The confusion of fantasy genres

[Yora]

Because the issue came up somwhere else and I tried to check some facts and there does indeed seem to be no pattern to it at all. Wikipedia and TV Tropes should know, but they both contradict each other all the time.

The most basic "model" is that there is "High Fantasy" and "The Other Fantasy".

Then there is Sword & Sorcery and Heroic Fantasy, which are pretty much two names for exactly the same thing; Dark Fantasy, which I consider just a darker shade of the other two; and the horrible mess that is the term Low Fantasy.

I think the main confusion is from the fact that the common definitions of High Fantasy include two completely unrelated elements:
- A self-contained fictional world unrelated to the real world.
- A story of epic scale between forces of good and evil.

You can have both, you can have either, you can have none, and it's still fantasy.
I think effectively what we really have is a system of four sub-genres, not two:

Self-contained world, Epic scale
Connected world, Epic scale
Self-contained world, Personal scale
Connected world, Personal scale

Now when speaking of a self-contained world, I think there is some wiggle room that has to be made. Technically Lord of the Rings and Conan, and even Star Wars are supposed to have taken place in the distant past of the real world. But since there are no references to that fact or mentions of real world things except for animals and plants in those works, one can still consider them self-contained world in essence.
However Narnia starts with real world people in real world places, traveling to a paralel world that happens to be a fantasy world. Such would be a case of a connected world.

When it comes to scale, I would not make the distinction at how many people are involved, but the view the author and the audience has on the events. In an Epic story we usually follow a few main characters, but we follow them because of their relevance to a much greater thing that is going on. In the Epic story, we have a historical view on events.
In the personal scale, the focus is much more on the characters. Who sometimes happen to get involved into bigger events, but the focus is on how the characters deal with their situation and they may even turn their back on things before they have come to a conclusion. The view is that of a biography.

High Fantasy in the narrower sense, could be used as a term for works that combine both of the "classic elements". Being self-contained worlds on an epic scale.
Heroic Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery are both quite clearly defined as works with self-contained world that are on a personal scale.

Which leaves us with the other two connected-world variants. I would guess the connected world, personal scale is the type into which almost all fairy tales fall. But of course there can be a lot more.
In the connected world, epic scale, we would have such things as Neverending Story, which is the only one I know well enough to be sure about.

What's your thoughts on this?

[Traab]

My thoughts are, there is fantasy, and there is sci fi. I dont try to break it up any further than that.

[GolemsVoice]

When I say High Fantasy, I think of dragons, widespread magic, magical items, wizards, big heroes, large battles, flying castles, whatever. So basically, the world is fantastic. and often not subtly, but openly so.

That's why D&D, to me, is High Fantasy, usually. You have a host of incredible creatures, you're decked in magical items, you can tear your enemies asunder by magic, and you can (easily) visit the most outlandishly magical realms.
This definition, to me, goes hand in hand with the scale. If you are powerful, like, really powerful, as D&D characters often are, at least at higher levels, you won't spend your time working for the mayor of Tinytown. You go and have the big adventure, slaying dragons and finding MacGuffins, because that's what heroes of your type do. It doesn't always have to be violence and battles, but even if it's only diplomacy, you'll likely decide the fate of kingdoms, not of villages.

Low Fantasy, on the other hand, is everything High Fantasy is not, consequently. Lower powerlevel, there is less magic, or it is much harder to achieve, the places you visit aren't frequently only possible by magic, and the scale is usually smaller.

Of course, nothing I said is always the case, this is no list you can check to determine what's what. It's a guide.

[Kato]

I don't see the connected vs not-connected angle...

Doing a quick check, apparently wikipedia indeed distinguishes between "set on earth" for low and "set in another world" for high fantasy. But tv tropes already takes a completely different stance. (Those are the two sites I get proper hits from, anyway)
My personal view though seems much closer to tv tropes definition. Not so much the scale of the magic power though but it's impact on the story, or even the way the story progresses.

High Fantasy is elves and knights and courts and wizards and the world being at stake.
Where Low Fantasy is just a town somewhere in a world that's not quite ours with dwarfs and elves and goblins mixed among the people and maybe some magic users but the story isn't so much about heroic deeds or saving the world but about life in another world, different from ours.
So you could of course have a High and a Low fantasy setting in the same world, just telling different stories...

I'll admit that comes nowhere near the problem of Harry Potter vs LotR but to me it is quite a different thing. Heck, I have a hard time thinking of HP or any other "real world " story as fantasy, though I do lack a proper term to use for it.

But really, I don't like wikipedia's point because... how is that High and Low? HP has just as much weirdness going on as LotR or any other epic, there is no low amount of fantasy or anything.

[snoopy13a]

Currently, I think the biggest genre is modern fantasy--witches, werewolves, vampires (especially vampires), in a contemporary setting.

[MLai]

I always thought HF meant the overtly fantastic AD&D-type stuff: Fireballs and chain lightning, elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, wizards, etc. Greek myths also qualify.

And LF meant: Medieval or similarly ancient world, with a whiff of magic, and the rare magical creature. But mostly humans with swords. The first Conan movie would qualify as LF.

[HeadlessMermaid]

real world people in real world places, traveling to a paralel world that happens to be a fantasy world. Such would be a case of a connected world.
[...]
I would guess the connected world, personal scale is the type into which almost all fairy tales fall.
Fairy tales as in folk tales? Or as in modern stories with fantastical elements and a fairy tale "feel"?

If we're talking about modern stories, then yes, it's very common. Somewhere in the mundane world there's an entrance (a door, a book, a wardrobe, a rabbit-hole, a mirror, a bridge), and if you go through it, you find yourself in another world full of wonder. Or dread. Or both.

But in folk tales and folklore, you don't usually need a door. The fantastical elements are right there in front of you (animals talk, horses fly, witches enchant, giants stomp, nymphs sing). You accept that and roll with it. So it's not so much a connected world, as a transformed world.

This is comparable with urban fantasy, where the world is just as we know it today, except that this funeral parlor is secretly run by vampires, and in that pub down the road there's a wizard in a trench-coat chatting with a tall guy who is apparently the Lord of Dreams.

Basically, if by "fantasy" we don't mean heroic fantasy in particular, but ALL sorts of fantasy (magical realism, ghost stories, Gothic tales, urban fantasy, myth and folklore, whathaveyou), then Self-contained/Connected doesn't cover the full scale. It probably works just fine with heroic, though.


In the connected world, epic scale, we would have such things as Neverending Story, which is the only one I know well enough to be sure about.
Technically, yes. But if you think about it, everything "epic" in the Neverending Story is just the bait - both for Bastian and the reader. It's not the climax, it's the setup.

The real journey begins when the epic stuff is over and done with (the world is saved, well done, Bastian, you're a hero!), and now this hero has to find himself, his true self, his true wishes.

And in that sense, I think there's not a single story in the entire fantasy genre that's more personal - or more human - than the Neverending Story.

[MLai]

Oho, do I spot a Neverending Story fan?
I suppose you read German. IIRC, that's the original language of the novel, correct?
Is the movie even close to the novel?

[Lord Raziere]

Heh, if DnD is considered High Fantasy, then I'm probably going for Sky High Fantasy with at least one place I'm making….

also, if there is a high and a low fantasy, wheres the middle fantasy?

[Radar]

I think, that the distinction between self-contained world and connected one is quite irrelevant. Chronicles of Narnia is High Fantasy despite the fact, that many main characters are from Earth. For me High Fantasy is defined by two things:
1. Grand scale of action (in Narnia you can witness the creation and end of the whole world and many struggles, which changed it's fate)
2. Solid distinction between good and evil (take any High Fantasy work and it's there).
Magic is not as important: in Lord of The Rings itself magic is rare and difficult. Only a handful of characters can use it and they do it as rarely as possible.

Take the world of The Witcher:
1. Widespread and powerful magic? Check.
2. Grand scale of action? Check (those unfamiliar with the novels will have to take my word for it).
3. Distinction between good and evil? Not really.
High fantasy it is not.

[Eldan]

Oho, do I spot a Neverending Story fan?
I suppose you read German. IIRC, that's the original language of the novel, correct?
Is the movie even close to the novel?

Sort of. It's the first part of the novel, in a condensed form. The later parts of the movies had almost nothing to do with the novel, though. THe second at least stole a few plot elements in very altered form.

[MLai]

I refuse to acknowledge any movie sequels to The Neverending Story and The Secret of NIMH exist.

Therefore they do not exist.

[NikitaDarkstar]

AS far as fantasy goes I don't even try to break it up further than High Fantasy and Urban Fantasy. High fantasy being your normal fantasy with dragons, magic, different races, etc. set in a world that isn't our own (Narnia, Dragonlance, Lord of the Rings and similar works goes here.) Then you got Urban Fantasy which is set in our own world but with a fantastical element to it, but just not that obvious and most people would never notice it. (American Gods, Neverwhere, Magic Burns, etc. goes into this category.)

And that's as far as I try to break it up, any more and it turns into a huge mess.

[kpenguin]

Invented World vs. Real World+ seems to be how the terms were originally used and are continued to be used by literary scholars to categorize and critique fantasy, so I that's how I define my High Fantasy vs. Low.

[Manga Shoggoth]

I refuse to acknowledge any movie sequels to The Neverending Story and The Secret of NIMH exist.

Therefore they do not exist.

How can you have a sequel to The Neverending Story when no-one made a film of it in the first place?

The Neverending Story remains one of the most dreadful film adaptations I have ever seen then tried very hard to forget. If I recall correctly, the author disowned the film.

[Yora]

Fairy tales as in folk tales? Or as in modern stories with fantastical elements and a fairy tale "feel"?
I was specifically thinking of Grimm's Fairy Tales antology. I guess the German word Märchen is not completely identical with the English Fairy Tale.

I always thought HF meant the overtly fantastic AD&D-type stuff: Fireballs and chain lightning, elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, wizards, etc. Greek myths also qualify.

And LF meant: Medieval or similarly ancient world, with a whiff of magic, and the rare magical creature. But mostly humans with swords. The first Conan movie would qualify as LF.
That certainly is a useful way to make a distinction. Just too bad not everyone agrees with it. :smallamused:

Oho, do I spot a Neverending Story fan?
I suppose you read German. IIRC, that's the original language of the novel, correct?
Actually, no. Our parents read it to us two or three times when we were kids and I guess it was okay, but I don't like that type of fantasy at all. It always seems cheap and fake to me, in some way. But I never read Narnia, Peter Pan, or any other like that, so that's the only one I was sure about fitting the type of story I meant.
I think I saw one movie once 20 years ago, but I remember even less of it, except that I didn't like it. It just doesn't catch the atmosphere, it's way to sparkly and... well, way too 80's glittery. The book was much more bleak and melancholic, and very introspective. The movie was eye candy. I think even as a primary schooler, I was already a kind of fantasy-snob. :smallbiggrin:

And the nothing is just lame. In the movie things just dissolve and disintegrate. But the whole point to it is that it's not destruction, it's the complete negation of existance. And I doubt it has the scenes of some creatures who have been partly consumed but are still alive as more and more of their bodies slowly ceases to exist.

