Discussion topic: what is fantasy?

[RathDarkblade]

I think we're all a little fed up with the critics not taking fantasy seriously, or saying that it's for little kids. We all know through reading Pratchett (at least!) that fantasy can be as funny or as serious as any other genre.

But what is fantasy? I believe that fantasy is akin to mythology: they both feature tens if not hundreds of fantastical beasts and monsters, magical and supernatural beings, and magic in general.

History - at least military history - is basically fantasy without the monsters and the magic.

Some critics bash fantasy because "it's illogical" or "it doesn't make sense". To that, the only sensible answer is: define "sense".

Besides, look at mythology. Ancient Egyptian myths claim that a giant dung beetle pushes the sun up the sky, and that the god Horus was murdered, quartered, and resurrected to create Osiris. Ancient Roman myth claims that a she-wolf suckled two little boys instead of eating them, as any normal wolf would. Norse mythology claims that the world is supported by a giant tree, which is gnawed at by a Squirrel of Doom called Ratatoskr. Yet the absence of any "logic" or "sense" here didn't stop people believing for hundreds - even thousands - of years.

Finally, look at the world today. Does it make sense? Never mind the stories about people behaving like jerks or idiots, I mean the BIG picture. Space, which some call the final frontier, is so unimaginably vast and so frighteningly hostile to human life that it's almost laughable that human life can exist anywhere in space. Yet here we are, thanks to either some laws of physics or to an all-power, all-knowing and all-wise deity (and I won't get into that argument, or we'll be here all day).

Does it make sense that we even exist as a species? Logically, we should have succumbed to any of the disasters that have threatened the human race throughout its existence: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, starvation, gigantic waves - and that's not even counting the threats that space flings at us, like meteors or asteroids. The chances of being hit by one are relatively small, but the damage is truly scary. Look up the 1908 Tunguska event, or the 2009 Chelyabinsk meteor, and you'll see what I mean. The Chelyabinsk meteor packed a punch equivalent to about 20,000 tons of TNT (yikes). If - rhetorically speaking - an entire community is wiped out by such a thing, how can we say that it makes sense? Compared with that, Gandalf's glowing wand is small potatoes indeed.

Anyway, I've rambled enough. What are your thoughts, hmm?

 

[Quatermass]

This probably should be in the Non-Discworld Books section, but it's worth pointing out that fantasy, as a genre, has only really grabbed me later in life. I have been mostly into science fiction, with Discworld, Harry Potter, Stephen King's The Dark Tower, and Tolkien being my main forays into the genre. That being said, I have started to get into it recently, albeit not with Western fantasy (George RR Martin aside). Most of the fantasy series I enjoy are Japanese based. There's the light novel series and anime adaptation Overlord, not to be confused with the games of the same. There's the Fate franchise, set in the Nasuverse shared universe, involving Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night. Many shounen manga like Dragonball and Naruto are fantasy stories, even if the former is probably closer to science fantasy.

Of course, I should hasten to add George RR Martin and Neil Gaiman to the list, the former's contribution being the obvious one, and the latter partly for his novels but also for The Sandman. While many superhero stories are science fantasy to a degree, that one was very strongly fantasy.

There's also the tricky part of science fantasy, the science fiction that does straddle the line with fantasy. The Star Wars franchise, for example, or the Rooster Teeth CGI series RWBY, not to mention Phil and Kaja Foglio's 'gaslamp fantasy' webcomic Girl Genius.

I'm also keeping my discourse here to books, film and TV. If I spoke about fantasy video games, we'd be here a lot longer. Take it from me...

 

[Tonyblack]

Isn't most fiction just a degree of fantasy? When reading any fiction, it is the skill of the author to convince the reader that the scenario they have created has some reality. I think the Fantasy (large F) genre takes it just a small step further. To create a world where the reader can feel that they understand what the writer has created.

I think that the problem comes with badly written fantasy. If the world of the book is illogical or the reader has no empathy for the characters, then the story may be difficult to enjoy.

Terry's books, for example, may have magic, dragons, elves and trolls, but he has made them believable. We as readers are easily able to transport ourselves into Pratchett's world and understand the thinking of his characters. I have read books that have been difficult to follow for the simple reason that I am unable to identify with the world and the characters.

Good Fantasy should be close to good Science Fiction.

 

[Tonyblack]

Incidentally, there is a problem with the software that Thinking Fox is trying to get to the root of, that means I can't move the thread. So at least for now, I'll leave it here.

