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Fantasy and Sci-Fi Cross Boundaries

I love it when Sc-Fi and Fantasy can cross each other's boundaries sometimes in awesome and right ways.

Such as for stories of:

Beings from another world coming to ours, or humans entering portals to other worlds.

Time travelling.

Obtaining supernatural powers for good or for evil purposes from either sources.

Human and other creature hybrids.

Is there any I am missing?
 

A'elie

Acolyte
Indeed. Sci-Fi and Fantasy do make nice bedfellows. I do occasionally enjoy a hard sci-fi tale but those stories are too scientific for my taste.
 
I like a little bit of sf in my fantasy, such as in the first Mark Lawrence book when they find the secret door into the enemy keep or the origin of McCaffrey's dragons in genetic engineering, but I think fantasy can muck up sf unless given a "scientific" basis.

Yes, time travel is fantasy, but there's always a gesture as to how it could be pulled off (with the exception of Bruce Willis's line as Old Joe in Looper (bleached to prevent spoilers): "I don't want to talk about time travel because if we start talking about it then we're going to be here all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws." Without that gesture, it disrupts the science and, thus, the reader's ability to suspend disbelief.

That was one of the MANY MANY reasons the end of Lost sucked so bad: the stupid golden fountain. While I'm figuring out that the oft-repeated numbers are actually the latitude and longitude coordinates of a place in the South Pacific where the plane could have gone down, they throw in the fountain of youth or some crap? Ugh. Yea, if you haven't seen the finale, let me spoil it for you and keep you from wasting your time.
 

Mindfire

Istar
Let's not forget that science fiction is a sub-genre of fantasy.
Really? I've read Internet articles that assert not only that sci-fi and fantasy completely are divergent genres, but that they are completely opposed to each other on a philosophical level. I'm not saying this theory is The Right One, per se, but it made sense to me and even explained why I like Star Wars more than Star Trek.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Really? I've read Internet articles that assert not only that sci-fi and fantasy completely are divergent genres, but that they are completely opposed to each other on a philosophical level. I'm not saying this theory is The Right One, per se, but it made sense to me and even explained why I like Star Wars more than Star Trek.

I think, in particular, that part that I put in bold is such a ridiculous conclusion I can't think where it could have come from. One merely has to take a look around at the SFF readership and how much overlap there is among the majority of SFF readers to see that this couldn't possibly be true.
 

Mindfire

Istar
I think, in particular, that part that I put in bold is such a ridiculous conclusion I can't think where it could have come from. One merely has to take a look around at the SFF readership and how much overlap there is among the majority of SFF readers to see that this couldn't possibly be true.
As I understand it, the idea is not that you can't enjoy both, but that the two genres have different focuses and opposite themes. To give a vastly oversimplified summation: sci-fi is about change and "progress" with a skeptical and materialistic bent, while fantasy is about restoring/preserving a Good established order and often involves Powers That Be or some form of spirituality. It's not about the setting, per se, but the the intent.

By this metric, Avatar: The Last Airbender is indisputably fantasy: The protagonists seek to *restore balance* to the world- a common fantasy theme- and are fighting against an evil force that distupted the status quo. (Star Wars and Lord of the Rings also fit the bill, more or less.) However, The Legend of Korra took the series in a slightly more sci-fi direction by introducing challenges to the status quo. After season 1, the United Republic got a democratically elected, non-bender president. After season 2, the spirit portals were left open. After season 3 the New Air Nation left their seclusion and became earth-roaming peacekeepers. After season 4 the Earth Kingdom monarchy was ended. In a wholly fantasy-aligned series, so the reasoning goes, none of these changes would have happened or they would have been much less dramatic. In fact the United Republic would not have existed at all. Instead the world would have gone back to the way it was: four separate nations retaining their traditional governments. So here we have a slight genre shift even though the two series are set in the same world. Think of it as a sliding scale between two extremes.

Prototypical fantasy: "restore the balance"
Prototypical sci-fi: "go where no man has gone before"
 
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Mindfire

Istar
The interesting thing is that in this schema, genre is determined by ethos, not setting. So you could have a medieval sci-fi or a space fantasy. *cough*Star Wars*cough* This framework also explains why I tend to lean fantasy. Sci-fi's baked-in skepticism and materialism makes it harder for me to map my Christian values onto it.

Now I'm not saying this classification system is perfect, there will be outliers and anomalies. For example, I'm not sure where to put C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy on this scale.
 