I am not a fan, but if you love the movie, you clearly should read the book. I don't like it, but for what it sets out to do, it's really damn good.

Here is a summary of some of the changes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NeverEnding_Story_%28film%29#Differences_from_ the_novel)

Several characters such as the will-o'-the-wisp (Blubb) and the giant shapeshifting Ygramul were cut from the film

the giant shapeshifting Ygramul

Ygramul
:smalleek: Waaaahhh... Childhood Trauma Flashback!!! :smalleek:

I don't remember what it was, but it was pure Lovecraft Horror from the Abyss.

Found a picture (http://splurch2006.deviantart.com/art/Ygramul-the-Many-169717137) on google.

[Soras Teva Gee]

What the heck is this "Low Fantasy" everyone is talking about?

Seriously nothing is ever going to advertise itself as being "low" its going to develop its own genre label. Which make "High Fantasy" just another sub-genre itself not any meaningful contrast to anything.

[Lord Raziere]

STG: You know those settings where magic is incredibly rare and costly, most of the places are sparsely supernatural with very little magic going on, and the protagonists mostly do things with normal skills of humanity and such? yea thats kinda low fantasy.

think places like Dragon Age when its not ravaged by the Blight, Conan the Cimmerian, or a Song of Ice and Fire… at least in the first book…. the point is that the magic isn't some daily thing and when it does show up, it does something plot important or something particularly awesome, and nothing else.

[Morty]

I think that, like many other people, you treat casual labels too seriously. They're not supposed to be strict definitions and using them this way leads to confusion and (pointless) arguments. They're useful when you try to differentiate between two works of fiction, but shouldn't be treated as anything more than that. Fiction in general tends to be hard to classify - see also various arguments as to whether something counts as fantasy or science fiction in the first place.

[kpenguin]

What the heck is this "Low Fantasy" everyone is talking about?

Seriously nothing is ever going to advertise itself as being "low" its going to develop its own genre label. Which make "High Fantasy" just another sub-genre itself not any meaningful contrast to anything.

Low fantasy advertises itself as being low on fantastic elements, desirable by those who have low tolerance for excessive fantasy. I imagine its rather like advertising food as "low fat"

[Prime32]

The difference between High Fantasy and Low Fantasy is pretty close to the difference between "high-concept" and "low-concept". The first is about saving the world or otherwise doing strange and exciting things, the second is about daily life.

[Tengu_temp]

The differences between fantasy subgenres depend less on the setting and more on the kind of story you want to tell. You know, just like it's not a gangster story just because it takes place in the 1920s.

And DND is so not high fantasy. High fantasy is characterized by a world filled with wonder and mystery, and an epic scale of things happening. Lord of the Rings, Earthsea - those are high fantasy stories. The magic in DND is too utilitarian, too trivialized and devoid of any sense of wonder, and the feel the game gives is usually too focused on either fast-paced adventure or killing monsters and taking their stuff. DND is either sword and sorcery, or heroic fantasy.

[t209]

The differences between fantasy subgenres depend less on the setting and more on the kind of story you want to tell. You know, just like it's not a gangster story just because it takes place in the 1920s.

And DND is so not high fantasy. High fantasy is characterized by a world filled with wonder and mystery, and an epic scale of things happening. Lord of the Rings, Earthsea - those are high fantasy stories. The magic in DND is too utilitarian, too trivialized and devoid of any sense of wonder, and the feel the game gives is usually too focused on either fast-paced adventure or killing monsters and taking their stuff. DND is either sword and sorcery, or heroic fantasy.

Or DnD Could be any fantasy, based on the DM's action, like dark fantasy (if the settings is dark as Warhammer and Diablo), High Fantasy, and Heroic Fantasy.

[Morty]

Getting D&D to be dark fantasy would require so much tinkering with the system you'll be better off playing something else.

[Lord Raziere]

yea well….I honestly cannot think of many RPG's that can do high fantasy well. high fantasy is oddly enough, a hard genre to write for- you have to get people interested in an epic scope tale of powerful magic and such without making it come off as silly or funny in the wrong way.

I mean think about it, high fantasy most of time doesn't involve silly PC antics and such that ruin the tone and such...

[NikitaDarkstar]

yea well….I honestly cannot think of many RPG's that can do high fantasy well. high fantasy is oddly enough, a hard genre to write for- you have to get people interested in an epic scope tale of powerful magic and such without making it come off as silly or funny in the wrong way.

I mean think about it, high fantasy most of time doesn't involve silly PC antics and such that ruin the tone and such...

Even harder, from a world building point of view, is to make it high fantasy (powerful magic, powerful beings, etc.) and still have reasons to have a good plot. If the plot is mainly about a journey (Lord of the rings) but you got DnD styled magic you suddenly need a justification for why teleporting isn't an option. Or if you have epic wizards and some dark emperor somewhere wanting to take over the world, well why aren't the wizards doing something about it? Or the dragons? Or <insert epic power here>?

High fantasy makes good personal tales (stories focused on one, or a few characters personal journey) but it doesn't work to well in an epic scope. I've seen it done, but it's rare and still ends up with some issues here and there. (The Malazan book of the Fallen is in my opinion the best example (of what I've read) of this. But the characters involved are anything but normal (or in some cases starts out as normal but stops being normal after a while.), but it's also a seriously dark story, and it still has some issues going on here and there. (Characters tend to not stay dead. Or well they do, it jsut doesn't stop them.)

[Lord Raziere]

Exactly, which causes you to start defining various things about the epic powers when magic is supposed to be mysterious.

which soon leads to magic not being mysterious because you defined it all.

or the epic powers somehow being stupid.

really, high fantasy isn't a good genre for roleplaying unless you've got really dedicated people who can find reasons NOT to abuse the setting into the ground with PC shenanigans.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Exactly, which causes you to start defining various things about the epic powers when magic is supposed to be mysterious.

which soon leads to magic not being mysterious because you defined it all.

or the epic powers somehow being stupid.

really, high fantasy isn't a good genre for roleplaying unless you've got really dedicated people who can find reasons NOT to abuse the setting into the ground with PC shenanigans.

Actually, to me it's a good genre for roleplaying, it's writing that gets strange pretty fast if the author isn't VERY careful.

But then, I don't play with people who abuse things to much and we got a kind of humorous take on anything really. (Anime physics are in play in our games.)

[Yora]

I don't think D&D fits into the same category with anything. The only other thing where magic is comparably strong is Exalted from what I've heard, because there everyone are divine beings.

And retarded anime for 10 year old boys. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFRWIHQPggo&feature=related)

[TheThan]

To me it’s always been a question of scale. The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, the Wheel of Time, and other stories in the same vein I group as “epic” fantasy, because they take place on a global scale, with many characters and far reaching goals.

Sword and Sorcery (aka Pulp fantasy) tends to have a more personal scale. There are fewer characters and they have much more personal goals. The action also typically takes place in a much smaller area, such as a single city, or country or geographic area. Good examples are Conan the barbarian, The Beastmaster, Dragonheart, Kull the conqueror, the Scorpion King etc. (sure most of these are movies but still).

The amount or power of magic or how mundane the setting is, doesn’t really matter to me. Conan lived in a world ripe with magic, (dangerous, dark and disturbing magic, mind you), but still Howards’ works are not considered “high” or “epic” fantasy, instead it’s considered Sword and Sorcery. I think because of these traits I’ve listed above. In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf isn’t running around sling spells left and right, but still the series is considered “high” or “epic” fantasy, because of the traits I’ve listed above.

[Tengu_temp]

DND does not really have a ridiculously high power level, it's just that casters are so versatile they can do anything while non-casters mostly just get tougher. There's a lot of settings with more consistently high power level, including but not limited fantasy such as Amber, lots of science fiction (the Culture is the most prominent example), wuxia movies, Celtic mythology, and a lot of anime and video games, many of which are much smarter and better than DBZ.

[Soras Teva Gee]

STG: You know those settings where magic is incredibly rare and costly, most of the places are sparsely supernatural with very little magic going on, and the protagonists mostly do things with normal skills of humanity and such? yea thats kinda low fantasy.

think places like Dragon Age when its not ravaged by the Blight, Conan the Cimmerian, or a Song of Ice and Fire… at least in the first book…. the point is that the magic isn't some daily thing and when it does show up, it does something plot important or something particularly awesome, and nothing else.

I was commenting on how I consider the idea silly, not that I was ignorant of it.

For example Conan I've heard described as THE sword & sorcery text. Never as "low fantasy" if you will.

Also it is not in the same genre as ASoFaI which doesn't dwell on it but is totally high fantasy. They don't have seasons, remember? This has some serious implications just waiting.


DND does not really have a ridiculously high power level, it's just that casters are so versatile they can do anything while non-casters mostly just get tougher. There's a lot of settings with more consistently high power level, including but not limited fantasy such as Amber, lots of science fiction (the Culture is the most prominent example), wuxia movies, Celtic mythology, and a lot of anime and video games, many of which are much smarter and better than DBZ.

Well kinda depends. Certain elements in the settings can be pretty high-end. Raistlin beating the gods and wrecking Krynn anyone?

However the typical adventuring party yeah is nominally supposed to be well below that... and kinda screwed over from the mechanics but that need not delay us here.

[TheThan]

[off topic]
Please realize that DBZ is supposed to be rather silly, it’s an action/comedy. It’s why the characters are pretty stupid. I mean, one of their major villains turns people into candy. But all in all, nearly everything after Goku becomes a Super Sayan really starts to fall flat.

[JCarter426]

Interesting subject. I'd say fairy tales are more magical realism than any fantasy subgenres I've seen mentioned. They're set in the real world, characters are usually real people - anything from a girl visiting her grandmother to a princess, but still real people. The supernatural exists alongside reality - fairy godmothers, dwarves, curses - but they aren't part of it, no elven slaves or mage guilds.

I think there are other variables, though - how magic is treated, for example; sometimes it's more science than magic, and that can affect the story. There are plenty of low fantasy stories that are indistinguishable from certain soft sci-fi stories apart from the setting.

[MLai]

And retarded anime for 10 year old boys.
I just watched all of that.

And I liked it.

[Sanguine]

Also it is not in the same genre as ASoFaI which doesn't dwell on it but is totally high fantasy. They don't have seasons, remember? This has some serious implications just waiting.