 

[RathDarkblade]

OK. I wasn't sure where this thread should be, so I simply created it where most "miscellaneous" threads already are.

 

[Tonyblack]

OK. I wasn't sure where this thread should be, so I simply created it where most "miscellaneous" threads already are.

No worries

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Fantasy be it high, low, epic, sword & sorcery, dark, humorous or urban is improbable even though believable. Where as Science fiction is or will be possible if not now some time in the future, so those that mock the genres really are not well read and lack imagination, but that's their loss.

 

[Penfold]

Fantasy be it high, low, epic, sword & sorcery, dark, humorous or urban is improbable even though believable. Where as Science fiction is or will be possible if not now some time in the future, so those that mock the genres really are not well read and lack imagination, but that's their loss.

When you look at the devices used in Star Trek; Original Series and the technology we routinely use today, I sometimes wonder whether Gene Roddenberry had a crystal ball.

 

[Tonyblack]

Fantasy be it high, low, epic, sword & sorcery, dark, humorous or urban is improbable even though believable. Where as Science fiction is or will be possible if not now some time in the future, so those that mock the genres really are not well read and lack imagination, but that's their loss.

When you look at the devices used in Star Trek; Original Series and the technology we routinely use today, I sometimes wonder whether Gene Roddenberry had a crystal ball.

One of the reasons I used to like reading A C Clarke, was that he would extrapolate contemporary technology to include in his stories. I remember him writing about a device that one character had. (Songs of Distant Earth I think) a small box that contained all his favourite music that he could listen to with headphone. This was I'm pretty sure, before the Walkman, but small transistor radios were a thing. At various stages I thought he had predicted the Walkman and the Discman, but now thing he may have predicted the iPod.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Hmm, I haven't watched much Star Trek, but I know that ST at least had the automatic doors (the ones that open as you approach). We still don't have phasers or teleporters, though.

What else did ST 'predict'? Now I'm curious.

 

[Penfold]

Hmm, I haven't watched much Star Trek, but I know that ST at least had the automatic doors (the ones that open as you approach). We still don't have phasers or teleporters, though.

What else did ST 'predict'? Now I'm curious.

Off the top of my head, mobile phones are very similar to their communicators, computers that allow you to see the other person that you are talking to, and 'teleportation' in a fashion, has been achieved but 'proper' teleportation is still a long way off (if it's even possible???). The space shuttle resembles ST shuttles in looks and I heard (albeit possibly apocryphal) that ST used to run their ideas through NASA scientists to ensure they were theoretically possible.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...entists-teleport-photons-300-miles-into-space

 

[Tonyblack]

Don't forget iPads

 

[=Tamar]

I have seen reports that when electronics engineers are trying to think of something to invent, they turn to science fiction, so it's not a coincidence that some authors "predicted" certain inventions! On the other hand, there are cartoons of the 18th century, let alone the 19th century, that imagine airships, self-powered individual vehicles, and long-distance communication by wires instead of semaphores.

And when it comes to fantasy, well, when you read even mildly deeply into archaeology and actual extant records instead of what passes for easily-available history, you learn that most history is fantasy. Even contemporary records are slanted - there was an archaeological dig in South America (if I recall correctly), at the location of a major battle between Spanish armies and several different local tribes, which was written up by the victorious Spanish. But the dig revealed that the story told was almost entirely false. After their findings were made known, a local monastery said, 'oh yeah, we have that story as written down by the local tribes, and it matches what you found at the dig.' But for several hundred years, they hadn't bothered to mention it, and the contemporary lie was "historical record".

 

[RathDarkblade]

Didn't Churchill say that "history is written by the winners"?

 

[=Tamar]

Fantasy be it high, low, epic, sword & sorcery, dark, humorous or urban is improbable even though believable. Where as Science fiction is or will be possible if not now some time in the future, so those that mock the genres really are not well read and lack imagination, but that's their loss.

I agree with the "lack imagination" comment, but I have a few quibbles with the rest of your statement.

I've read a lot of SF, and quite a lot of it uses faster-than-light travel (FTL) so that stories can happen in space in less than a dozen generations as people travel to do business or fight. Since FTL is extremely unlikely to be discovered, that makes quite a lot of good SF impossible. It is therefore Fantasy, just with - to use an old example - rayguns instead of magic wands, or more modernly, a Sonic Screwdriver.

