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Dystopian Literature
cuchlann:
Well, *all* functioning stories have internal consistency - things work the same way each time, under the same circumstances.
Technically, all science-fiction is fantasy - as fantasy is just a genre defined as not able to happen in the world as it is (generally when the piece is written). What's generally termed as "fantasy" is actually romance, in the traditional sense of the word - an adventure story, often with supernatural elements (think Gawain and the Green Knight or King Horn). As one of my professors is fond of saying (often calling on me, as he knows I write fantasy fairly well), it's even more important for fantasy (sci-fi or romance) to have internal consistency, because the world itself is strange to the reader, and needs to make some kind of sense, or else the audience will be alienated.
Think of one of fantasy's major icons: Leiber's Lankhmar stories. Wizards and sorcerers have a great deal of power and understanding, but are often blind to the basic functionings of the world, because they've willfully removed themselves from it. They become, in a sense, the fantastic equivalent of the traditional scholar in the "real" world.
And Orson Scott Card once defined the difference between science-fiction and fantasy this way: if you press a button on a console to go back in time, it's sci-fi; if you rub a talisman, it's fantasy.
Fantasy is the form of literature that hearkens most easily and readily to myth and the internal psychological workings of people that myth grows from. Campbell, Frye, Levi-Strauss, and Jung, among others, have detailed the bits and pieces of that growth. One can make a case for saying every fantasy can be viewed as the internal working of a person's mind. Science-fiction, then, is the working of someone's mind when they're bent toward a particular thought - technology (theoretically) ahead of the person's own.
Paper Beats Rock:
Yeah, that's the point I was originally trying to make about internal consistency. Things that are considered fantasy might set themselfs up as being in a fantasy world with fantasy concepts, such as magic, and as long as the story runs on these concepts without introducing new outlandish or contradictory new ones it's consistent. Things that depart from internal consistency are either called 'crap' or 'post-modern', often interchangably.
I agree with what you're saying about the actual SF/fantasy/romance thing, it's just that sometimes it's hard to define something as being clearly one or the other. Quite a lot of the humour in certain Pratchett books comes from applying real-world scientific or pseudo-scientific principles to the magic, so it's kind of a mix. Also, what is alternate history type stuff defined as? It could be a 'fantasy' of a different world or you could say that it's based on pseudo-scientific ideas of 'parallel dimensions'.
cuchlann:
paper beats rock: yeah, you're right about all that. With defining all those different kinds of story, my opinion's always been that we just need more words. It irritates me that the word "romance" has been adopted by the modern gothic love story genre, really, because in its original sense it works very well for the traditional "fantasy," freeing that term for the general "sci-fi/fantasy/everything else" we need a catch-all term for. "Speculative Fiction" is often used to describe both groups, and the historical fictions could probably fit in there - some of them, anyway. I think the phrase "alternate history" might be functioning as a name for that genre, actually, though it's a bit clumsy.
Pratchett's habit of using differing terminology doesn't break his internal consistency, because in a few of the books he's set up a parallel dimension theme - particularly when Rincewind accidentally shows up on a jet plane in our reality. Also, he's doing satire with the Discworld books, so there's a little freedom to call attention to assumptions on both sides.
Paper Beats Rock:
I wasn't saying that Pratchett doesn't have internal consistency, I was just pointing out that his version of magic is more like an alternate science, particularly all the stuff about splitting the thaum, theoretical magicians, etc. Was it ACC who said that quote about how any technology that is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic?
Bringing it back on-subject slightly, you could kinda say that the government of Anhk Morpork is almost dystopian, which brings up a strange point. Most people consider dystopian literature as purely SF but could certain kinds of fantasy be considered dystopian?
As for needing more words, I think you're right. Once we have more words ideas become easier to express and pass on, then it becomes easier to come up with new ideas.
cuchlann:
Yeah, Ankh-Morpork would be absolutely dystopian, except no one seems to mind the control they're under - after all, the Patrician doesn't bother squelching philosophy, wizardry, and the like; no one's interested enough. And I think the magic's different depending on which character's the protagonist. It's very scientific when the wizards are around, but the witches run on intuition and "headology," widely considered to be a pseudo-science. Heh.
I think the same themes could easily be explored in fantasy - but dystopian fiction is usually a kind of warning: "we could be like this." As most fantasies that fit the public view of the word are in a world similar to our past, it's difficult to use that as a warning of things to come. I think it could be done, though, and probably has been.
One could consider Imryyr, the homeland of Elric, as a fantastic dystopia. It's an island nation of "higher" people that once had mastery of magic, dragons, and demons. Their power turns their eyes away from the outside world, and they turn to corrupt perversity - eventually they fall into ennui, bored by their desperate attempts to please themselves. That kind of city, country, or whatever has been an element of fiction for a while, I think, so it's not a sure-fire example.
I guess the Lord of the Rings shows the audience a dystopia - Isengard and Mordor - so two, actually. They're defeated, but are very real, very strong, and perpetually threatening. Given Tolkien's well-publicized distaste for industry, those could represent a dystopian future we ought to avoid.
I suppose, really, the thing about dystopia in fantasy would be that fantasy, drawing on the traditional myth sense of the hero completing a task (they might not survive, but they finish what they started, as the entire adventure can just be seen as a metaphor for the struggle inherent in any endeavor), horrible worlds are either averted, brought down, or escaped from.
The evil empires in science-romances (re: Star Wars) are likely candidates for dystopias, as well.
And having terms for things usually does foster a growth in ideas. It also makes the subject sound more legit.
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