:smallconfused: Uhm, yes they do. They're kind of a big deal. They are however very different from ours as Summer and Winter are both incredibly long, lasting multiple years each. Which is admittedly fairly fantastical. However, if I'm not mistaken, which I very well could be, an elliptical orbit would explain this.

[Lord Raziere]

I just watched all of that.

And I liked it.

Yea, DBZ is a classic. Its a shame that people rip on it so much just because the combat isn't some really fast and tactical thing full of tricks and genius stratagems. When people duke it out in reality, it isn't with the minds of tactical masters making complex genius maneuvers- its mostly just people, kicking, punching and attacking each other until one, often the less powerful one with less muscle and experience is too tired to get up again. DBZ just takes it up to the level of destroying worlds with it.

that and the villains are guys powerful enough that taking them down is an arc unto themselves. sure none of it is particularly genius level tactics or whatever, but that was never really the point. The point was a bunch of super-strong people having fist-fights that destroy worlds to defend against evil. and despite the utterly ridiculous power levels shown, they took it seriously- they fight to defend Earth with all they have, and often some or most of them die in the process, with only the Dragon Balls restoring them to life keeping it from being completely grimdark. and thats ok! it acknowledges that these people do kill a lot of people during their fights, and that what they do is indeed dangerous.

[MLai]

The biggest reason I like it (other than the cool fights in the manga) is because of Goku. Here's a nice good guy who also admits that fighting to him is an end, not the means to an end. American heroes never admit that (in DBZ's time), or are savages because they admit that.

[dps]

I always thought HF meant the overtly fantastic AD&D-type stuff: Fireballs and chain lightning, elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, wizards, etc. Greek myths also qualify.

And LF meant: Medieval or similarly ancient world, with a whiff of magic, and the rare magical creature. But mostly humans with swords. The first Conan movie would qualify as LF.

I roughly agree. In another thread (I guess the one that inspired this one) I said that I though High Fantasy is fantasy in which magic and the supernatural was prominent, and Low Fantasy is fantasy in which magic and the supernatural is rare.

That definition would suggest that there is a continuum rather than a binary split. The Wheel of Time series would be well over to the High Fantasy end of the spectrum, whereas A Song of Ice and Fire series would be over towards the Low Fantasy end of the scale.

[Soras Teva Gee]

:smallconfused: Uhm, yes they do. They're kind of a big deal. They are however very different from ours as Summer and Winter are both incredibly long, lasting multiple years each. Which is admittedly fairly fantastical. However, if I'm not mistaken, which I very well could be, an elliptical orbit would explain this.

Yes but remember why Earth has seasons?

You can't have irregular seasons for the reasons we do, celestial movements are precise like that. Nevermind the duration and IIRC that not matching up to its cause.

That adds up to a millennia long magical effect on a planetary scale.

[MLai]

The seasons of Westeros' world aren't regular (long winter -> long summer -> ad infinitum)? But didn't they predict the long winter coming? How do they do that if it's not regular?

I've never read the books, just following the TV series.

[Philistine]

Invented World vs. Real World+ seems to be how the terms were originally used and are continued to be used by literary scholars to categorize and critique fantasy, so I that's how I define my High Fantasy vs. Low.

This. This is what the terms actually mean. All the other things - degree of prevalence of magic/magical creatures, scale and scope, clashing morality, all of that - are based on this.

High Magic settings are usually found in High Fantasy works, because it's easier to do "magic on every street corner" if you don't have to figure out how and why everyone IRL doesn't know about it. Stories of the epic clashes of Good vs Evil are usually found in High Fantasy works, because the lines aren't usually that clear-cut IRL. On the other hand, gritty, character-driven stories are usually associated with Low Fantasy just because most authors who have spent the time and energy to work out their Invented World setting in detail quite naturally want to show the thing off - which almost requires a wider scope.

You can use whatever meaning you like to whatever word you please, of course. But if you start using "bluebird" to refer to refrigerators, then your communication difficulties are all your own fault.

[Chromascope3D]

Why does fantasy have to be isolated and compartmentalized? Isn't that why it's, y'know, fantasy? :smalltongue:

[dps]

Why does fantasy have to be isolated and compartmentalized? Isn't that why it's, y'know, fantasy? :smalltongue:

Well, just classifying a work as fantasy in the first place isolates and compartmentalizes it to an extent. As for why, well, it's useful when discussing something to be able to define it. Sure, we can talk about fiction in general, but we can have more in-depth, specific discussion if we talk about a particular genre, such as fantasy, SF, romance, etc. Within those genres, we can have even more focused discussions if we break them into subgenres. And of course, the discussions can be yet even more focused if we go to the level of the works of a particular author within a subgenre, and even further if we go to the level of a particular work.

[erikun]

I think one of the problems is that the definitions have shifted meaning, or at least the popular understanding of the genre names have shifted.

Back around the time Tolkien was writing, the major fiction camps were fantasy and science fiction. Fantasy was about the unrealistic stuff, like dragons and wizards and vampires, while science fiction was about how a world (not even necessarily ours) would be if some principles of physics were true. The thing is, when you read 50+ year old fiction, that the themes of these two genres weren't necessarily that different. You'd have dragons and wizards who are trying to explain their abilities with psudoscientific descriptions, and you'd have science fiction stories about talking mechanical clockwork horses in the old west.

Heck, there was a lot of fantasy that used scientific understanding as an attempt to explain their setting. You could say that fiction was using science to explain how their world worked, while science fiction was using science to determine how their world worked. The setting really didn't matter.

(Before that, there wasn't as much scientific understanding, and so there really wasn't a science fiction genre per se.)

The problem, though, is that the common settings have bled into popular mindset as equilivant to the genres. Everyone things of Tolkien when they hear fantasy and everyone thinks of Asimov when they hear sci-fi. As such, a lot of people have equated medieval/Tolkien with the fantasy genre and future/sci-fi with science fiction. It has gotten to the point where you could have a medieval story with no magic be called "low magic fantasy" and something like Star Wars being called sci-fi! Heck, we even have this new genre called "Modern Fantasy", which doesn't really make much sense when you think about it. (Why is that title necessary?)


As for the high-fantasy/low-fantasy discussion, I'd say that low-fantasy is a setting where magic is uncommon while high-fantasy in one where magic is common. A story that is otherwise normal but with a fairy grandmother performing a few magical tricks would likely fit the low-fantasy description quite well, because the magic is relevant but doesn't encompass everything. Something where the magical/fantasy elements are everywhere in the story is more of high-fantasy.

A story could progress or change between the two, depending on how much magic/etc plays into it. I'd say a lot of D&D games at least try to be low-fantasy that progresses into high-fantasy, or are intentionally avoiding doing so.

[Yora]

Why does fantasy have to be isolated and compartmentalized? Isn't that why it's, y'know, fantasy? :smalltongue:
A few week ago I was asking if anyone knows good sword & sorcery anime. Something like Rune Soldier, Slayers, Berserk, or Tower of Druaga, with Seirei no Moribito also being allowed in. In still people kept recommending stuff like Full Metal Alchemist and Tenchi Muyo. And I said "Sword and Sorcery" because I wanted to avoid people just mentioning everything that could be called fantasy in the most widest sense.

I think it's really helpful to be able to say "Type X Fantasy" than always having to say "Fantasy that is like A, and B, and C, and has things like this and that, but not like X, and Y, and Z, or anything that has some thing or another".

When I say "Cyberpunk", I can at least be sure that people won't be recommending Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and X-Files. Might get a mention of Terminator, but that's still within an acceptable range of error.

[Kato]

:smallconfused: Uhm, yes they do. They're kind of a big deal. They are however very different from ours as Summer and Winter are both incredibly long, lasting multiple years each. Which is admittedly fairly fantastical. However, if I'm not mistaken, which I very well could be, an elliptical orbit would explain this.

Putting aside the fact that earth's seasons are not because earth orbit is slightly elliptical, as Soras said, the problem is the different length. Even if the prediction: "Long summer -> long winter" is aways/most of the time true, that is not an explanation for how their solar system works. But we know a bit too little to make any proper assumptions, maybe they are really in a flat earth world.



I think it is a good idea to get proper definitions for genres but even if we were able to agree... that wouldn't even apply to the whole forum, yet alone the internet... Sadly.

[Yora]

Strong volcanic activity an Earth frequently makes winters much longer and in severe caqses summer pretty much nonexisting on a global scale.

[GolemsVoice]

Why does fantasy have to be isolated and compartmentalized? Isn't that why it's, y'know, fantasy?

I think it's not a totally dead serious discussion, but classifying genres and subgenres helps communication, as Yora said.
If a prospective DM told me he wanted to run a High Fantasy game, I'd gladly agree, because I love HF. Now, the DM and I, we could have quite different ideas of what actually IS HF, and we could be disappointed. So it's good to clarify what you actually mean.


Putting aside the fact that earth's seasons are not because earth orbit is slightly elliptical, as Soras said, the problem is the different length. Even if the prediction: "Long summer -> long winter" is aways/most of the time true, that is not an explanation for how their solar system works. But we know a bit too little to make any proper assumptions, maybe they are really in a flat earth world.

I know neither the series nor the books, but from what I know, I'd still say ASoIaF is Low Fantasy, at least when it comes to magic. While the world may be inherently magical, accounting for the long and irregular seasons, the daily life is not. Who cares if the world is carried on the back of a giant turtle and mountains exist because a god literally pulled them out of the ground if the outcome is just a normal mountain and normal, if longer, seasons.

[dps]

Are seasons in the world of ASoIaF actually irregular, or are they just really long? If they're irregular, it might be because the planet is in a system with more than one star. A highly elliptical orbit would also work. Both would require that the planet be place just so it its system to be in a stable orbit such that the planet stay at a temperature that would support life as we know it, but both are possible.

If the seasons are just unusually long, though, it's possible the planet orbits a star much hotter than our sun, in which case it would orbit at a greater distance from its sun than earth does, resulting in far longer seasons.

[Knaight]

Are seasons in the world of ASoIaF actually irregular, or are they just really long? If they're irregular, it might be because the planet is in a system with more than one star. A highly elliptical orbit would also work. Both would require that the planet be place just so it its system to be in a stable orbit such that the planet stay at a temperature that would support life as we know it, but both are possible.
They're irregular. Season length appears to vary from about 3 years to 10 years, with winter and summer being particularly long. That said, there are mechanisms for this, given that the definition of seasons appears to be centered on weather patterns over a local area, meaning that you don't actually need the axis of the planet facing a particular direction in regards to the sun. Some form of cyclical atmospheric albedo variation where the exact length of the cycles is variable could possibly create this. I'm thinking that oceanic evaporation during the summer could provide cloud cover over the planet, increasing the albedo and producing a cooling effect (though water vapor is a greenhouse gas, so this is somewhat problematic). Then, once cloud cover is particularly high the temperature drops to the point where oceanic evaporation largely cuts off, producing large amounts of precipitation, largely snow near the poles and rain in more equatorial regions. This reduces the cloud cover, decreasing albedo, thus leading to increasing temperatures and starting the cycle over again. The question then becomes one of what causes this cloud cover, and what affects the distribution of cloud cover, and there are plenty of possibilities.