In contrast, SF that was based on slight extrapolation of current science has generally been either proven false or overtaken by reality. One example: in the comics, Dick Tracy's Martian-made wrist radio communicator became a wrist TV and then a wrist computer, but we have had all of those for years and some are now outdated. Even hand-held iPhones have been replaced for voice communication. The Star Trek pin-on communicator that only had to be slapped to operate? Old hat. Bluetooth earpieces that are operated by being slapped are inexpensive and get smaller all the time. We're accustomed to seeing a little doohickey stuck in someone's ear while he walks along talking to someone who isn't visible to the rest of us. Star Trek's computer program that responds to voice commands? Readily available, and a lot smaller.

Meanwhile, much fantasy deals with humans in extraordinary situations involving magic (and some of that could easily be renamed and become bad SF) or alternate history. Beneath the fantasy, if it isn't just to have fun with magic, the story is usually a way to explore human behavior. Sometimes it is to extrapolate what the author thinks might have happened if some history had been different. Yet since it didn't happen that way, and couldn't now, isn't alternate history a form of fantasy?

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Who is to say in the future that FTL warp drive, worm holes etc may not be possible in the future, I did not mean everything that we read about in the SF books will be possible that would be too much of a generalisation, I.E. I'm reading John Scalzi latest books at the moment and some of the things described will be improbable. but as we find out more, the more improbable might become possible but that might take a couple of hundred years or so, or a visit from a genial alien race more advance than we are.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Meanwhile, much fantasy deals with humans in extraordinary situations involving magic (and some of that could easily be renamed and become bad SF) or alternate history. Beneath the fantasy, if it isn't just to have fun with magic, the story is usually a way to explore human behavior. Sometimes it is to extrapolate what the author thinks might have happened if some history had been different. Yet since it didn't happen that way, and couldn't now, isn't alternate history a form of fantasy?

This is a vast topic of discussion that can't be addressed in just one paragraph. So I'll address both your points!

1. What's beneath the fantasy?
I agree that some fantasy novels (e.g. Conan, the early Harry Potter) is just to have fun with magic. I haven't read HP past book 3, so I don't know if the other books explore human behaviour or not. The earlier books, compared to other fantasy I've read, are relatively simple.

I also agree that some fantasy books - Discworld being a primary example - both have fun with magic (especially the earlier books), but also explore human behaviour. This is apparent as early as the third book, "Equal Rites". From that point onward, Pterry's books become more and more sophisticated (with some exceptions like "Eric", which is a return to the simpler days of TCOM and TLF).

Rincewind aside, it's easy to see Pterry's more philosophical side emerging in books like Pyramids, Night Watch, and especially Small Gods. Many of the other books have philosophical scenes, too - e.g. Dorlf's realisation, in FOC, that he owns himself, which doubles as an awesome scene and a tear-jerker. Or, in the same book: "Words In The Mind Cannot Be Taken".

There are some of these in Moist's books, too, e.g. Pump 19 (in "Going Postal") explaining to Moist that he has "Killed Two Point Three Three Seven People", or the letters speaking to Moist and begging for deliverance, or (in both GP and MM) Vetinari's moments of "thinking aloud" about the nature of finance and the banks. (Meanwhile, I nominate Anghammarad as the world champion for stoicism).

2. Is alternate history of a form of fantasy?
Yes and no. It's a tricky question ... it depends on what you define as "fantasy". Aztecs with nuclear weapons is definitely fantasy.

However, if we allow that history is "true" - for a given value of truth - then alternate history (or "counterfactual questions", to give it its proper name), is an exploration of what what history would be like, if a seemingly small - but plausible - event taken place. Unlike fantasy, it allows us to glimpse - even for a moment - what the world might have been like.

Just a few examples:
- What if, at the Diet of Worms (1521), Martin Luther had been convicted of heresy, arrested and executed? No Lutheranism means no Protestant movement, no reform in the Catholic Church - and no need for the Church of England. Elizabeth I would never be Queen of England, because Henry VIII wouldn't have been allowed to divorce Catherine of Aragon - so, no Spanish Armada... and so on, and so forth.

- What if, during the confusion of the Noche Triste, Hernán Cortés was captured by the Aztecs and sacrificed? No-one else was charismatic enough or strong enough to take over as commander.

- Speaking of which, what if the Tlaxcalan Confederacy refused to help the Spanish after La Noche Triste? The natives had now seen that the Spanish were not gods - the "returned Quetzalcoal" and his companions - but mortals, beaten in battle. The loss of the Tlaxcalan Confederacy would have been the end for Cortés and his men.

- What if Harold the Saxon was not killed on Senlac Hill? Just half-an-hour more and the sun would go down, the battle would end in a draw, William would be out of supplies... would he have to reach an accord with Harold? What would it mean?

