Harry Potter .. Fantasy or SciFi?

POSTED BY: WakeupSoon
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 02:50
VIEWED: 4983
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WAKEUPSOON

Sunday, May 31, 2009 11:46 PM

So, I was reading SFX earlier, and it stated that the next issue would include a Harry Potter argument. This really is one of my pet peeves .. Harry Potter IMHO is Fantasy, not Science-Fiction.

I was wondering what other people thought of this ...

~WuS

This is not my signature, I have to write this every time I post.
Smile && Nod, it makes it seem like you know what's going on.

ECGORDON

Sunday, May 31, 2009 11:52 PM

If you are strict about the definition of Science Fiction, then HP is definitely not SF but Fantasy. However, the term sci-fi has long been used to group the two sub-genres together. Don't forget that Forrest Ackerman, the man who coined that term, was probably a bigger fan of horror and fantasy that he was of science fiction.

AURAPTOR

Monday, June 1, 2009 12:47 AM

Weird Science might straddle the fence between fantasy and sci fi, but HP seems to be more almost exclusively fantasy,imo.

The T.Rex they call JANE!

WAKEUPSOON

Monday, June 1, 2009 11:50 AM

See, to me its fantasy because it involves wizards/witches, and just magic in general. Its not SciFi coz there's no actual science in it .. its all explained by magic.

~WuS

This is not my signature, I have to write this every time I post.
Smile && Nod, it makes it seem like you know what's going on.

PENGUIN

Monday, June 1, 2009 12:15 PM

Does that make BSG fantasy???

King of the Mythical Land that is Iowa

JONGSSTRAW

Monday, June 1, 2009 3:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
If you are strict about the definition of Science Fiction, then HP is definitely not SF but Fantasy. However, the term sci-fi has long been used to group the two sub-genres together. Don't forget that Forrest Ackerman, the man who coined that term, was probably a bigger fan of horror and fantasy that he was of science fiction.

Forrest Ackerman, the world's greatest fan & collector of sci fi & horror memorabilia. R.I.P. December, 2008

I recently got a bootleg DVD of 1964's The Time Travellers directed by Ib Melchior. Ackerman had a very tiny part in that movie as a technician.

IMNOTHERE

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 9:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by WakeupSoon:
So, I was reading SFX earlier, and it stated that the next issue would include a Harry Potter argument.

Well, SFX (if its the same magazine I'm thinking of) has pretty much always covered SF, fantasy and horror without making much distinction.

Plus - where do you draw the line? There's precious little "hard SF" in film and TV. Star Wars is just as much fantasy as Harry Potter (white magic vs. black magic) ; Babylon 5 lifted huge chunks from "Lord of The Rings"; Star Trek regularly features godlike entities with no plausible scientific explanation (including, but not limited to, anything with Q in) not to mention all the "indistinguishable from magic" federation technology.

Lots of SF authors also write/wrote Fantasy (and vice versa) - off the top of my head: Greg Bear (and he's generally regarded as a hard SF author), Stephen Donaldson, CS Lewis (!), Richard Morgan, Terry Pratchett, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey, Ursula Le Guin, EE "Doc" Smith (...feel free to join in - heck, they practically all swing both ways!)

Plus... superheroes... Fantasy or Sci Fi? (There's only one way to find out: FIGHT!!!!)

I suppose you could stay simplistic: if its got a dragon in it, its fantasy - if its got a spaceship in it its SciFi (er, did I mention Anne McCaffery...?)

ECGORDON

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 11:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by WakeupSoon:
See, to me its fantasy because it involves wizards/witches, and just magic in general. Its not SciFi coz there's no actual science in it .. its all explained by magic.

I refer you to Arthur C. Clarke's famous quote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistiguishable from magic."

LEOPARDFLAN

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 12:25 AM

My distinction between the two is how everything is explained. Harry Potter is totally fantasy, because NOTHING in the world is explained by superior technology. Anna McCaffery would be sci-fi, since all the explainations involve technology (even the dragons are a result of tech, not magic)... If you've got stuff involving both, then it's a mix (Like Triplet, by Timothy Zahn- alternate dimensions, one of them involving super-tech, the other involving demons). I'd also have to say that stuff involving demons would have to be fantasy (as well as sci-fi, depending on the story, but it has to have fantasy). Gods can also be sci-fi (like in Star Trek, they're the result of super-tech; superior beings). Kinda iffy, but given the overall sci-fi trend, I just like to classify that as sci-fi...

Hope ya'll are able to make sense of my ramblings!

IMNOTHERE

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 9:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by LeopardFlan:
Anna McCaffery would be sci-fi, since all the explainations involve technology (even the dragons are a result of tech, not magic)...

I think my point was not that you couldn't tell the difference, but that there was a huge crossover and a lot of major authors had a foot in both camps (as, I suspect, do lots of fans*). The Pern books are generally accepted as SciFi - but I'm pretty sure that she has done other books that are more overtly fantasy (the other authors I mentioned certainly have).

I still think Star Wars is an interesting case - mainly because its so easy to imagine exactly the same story done with knights, castles and good & bad wizards.

I'm afraid that Trek does periodically include plain omnipotent beings with not even a particle-of-the-week explanation (Q in the spin-offs, various greek gods etc. in TOS).

Then your superheroes come and cover every point of the spectrum from gods and magic talismen through implausibly-fit humans to mutants and aliens.

(* E.g. I hear some people around here are simultaneously fans of some SciFi show about space outlaws 500 years in the future and some comedy-drama about a lapsed cheerleader who kills vampires. Even that they're written by the same guu. Does that seem right to you?)

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