# Must fantasy include magic



## nj1 (Nov 29, 2007)

Most fantasy books i've read include a fair amount of magic. Do you think a fantasy movel must include magic to fire the imagination?


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## Overread (Nov 29, 2007)

I would consdier magic and mythological creatures to be what makes fantasy fantasy and not just another historical fiction novel


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## nj1 (Nov 29, 2007)

don't get me wrong, i do enjoy the magic side of things, I was just thinking could you write fantasy without magic?


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## Teresa Edgerton (Nov 29, 2007)

Some people would say yes, and mention a few writers who have done so.

For me, while I wouldn't say that fantasy has to have magic, by my definition it would have to have some element of the supernatural, the otherworldly, or the (currently) impossible.  However, it wouldn't take a huge amount of any of these things to qualify.  One encounter with a ghost, or a magic talisman, or a Norse god -- or whatever it might be -- would do it for me, so long as it was integral to the plot in some way.   In fact, I think if you use too much magic, too freely, it ceases to convey any sense of the miraculous and simply becomes a device.

But without something along those lines, in my mind it would simply be an imaginary history -- which I might enjoy, but it would make no more sense to me to call the result a fantasy than it would to call something without a mystery to be solved a mystery.

At the same time, I am sure there are people here who would argue that it makes perfect sense to them.


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## Connavar (Nov 30, 2007)

Heroic Fantasy is practicly magicless.

David Gemmell is mostly the Heroic Fantasy i have read and he has so little magic in his stories.

I like his type of fantasy, very low magic,make its more gritty,down to earth when there isnt a wizard or a witch that has world shattering powers.

I like it when there is a lot of magic too when its a good system and not only there as a miraculous device.


So no fantasy is alot more than just magic.


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## j d worthington (Nov 30, 2007)

I'm in agreement with Teresa and Connavar on this. A lot of classic fantasy is very lean on magic, and a lot of it has elements of the supernatural that most wouldn't classify as "magic". Lord Dunsany, one of the most important writers in the history of fantasy, is an excellent example, with a lot of his stories having (often very subtle) element of the mystical, marvelous, or numinous about them, yet superb fantasy for all that....


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## Delvo (Nov 30, 2007)

Without magic, it's just alternative history.


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## j d worthington (Nov 30, 2007)

Delvo said:


> Without magic, it's just alternative history.


 
Hardly, unless you're using the term "magic" very broadly indeed, to include any sort of non-rationalistic (or non-materialistic) element in a tale, and even then I'd be extremely dubious about such an assertion....


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## Culhwch (Nov 30, 2007)

Delvo said:


> Without magic, it's just alternative history.


 
How so? An alternative history of a world that never existed? I think fantasy is far broader than just 'stories with magic', as better minds than mine have already asserted...


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## Omphalos (Nov 30, 2007)

When you say magic, do you mean only things like spells and such?  Because you can have a fantasy with creatures that are usually associated with myth or fantasy, like a unicorn or a dragon, and not have magic as a tool, but still have a fantasy tale.  

Or something like McCaffrey's An Exchange of Gifts, which has a strong fantasy feel, but has no magic at all save for an odd hint at special abilities that manifest very subtly and like ordinary skills.


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## Rohan (Nov 30, 2007)

I would hesitate to claim that any genre _must _have this or that to truly belong. Having said that, the best fantasy books that I personally have read do incorporate magic into their world; albeit to varying degrees and in differing ways. I myself am a fan of magic as it is implemented in ASOIAF; gritty, enigmatic, and running a distant second to more mundane solutions.


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## JDP (Nov 30, 2007)

I much prefer fantasy with a low magic quotient. I don't think fantasy has to have magic in it, though I can't think of an example off the top of my head with absolutely _no_ magical elements.


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## Ragnar (Nov 30, 2007)

Delvo said:


> Without magic, it's just alternative history.


 
Really?


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## Teresa Edgerton (Nov 30, 2007)

The problem is that if you make the definition of fantasy too broad, you end up with something that fails to distinguish it from any other sort of fiction.

If you make the definition too narrow, you end up excluding some classic works of fantasy.

And at either end of the spectrum, you run the risk of confusing some of the common trappings with the genre itself.

Say that your definition includes everything with an imaginary setting and history.  If that setting is not distinguished in some important ways from the reality of our past or present, then you have included all of the Ruritanian/Graustarkian novels (which is not such an enormous stretch), Trollope's Barchester, and for that matter every television show that's located in a town that isn't on any map.

But if you say that fantasy has to have swords, wizards, quests, and heroes, you've just excluded all of contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, and a huge chunk of other sorts of fantasy. 

In either case, some (though certainly not all) people will be using a medieval (or more likely a quasi-medieval) setting as part of their template, yet fantasy comprises so much more and so much beyond a low-tech, vaguely medieval, vaguely European setting.


