week 3 - Fantasy

1. What are some archetypes (e.g. common character types) of fantasy fiction?

There are various ways a story can proclaim its fantastic nature. It can involve beings who who existence we know to be impossible. Like dragons, flying animals or shape shifting men. it can revolve around rings such as "the lord of the rings" which had hobbits and other unknown creatures. It can revolve around another world in somebody wardrobe like "Narnia" Which had a magical land with horse headed men and talking animals. It can revolve around magic as it has in "Harry Potter" with them going to magic school in a castle and being able to jump through walls in order to catch the 9 and 3 quarter train. A tree can have arms and legs and be able to grab passes-by. Flowers can sing and dance like in the much love Disney movies. All these things violate the assumptions we have about matter and life. These stories go on as if this really is a world, they do not try and convince the reader that this could happen, it is happening in their story and in their story alone. These types of characters and the fantasy genre is found in many children's books and movies today. They are very successful and most of the novels have been made into films. Such as the lord of the rings, Narnia, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, True Blood and Twilight. This can be seen in "Warriors in the mist" "Of these some say the greatest voyager, was the man called Sparrowhawk who in his day became both dragonlord and Archmage. These characters are so much fun to read or watch or even to create in your own imagination, as you are creating your own world, and anything is possible. "Fantasy is a game of sorts, and it demands that one play whole-heartedly, accepting for the moment, all rules and turns of the game. The reward for this extra payment is an occasional sense of unexpected beauty and strangeness, a quality which C.N. Manlove, among others call "wonder"."

2. How is Sci Fiction different from Fantasy, according to Le Guinn?

In the technological sense Science fiction and fantasy are completely different in the way that they are structured and put together; but to the common eye, such as myself it is hard to determine how they are a different genre and why. Le Guinn sums up the differences perfectly.

With fiction there are many different types which for the naked eye is all the same, the same with sci fi and fantasy. In order to understand the differences it is important to understand the different types of works such as, "Fiction is plausibility, which it creates for itself, most notably through accurate, honest observation of the world it creates. This created world is of course more or less directly related to and dependent on the actual, factual world outside the book."

Fiction is what didn't happen, but realistic fiction pretends that it did. Realism uses actuality and history, inserting invented characters in amongst real people and places which like science fiction is a breach or realism. With Science Fiction often the authors invent the past or pretends that the future is the present or the past and then tells us what has happened in it. "Why? Because "the future" is a blank page, and the imagination can write anything it likes on it" With the new TV shows on channel 2 "Fringe" and "V" they use this example perfectly. Both are set in the future but are pretending it is the present. Because of this, the writers are able to explore and create things that the viewer has never thought possible. This has also been used in the film "Children of men" when it is set in 2045 and the world isn't able to convince children anymore. which just goes to show that it is not only been used in novels but in other medias as well. "In general, science fiction proceeds just as realistic fiction does, meeting conventional expectations of how people generally act, and either avoiding events that will strike the reader as improbable, or plausibly explaining them. Realism and science fiction both employ plausibility to win the reader's consent to the fiction." When writing fiction or science fiction we generally don't make up myths this falls under fantasy. As Le Guinn states; Fantasy is far more direct in its fictionality than either realism or science fiction. Its contract with the reader is a different one. There is no agreement to pretend that its story happened, might have happened, or might ever happen. Its invention is radical. With the informed consent of the reader, fantasy deliberately violates plausibility in the sense of congruence with the world outside the story. With fantasy the characters may not be human or may relate to inhuman beings in a different way, which you would not find in science fiction. With fantasy genres you have to go into it with an open mind as some of the things that you come across are so extreme you can only begin to question it. whereas science fiction generally, it is believable with some true facts or things that could happen as apposed to a talking goat. Guinn sums it up perfectly; Fantasy is shamelessly fictive. Some people feel it's wicked to invent something God didn't think of. Others see it as a waste of time. And to others, fantasy is an exercise of what may be our most divine and certainly is our most human capacity, the imagination.

References - U, K. Lee Guin. Plausibility Revisted. Wha Hoppen and What Didn't. Retrieved 11th august from http://www.ursulakleguin.com/PlausibilityRevisited.html

Le Guinn, U. (1993; 1968). A

Wizard of Earthsea. In The

Earthsea Quartet (pp.13-167).

London: Penguin.

Attebery, B. (1980). Locating

fantasy. In The Fantasy

Tradition in American

Literature: From Irving to Le

Guinn (pp.2-9). Bloomington:

Indiana U P, 1980.