Moving away from the tangent: Classifying fantasy is going to need a border between science fiction. For instance, is space opera within the sphere of fantasy and thus something that a fantasy classification system needs to contain, or is it an irrelevant science fiction genre? I'm strongly in the former camp, but it is a point of contention.

[dps]

Moving away from the tangent: Classifying fantasy is going to need a border between science fiction. For instance, is space opera within the sphere of fantasy and thus something that a fantasy classification system needs to contain, or is it an irrelevant science fiction genre? I'm strongly in the former camp, but it is a point of contention.

I tend to disagree--space opera is pretty clear SF, not fantasy, IMO. I can see why some would say otherwise, though. But if it is SF, why would you consider it irrelevant?

[Knaight]

I tend to disagree--space opera is pretty clear SF, not fantasy, IMO. I can see why some would say otherwise, though. But if it is SF, why would you consider it irrelevant?

Science fiction is largely irrelevant to the categorization of fantasy genres, which is the context here. The category "not fantasy" can generally be ignored in the discussion, except for drawing the borders needed to cordon it off in the first place.

[MLai]

I'm of the opinion that sci fi never needs to be even remotely hard. So I don't see why space opera needs to be banished from the category of SF.

[Chromascope3D]

You know what I want to see? An RPG rooted in the lost world subgenre, Gulliver's Travels, or Wizard of Oz, where the characters are everyday joes who get thrust into a magical world, where they're powerless except for their wits, and have no real choice but to follow along with the inanity.

Or on that subject, an RPG taking place in a nonsense world like Wonderland, where the characters are still everyday joes, but everything makes even less sense.

[Yora]

There are some. I think Savage Worlds and Burning Wheels are intended just for that.

[Man on Fire]

Andrzej Sapkowski, the man who created The Witcher, seems to have similiar feeling about fantasy subgenres as you, but he would find your classification insufficient. His classification looked like this:

* Behind Closed Doors: All fantasy where character from our world travels to another, fantastic one or vice versa - Kay's "Fiovannar Tapestry", Gaiman's "Stardust" and Norton's "Witchworld" are good examples of that.
* Neverland - All fantasy set in it's own, separated world, with note that all kinds of loose connections to our world, like "it's Earth in the past on lost continent" (Howard's "Conan"), or "it's another planet" (Silverberg's "Madipoor"*), "it's Earth in the future" (Brook's "Shannara") or dropping spaceships out of nowhere (Lee's "Birthgrave") should be ignored. Tolkien's "Lord of The Rings" and Cook's 'Black Company" are Neverland work, so is Sapkowski's own "the Witcher".
* Retelling - All fantasy that tells again myth legend, fairy tale or well-know piece of literature. Must be noted that this genre is really easy to combine with others, mentioned below. Examples would include Sawnick's "Jack Faust" or Bradley's "Firebrand'
* Something Wicked This Way Comes: Magical elements exist in our worlds, but are hidden from ous, fantastic elements enters into, previously mundane, life of the protagonists. Examples would include Rowling's Harry Potter, McAvoy's Tea With Black Dragon or Updike's The Witches of Eastwick. Must be noted that the name of this subgenre is taken from Ray Bradbury's story, which has equally many fans claiming it's fantasy as that it's horror, because the line between this genre and horror is pretty thin.
* Between us, animals: Fantasy where characters aren't humans, but animals, yet still think, act and feel like humans and folow human morality. These stories must still have style akin to fantasy - political "Animal Farm" or postapocaliptic "Planet of Apes" are not past of this genre. Examples would include Addams' Watership Down, Howood's Duncton or or Ford's Faradawn.
* Urban Fantasy: Fantastic elements exist alongside mundane and the two interact on daily basis. Examples would include Helprin's "Winter's Tale" or Bull's "War of the Oaks".
** Magic Meets Software, which apkowski considers a subgenre of Urban Fantasy: Wizard gets his hands on computer. Examples would include Hambly's "Darkmage" and Shetterly' "The Tangled Lands".

Of course there are many cross genre works - for example, Foster's Spellsinger is a cross between Closed Doors and Animals and Zelazny's "Jack of Shadows" is cross between Closed Doors and Magic Meets Software.

* - He considers first book in the series to be fantasy, but not the rest, because they're devoid of the fantasy-esque style


While I accept Sapkowsi's classification as useful, in general I find it quite impractical for the purpose of recommendations. I mean, mangas "Inuyasha" and "Drifters" are the same genre according to it - Closed Doors - but I wouldn't recommend the latter to the former's fans. I personally preffer more traditional divide into catheogories as I see them:

* High Fantasy - Here the most important are the stakes. High fantasy must be epic. It's about threat to entire kingdom or even the world, that brave heroes must defeat, often going on a Quest to do so. It's about prince who lost his kingdom, when evil uncle murdered his father, it's about farmboy finding out he's a choosen one. It about powerful magic, whichmust be used wisely. On moral level it's about how such values as honor and friendship are key to victory.

* Heroic Fantasy - It's about adventurers, one or few people who travel the world and defeats all evil with help of their strength and wits, and sometimes some magic. An adventure doesn't end once first big evil was defeated, if there is continuous threat, hero travels the world and fights it's servants and it may even last once his story will end. Heroes of these stories are capable of achieving features far beyond human capabilities and often exist outside known social rules, several times serving as commentarry on our society.

* Low Fantasy - It's more down to earth and grittier, compared to the other two. Low fantasy isn't as much about bringing down the stakes, because those may be as high as in high fantasy, but it is about bringing characters down to Earth. They are more flawed, less idealistic, their goals aren't always so noble and if they are noble themslves, they may be shows their idealism is flawed and outdated. Magic rarerly is going to be remedium on all problems and usually has some sort of price going with it.

Long story short, I divide fantasy in three genres depending on their tone- idealistic, neutral and cynical.

And there are two genres that may overlap with those three Dark Fantasy, which is boderline horror and where fantastic elements, at least most of them, are shown as something bad and terryfing, and humoristic fantasy, which is capable of making fun of itself and making reader laugh, through straight parody or more subtle satire. Just as there can be optimistic dark fantasy, there may be cynical humoristic fantasy.

Of course some works will slip through all classifications, many are genre busting, but that's the beauty of the genre - things aren't set in stone, definitions evolve and there always will be something that cannot be put under any label.

[Knaight]

There are some. I think Savage Worlds and Burning Wheels are intended just for that.

Neither of these are, though Savage Worlds should work for it, given that it is a generic system.

[Yora]

Moving away from the tangent: Classifying fantasy is going to need a border between science fiction. For instance, is space opera within the sphere of fantasy and thus something that a fantasy classification system needs to contain, or is it an irrelevant science fiction genre? I'm strongly in the former camp, but it is a point of contention.

No matter how far you break it down, you will always have genre mash works. I think Star Wars will always be both.

I'd say the main difference is that Fantasy introduces new concepts and situations by introducing supernatural elements. Science fiction is about hypothetical scenarios that deal with technological advancement.

Science fiction in the past we have a lot, just because of the fact that those works are old and start with a baseline that lies far in the past from our perspective. But there isn't any real difference from having Jules Verne think "What devices could be created in the next two decades and what could the results be?", or to have someone in the present day think "What devices could have been feasable back in the 19th century and what might the results have been?". Both start with the same premise and apply the same new elements like steam power and electricity to them.
But there's no reason not to have fantasy set in the future or the present. Lovecraft and his successors are all clearly fantasy, dealing with supernatural forces rather then exploring the possibilities of technological advancement. You could say there isn't anything supernatural about Lovecraft Horror and the beings are just aliens using laws of physics yet unknown to human science. But they still don't deal with thought experiments of how technology could develop and be used in the future.

If you take Eberron, you have another genre mash. It has the supernatural forces, but then applies the principle of hypothetical industrial advancement to it. Once magic is understood, you can incorporate it into technological devices that change the life or everyday people. However, since that is just one small aspect of Eberron and most of the setting is purely dealing with the supernatural, it is not percieved as science fiction.

[Knaight]

I'd say the main difference is that Fantasy introduces new concepts and situations by introducing supernatural elements. Science fiction is about hypothetical scenarios that deal with technological advancement.

I'd define science fiction more simply, as fiction centered around scientific disciplines which does not contain magic. This encompasses technological advancement, but leaves open the possibility for science fiction focused on something like sociology. It also puts most space opera firmly in the fantasy camp on both counts, which is fine by me.

[Yora]

Space Opera needs to be more defined. I've seen Mass Effect and Bablyon 5 called that. They have psychic powers, but those are explained scientifically.

[JCarter426]

I'd say space opera is the high science fiction. Epic scales but focusing on a group of individual heroes, lots of different races, typically a clear good vs evil conflict... but it doesn't necessarily have to have all of these things to qualify.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Space Opera is High Fantasy by another name. Have an epic1 story, clear conflicts, high stakes. Wars or possible wars, and the clash of nations.

The genre's are the same thing in a different outfit.

1: Epic in more its original sense. A certain sense of scope, weight, and grandeur to everything.


Putting aside the fact that earth's seasons are not because earth orbit is slightly elliptical, as Soras said, the problem is the different length. Even if the prediction: "Long summer -> long winter" is aways/most of the time true, that is not an explanation for how their solar system works. But we know a bit too little to make any proper assumptions, maybe they are really in a flat earth world.

Lol I didn't say that.

However otherwise pretty much yeah, explanations for this are just not all that probable. Especially given the long term of this, 8000 years if I recall my numbers. I also ran across a report once the Martin had said at a con or whereever there was a significance to the seasons that we haven't been told yet.

Add in the ice zeds, the dragons, prophecy, and the sorcery we've seen... well heck THE High Fantasy was Tolkien who kept magic mostly off page and we've already had bolder displays in ASoFaI.

Storywise the books have all the basic elements of in them. They aren't as flashy because this is a cynical/deconstructive take on it all. the Gandalf is nowhere to be found, our Aragorn(s) are going to have to make harder choices to fufill that role, and there are negative consequences to things spelled.

To contrast to the somewhat ...mythic... typical example High Fantasy.

[Yora]

So High Fantasy can have Spaceships and no magic?

[Soras Teva Gee]

So High Fantasy can have Spaceships and no magic?