Hi Mindfire,

"...and even explained why I like Star Wars more than Star Trek."

For shame I say! For shame! I'm sending a squad of klingons to your door as we speak to explain the error of your ways!


As to sci fi and fantasy having different philosophical focus' - yes. Sci fi is speculative fiction. It comes at it's stories always from the perspective of "what if." It takes the possible no matter how unlikely as it's starting point and goes from there. Fantay has no such precept. Tolkein etc was never suggesting what if there were elves and orcs and magic rings. He just flat out put them in his world and moved from there.

And Woggle, yes there is one genre which si fi and fantasy both constantly seem to be intertwined in - steampunk.

Cheers, Greg.
 

Mindfire

Istar
Hi Mindfire,

"...and even explained why I like Star Wars more than Star Trek."

For shame I say! For shame! I'm sending a squad of klingons to your door as we speak to explain the error of your ways!

Ha! I see your squad of Klingons, and raise you a squad of Krogan. [emoji14]
 

Mythopoet

Auror
As I understand it, the idea is not that you can't enjoy both, but that the two genres have different focuses and opposite themes. To give a vastly oversimplified summation: sci-fi is about change and "progress" with a skeptical and materialistic bent, while fantasy is about restoring/preserving a Good established order and often involves Powers That Be or some form of spirituality. It's not about the setting, per se, but the the intent.

The problem with this metric though is that it is defining fantasy much, much too narrowly. There is a subset of fantasy stories that are about "restoring balance", but by no means all of them. I'm guessing this metric has primarily been proposed by sci fi authors, based on this mistaken idea of fantasy.

And actually, the flaw in this metric makes Reaver's proposal, that sci fi is a sub genre of fantasy (an idea I've considered before but not come to a conclusion on) seem more plausible to me. Because fantasy is vast and wide and has almost no criteria except that it should include aspects that are not currently possible in this world. Sci fi likes to make a big deal of its scientific basis, but how much sci fi really abides entirely by established science or proposes entirely plausible scientific discoveries? A very small percentage. It seems more plausible to me that sci fi is really just the portion of fantasy that focuses on technological change and progress.
 
I agree with most of the points that have been brought up. It's true that fantasy (most of the time) is just set in a "just believe" while sci-fi (most of the time) is more focused on a "what if?" basis that has a thorough reasoning behind it. This was especially the differences from before.

Nowadays, the gaps in the genres sometimes are able to overlap or connect through either electric sparks or magical star beams. The differences can be reconciled when two things that go in either genre can come together and have a profound reason for being so, and also are set in a state of "just believe" but in a more easier way by just looking at things.

This is why I love the fantasy that is out nowadays and why I love family-friendly sci-fi movies with fantasy based themes to them. Just examine E.T. as it is the best example among others.
 

Mindfire

Istar
I'm guessing this metric has primarily been proposed by sci fi authors, based on this mistaken idea of fantasy.

Well... you're not wrong. And most of them go on from this to conclude that sci-fi is the superior genre. A conclusion with which I disagree, strenuously.
 

Reaver

Staff
Moderator
I'm not disputing that you have valid points because you most certainly do. To be honest, my earlier post was what I learned from my English Lit 101 professor many years ago. I guess it stuck in my mind that sci-fi is a type of fantasy.

My class was debating the difference between sci-fi and fantasy. I argued that Dune is a science fantasy like Star Wars because of things like the Weirding Way and the Bene Gesserit Witches. Some in my class agreed, most didn't.

My wizened professor (he probably wasn't that old, but I'm using artistic license) was vehement that movies like Star Wars and Dune are either one or the other, not both.

I still disagree with that crotchety old bastard.
 
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Mindfire

Istar
I'm not disputing that you have valid points because you most certainly do. To be honest, my earlier post was what I learned from my English Lit 101 professor many years ago. I guess it stuck in my mind that sci-fi is a type of fantasy.

My class was debating the difference between sci-fi and fantasy. I argued that Dune is a science fantasy like Star Wars because of things like the Weirding Way and the Bene Gesserit Witches. Some in my class agreed, most didn't.

My wizened professor (he probably wasn't that old, but I'm using artistic license) was vehement that movies like Star Wars and Dune are either one or the other, not both.

I still disagree with that crotchety old bastard.
I'd put Dune and Star Wars both firmly on the fantasy side of things. The Chosen One plot is a dead giveaway. Sci-fi doesn't really have Chosen Ones.
 
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