Author Topic: Fantasy vs Fantasy  (Read 3537 times)

EUOL

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Fantasy vs Fantasy
« on: October 06, 2003, 11:20:51 PM »
Looking through the staff picks--which was VERY nicely done, by the way.  I liked the detailed links to both names and reviews--I noticed a springboard to something I've been curious about for a long time.

Fantasy is a very broad term.  It can, in one way, refer to any story whose elements deviate from the natural laws of this world.  When most of us say fantasy, however, we are referring to Tolkienesque, or "High Fantasy."  

So, what's my point?  I'm curious.  What exactly would you call this 'other' fantasy.  Fantasies such as all of Fell's picks.  Groundhog day and Mary Poppins.  Is there a term you guys know of to describe this sub-genre?
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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2003, 11:45:23 PM »
I think a good place to start is by arguing about the terms "contemporary fantasy" and "magical realism."

The latter, in my opinion implies a belief that magic (at least of whatever, usually limited, scope contained in the story) is real, and therefore it is not fantasy. Which also makes the phrase "magical realism" semi-redundant, since if magic is real, you don't usually need it as an adjective for realism. In short, I don't really like it for a fantasy phrase, and since it is in use to describe existing works that may or may not be fantasy, let's not use that.

Contemporary fantasy I like better. This is probalby personal bias, but to me it implies "low magic," or at least, as in Mary Poppins, magic that is surprising in its existence. It says to me: "I'm in a setting you already know, but I'm gonna throw in a faerie or a small dragon, or a swarm giant wasps that can only be trapped by building the world's biggest jam sandwich." (sorry, with that last one i'm just remembering a favorite children's book). I wouldn't object grouping Mary Poppins or Groundhog Day in that category.

Now, here comes the part where people disagree with me.

stacer

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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2003, 12:44:34 AM »
EUOL, I just spent an entire semester arguing with classmates over the different sub-categorizations within fantasy and what fantasy is. At least within children's literature, there's wide disagreement about what should be considered in the realm of fantasy and how the larger genre should be subdivided. Here's the subcategories I came up with for that final project I was working on. They're fluid, though--some are more for convenience of fitting them into some place, and could go in more than one category, or don't really have a category. (These are not in any particular order, and some might be considered subcategories of another if I thought about it enough.)

     
Myth, folklore & legend

Turning the old stories on their heads (or, sometimes, not)--Retellings of fairy and folk tales--Using the old stories--fairy, myth, and legend--to fuel new ones
      -Fairy/folk stories after the British tradition (including all Celtic traditions, English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish)
      -Fairy/folk stories after non-Western traditions

Satire/tall tale/humorous
     
Toy stories

Witches, sorcerers, and dragons (and other magical people/creatures)

The Quest/High Fantasy

Portals to other worlds

Parallel worlds

Ghost stories

Animal fantasy

Non-human people and/or other weirdos

Wishes

Magical realism

Time Travel  (sometimes fantasy, sometimes science fiction)
« Last Edit: October 07, 2003, 12:47:43 AM by norroway »
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JP Dogberry

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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2003, 01:48:40 AM »
The giant Jam sandwhich? I love that book. I mean, it makes perfectly logical sense.

As for fantasy genre names, I find it sort of interesting that we have "High Fantasy" at all, considering how much of it is simply trying to rewrite Tolkein (Not that some isn't original, but there's a lot of pointless fiction out there) It's kind of gotten to the stage where people take things such as Mary Poppins or whatever, that is real fanatasy, and don't really notice it as such.

Feel free to argue the point, since it's probably wrong on some fundamental level anyway.
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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2003, 07:23:14 AM »
And once again british folklore gets mentioned. Are we just really good at making nifty legends or what?
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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2003, 08:29:16 AM »
With Stacer's list, i think we could narrow that down to some more fundamental categories, but I'm not going to do it right now. I think also we should say "British and Western European traditions, esp since there are a lot of books based on French and Spanish ideas (and the French are responsible for half the Arthurian canon, for example).
I also maintain my dislike of "magical realism" as a fantasy subgenre. To be clear that we're nto talking about a subcategory of the realist movement, I still advocate "contemporary fantasy" (which is further broken into "modern" and "historical"). Groundhog Day, for example, being modern, while Mary Poppins is set in a more historical time.

