebrim, no offense, but I think you've talked yourself into a corner there. If you say that fantasy is about abstract virtues made flesh, and then say that in many of these stories that abstract virtues are merely a side-effect of the characteristics of some of the characters, you are certainly not creating a very compelling argument. The same could be said of any fictional character in any genre.

 

[Psion]

If we examine what about the story itself defines it as either Sci-Fi or Fantasy, then we can ignore the above thoughts. I find that Orson Scott Card has working definitions as good as I have seen:

"If the story is set in a universe that follows the same rules as ours, it's science fiction. If the story is set in a universe that doesn't follow our rules, it's fantasy.

In other words, science fiction is about what could be but isn't and fantasy is about what couldn't be." <How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy - O.S. Card>

Card's book has a first class discussion of what is and is not Sci-Fi and Fantasy in this book, and anyone feeling like they need closure on the issue (in addition to expecting to be disappointed) should check out this book.

To say the least, you leave a LOT out of his discussion. Yes, that statement is a good starting point, but is only a snippet in about 4 of 5 pages of discussion on the issue. The above statement follows a short recollection of how his story about a psionic character on a backwards planet got rejected from an SF magazine because it was not SF (noted with delightful bemusement in reference to the inspiring thread ), Card goes on to discuss how established writers push and cross these boundaries, such as SF forays that end up dealing with gods, or fantasy yarns which are revealed to be on space colonies.

Card goes on to say cite, in the midst of all this confusion, what he thinks the REAL dividing line that is usually respected amongst editors (paraphrasing since the book is at home but I am not): Science Fiction has plastic and metal and heavy machinery and fantasy does not.

Using these rules of thumb to explore some common films and books, we determine that Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Battlestar Galactica are all Sci-FI (well, duh). We get to Star Wars, however, and things begin to get a little crazy. We have the ships, the droids, etc. that all point to Sci-Fi. But we get to The Force and we have to think awhile. If The Force is magic, then Star Wars would be a fantasy work. But very few (if any) people would NOT consider Star Wars Sci-Fi.

I think the above point by Card addresses the real WHY here.

 

[Jupp]

While I am generally hesitant to agree with administrative authorities I have to give the Library of Congress the thumbs-up I was looking for a good definition when I saw that link and for my taste they are pretty much spot on, generally. Sure, someone will always be able to find novels and stories that are cross-genre that thus could indicate someting different but they cannot be taken as an argument because of their special nature. Oh, and btw..."Christian fantasy" is a horrible term. Why do people always have to read biblical things into fantasy stories? That's somehow irritating

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

So do I, as they appear to largely agree with me!

It looks like we're pulling from the same sources, more or less, though, so that's not surprising.

Well, I think that the thing to recognize is that while there is some slippage the way you analyze this genre works best if you do set it up as a hierarchy.

So to answer one of your original questions:

No, I don't think psionics are un-fantasy. There are a number of reasons I think that, but the most important is that I think fantasy is the larger genre, so once you've achieved the bare bones structure necessary to qualify pretty much anything goes. There are more specific reasons I think psionics belong, but they don't go to the overall point.

On the other hand:

Fusangite has, in our perrenial arguments over the grace given to the Monk class, articulated an ethos of fantasy that, although I have numerous large scale objections to it, I find very intriguing in its specifics. I don't think Fusangite thinks of this as an aesthetic in its own right otherwise I would have expected him to have posted to this thread already. But the basics of it apply. And that is that there is an organization to fantasy that relies on some very specific sense of 'cosmology' and that you can mount a critique based on how possible a thing would be within that sense. Now bear in mind I am freely misrepresenting Fusangite to serve my own argument and observations, but hopefully he will show up and provide his own inimitable thoughts and spin on the issue.

Now I find that idea intriguing in this case as that would cover almost all of the complaints without providing a solution, since the idea works on a level below that of genre. I can't really argue against the fact that works based off a star trek cosmology belong to some sort of coherent group, or at least I can't argue on that level though I certainly would on others, but it seems such an obvious point that it's hard to figure out what to do with it. What I find fascinating is that if there is a disconnect between this idea of literary or conceptual coherence and the workings of genre, then a great many fans seem to be spending a great deal of labor trying to negotiate away or obliterate that disconnect. That effort seems to me to be misdirected in that direction, but I'm certain that it accomplishes something or is significant of something I just don't know what.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Oh, and btw..."Christian fantasy" is a horrible term. Why do people always have to read biblical things into fantasy stories? That's somehow irritating

Well, LoC avoids the cross-genre thing by saying that most of these are sub-genres of something larger, which to my mind is a good move.

'Christian fantasy' is a horrible term, but it's not without merit. Christians and Christianity were very important to the development of modern and contemporary fantasy. It's just misleading for other reasons, and mostly people find it useful because of those misleading reasons.

Tolkien, for instance, is frequently claimed as Christian fantasy, but while I'm certain he did have some distinctly Christian ethical issues with fantasy I think his specific goal was probably distinctly a-Christian and I don't think it provides much more insight into his work than any of a number of other contexts and factors. It's useful to talk about Christianity in relationship to Tolkien I don't think its useful as a genre designator.

 

[Voadam]

I say again,

Sci-Fi = High Tech

Fantasy = Magic

and add

Horror = Scary/Creepy

These seem the common usage and can be applied to every genre story I can think of pretty naturally. They are not mutually exclusive categories of an either/or type. It is easy to have a fantasy element in a Sci-Fi movie or a horror element in a fantasy story.