Well the outfits are not entirely unimportant. Especially depending on what you mean by magic there. Fantasy generally requirse something supernatural, or why not just set it on Earth? You can certainly do spaceships and magic, just look at Star Wars and Spelljammer.

They all play with a lot of the same rules though. Not identical, but perhaps two sides of the same coin.

I'd say a bigger effect is that spaceships turn things into a sea story.

[Knaight]

I'd say a bigger effect is that spaceships turn things into a sea story.

That depends on the spaceship. If it's a large ship that never interacts with other ships (e.g. a space station) it might be more equivalent to a story set on an island.

[Soras Teva Gee]

That depends on the spaceship. If it's a large ship that never interacts with other ships (e.g. a space station) it might be more equivalent to a story set on an island.

I think that would need to work very hard to still be space opera with a static location.

But this still speaks to the underlying point of the universal nature of stories regardless of setting.

[Radar]

So High Fantasy can have Spaceships and no magic?
On some level magic and technology is interchangable. Star Wars has more in common with fantasy, then with SF even if we ignore The Force. For me High Fantasy is akin to old epic poetry and Star Wars is exactly this. You could change every piece of technology into somethig magical and nothing would change. Evil empire, Artifact of Doom, noble rebellion, young hero rised on a farm in a middle of nowhere, who only later gets to know his true heritage...

On the other hand some purely fantastic, magical worlds reach level of internal consistency more typical for hard SF and try to explore the logical consequences of magic and it's use upon the world. I'm not sure if it's the best example, but The Black Mage trilogy by Trudi Cannavan has one of the most self-consistent worlds I have seen.

Consider this: each literary genre is defined by the type of a story it tells or themes it considers. Why make a distinction for fantasy and SF?

[Yora]

Thematic elements are certainly completely interchangeable. Unless it's specifically dealing with the consequences of a new technology, every science fiction story can be made a fantasy story, and even in that case the technology could also be magic in most cases.

However aside from "action science-fiction", the "reflection science-fiction" is almost always social commentary on the creators contemporary society. And that's something that doesn't translate well into fantasy most of the time.

[GolemsVoice]

However aside from "action science-fiction", the "reflection science-fiction" is almost always social commentary on the creators contemporary society. And that's something that doesn't translate well into fantasy most of the time.

I wouldn'T actually say that. As said, magic can easily take the place of technology, and if a story examines the effect of technological progress on humans, it could as well examine the effect of available magic on people.

See Bioshock 1. As games go, it's got great social commentary. A new technology/scientific breakthrough enables this, but it could as well have been undersea magic, and only a few trappings would have changed. The message would have remained the same, only the feel would maybe have changed.

[Mewtarthio]

However aside from "action science-fiction", the "reflection science-fiction" is almost always social commentary on the creators contemporary society. And that's something that doesn't translate well into fantasy most of the time.

*cough*Terry Pratchett*cough*

[Water_Bear]

Thematic elements are certainly completely interchangeable. Unless it's specifically dealing with the consequences of a new technology, every science fiction story can be made a fantasy story, and even in that case the technology could also be magic in most cases.

The problem with that is that SF (at least Hard SF) is fundamentally about situations which could actually occur, with maybe a few hand-waves here and there, while Fantasy is, well, about the fantastic and impossible. You end up with very different kinds of stories because Fantasy stories have a lot more freedom to create bizarre elements while SF stories have more verisimilitude and relevance.

Look at Tolkien v Clark; they are both excellent researchers, write very skillfully, and are generally considered titans in their genres. But you would never get the two confused by reading their work.

[JCarter426]

Not necessarily. Doctor Who is 100% sci-fi, yet it has some of the most bizarre storylines, even by sci-fi or fantasy standards.

[Man on Fire]

Thematic elements are certainly completely interchangeable. Unless it's specifically dealing with the consequences of a new technology, every science fiction story can be made a fantasy story, and even in that case the technology could also be magic in most cases.

However aside from "action science-fiction", the "reflection science-fiction" is almost always social commentary on the creators contemporary society. And that's something that doesn't translate well into fantasy most of the time.

The Witcher novels? They touches about every political and sociological thing writer could fit into it, from racism, through changing times, to horror of war.

I would say that most of good fantasy is really social or psychological commentary, or at least is trying to teach us something, it's just more subtle than when sf's doing it. Hell, you could even say that Conan is social commentary - Conan is wise man of the wild, living in simpler ways than "civilised" world, who is used as contrast for problems of said civilisation.


Look at Tolkien v Clark; they are both excellent researchers, write very skillfully, and are generally considered titans in their genres. But you would never get the two confused by reading their work.

Maybe that's because they're writing in completely different ways and tones and using different tools? Clark vs Prachett on the other hand...

[Morty]

The Witcher novels? They touches about every political and sociological thing writer could fit into it, from racism, through changing times, to horror of war.

I would say that most of good fantasy is really social or psychological commentary, or at least is trying to teach us something, it's just more subtle than when sf's doing it. Hell, you could even say that Conan is social commentary - Conan is wise man of the wild, living in simpler ways than "civilised" world, who is used as contrast for problems of said civilisation.


See also Discworld. It's fantasy, but ripe with social commentary.

[Emmerask]

For me High fantasy always meant a fantasy book or series where good and evil was pretty much absolute, the good guys maybe had some quirks here and there but they would always do the good thing in all situations, the bad guys where always the essence of evil.

The scope of the novel and the amount of magic used where pretty much of no importance, though a lot of the magic heavy books seem to go with the absolute good vs evil theme.

[Frozen_Feet]

To me, it's simply about the number of fantastic elements. High Fantasy is demarcated by great deviations from real life, usually taking place in a world of its own. From there, you get down to Low Fantasy, Urban Fantasy and Magical Realism.

Sci-fi, on the other hand, is about exploring new technologies and discoveries, with it being "softer" the less are defined in terms of actual science and/or the less ramification is paid to their impact, and "harder" the more strictly they are defined and the more their impact is focused on.

Ironically, it's entirely possible under these criteria to end up with a story that's both High Fantasy and Hard Scifi. Niven's Ringworld series is pretty close to what I mean. Each invidual "novum" was based to, at the time, plausible scientific theory or hypothesis, but the author lumps so god damn many of them in one story that the world he ends up describing is utterly alien to everyday standards.

[erikun]

Space Opera needs to be more defined. I've seen Mass Effect and Bablyon 5 called that. They have psychic powers, but those are explained scientifically.
I'd say that Space Opera is mostly drama taking place in outer space - although I suppose other places could be used. Beyond that, you could probably use the term easily for Sci-Fi Space Opera (Babylon 5, perhaps) or for Fantasy Space Opera (Crest of the Stars, Captain Harlock).

Consider the Spelljammer setting in D&D: I'd say that you could easily have a Space Opera in that setting, despite it being about moving through the astral sea on an old sailing boat.


So High Fantasy can have Spaceships and no magic?
Sure, I'd say that the only requirement for High Fantasy is that it has abilities that can't be explained by science. Crest of the Stars, mentioned above, has ships with lazer cannons that fly through 2-dimensional space to shortcut around the universe. Warhammer 40,000 might perhaps be the best definition of Future High Fantasy, as you certainly couldn't call the setting Sci-Fi by any stretch of the imagination. :smalltongue:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Note: the following is entirely my own opinion and quite probably differs from the usual interpretations of e.g. High Fantasy; feel free to quibble with anything and everything and/or tell me I'm trying too hard to classify things. Spoilered for length.

My own theory regarding genres of fantasy, based on a particularly heated debate on the definition of "low magic worlds" we had here a while back, is that there are three major axes to consider when classifying fantasy:
Epic vs. Mundane. The closer a story is to the Epic end of the scale, the more it deals with larger-than-life scales (world-shaking plots, wide-ranging travels, focusing on the world itself) and more "ideal" or simplified aspects (black-and-white morality, glossing over small stuff, only important events happen to important people), while the closer a story is to the Mundane end of the scale, the more it deals with smaller scales (city-scale plots, slower or less travel, focusing on the protagonists' personal struggles) and more "gritty" or detailed aspects (shades-of-gray morality, caring about every last copper, heroes can die anticlimactically).
Flashy vs. Subtle. The closer a story is to the Flashy end of the scale, the more obvious magic is (wizards transform and teleport, enchanted items are on fire) and the more notice is taken to fantastic things in-world (wizards are notable and recognizable, prophecies speak of heroes' actions and possessions), while the closer a story is to the Subtle end of the scale, the less obvious magic is (wizards win friends and influence people, enchanted items are normal-looking) and the less notice is taken to fantastic things in-world ("wizard" isn't a job description, the heroes don't carry neon glowing I'm A Hero signs).
Common vs. Rare. The closer a story is to the Common end of the scale, the more widespread fantastic things are in-world (dragons are a dime a dozen, there are elves in every forest, people light castles with magic) and the less the world can be expected to work like the real world (decade-long winters are a thing, the land itself can be magical, the world's laws of physics permit things that can't exist in reality), while the closer a story is to the Rare end of the scale, the more unusual fantastic things are in-world (there's one dragon and everyone knows its name, elves are dying out, magic is too valued to use as torches) and the more the world can be expected to work like the real world (a decade-long winter is a Big Deal, unusual terrain features are few in number and have an explanation, the world operates on physics unless noted otherwise).
So these 3 axes give us 8 different kinds of fantasy to work with:

Epic, Flashy, Common Fantasy: Kitchen Sink Fantasy. Think D&D and Discworld. Magic is everywhere, the laws of physics are merely suggestions, and there are more-or-less clear Heroes and Villains even if the Heroes suck at being Heroes a lot of the time.

Epic, Flashy, Rare Fantasy: Heroic Fantasy. Think Wheel of Time and Eragon. The scope of conflict is grand and dire, the Chosen Heroes battle the Dark Lord, and other than the heroes and villains the world is pretty normal.

Epic, Subtle, Common Fantasy: High Fantasy. Think LotR and SoIaF. The plot strides boldly over a massive map, old items with names have power, and many locations and creatures have something fantastic about them.

Epic, Subtle, Rare Fantasy: Science Fantasy. Think Doctor Who and Star Wars. There are things even more wibbly wobbly timey wimey than in most soft sci-fi, threats are of the monster-of-the-week or Overarching Evil variety, and magic wands and swords are dressed up as sonic screwdrivers and lightsabers.

Mundane, Flashy, Common Fantasy: Hard Fantasy. Think Mistborn and Recluce. The world is obviously different from ours, the protagonists worry about the aftermath of war and political backstabbing more than the end of the world, and it's interesting just watching the fantastic things interact with each other.

