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Worlds of Design: Fantasy vs. Sci-Fi Part 1
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7763188" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I would say that that is because they are all modernists. Whereas JRRT is resolutely anti-modern. As soon as you get a modernist spirit deploying fantasy tropes (I think REH - you disagree, fair enough - but also Ursula Le Guin in Tehanu) your account breaks down!</p><p></p><p>I've got strong doubts about your moral/ethical distinction - eg a couple of years ago I was at a conference where a leading American criminal law theorist gave a talk on the immorality of tax evasion - but working with something like it, I want to say the following: you perhaps wouldn't use fantasy to ask "ethical" questions about technology or democratic forms of government or colonisation (or, if you did, the work would probably be seen as "new wave" in some fashion); but equally you wouldn't use sci-fi to ask "ethical" questions about tradition, or the nature of domestic life (both are in play in Tehanu), or honour, etc (or, if you did, the work again would be non-standard - eg Dune is much closer to fantasy than is Clarke or Bradbury for just these sorts of reasons).</p><p></p><p>And I think this is driven, to a significant extent, by tropes. Sci-fi tropes include vast vistas, exploration and travel, hypermodern social forms driven by hypermodern technological transformations, etc. Fantasy tropes include ancient secrets, restoration of overthrown rulers, defending the homeland, etc. And also elements of domestic life (eg we see this in JRRT, and Earthsea, and Arthurian stories) whereas these are less prominent in sci-fi, partly because a key feature of modernity is narrowing and quarantining the role of the domestic! (I'll admit to being ignorant of "new wave" feminist sci-fi, but I assume that it has something to say about exactly this, and departs from the Star Trek/Star Wars treatment of home as a simply a constraint or limitation to be overcome, rather than a source of value and guidance as it is in (say) LotR.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7763188, member: 42582"] I would say that that is because they are all modernists. Whereas JRRT is resolutely anti-modern. As soon as you get a modernist spirit deploying fantasy tropes (I think REH - you disagree, fair enough - but also Ursula Le Guin in Tehanu) your account breaks down! I've got strong doubts about your moral/ethical distinction - eg a couple of years ago I was at a conference where a leading American criminal law theorist gave a talk on the immorality of tax evasion - but working with something like it, I want to say the following: you perhaps wouldn't use fantasy to ask "ethical" questions about technology or democratic forms of government or colonisation (or, if you did, the work would probably be seen as "new wave" in some fashion); but equally you wouldn't use sci-fi to ask "ethical" questions about tradition, or the nature of domestic life (both are in play in Tehanu), or honour, etc (or, if you did, the work again would be non-standard - eg Dune is much closer to fantasy than is Clarke or Bradbury for just these sorts of reasons). And I think this is driven, to a significant extent, by tropes. Sci-fi tropes include vast vistas, exploration and travel, hypermodern social forms driven by hypermodern technological transformations, etc. Fantasy tropes include ancient secrets, restoration of overthrown rulers, defending the homeland, etc. And also elements of domestic life (eg we see this in JRRT, and Earthsea, and Arthurian stories) whereas these are less prominent in sci-fi, partly because a key feature of modernity is narrowing and quarantining the role of the domestic! (I'll admit to being ignorant of "new wave" feminist sci-fi, but I assume that it has something to say about exactly this, and departs from the Star Trek/Star Wars treatment of home as a simply a constraint or limitation to be overcome, rather than a source of value and guidance as it is in (say) LotR.) [/QUOTE]
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