A Guide to Fantasy - Part 3

[espanolbot]

Just how I see them, so you're free to disagree.







More here, along with some additional notes to them.
http://espanolbot.deviantart.com/gallery/41814894

Feel like taking a break from fantasy now, on to Horror and its associated genres!

Comments

[akodo_rokku]

So is Codex Alera "Magical Boy"?

[terrykun]

:D Saw this post this morning and was just on my way back to comment about that series.

Best I can figure, Codex Alera is Sandalpunk mixed with High Fantasy (the AtLA and Pokemon elements being more or less interchangeable for this purpose), and only a touch of Magical Boy as defined here. Tavi works damn hard for what he accomplishes, even if the plot keeps coming right at him. Jesus-allegory is also fairly non-existent.

TL;DR - WOOHOO, CODEX ALERA!

[akodo_rokku]

That's pretty much my opinion too. Tavi's no Harry Potter, succeeding primarily through luck and the competence of those around him.

(I am in the middle of book five wheeeeee)

[terrykun]

Miaka from Fushigi Yuugi fits the magical boy descriptors here frighteningly well, for similar reasons.

tj_mccarron@yahoo.com if you would like to discuss the series further. :-) I've had hardly anyone to talk to about it since I read it over a year ago

[crinos]

Also noticing a lack of Dresden files in Urban Fantasy examples.

[cainofdreaming]

Where would Artemis Fowl fall into? Not sure if 'magical' boy is a perfect fit.

[donnblake]

The first couple Artemis Fowl books are crime thrillers that happen to use a fantastic backdrop. I haven't really read beyond the Eternity Cube though.

[bewareofgeek]

Artie is YA urban fantasy.

[akodo_rokku]

Also, "Baccano!"? Alchemy and immortals and all, I still don't think I'd qualify that as any kind of fantasy.

[akodo_rokku]

Also also, Angel is *clearly* far more Batman than the Trenchcoat Brigade archetype.

[darkblade]

Baccano might be more Historical Fantasy than Urban Fantasy but the presence of Alchemy makes it Fantasy by default.

[akodo_rokku]

I dunno. I don't feel like the presence of magic alone automatically makes something fantasy. There needs to be a certain amount of... awe and wonder? Like even in the darkest of dark fantasy, things are (literally) awesome. They're just terrible things. Baccano doesn't really have any of that.

Though I admit, I only watched about half the anime before getting bored of it and giving up.

[skjam]

There is a demon (tied into the origin of the immptals) but he's more fridge scary than awesome.

[bewareofgeek]

I think you may be slicing things a bit too fine, here. I mean, I've been reading fantasy for almost 40 years, and I've NEVER heard of the "Magical Boy" genre.

(The way you describe it is more like a standard Hero Cycle story with a touch of Mary Sue).

"Academic Fantasy" is basically taking your classic British boarding school novel and adding magic.

And you seem to have two different forms of "Science Fantasy" conflated:

1. Epic or Heroic Fantasy with sci-fi elements.
2. Space Opera with fantasy elements.

Part of the problem is that many of these classifications overlap in whole or in part, and some are merely subsets of another. Then you add on some differences that are purely aesthetic, and it all gets muddled. :)

[icon_uk]

Agreed, Magical Boy seems to be harking back to more classic tropes.

David (and his wife whose name escapes me who was eventually revealed to be a complete co-author) Eddings writes an interesting piece on the development of the Belgariad series in his book, and how they chose the character types they did, especially for Garion himself. They acknowledge the importance of Tolkein to the genre, but also it's more often useful to sidestep Tolkein poloitely and go back to the Arthurian sort of stories which Tolkein himself borrowed from (I'm probably paraphrasing horribly there). The decision to leave Garion fundamenally ignorant of his destiny and lacking nearly all the skills he would need to become King allowed them to use him as the everyman who learns about the world he is in, good and bad, as the story progresses. It meant they had the challenge of having central character who was notionally quite bright, but more or less completely uneducated (He only learned to read in his mid teens for example and that was during the course of the books) but it made for a more satisfying progression of the character.

[bewareofgeek]

His wife's name was Leigh.

[icon_uk]

Thank you, I feel slightly embarrassed that I didn't recall that.

[bewareofgeek]

It's what I do. :)

[auggie18]

Your definition of "Urban Fantasy" sounds a lot how most people I know describe Low Fantasy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasy


I think you had a different definition for Low Fantasy, though.

[turtlefu]

you put kung-fu panda under wuxia i can't even what seriously why

[darkblade]

Chinese experts on the genre consider it a part of the genre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia#Films
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/03/arts/AS-MOV-China-Kung-Fu-Panda.php
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2008-07-03-kungfupanda_N.htm

[turtlefu]

I find it to be a loving parody, but the dressing is all Chinese culture and wuxia-inspired, but the actual plot/character development is very Western in concept. I enjoyed the movie immensely but I would never consider it wuxia above so many other wuxia films that could have be chosen to be listed.

Also, being popular in China /=/ wuxia. I'm not saying it's mean-spirited, I'm saying it's impossible for anything Western to be truly "wuxia" because wuxia deals very specifically with Chinese history, themes, and storytelling. I would even consider a form of folk tale. It's like Westerners can make films based on kabuki, or Filipino ghost stories, or etc. but it won't actually BE those things, just inspired by those things.

(I like Lu Chuan but he has never made a wuxia film and can hardly be considered an expert)

[salinea]

.... you thought the series had been accurate so far?

[salinea]

Okay the Academic Fantasy sketch made me laugh.

[espanolbot]

Yay! ^^

[skjam]

The combination of sweaters and eye wrinkles make the two "magical girls" on the left look more like magical women.

[viridian5]

I always thought science fantasy was a fantasy setting that occasionally gave the audience a peek at the science fiction under it, like in C.J. Cherryh's Morgaine novels, where the setting is fantasy but the tools Morgaine uses and the Gates are actually science fiction technology instead of the magic everyone assumes. The book tips its hand to the audience now and then in letting us now that she's the last survivor of a team the Union Science Bureau sent in to close all the Gates.

[icon_uk]

As old Arthur C Clarke noted many moons ago; "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

[rdfox]

Clarke's Third Law. And, of course, its corollary, "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."

(For the record, Clarke's First Law is, "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong," while his Second Law is "The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.")

[nezchan]

I would imagine the Mavin Manyshaped books would qualify, although you don't see the science very often. Plus, I think some of it actually is magic, but I may be misremembering that bit.

[viridian5]

I haven't read those. The anime and manga Trinity Blood is another I'd consider in science fantasy, though it carries its science fiction openly within the fantasy since it has guns, airships, trains, and a cyborg and the "vampires," actually people changed and given powers by an alien virus, refer to humans as "Terrans." After a future Armagheddon, the current situation on Earth is conflict between the vampire government and the human ones. The main protagonist was a test tube baby given powers by nanomachines that feed on vampires. He's over 900 years old and is one of the few people who still remember how all this started and how to work the higher technologies that so many assume are magic.

I'm wondering how you'd classify fantasy novels that once in a very, very rare while let the readers know that this society followed an apocalypse of our own world. Just "fantasy," I guess.