Mundane, Flashy, Rare Fantasy: Swords and Sorcery. Think Conan and Fafhrd. The world is Earth or much like Earth, pissed-off wizards turn themselves into things or you into a pile of ash, and magical creatures are one-off threats (you hope).

Mundane, Subtle, Common Fantasy: Urban Fantasy. Think Dresden Files and Buffy. It's an Earth where myths are true, magic is all around but hidden behind The Masquerade, and wizards still have to pay rent.

Mundane, Subtle, Rare Fantasy: Dark Fantasy or Magical Realism, depending on tone. Think Lovecraft and Ravenloft. Learned people agree magic doesn't exist, the fantastic is strange and either wonderful or horrifying, and if people knew what magic and magical creatures could do they might not sleep at night.

[snoopy13a]

Why is there a need to classify everything into genres in the first place?

[Frozen_Feet]

It's instinctive to us humans to look for patterns (even when there may be none!) and place things into brackets. We see two works with similar elements and associate them with each other - repeat ad nauseam.

Genres are useful when comparing works. They're not as important as a lot of people make them to be, though.

[Mewtarthio]

Why is there a need to classify everything into genres in the first place?

Makes it easier to describe literary tastes, therefore making it easier to make recommendations for more books.

[Lord Raziere]

yea, and even then there is no telling when some eccentric will come along shows you something that fits none of the patterns.

Like me, who does not consider DnD or Discworld (to use Pair'O'Dices definition) all that flashy, epic or common to my point of view and personally is working on coming up with a setting that will put them both to shame.

[Vorr]

Fantasy A it's most basic this is not real. So even if you just have something like a peaceful world with no war, that is Fantasy.

High Fantasy This is beyond fantastic. Everything is unreal. Not just other races, but magic or technology that can do anything. The scale of the world should not matter. And the self containment of the world does not matter.

Examples: Star Trek, Doctor Who, Charmed.

Mid Fantasy: This has several fantastic elements, but balances them with lots of hard core real world like reality. Reality has at least a 50% presence here. Magic or Technology can do some amazing things, but they have very strict limits.

Examples: Harry Potter, Babylon 5, Stargate.

Low Fantasy: This is as close to our real world as possible, with only small doses of fantastic, unreal things. Reality is in full force here. Magic or technology can do some amazing things, but it is either very rare or has very little effect on the world.

Examples: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica


Dark This can be put in front of any genre, of course. And Dark simply means ''not rated G'' for an easy explanation. Dark will often deal with lots of real world type problems and have a lot of reality in it. Dark rarely has any silly hollywood stuff in it at all, and Dark never sugar coats anything.

Sword and Sorcery: You basically just need swords and magic for this to apply. Note that it's not the same as Heroic, as this is very generic.

Heroic: Again can be put in front of any genre. This type of story focuses on a Hero, and their Journey to Complete a Quest. A typical Hero needs to be larger then life and at least slightly greater then the common man.

[erikun]

Fantasy A it's most basic this is not real. So even if you just have something like a peaceful world with no war, that is Fantasy.
The problem with this is that it is the definition of fiction. Fiction is not-fact, fantasy is fantastic. Unless you're changing the meaning of the word, not all fiction is fantasy.

[Xondoure]

I'd say what categorizes fantasy as a sub genre of fiction at large would be elements of the story that are not possible in our world. Things such as magic, unexplained or poorly explained technology, other worlds, and just about anything unreconcilable with the laws of physics.

Science fiction in contrast to fantasy explores the realm of the maybe possible. And must be judged on the scientific data of the day as opposed to what we know now. That said, much of what is classified as Science fiction has a good deal of fantasy in it (Star Wars and Star Trek being the obvious offenders.) That's not to say they don't also belong in science fiction, just that there is a good deal of overlap.

So basically a story that could have taken place in our world if it had slightly different people in it would be fiction. If one of those people happens to be a werewolf we hop over to fantasy. If one of those people invents a time travel machine that works within current understanding of how time travel could theoretically work if it is possible at the time of writing then it is purely science fiction.

As for high fantasy versus low fantasy I always considered it to be magic/fantasy level, but can see how it may have originated in identifying whether the world was entirely imaginative or working within a given presentation of our own. The two are similar though not exactly the same (ASoIaF is easily High by any definition. Harry Potter would be high in one, low in the other.)

I really enjoy low magic fantasy (though I enjoy nearly anything written well.) However I often find it almost impossible to find books of that sort. Magic that is subtle, but powerful in its own way when used with intelligence is probably my favorite sort.

[Yora]

Bit of a summary:
I think the reason that still makes Science Fiction and Fantasy fiction being stuck together is the defining factor that these stories could not been happening anywhere in the world right now, or at some point in the past. This distinguishes it from criminal fiction, spy fiction, military fiction, and so on. Those can have very implausible plots as well, but they do not require the world to work by different rules than we know from reality. The Battlefield and Call of Duty games often take place in an alternate history, but not an alternate reality. It did not happen, but it could have happened.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is set in the Real World, but it has demons and magic, so it could not happen even hypothetically. That makes it an alternate reality and so we clearly put it into the same corner with Fantasy and Science Fiction. Similar, Middle-Earth and Hyboria are supposed to be the distant past of the real world, but we know that the events that are told could not have happened, even if history had developed differently.

Here is what I got so far where people make quite clear distinctions most of the time:

Constructed World - Alternate Reality (The Elder Scrolls <> Harry Potter)
Historical Perspective - Biographical Perspecitve (Lord of the Rings <> Conan)
Superhuman capability - Human limitations (Dragon Ball <> Lord of the Rings)
High Magic - Low Magic* (Dungeons & Dragons <> Star Wars)
Technological Development - Supernatural Forces (Star Trek <> Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

* Or you don't have any magic at all, not even scientifically explained hypothetical phenomena that work just like magic.

As seen before, these are mostly spectrums which tend to have most works quite far at either end, but there are always some cases where it blurs. Babylon 5 is perfectly comfortable with *SPOILER* the souls of minbari being reincarnated as humans and vice versa, where you really can't work with "yet unknown laws of physics" anymore. That's supernatural, no doubt, but the world is still mostly about what happenes when humanity develops technology to travel the stars and encounter other aliens. But as others and I mentioned before, this isn't about quantifying fiction, but about making broad generalizations that help to group similar works together. They don't need to be identical.

[Vorr]

The problem with this is that it is the definition of fiction. Fiction is not-fact, fantasy is fantastic. Unless you're changing the meaning of the word, not all fiction is fantasy.

Not really. Fiction can be anything ''Not Real'', but Fantasy has a different spin. Fantasy needs to be positive and have a good spin on things. If the story is set in a world just like Earth, but a little different, then that is fiction. If your story has a positive wish/dream like world, then it's fantasy.


And note that while not all fiction is fantasy, that all fantasy is fiction :smallbiggrin:

[Yora]

That may be a possible use of the word, but that's not what most people mean when they talk of a Fantasy Genre.

[Morty]

Makes it easier to describe literary tastes, therefore making it easier to make recommendations for more books.

Don't forget the primary focus of disussions about fiction on the Internet: "My favourite genre is better than yours favourite genre!".
I still think too much emphasis is placed on the "power level" in most of this thread. To me, the distinction between high fantasy and low fantasy, heroic fantasy and sword & sorcery or what have you isn't the number of Super Sayians the protagonists have, but the scope, the scale and the themes used.

[Luzahn]

Why is there a need to classify everything into genres in the first place?

If we don't find the pattern, we get eaten by a lion.

We can blame lions for a lot of our problems, really.

[Man on Fire]

Why is there a need to classify everything into genres in the first place?

For me it's to make easier recommendations for people.

[Bulldog Psion]

I think we need a new classification system.

"Supernatural" vs. "Mundane".

"Epic" or "Average" or "Gritty"

"Low-tech", "Modern", or "Futuristic" for tech level.

Thus, the Lord of the Rings would no longer be "High Fantasy" but instead "Epic Low-Tech Supernatural".

Star Wars would be "Epic Futuristic Supernatural".

The Matrix would be "Gritty Futuristic Supernatural".

Larry Niven's books would be "Gritty Futuristic Mundane".

A contemporary detective novel would be "Average Modern Mundane".

Schlock Mercenary would be "Epic Futuristic Mundane".

OotS would be "Average Low-Tech Supernatural".

And so on, and so forth.

[DigoDragon]

When I catagorize my RPGs, I tend to think of them in terms of magic versus science, which one takes a back seat.

Fantasy = Magic drives, Science rides
Sci-Fi = Science drives, Magic rides

From there I can subcatagorize them by "High" and "Low", where High is when the driver is very prominant within the framework (possibly even the rider as well) and Low is where the driver is very small and nearly equal to the rider. Supernatural stuff like ghosts and psionics would be Fantasy unless there's a scientific basis for it (i.e. biotics in Mass Effect).

My system could apply to some TV/movies, though it probably needs more work to apply to everything.

[dps]

The problem with this is that it is the definition of fiction. Fiction is not-fact, fantasy is fantastic. Unless you're changing the meaning of the word, not all fiction is fantasy.

Beyond that, while Vorr's definitions of fantasy sub-genres aren't bad, the examples he gives in many cases seem to be horribly at odds with the definitions. Lord of the Rings closer to our real world than Harry Potter or Charmed? Star Wars closer to our real world than Babylon Five or Stargate? Not seeing that at all.

As for the dividing line between fantasy and SF, a common definition is that SF deals with the imaginary but possible (or plausible), while fantasy deals with the imaginary but impossible (or implausible). While not a terrible definition, it begs the question of what is or isn't possible. (and plausibility, at least in part, is a function of the skill of the writer, but I certainly would reject a definition of fantasy as "poorly written SF").

[Mewtarthio]

I think we need a new classification system.

"Supernatural" vs. "Mundane".

"Epic" or "Average" or "Gritty"

"Low-tech", "Modern", or "Futuristic" for tech level.

That makes for a more precise way to describe the setting, true. What I'd like for a subgenre system, though, would be a grouping of subgenres that tell how the story is told.

Here's an example: When I read fantasy, I normally try to place the work on three axes: Plot, Setting, and Characters. The author can place varying amounts of emphasis on these, and that makes for very different stories.