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## ice.monkey (Nov 30, 2007)

A story set on an imaginary water world involving sentient sea creatures along the lines of mermaids/men, etc with no magic.

Surely you couldn't classify it as anything but fantasy?


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## Teresa Edgerton (Nov 30, 2007)

It certainly meets my criteria for the otherworldly.  But some people might call such a story science fiction, or science-fantasy, or speculative fiction.  Whether they would also call it fantasy would depend on whether they consider any or all of the above to be a subset of fantasy.  I do, but not everyone does.

And I suppose some people would classify it according to what they think you mean by "along the lines" of mermaids.  If very much like mermaids, some readers might be unable to separate them from the mermaids of myth and legend, and would therefore define them as magical creatures.


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## ice.monkey (Nov 30, 2007)

It's interesting because there's obviously a blurring at the edges of science-fiction and fantasy. Not something I'd really sat down and considered before.

Surely science-fantasy would have to be a subset of fantasy. Or is it classed as a subset of science-fiction? Or both? Or is it shunned by hard-core fans of both?

An orphan in genre classification.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Nov 30, 2007)

I don't know how it can be an orphan when it has two living parents -- even if it might have some snooty relatives who refuse to acknowledge its legitimacy.


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## Fake Vencar (Nov 30, 2007)

Well Fantasy is basically magic. I have never read one without magic. Magic is the backbone so, yes, to answer your question


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## Rohan (Dec 1, 2007)

Fake Vencar said:


> Well Fantasy is basically magic. I have never read one without magic. Magic is the backbone so, yes, to answer your question



Out of curiosity, would you consider a book that contained orcs, elves, dwarves, dragons, and great, army-destroying warrior-heroes, but no magic, to be fantasy? I certainly would.

Fantasy has tropes, not rules. It is like a web. Constructed from many parts, the loss of one thread does not unravel the greater weave. Lose two, and it still remains fantasy. The difficulty lies in discerning at what point the web becomes something else; but IMO, the removal of magic alone does not bring us to this point.


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## Connavar (Dec 1, 2007)

Fake Vencar said:


> Well Fantasy is basically magic. I have never read one without magic. Magic is the backbone so, yes, to answer your question




That just means you have read alot of epic fantasy...


There are alot of other subgenres of fantasy.


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## j d worthington (Dec 1, 2007)

Fake Vencar said:


> Well Fantasy is basically magic. I have never read one without magic. Magic is the backbone so, yes, to answer your question


 
Again, define magic. If (as someone else posted above) you mean spells, etc., then try these:

"A Thing About Machines" by Rod Serling
"The Howling Man" by Charles Beaumont
"One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts" and "The Demon Lover" by Shirley Jackson
*The Circus of Dr. Lao*, by Charles G. Finney
about 80% of the fiction of Harlan Ellison
nearly the entirety of H. P. Lovecraft's "Dreamlands" stories
half (or better) of the work of Clark Ashton Smith
the fantasies of Donald Wandrei
over half of the 18-volume (or 25-volume, depending on the edition) _Biography of the Life of Manuel_ by James Branch Cabell
*Lud-in-the-Mist*, by Hope Mirrlees
*Phantastes* or *Lilith*, by George MacDonald
*The Gods of Pegāna*, *Time and the Gods*, *Fifty-one Tales* (a.k.a. *The Food of Death*) by Lord Dunsany
The Neustrian cycle by Leslie Barringer
the Gormenghast books by Mervyn Peake 
much of the work of A. Merritt, H. Rider Haggard, W. Russell Clark....

etc., etc., etc. Not to mention a great deal of what falls under the rubric of "dark fantasy", which is closer to the eerie sort of horror (as opposed to the more visceral sort), including Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, a great deal of Edgar Allan Poe's fantastic works (both poetry and prose), *The King in Yellow* by Robert W. Chambers (as well as Karl Edward Wagner's "The River of Night's Dreaming", set in that world)....


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## Fake Vencar (Dec 1, 2007)

Well, i would say anything fantasy based magical. Basically spells, creatures... that sort of thing. I would also say that elves and dwarves are magical simply because they are...aliens almost. They have a certain magical feeling to them: i admit a large, axe-wielding Dwarf would need to you to search deep down but it is there. 

Its just my opinion because i haven't read any fantasy books without my theory of magic.


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## ice.monkey (Dec 1, 2007)

> I don't know how it can be an orphan when it has two living parents


 
You're right. More like an abandoned child striving for acknowledgement and a little love from its uncaring parents.


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## The Ace (Dec 1, 2007)

It doesn't _have _to.  Magic, though, does add an extra dimension sometimes.