 

[Voadam]

Starting with (for me) what's makes fantasy really fantasy, magic doesn't exist (at least in the scope of our science and our collective understanding). Therefore, stories containing magic are fantasy. Turning to Sci-Fi, the big item is space flight. And while our current understanding of relativity precludes FTL travel, there is no reason to assume that we COULD NOT develop that technology. Therefore, FTL is a scf-fi artifice.

Using these rules of thumb to explore some common films and books, we determine that Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Battlestar Galactica are all Sci-FI (well, duh). We get to Star Wars, however, and things begin to get a little crazy. We have the ships, the droids, etc. that all point to Sci-Fi. But we get to The Force and we have to think awhile. If The Force is magic, then Star Wars would be a fantasy work. But very few (if any) people would NOT consider Star Wars Sci-Fi. Therefore, we have to find a way to explain The Force using the laws of our universe; it's not easy. Looking at the Lord of the Rings, the magic of Gandalf, Sauron, and Saruman clearly make the trilogy as fantasy. The same is true of the Wheel of Time series.

The biggest division seems to be magic - because our universe does not seem to include magic (certainly nothing in our scientific knowledge points to magic) it's presence essentially instantly indicates Fantasy.

The real stickler (and the item that led to this thread) is psionics. These abilities seem to be magical (or at least mirror magical effects) and yet they exist is what appear to be Sci-Fi realms. I believe we classify these abilities as mental (either as the product of different synaptic pathways, the usage of a higher percentage of brain capacity, or as some type of mutation). Of course, this leads to the introduction of a "Sci-Fi" element into a "Fantasy" setting and some people disdain that notion (or visa-versa).

Your categories are not mutually exclusive even though the ones from Card are. Magic and FTL space ships are not mutually exclusive. You don't have to find a way to explain the force so that it is not magic and still justifiably feel that it is a sci-fi movie if the definition of Sci-Fi is the space ships and blasters or other high tech and advanced science as opposed to a limiting definition of what sci-fi is not.

 

[Voadam]

Fantasy is the genera of fiction which primarily seeks to address the question of, 'What is the meaning of good and evil?', and similar abstract moral questions by incarnating or extantiating the abstract principals as tangible things, and then producing from there a narrative structure which serves to illustrate the principal in question. A fantasy is at its heart a morality tell which serves to warn against or promote certain sorts of behavior.

Fantasy is different from science fiction - and in particular soft science fiction - in that science fiction is typically not about morality, and instead is more interested in the question, "What does it mean to be human?", and the invented characters of science fiction (aliens, robots) serve not as embodiments of some moral principal, but rather as means by which humanity can be compared and contrasted with things that are not human in order to understand the fundamental things which make humans 'human'.

Swords, sorcery, space ships, ray guns, telepathy, and so forth have nothing to do with it. Those are just incidental and conventional trappings of the art form. Likewise, it has little to do with whether or not the invented things are 'realistic'. Science fiction remains science fiction even if its blatantly unrealistic. Fantasy remains fantasy even if its given a futuristic and technological setting.

A heroic morality tale addressing the meaning of good and evil can be placed in WWII with good and evil defined sides, etc. I would have a hard time classifying Saving Private Ryan as Fantasy in the same genre as Lord of the Rings, although they are both heroic war stories.

Seven Samurai is a heroic morality tale and has swords, but I would not classify it, or Last Samurai, etc. as Fantasy genre either. Wire Fu movies come closer when people start flying around with martial arts superhuman powers.

Classifying fantasy as morality tale seems arbitrary. Why not just call it a morality tale genre then if it has nothing to do with swords and sorcery?

 

[Odhanan]

Fantasy is the genera of fiction which primarily seeks to address the question of, 'What is the meaning of good and evil?', and similar abstract moral questions by incarnating or extantiating the abstract principals as tangible things, and then producing from there a narrative structure which serves to illustrate the principal in question. A fantasy is at its heart a morality tell which serves to warn against or promote certain sorts of behavior.

Fantasy is different from science fiction - and in particular soft science fiction - in that science fiction is typically not about morality, and instead is more interested in the question, "What does it mean to be human?", and the invented characters of science fiction (aliens, robots) serve not as embodiments of some moral principal, but rather as means by which humanity can be compared and contrasted with things that are not human in order to understand the fundamental things which make humans 'human'.

Swords, sorcery, space ships, ray guns, telepathy, and so forth have nothing to do with it. Those are just incidental and conventional trappings of the art form. Likewise, it has little to do with whether or not the invented things are 'realistic'. Science fiction remains science fiction even if its blatantly unrealistic. Fantasy remains fantasy even if its given a futuristic and technological setting.

Yes, I agree with all this to some extent. To summarize my point of view:
- Fantasy is about morality, and trying to develop the question "what is it, archetypally, to be human?", through the physical representation of abstract concepts.
- Science fiction answers "what if..." questions and tries to bring meaning and political theories (in the large sense of the word "political", not necessarily as "institutional" ).

I am a fan of Fantasy. I despise Science Fiction.

 

[Celebrim]

Classifying fantasy as morality tale seems arbitrary. Why not just call it a morality tale genre then if it has nothing to do with swords and sorcery?

Classifying fantasy as having something to do with swords and sorcery is equally arbitrary.

Captain America vs. Red Skull is WWII done as a fantasy. Saving Private Ryan is not. Seven Samurii comes alot closer, because the samurii do indeed have a mythic character as do the rifles which 'magically' cut them down. Seven Samurii isn't a historical drama so much as a romance and the dividing line between romance and fantasy is not at all clear and bright to me. At some level, movies like 'The Magnificent Seven', 'Fight Full of Dollars' and the 'True Grit' start shading off into fantasy as well. This is particularly true of alot of Eastwood's later work in westerns like 'High Plains Drifter' and 'Pale Rider'. But, no swords and sorcery are actually involved.