nightbird: Mucha illustration, young peasant holding scythe and grain (if you're not careful)

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posted by [personal profile] nightbird at 04:36pm on 06/08/2009
Hmm -- I don't think I agree that in general the supernatural doesn't fit within the "fantasy" category (if I'm reading you right), but I do think that supernatural elements have a far greater emphasis on human psychology than Tolkienesque high fantasy: what's often so important about things like ghosts or monsters is that they mean something within an abstract cultural or personal framework. Their strangeness depends so much on the notion that the world around them is "real" or "normal" or "as we know it," so... okay, I guess I can see where you're coming from a little.

It's a little bit... deconstructive, is that the word I want? If everything else in a world is real, why wouldn't the supernatural elements be, if they're logical within the framework of the story? That sort of thing.
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idreamofcairo: (Default)

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posted by [personal profile] idreamofcairo at 05:07pm on 06/08/2009
If everything else in a world is real, why wouldn't the supernatural elements be, if they're logical within the framework of the story?

Good point. But would you then classify Supernatural as fantasy or as contemporary fiction, since the supernatural is logical (or as logical as it can be) in the story?

That is where my personal definitions of fiction and fantasy start to fail me: where do you draw that line between what could be real and what couldn't be real? And once you've figured out that line, what do you call it? After all, to us, The Odyssey is essentially historical fantasy, whereas to many of the original listeners, it was probably historical fiction.

And perhaps I should modify/clarify my definition of urban fantasy to this: a story with fantastical elements set in a world we can recognize as our own. Does that make more sense?
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nightbird: Mucha illustration, young peasant holding scythe and grain (the fox confessor)

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posted by [personal profile] nightbird at 09:33pm on 06/08/2009
I wouldn't call it contemporary fiction -- more like nontraditional fantasy. If you didn't have to think of them as graphic novels, how would you categorize Neil Gaiman's Sandman or Mike Carey's Lucifer? I'm thinking of Supernatural in about the same vein.

a story with fantastical elements set in a world we can recognize as our own

It does make sense, but I still think it's very important that it's not our world, and there's always something jarring or chilling about that. (I think personally I get stuck on the word urban, since I'm kind of insistent on the importance of rural environments as setting.)
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idreamofcairo: (politics are weird)

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posted by [personal profile] idreamofcairo at 12:25am on 07/08/2009
You are right, it isn't our world, but it's also not Middle Earth either. I think that I have a tendency to let "high fantasy" become just "fantasy," that I always think of mystical creatures and knights and fair maidens when I hear "fantasy" unqualified.

And I understand why you get stuck on "urban." I was meaning it more in the urban legend sense than in the urban city sense.

I wouldn't call it contemporary fiction either, but nontraditional fantasy bothers me, too. There needs to be a happy medium word that connotes a modern (or perhaps industrialized? or post-feudal?) world with fantastical elements. Something that would encompass Frankenstein's monster and the Impala and the Sandman and be very clear that those are all included under this definition.
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nightbird: Mucha illustration, young peasant holding scythe and grain (abstract functions)

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posted by [personal profile] nightbird at 02:08am on 07/08/2009
When I started Unlined, which, I swear to somebody will come back full swing someday, I called it a magazine for "unexpected fantasy" -- I kind of like that. I mean, those different eras that you mean bring up different genres already -- post-industrial fantasy becomes steampunk, to me, and post-feudal just means something could have a Renaissance flavor. I do think the satisfying term hasn't really come up yet -- but this is why we talk about it!
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