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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2003, 08:39:58 AM »
Isn't there also a science fiction fantasy, like Pern became?
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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2003, 08:49:38 AM »
I think that falls under the "parallel world." How they got there being not important. The science, after all, was highly dubious at best. Taken as a  fantasy, it was pretty good.

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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2003, 09:06:14 AM »
I guess the Shadowrun novels are alternate worlds too.
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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2003, 10:51:11 AM »
You could argue that is parallel world or contemporary fantasy. Most likely a combination of the two. This is a good example of what Stacer pointed out, that the definitions aren't hard and fast, but fluid. They do pretty much catch them all, but they don't provide a rigid system that everything fits into neatly.

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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #10 on: October 07, 2003, 11:26:43 AM »
I read somewhere (I can't remember where) where someone grouped Groundhog Day into a category called "Sentimental Fantasy".  The category included other romantic comedy films with fantasy elements, such as Serendipity, or LA Story.
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Mad Dr Jeffe

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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #11 on: October 07, 2003, 11:29:56 AM »
Sentimental fantasy? Weird...
I always felt LA story was more of a fun remake of Hamlet myself.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2003, 11:30:29 AM by ElJeffe »
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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #12 on: October 07, 2003, 11:32:51 AM »
I think the setting determines the genre.  At least that's the way the definitions seems to work on a large, general understanding kind of level.  What's the word for it?  Resonance, I think.  That's why most people (perhaps not afficionados, but most people) will think something along the lines of Tolkien when they hear the word "fantasy."  And when you say "science fiction" they're going to think Star Wars, because of the setting.  Lasers and spaceships.  (Even though some people - not your average Joe but people who study it - consider Star Wars more fantasy than sci-fi.)  

So things that are set in versions of the "real world," like Groundhog Day or Mary Poppins, in most people's minds (I think) are not going to be fantasy.  Even something as overtly magical and with as many fantasy elements as Harry Potter.  I have no proof of this, but I have a gut feeling that people would be hesitant to place the Potter movies in the same catagory with LotR.  It might seem strange, even to them, when faced with all of the similarities, but something inside them would resist it.  All because of the setting.  Harry Potter is set in a version of the real world, not a fabricated one.

I'm not saying I agree with this method of classification.  I'm just stating what seems to me to be the way people at large make the distinction.  These are just some thoughts.  In the English language, it seems that academics can argue what words should or should not be used, but what determines usage in the long run is how most of the people who speak the language use it.  (I, along with millions of others,  think "they" is a perfect gender neutral singular pronoun, regardless of the grammarians, and history will prove us right.)

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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #13 on: October 07, 2003, 11:45:39 AM »
well, there's a difference

On the one hand you're talking language "they" etc.
On the other hand, you're talking about professional definitions. And whatever people want to call the "doohickey" on the back of their computer, it's still going to be a USB port, because professionals need to have specialized vocabulary to do their job accurately and well.
It's the same with Literary studies, which as a Comparitist, and many of us as aspiring authors (or in EUOL's case, a professional author) we havea  legitimate interest in specific vocabulary. So Sam Goody and Suncoast and HBO can categorize a move however they want, but when we're talking about genre definitions, my first reaction is to respond as a professional, where "most of the people" don't factor in.

in short, use "they," it really does make sense. At least as much sense as using "he" to be gender non-specific. But if we're going to talk about literary studies, let's use the language of literary studies, not the language of marketing.

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Re: Fantasy vs Fantasy
« Reply #14 on: October 07, 2003, 11:57:34 AM »
Yeah, I agree with you.  I guess I was just pointing out what most people think when you start dropping these words, and if that has any bearing on what professionals decide, because it still seems to be up in the air a bit.  Sorry if that last part seemed a tad flippant.