This leads to seven subgenres:

Plot-focused
The author has a story to tell, and he is going to tell it. Elements of the setting tend to exist to further the plot along, either as tools or as symbols. Characters tend to be designed with archetypical or metaphorical significance in mind, rather than as living, breathing people. Most allegories fall in this category.
Example: The Chronicles of Narnia

Setting-focused
This story tends to read like a travelogue. The characters are mobile viewpoints that take the reader from place to place, and the plot is mostly an excuse to get the characters moving, or even a framing device for various barely-connected vignettes. On the extreme end, this story could just be a collection of self-contained short stories exploring different aspects of a shared universe.
Example: I, Robot

Character-focused
This story is about the development of a character or group of characters. Conflict is mostly internal: The external plot simply provides an impetus for this self-exploration, and the setting usually reflects or contrasts the character's issues in some way.
Example: Silent Hill 2

Setting/Character
Take some interesting characters, drop them in an interesting world, and turn them loose. The plot mainly gets the characters involved in the larger world. Expect to see some politics come into play when characters interact with setting elements. Episodic works often fall into this genre.
Example: Tales of Vesperia

Plot/Setting
This story tends to read like a history book. The conflict involves large-scale changes across the setting. Characters are often archetypes, simply because the story doesn't have the "resolution" to focus on their details.
Example: The Silmarillion

Plot/Character
The characters are embroiled in a conflict larger than themselves. The story places equal emphasis on how the characters solve the conflict and how the conflict changes the characters. The setting is mostly a stage for the story to play itself out on, and the actors often get shuffled about from symbolic location to symbolic location to deal with the next phase of the story. The archetypical Hero's Journey falls in this category.
Example: Star Wars

Balanced
Multifaceted characters run around a well-defined universe having intricate adventures. Very difficult to pull off, and about as far from a light read as you're ever going to get without going avant-garde.
Example: A Song of Ice and Fire

I think something like that would be more useful for describing stories. Ultimately, I don't really care if the hero uses magic or psychic powers or high technology or implausible martial arts: The real distinction is in why the author gave him those powers in the first place.

[Man on Fire]

How about system based on tone of the works? Because honestly, when I recommend people fantasy books, or anything, I'm not looking on what tech level or power level they have, but if their style is similiar to what person in question has already read.

[JCarter426]

This leads to seven subgenres:
The problem I have with these is they aren't specif to fantasy... that's another general fiction issue. If someone says to you "Give me some sci-fi with a good setting" and, following your definitions, you recommend I, Robot and they say "No, I don't like robots" (or "I don't like dragons" or "I don't like elves" or any number of other possibilities, depending on the story) then the definition isn't working. I'm not saying they're not relevant, they're just not enough.

How about system based on tone of the works? Because honestly, when I recommend people fantasy books, or anything, I'm not looking on what tech level or power level they have, but if their style is similiar to what person in question has already read.
I'd say that's part of it. Whether magic is viewed as good or evil - from a thematic viewpoint, not just in universe - is a major factor.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I think we need a new classification system.

"Supernatural" vs. "Mundane".

"Epic" or "Average" or "Gritty"

"Low-tech", "Modern", or "Futuristic" for tech level.

Thus, the Lord of the Rings would no longer be "High Fantasy" but instead "Epic Low-Tech Supernatural".


Sorry but... Blech.

Bland, uninteresting, too formulaic and symetrical, and yet not really simple.

I'll stick with the organically evolved stable genres and sub-genres that you actually have to look at both the genre and the book then take a broad strokes attitude to where it best fits.

[Vorr]

Beyond that, while Vorr's definitions of fantasy sub-genres aren't bad, the examples he gives in many cases seem to be horribly at odds with the definitions. Lord of the Rings closer to our real world than Harry Potter or Charmed? Star Wars closer to our real world than Babylon Five or Stargate? Not seeing that at all.


The simple way to do it, is to just substitute the words used in a piece of fiction and compare them to 20th century life. If you can do this and they still match perfectly, then it's Low Fantasy.

The Great Star Wars Example: The Shields of the Falcon protect it from enemy weapons fire. OR. The Armor of the Iowa protect it from enemy weapons fire. Notice how Star Wars shields are no different then 20th century armor. But now lets do High Fantasy, Star Trek. The Enterprise re-modulated her shields to project an inverse tachyon pulse across subspace. Well, The Iowa sure can't do that.

Example 2: Han Solo fired his blaster and made a hole in the wall. Bob fired his gun and made a hole in the wall. Data fired his phaser and phase shifted the matter out of the time stream. Well, no gun can do that.....

[MLai]

I thought Sci-Fi means using extrapolations and inspirations from current science or scientific concepts to create "What If" situations? As such, this genre deals with situations and things (sometimes including concepts/themes) that have not been written about before in "classic literature".

Whereas Fantasy means using extrapolations and inspirations from myths and imagined truths from human history, to create "What If" situations. As such, this genre deals with situations and things that we've all seen the basis for in past classic literature and folklore, but often in a new light.

Categorization between Sci-Fi/Fantasy is fluid with the passage of time. Aether as a concept is used in fantasy genres now, but if you lived 1000 years ago and someone wrote about an alchemist who discovered some new properties of aether, you would be reading about science fiction (or science).

Aether used to be SCIENCE! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_%28classical_element%29)

[Soras Teva Gee]

I thought Sci-Fi means using extrapolations and inspirations from current science or scientific concepts to create "What If" situations? As such, this genre deals with situations and things (sometimes including concepts/themes) that have not been written about before in "classic literature".

You have something of the origin of the genre, but only the Harder end sci-fi works should be claiming to be extrapolating anything. Psychic powers are generally ordered magic by a different name. Star Trek and Doctor Who are purest fairy tale style do-anything magic hiding behind the polarity of the neutron flow.

The genre today is more about telling stories using certain styles that exist in their own right then about speculation. This holds up better over time.

[Knaight]

You have something of the origin of the genre, but only the Harder end sci-fi works should be claiming to be extrapolating anything. Psychic powers are generally ordered magic by a different name. Star Trek and Doctor Who are purest fairy tale style do-anything magic hiding behind the polarity of the neutron flow.
Star Trek and Doctor Who are also fantasy stories, so that's largely irrelevant.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Star Trek and Doctor Who are also fantasy stories, so that's largely irrelevant.

Well if one wants to take the sort of true scotsman approach and not accept anything but the harder ends of the scale... sure.

But that in my book nullifies the whole issue as you eventually have just a rump remmant of the genre left as science fiction with fantasy dominant.

[dps]

The simple way to do it, is to just substitute the words used in a piece of fiction and compare them to 20th century life. If you can do this and they still match perfectly, then it's Low Fantasy.

The Great Star Wars Example: The Shields of the Falcon protect it from enemy weapons fire. OR. The Armor of the Iowa protect it from enemy weapons fire. Notice how Star Wars shields are no different then 20th century armor. But now lets do High Fantasy, Star Trek. The Enterprise re-modulated her shields to project an inverse tachyon pulse across subspace. Well, The Iowa sure can't do that.

Example 2: Han Solo fired his blaster and made a hole in the wall. Bob fired his gun and made a hole in the wall. Data fired his phaser and phase shifted the matter out of the time stream. Well, no gun can do that.....

There's a guy on the Falcon who can deflect laser bolts with a sword because he has supernatural powers. Was there anyone on the Iowa who could deflect gunfire from the Yamata that way?

[Knaight]

The simple way to do it, is to just substitute the words used in a piece of fiction and compare them to 20th century life. If you can do this and they still match perfectly, then it's Low Fantasy.

The Great Star Wars Example: The Shields of the Falcon protect it from enemy weapons fire. OR. The Armor of the Iowa protect it from enemy weapons fire. Notice how Star Wars shields are no different then 20th century armor. But now lets do High Fantasy, Star Trek. The Enterprise re-modulated her shields to project an inverse tachyon pulse across subspace. Well, The Iowa sure can't do that.

Example 2: Han Solo fired his blaster and made a hole in the wall. Bob fired his gun and made a hole in the wall. Data fired his phaser and phase shifted the matter out of the time stream. Well, no gun can do that.....

The first Star Trek case is simply technobabble, which is easily mimicked: The Iowa rearmored so as to project SONAR. As for the second, that's simply a matter of differences in detail. One could easily spin it to "Han Solo fired his blaster and turned a section in the wall to vapor" and "Data fired his phaser and blew a hole in his target". A modern gun can do one of these things, and it isn't the one which involves vaporizing walls.

[Vorr]

The first Star Trek case is simply technobabble, which is easily mimicked: The Iowa rearmored so as to project SONAR. As for the second, that's simply a matter of differences in detail. One could easily spin it to "Han Solo fired his blaster and turned a section in the wall to vapor" and "Data fired his phaser and blew a hole in his target". A modern gun can do one of these things, and it isn't the one which involves vaporizing walls.

Was the Iowa rearmored to project SONAR? That does not sound right.

And sure a gun, Star Wars blaster and Star Trek phaser can all ''blow a hole in something'', but that is not the point. A Star Trek phaser can do much more then both a gun and blaster, and that makes a phaser a high fantasy item. All the technology in Star Trek is High Fantasy...it can do ''anything''.

[Yora]

"And if you're at a party on the starship Enterprise
And the karaoke player just plain gives up and dies.
Set up a neutrino field inside a can of peas,
Hold on to Geordi's visor and sing into Data's knee."

"And I say: Bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish
That's the way we do things lad, we're making stuff up as we wish
The Klingons and the Romulans pose no threat to us
'Cause if we find we're in a bind we just make some stuff up."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bBD5yyT-s0

[Xondoure]

Was the Iowa rearmored to project SONAR? That does not sound right.

And sure a gun, Star Wars blaster and Star Trek phaser can all ''blow a hole in something'', but that is not the point. A Star Trek phaser can do much more then both a gun and blaster, and that makes a phaser a high fantasy item. All the technology in Star Trek is High Fantasy...it can do ''anything''.

I think the point is that Star Wars is also fantasy, not that Star Trek is hard sci fi.

[Soras Teva Gee]

The first Star Trek case is simply technobabble, which is easily mimicked: The Iowa rearmored so as to project SONAR.

This is really a pet peeve of mine but attitudes like this really irk me.

Because you are wrong.

You *cannot* simply plug in a sonar system into an battleship. The USN uses three types of sonar for surface ships: hull mounted, towed arrays, and sonobuoys.

The last is generally dropped by helos though are light enough I could stand on the deck and chuck one overboard, of course a buoy is not only disposable but also static in location. A towed array demands that room be made somewhere under the fantail for some several hundred meters of cable that will then be let out a hole in the back to be towed behind the ship, restricting its maneuvering while in use. Also no active sonar with this system.

That leaves hull mounted. However unlike say a radar system sonar has to be mounted below the water line. More to the point the USN hull mounted systems are called sonar domes for a reason. Because they are actual domes worked into the bow of the ship. A design with direct implications for the ship's performance and while now the bulbous bow design is standard architecture for warships... an Iowa-class predates that little innovation. It was new on a contemporary the Yamato. And hull mounted sonar is the only way one can keep it running constantly thus doing the primary job of defending the battleship.