Or, a question with the most far-reaching consequences ...

- What if the Spanish, in their greed for gold and silver, utterly destroyed the native tubers in the New World? As it was, the Spanish held these plants in contempt and wanted to sow wheat and barley, etc. Can you imagine a world with no potatoes? Forget McDonald's for a moment.

First, the Irish Potato Famine would never happen, and the Irish would not have migrated to America in such large numbers.

Second, Frederick "The Great" could not order his peasants to plant potatoes (which kept for much longer, was more nutritious, and was protected underground). So the Prussian peasants' crops - their wheat, barley and oats - would continue to be crushed underfoot by invading troops. So, Prussia would never become as populous - or as dangerous - and Germany might be unified under someone else, possibly less military-minded. Bismarck would be dismissed as a lunatic and a crank. Kaiser Wilhelm would be nothing more than Victoria's (and Edward's) puppet. World War I might not even have happened. All because of potatoes.

These small changes - like little ripples in a stream - carry with them huge consequences. Little ripples, gigantic waves. That's what alternate history means.

Thoughts?

 

[Quatermass]

Basically, people lump it all under the banner of speculative fiction, and while that's a bit of a pigeon-holing thing going on, it does work.

It's also interesting to see, for example, how urban fantasy or fantasy franchises set in the modern day deal with, say, magic and myth and how it is hidden in the modern day. In the Nasuverse, the fictional setting of stories like Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, and Fate/Zero, there's actually a good reason (well, one of many) for why magic has diminished since the olden days: the more people who do a particular type of magic, the weaker it becomes (I think one of the in-universe explanations is that the consciousness of the world, Gaia, despises magic and tries to erase it if it gets too strong), and this is partly why the Magi of this setting are secretive. Indeed, there's only a few known practitioners of what is known as True Magic, that is, virtually unlimited magic (for example, the Second True Magic, 'Kaleidoscope', which deals with parallel worlds, only has one known full practitioner, a surprisingly benevolent but unrepentant prankster vampire known as Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg). One of the original goals of the Holy Grail War in the Fate stories was to reattain another True Magic, 'Heaven's Feel', which allowed for the materialisation and manipulation of the soul, something that is used to a limited degree in the Holy Grail Wars to resurrect long-dead heroes. Then again, magic in the Nasuverse is also, perversely, more scientific than in, say, Harry Potter.

 

[=Tamar]

Quibble: Henry VIII wasn't "allowed" to divorce anyone- he left that church and created his own, with himself as head of it, so that he could create a divorce system, to benefit himself. Unlike previous monarchs who were excommunicated and repented, he scorned the Pope. Arguably, he might not have felt so confident without Luther's example, but he was arrogant enough to take it a step further than Luther did.

Pigeon-holing is naming genres. Before the genres were named, fantasy books were just books. Unless the authors or publishers deliberately marked them as "for children", they were for anybody who cared to read them, and there was no noticeable stigma beyond a tendency to criticize the habit of reading novels as a waste of time better spent producing something physical, even if that something was an embroidered fire-screen.

Once they were named, though, a subtext became attached to genres. Romances changed from "stories of fighting men in action long ago" to "feeble stories for women". So changing the name of "fantasy" (subliminally labeled "silly stuff kids are given") to "speculative fiction" (subliminally labled "things a grown man might think about" with a hint of monetary speculation) - well, that might have had some positive result. It did lump everything together at the same time that it led to further subdivision, from scientifiction to science fantasy to steampunk to magical realism and hard science fiction.

Proposed: There are as many genres as there are books.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Hmmm. That's true, =Tamar... I've seen the "alternate history" genre also labelled "speculative fiction" and "counterfactual history" (i.e. not real history, but what it might have been).

Speaking of history, for my money, Thames & Hudson publish some of the best "accessible" history books. By accessible, I mean accessible to people who love history and take it seriously, but aren't professional historians (like me). What's your view?

It's true that genre naming has reached ridiculous proportions. I've read a book called "I wish I'd been there", where historians dramatise events that changed America. (The second volume refers to non-American events, as well). That genre is history - would you call it "dramatic history" (as opposed to a straight narrative?)

It's very simple. Books tell stories, something that humanity is very, very good at. As The Science of Discworld points out, we've always told stories. From the time of homo neanderthalensis, and probably even before, humans told each other and themselves stories about death, life, the universe, and ... well, everything!

(What do you know. I made a reference to Douglas Adams without even trying...)