Far be it from me to critique other people's ideosyncratic classification systems

[james_davis_nicoll]

After all, I will argue that Starship Troopers is proto-MilSF.

Brin's system of sorting SF from F will produce counter-intuitive results, like Asimov's Foundation, which is all about restoring the Old Order What Stood for Thousands of Years, is fantasy, whereas any Diskworld novel about clackers and the post and dwarves and trolls learning to coexist is SF.

(it's important to note "Having said that, what is my definition of the separation?". Brin's definition, not THE WORD OF MIGHT DEGLER HIMSELF)

Comments

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I'd actually contend that presentations like that of R&D around magic that's experimental in nature (i.e. "alchemy") is actually "science" and not "magic", in the sense of the purpose it serves in the story. But I also recognize that for at least the past fifty years writers have been intentionally blurring the lines between fantasy, science-fiction, and other genres, so arguing about what essentially defines one genre or another is to a certain extent like arguing what kinds of food are essentially "supper food" and which aren't.

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

That's begging the question, though, by redefining "magic" to be "science" based on the function you're arguing "science" has in fiction.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... yes, I see your point. Maybe what I'm trying to say is that Fantasy is about Magic (big-m) or Myth (big-m), and thus about narratives that argue that success for the protagonist lies in understanding/recalling/accepting the "truths" about existence which have become lost to the protagonist because s/he exists in a fallen situation, and the fall gets traced pretty solidly to hubris or selfishness -- i.e. presumption of importance and the desire to extend beyond the "natural order of things". Fantasy narratives seek to resolve happily by "restoring alignment with the harmonious way of things" and Magic is the narrative model/embodiment for the understanding that can get one there.

But 'magic', small-m, is the reading of that thing literally: i.e. treating the knowledge of the way of things as a commodity that can be discovered, and relied upon for its mundane effect (i.e. "this fireball occupies 10 square feet per level of caster, and causes 1d6 of damage per level of caster"), and so it becomes a tool offered to the knowledgeable for imposing their will upon their circumstances.

I'm not sure that stories can't have both Magic and magic in them at the same time, to different purposes? So when the knowledgeable in stories do the kind of "magic research" that James is talking about, that's evidence of the second kind ("magic as science") but not necessarily the first ("understanding of the rightness of things").

Oddly enough -- I recently watched some of the Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn mysteries, and they seem to grapple with this distinction, too -- they clearly present rationality in "the world of police" (i.e. following forensic evidence and logical deduction to solve crimes), and they also attempt to present "the world of myth" in the cultural beliefs of the protagonists' backgrounds (Navajo I think?) as equally valid ways of looking at the world and understanding things that sometimes the first way can't help with?

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

That seems like a very specific kind of fantasy narrative, though, not one that's applicable to, for instance, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or the Mary Poppins novels, or Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus, or the stories I've published as I understand them, or what Farah Mendlesohn calls "intrusion narratives," where magic has intruded into the real world and that intrusion is the problem that the protagonist has to defeat (E. Nesbit's Five Children and It is a bit of that).

I wonder if what you're talking about is specific to epic fantasy?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, yes. Good points.

[(Anonymous)]

When I was a student at U. of Waterloo, years ago, and living in what was then called "Village 1" (now the Dr. Ron Eydt Residences), the guy who GM'ed our _Traveller_ SFRPG sessions, but also DM'ed D&D sessions that I didn't participate in, put it this way:

"If you know how it works, it's science; if you don't know how it works, it's magic."

In other words, the point he was making (perhaps riffing off of A.C. Clarke & A. de St. Exupery), is that "magic" is a subjective experience, not an objective thing.

IMHO, a lot of this thread just takes the "objectivity" of "magic" as a given, and starts the analysis from there. Maybe the literary theory problem is larger than we are supposing?

As for my own opinion: I do not know. I mean (and again, stealing ideas shamelessly from that same friend, above), -- if you are running a _Traveller_ campaign, and have the PCs crash-land on an extremely low-tech planet in such a way that *almost* all their own technology is rendered useless, are you still running an SF RPG? Or are you running an FRPG session, where the two remaining functional pieces of technology are "magic"?

I am mixing media here admittedly, but I think the point carries across the boundary-line (such as it is) successfully enough to make the meaning (the comparison or contrast) clear.

FWIIW,

TSM_in_Toronto

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that really works. I don't know how my computer works. But I know it's science, and not magic.

[(Anonymous)]

I think your criticism of the ideas I presented is obvious, and simultaneously subtle.

For example, if I were to ask in reply (say) "how do you _know_ it's not magic?" with the implication that you aren't actually addressing the point I made, you could reply in turn something along the lines of: ... that you are objectively aware that others do in fact know how it works, and they don't find it magical at all.

And how is that different from a Secondary Reality peasant who "objectively" knows [yes, I am aware of the criticism that a character does not exist beyond the page -- roll with me here ... :^)] that Wizards et al. do in fact know how Magic works -- or at least know how to Work Magic?

I don't know.

My hypothetical reply to your original point is itself subject to criticisms that merely reinforce, that the matter of magic v. science is as murky as you seem to imply.

Thanks for the incisive counterpoint. :^)

TSM_in_Toronto

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Yes, well said. One of the many corollaries to Clarke's Law is that "Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't understand it."

Computers are an obvious example and people even call experts in the field computer wizards. They are, literally, shamans who can look at the cryptic glowing runes and advise peasants how to pacify the unruly spirits within the magic box. There's no need for electronics; there have been times my car mechanic might as well be taming the iron golem inside my engine compartment so it will once again push the wagon around.

I believe this feature of magic is explicitly spelled out by Granny Weatherwax in one of the Diskworld books.