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General Tabletop Discussion
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Genre Conventions: What is fantasy?
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<blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 2288524" data-attributes="member: 19675"><p>Not to put too fine a point on it, A LOT of modern non- sci-fi, non-fantasy Japanese Fiction- the very kind with which Kurosawa (whose <em>Hidden Fortress</em> was Lucas' starting line for Star Wars) would have been familiar- is about self-discovery, and going from power to powerlessness, and vice versa. Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, Shuaku Endo, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Soseki Matsume, Junichiro Tanizaki all explore such themes as some in this thread would ascribe to fantasy or sci-fi.</p><p></p><p>Why? Something about a warrior tradition that Japanese culture seeped in for 100's of years that evaporated in a couple of mushroom clouds.</p><p></p><p>Since then, those and other Japanese novelists have explored what it means to be powerless in contrast to former greatness, how the powerless claim or reclaim power, how one can gain or regain honor and status in a warrior culture suddenly reduced to a nation of merchants- figuratevely castrated by high-tech gaijin.</p><p></p><p>In 1970, Mishima took his obsession with Japan's warrior culture to the point of committing <em>seppuku</em> on national TV (he and some of his "followers" had captured the station) at age 45, all because he so deeply felt the post-WW2 powerlessness of his country.</p><p></p><p>All this without being fantasy or sci-fi, just fiction.</p><p></p><p>In fact, many great novels explore issues of power, issues of self-discovery, and what it means to be truly human: <em>The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Deliverance, Heart of Darkness, Grapes of Wrath, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, Crime and Punishment, All Quiet on the Western Front</em>.</p><p></p><p>Does this make them fantasy? Does this make them sci-fi? Clearly not.</p><p></p><p>Thus, since a story that addresses isssues of power isn't neccessarily fantasy, and a story that asks and answers "Who Am I?" or "What does it mean to be human?" is by no means neccessarly sci-fi, those criteria cannot be used in any meaningful sense to distinguish those genres from others.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dannyalcatraz, post: 2288524, member: 19675"] Not to put too fine a point on it, A LOT of modern non- sci-fi, non-fantasy Japanese Fiction- the very kind with which Kurosawa (whose [I]Hidden Fortress[/I] was Lucas' starting line for Star Wars) would have been familiar- is about self-discovery, and going from power to powerlessness, and vice versa. Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, Shuaku Endo, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Soseki Matsume, Junichiro Tanizaki all explore such themes as some in this thread would ascribe to fantasy or sci-fi. Why? Something about a warrior tradition that Japanese culture seeped in for 100's of years that evaporated in a couple of mushroom clouds. Since then, those and other Japanese novelists have explored what it means to be powerless in contrast to former greatness, how the powerless claim or reclaim power, how one can gain or regain honor and status in a warrior culture suddenly reduced to a nation of merchants- figuratevely castrated by high-tech gaijin. In 1970, Mishima took his obsession with Japan's warrior culture to the point of committing [I]seppuku[/I] on national TV (he and some of his "followers" had captured the station) at age 45, all because he so deeply felt the post-WW2 powerlessness of his country. All this without being fantasy or sci-fi, just fiction. In fact, many great novels explore issues of power, issues of self-discovery, and what it means to be truly human: [I]The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Deliverance, Heart of Darkness, Grapes of Wrath, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, Crime and Punishment, All Quiet on the Western Front[/I]. Does this make them fantasy? Does this make them sci-fi? Clearly not. Thus, since a story that addresses isssues of power isn't neccessarily fantasy, and a story that asks and answers "Who Am I?" or "What does it mean to be human?" is by no means neccessarly sci-fi, those criteria cannot be used in any meaningful sense to distinguish those genres from others. [/QUOTE]
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