To install sonar on the remaining moth-balled battleships You would have to cut into and majorly rework an irreplaceable part of the vessel. That blessed armored hull. To put a rubber ball with a microphone and speaker inside on the front of it.

Engineering is not simple.

Geordi could reconfigure the Enterprise to do whatever in a few hours because he is a wizard, a pure story wizard. In the real world "reconfiguring" something more likely involves going into the yard to tear it apart.

[Vorr]

This is really a pet peeve of mine but attitudes like this really irk me.

Because you are wrong.

But this is exactly why I list Star Trek and Doctor Who has High Fantasy. In High Fantasy anything goes. And even if you have just watched a couple of Star Trek episodes, you know that 'anything' can happen.

Now Star Wars is Low Fantasy. Almost all the Star Wars tech is not all that different from 20th century tech. And this was done on purpose! The whole point is that Star Wars can appeal and be understood by the Hollywood idea of a typical clueless viewer. And the handful of ninja/wizards don't do all that much in the story.

And I'm not even talking about Hard or Light Science at all....

[Kato]

Now Star Wars is Low Fantasy. Almost all the Star Wars tech is not all that different from 20th century tech. And this was done on purpose! The whole point is that Star Wars can appeal and be understood by the Hollywood idea of a typical clueless viewer. And the handful of ninja/wizards don't do all that much in the story.

The force can do an awful lot of stuff... including getting people pregnant. I guess it has less technobabble than Star Trek and less weird stuff but calling it Low Fantasy still seems weird to me. Lower, in terms of variety of weird stuff going on, but it is still far from a straight forward Sci-Fi franchise. And it still has quite a few things that today's technology can't replicate.

[Knaight]

This is really a pet peeve of mine but attitudes like this really irk me.

Because you are wrong.

You *cannot* simply plug in a sonar system into an battleship. The USN uses three types of sonar for surface ships: hull mounted, towed arrays, and sonobuoys.

Given that the idea is to mimic absurd and nonsensical technobabble in the first place, that's part of the idea. It doesn't make sense in Star Trek, as Star Trek was written by people with no understanding of astronomy, meaning that the equivalent would be a modern spy thriller or something that is very much not fantasy but is clearly written by somebody who doesn't know what they are talking about. Re-armoring to project SONAR fits right in there.

[dps]

Given that the idea is to mimic absurd and nonsensical technobabble in the first place, that's part of the idea. It doesn't make sense in Star Trek, as Star Trek was written by people with no understanding of astronomy, meaning that the equivalent would be a modern spy thriller or something that is very much not fantasy but is clearly written by somebody who doesn't know what they are talking about. Re-armoring to project SONAR fits right in there.

Actually, the real-world equivalent of a ship on Star Trek "modulating the shield frequency" would be the battlecruisers that were rebuilt as fast battleships between the World Wars.

[Soras Teva Gee]

But this is exactly why I list Star Trek and Doctor Who has High Fantasy. In High Fantasy anything goes. And even if you have just watched a couple of Star Trek episodes, you know that 'anything' can happen.

Now Star Wars is Low Fantasy. Almost all the Star Wars tech is not all that different from 20th century tech. And this was done on purpose! The whole point is that Star Wars can appeal and be understood by the Hollywood idea of a typical clueless viewer. And the handful of ninja/wizards don't do all that much in the story.

And I'm not even talking about Hard or Light Science at all....

You are using "fantasy" for a synonym of "magic" and also merging "magical powers" and deus ex styled "story magic" when they are all different things.

If someone just read Tolkien for the first time and wanted works like it... well you would not recommend Doctor Who because the stories share very very little. Yet it is Tolkien that High Fantasy refers to. Better still he downplayed the use of magic repeatedly in Middle-Earth.

Your replacing an existing literary genre with an overly simple litmus test that has almost nothing to do with the story contained.

[Xondoure]

You are using "fantasy" for a synonym of "magic" and also merging "magical powers" and deus ex styled "story magic" when they are all different things.

If someone just read Tolkien for the first time and wanted works like it... well you would not recommend Doctor Who because the stories share very very little. Yet it is Tolkien that High Fantasy refers to. Better still he downplayed the use of magic repeatedly in Middle-Earth.

Your replacing an existing literary genre with an overly simple litmus test that has almost nothing to do with the story contained.

Fantasy is a very broad genre. Hence the distinctions within it we're all squabbling over. There's room for Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings. As long as both have elements of the fantastic (in the not of this reality sense.)

[Soras Teva Gee]

Fantasy is a very broad genre. Hence the distinctions within it we're all squabbling over. There's room for Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings. As long as both have elements of the fantastic (in the not of this reality sense.)

Fantasy is one thing, High Fantasy another. At some level one could argue that fantasy includes all of fiction. Not a useful definition, but then again I'm not sure fantasy is meaningful except by further division into its sub-genres.

All this squabbling is really missing the point... that this isn't hard.

Doctor Who is sci-fi, it deals with space, time travel, and aliens. The Doctor if asked if something is magic will call that pish-posh, we mere humans may not be able to explain it but he can. Very little is plausible of course but they draw from traditions starting with more plausible basis. Its not without is magical elements depending on ones concept of say psychic powers and what not, but its drawing from areas that are traditionally science fiction.

Lord of the Rings of course IS High Fantasy and launched it as we know it. You have a completely imagined world and while downplayed you have say purely magical entities who exist not because they are some evolved higher energy consciousness, but because Illuvatar created them from nothing. The Sun and Moon are floating fruits from now ruined magical trees. The One Ring is destroy because its structual matrix is compromised, but because it was thrown into its origin.

These are very different world views despite high degrees of being fantastic. Other examples are can be less clear but in every case it should be possible to step back and say which is which. Star Wars uses a lot of fantasy elements, but it keeps space, aliens from different planets, robots, high technology, and so forth. If you must be reduced to a simple label then Star Wars is still sci-fi.

Its no problem that label is not in all ways accurate... in fact since this is literature it should not be because you should have to be familiar with the nuance of the material.

That I think is the problem with this thread its trying to sort everything into neat little boxes and fiction is not neat like that. A bit is going to stick out somewhere, any work that avoids being utterly generic should have little bits that stick out funny here or there.

The only way around that is to either create labels that cease to actually help, like trying to cram Doctor Who and LotR into the same genre, thus leaving the whole exercise pointless since the labels fail to inform. Or the just as unhelpful eschewing of labels entirely.

A genre and particularly sub-genre label is a starting point, providing a baseline to start true comprehension of. Which is still important, and largely fine as it is.

[Mewtarthio]

The problem I have with these is they aren't specif to fantasy... that's another general fiction issue. If someone says to you "Give me some sci-fi with a good setting" and, following your definitions, you recommend I, Robot and they say "No, I don't like robots" (or "I don't like dragons" or "I don't like elves" or any number of other possibilities, depending on the story) then the definition isn't working. I'm not saying they're not relevant, they're just not enough.

*shrug* I can only point out what works for me. I don't particularly care if a story features wizards, superheroes, or Jedi: That only changes superficial details of the story, not the heart of it.

[JCarter426]

Those details can change the heart of the story, though. Wizards (generally) gain their powers through scientific discovery, superheros either get their powers through some accident or they're Batman, and Jedi gain their powers through spiritualism. Those are three very different character types; even though they might all appear in character driven stories, the stories themselves would be very different.

[Xondoure]

Those details can change the heart of the story, though. Wizards (generally) gain their powers through scientific discovery, superheros either get their powers through some accident or they're Batman, and Jedi gain their powers through spiritualism. Those are three very different character types; even though they might all appear in character driven stories, the stories themselves would be very different.

You could write a story about a superhero who gains their powers from science and knowledge (Iron Man) or a wizard that gains their power from spiritual understanding of the universe (druids) or "knights" in a sci fi setting who gained their powers by some sort of semi random occurrence / accident (like midichlorian count. :smalltongue:)

[Lord Raziere]

*shrug* I can only point out what works for me. I don't particularly care if a story features wizards, superheroes, or Jedi: That only changes superficial details of the story, not the heart of it.

Well of course you'd think that, if you look at everything skin deep, treat it all as a meaningless device and never try to explore the meaning of what they have in a deeper sense...

[Soras Teva Gee]

You could write a story about a superhero who gains their powers from science and knowledge (Iron Man) or a wizard that gains their power from spiritual understanding of the universe (druids) or "knights" in a sci fi setting who gained their powers by some sort of semi random occurrence / accident (like midichlorian count. :smalltongue:)

One could be made to work, but is lifting a character to another genre entirely thus has nothing to do with genre.

The other is trivializing a number of differences.

And the last one is taking a minor detail and out right distorting it to badly cram into something completely different.

[JCarter426]

You could write a story about a superhero who gains their powers from science and knowledge (Iron Man) or a wizard that gains their power from spiritual understanding of the universe (druids) or "knights" in a sci fi setting who gained their powers by some sort of semi random occurrence / accident (like midichlorian count. :smalltongue:)
Iron Man has a heart condition, only cure is to spend his vast fortune developing a high tech suit of armor that keeps him alive, decides to use it to fight crime once he's done - typical serendipitous origin story.

Druids aren't wizards, they're druids.

And I thought we all agreed never to talk about midichlorians. :smallfrown:

Yeah, yeah, I get the point, but the fact is there are clear, established archetypes. You can write around them, but that doesn't mean you should ignore them when describing what most characters of a particular genre are like, because the fact is it still is most of them. When these differences catch on and people start basing their characters on that idea instead of the old one, that's a new genre.

[Mewtarthio]

Well of course you'd think that, if you look at everything skin deep, treat it all as a meaningless device and never try to explore the meaning of what they have in a deeper sense...

Perhaps I misspoke. I'm not saying that certain character archetypes don't tell different stories. That would be ludicrous. I don't mean to imply that, say, an introspective story about vampires is exactly the same thing as an introspective story about monks. That sort of thing can have a huge difference on how well the author can convey certain themes. I can see how my post could be interpreted to mean "The only differences between wizards, superheroes, and Jedi are superficial ones," but that's not what I meant. I suppose the phrase "superficial details" was a seriously poor choice of wording. Let me try to explain what I meant:

What I meant was that I personally care more about how a story is told than what it's about. I believe that a masterful storyteller can take even the most trite, hackneyed of elements and make a wonderful story out of them. So, when I'm confronted with a comment like "I don't like robots" or "I don't like dragons," well, that may be important to you, but it's fairly alien to me. I certainly wouldn't want to throw out all existing genres to accommodate my own literary tastes; I'm just talking about how I tend to divide fantasy books in my mind.

[JCarter426]

Fair enough. But as I said, I wouldn't rule them out, I just don't think they should be the primary focus. Those are things you can tack on to something else, like setting-focused high fantasy or character-focused urban fantasy.