Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

[james_davis_nicoll]

SF or fantasy? Why?

Comments

[seawasp]

One of the reasons, I think, that psionics, and variants such as The Force, are often seen as more SF-y than Fantasy-y is that in general "magic" is often portrayed either as being able to do anything, or at least with no clear limits on what it could do. While comic books and some others have created "psionics" that were, basically, unlimited magic, a lot of such things, including the Force, are depicted as tools that have specific and limited uses and capabilities. No one's turning people to frogs using the Force, for instance.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I can think of exceptions to that, though. Tolkien is an obvious one: magic in The Lord of the Rings is a lot like the Force (and this may well not be a coincidence). The foreground instances of it, especially as used by the good guys, are pretty limited, and it's implied that there's cosmic significance and immense potential power there but we're not shown all of it. The most powerful applications of it that we do see are evil, and associated with the temptation of power (much like Palpatine zapping Luke with Force lightning and telling him to give in to his anger; but in LOTR some of the most notable manifestations have to do with information, concealment and revelation, like the palantirs and what happens when you use the One Ring). But powerful good magic is more backgrounded.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...and Peter Jackson's movie adaptations of LotR were definitely influenced by wuxia movies, but the book fans seem to take those touches as an abomination.

[seawasp]

*some* book fans. Others, like me, love the movies too.

[seawasp]

"Backgrounded" doesn't mean "limited". Gandalf's limits were pretty explicitly stated to be "you can't use your power unless you're facing someone on your level, so no spellslinging of note", not "Gandalf's only able to light pine cones on fire".

It's fairly clear that the good guys and bad guys can do the same things but DOING a lot of things with your powers tempts you to the Dark Side, so to speak.

In The Good Old Days, everyone wielded lots more power and those powers could do more things. LotR is sort of Niven's The Magic Goes Away in slow, epic decay form.

But there's nowhere in LotR that he codifies magic, or shows someone being trained to be a magician, and thus giving us, the audience, a clear feeling for the idea of magic being limited in application and capabilities.

Of course, the word "magic" is also used explicitly (along with its relatives sorcery and necromancy) in the LotR universe, which pretty much automatically puts it into Fantasy -- that plus Undead and Dragons -- while Star Wars and Babylon 5 and such space opera never use the word Magic, or they deprecate it and specifically say it's Sufficiently Advanced, or Psi powers that are misunderstood.

That's what puts such in the SF catagory and keeps LotR in the Fantasy category.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

LOTR is tricky because what counts as "magic" there is not what most fantasy novels means by the word. Or not exactly, anyway.

So, for instance, Gandalf and Saruman and the other Istari are called "wizards." But in most fantasy, a "wizard" is an otherwise normal mortal being, possibly with a specific inborn gift, who has studied and trained to master magic. The Istari are basically angels who have accepted a voluntary limited mind-wipe and a number of other restrictions in order to act as agents in Middle-Earth. Their "magic" is the inherent power they have by being who and what they are.

A lot of the other "magic" in LOTR is manifested in crafting... e.g., the Elves who forged the various rings of power, using a mixture of their own techniques and those taught to them by Sauron. (And who were insufficiently skilled to spot the back door Sauron planted in the techniques he taught them.) Also the weapons forged in Gondolin, and items made by the Dwarves at the height of their skills, and so on.

There is very little in LOTR that looks like what we would normally think of as spell-casting. (There are a few things here and there, but not much... Gandalf talks about putting a locking-spell on a door, for instance, and he's seen setting things on fire now and again. That's mostly it.)

But on the larger point -- I don't think the difference between "magic" and "psionics" is that magic is unbounded. I can think of any number of fantasy novels with pretty clear limits on what magic can and cannot do. And some provide at least as much handwaving about how magic "works" as SF stories do about how psionics "works." I think most of the difference is that one is called "magic" and the other is called "psionics."

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

Note also the raising of the river/horses to wash the Nazgul away, done by an Elf. (And Tom talking the hobbits out of Old Man Willow - an enchantment/charm spell, right?) But yes, lots of it tied up in crafting, including the ur-back-story of the Silmarils (which could Never Be Made Again because creator angst and missing components).

--Dave