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## manephelien (Dec 1, 2007)

Fantasy doesn't necessarily need magic to qualify as fantasy, unless you define anything vaguely supernatural as magic.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 1, 2007)

Fake Vencar said:


> Its just my opinion because i haven't read any fantasy books without my theory of magic.



But that just may be a reflection of the kind of books/authors you've been drawn to.  If you're always looking for epic or heroic fantasy, for instance, and are never attracted to anything else within the genre, then you're unlikely to read anything that doesn't fit your existing ideas about magic and fantasy.


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## Delvo (Dec 1, 2007)

manephelien said:


> Fantasy doesn't necessarily need magic to qualify as fantasy, unless you define anything vaguely supernatural as magic.


Well, how could anything "supernatural" not be "magic"? They're synonyms.


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## Overread (Dec 1, 2007)

hmm thinking about it here is an idea

Fantasy must include things, be they objects, creatures etc and events which are not and have never been present in our world today; and also could not occur withine our world within the boundaris of science.

there how does that sound?


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 1, 2007)

Delvo said:


> Well, how could anything "supernatural" not be "magic"? They're synonyms.



Actually, they are _not_ synonyms, except when used very loosely and incorrectly.  "Magic" refers to the control (usually by humans) of supernatural forces.  Supernatural can refer to things that exist above or beyond any mortal agency, and which may not be controlled at all:  gods, ghosts, etc.  Magic is only a small part of the supernatural.


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## Stormflame (Dec 2, 2007)

I write fantasy.  Have been writting fantasy for years.  I think fantasy is fantastic.  I hardly add magic in my fantasy.  It is more of task for a character to overcome a trial with smart-thinking, or muscle, than to simply wave a wand, mutter a word or two- and poof!
Magic in a story has its place.  Magic I like to link with elves, the old wizard who travels the Lands but, keeps it secret for the most part, and perhaps a sprite fluttering through the trees playing tricks on the innocent wayfarer.  
Magic in fantasy makes me draw more toward the evil sorceror and his dark legions.  Magic, which takes on the def of sorcery by now, makes the hero of the story stand out as his brawn goes against a seemingly forlorn wall.  

-Citadel


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Dec 2, 2007)

I generally add magic to the stuff I write, but I see your point. And, actually, Anne McCaffrey has shown that it really doesn't.

What irks me beyond no end, however, is the recent fad of introducing outraegous technology (Final Fantasy) and the real world into fantasy...(Terry Brooks' Running With The Demon to Armageddon's Children.) To be honest, I've quit buying very recent fantasy books for those very reasons.

But yeah, it doesn't ALWAYS need magic. The "Gee whiz! Look at THAT!" element tends to grow stale and smolder.


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## Delvo (Dec 2, 2007)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> Supernatural can refer to things that exist above or beyond any mortal agency, and which may not be controlled at all:  gods, ghosts, etc.  Magic is only a small part of the supernatural.


The gods control themselves and thus their own powers. Ghosts control themselves and thus their own powers.


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## j d worthington (Dec 2, 2007)

All right, to clarify:

Magic:



> *NOUN:*
> 
> 
> The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.
> ...


 
Supernatural:



> *ADJECTIVE:*
> 
> 
> Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
> ...


Save for one rather loose mingling of the two (definition 4 for "magic"), they're quite different, as the quote from Milton shows that even the previous definition refers to some form of spell.

So, no, fantasy doesn't require "magic" in either the usual or less-usual senses (as much fantasy certainly lacks that "mysterious quality of enchantment", being in fact ridiculously pedestrian). 

Delvo: as for your line about gods and ghosts -- not quite. There are tales involving both gods and ghosts who most certainly do not; in fact, a great number of ghost tales have the spirits anything but in control of their actions. And, as is evident from Teresa's entire statement, the emphasis is on "uncontrolled or uncontrollable by those within the tale". Again, there is a vast amount of fantasy which does not hinge on magic, but it almost invariably has some form of the supernatural; at the very least, it has some approach to the sublime or supernal.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 2, 2007)

Delvo said:


> The gods control themselves and thus their own powers. Ghosts control themselves and thus their own powers.



Which in no way refutes what I said.  And it _certainly_ doesn't change the fact that dictionaries do not give the two words as synonyms.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Dec 2, 2007)

That's because ghosts are spirits of deceased mortals, while gods are immortals, and therefore, have never been deceased.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 2, 2007)

If you'll look back a few messages, Manarion, you'll see that the words in question are "magic" and "supernatural."


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## j d worthington (Dec 2, 2007)

Manarion said:


> What irks me beyond no end, however, is the recent fad of introducing outraegous technology (Final Fantasy) and the real world into fantasy...(Terry Brooks' Running With The Demon to Armageddon's Children.) To be honest, I've quit buying very recent fantasy books for those very reasons.


 
While this is a trend that seems to have caught on (again) fairly recently, it is by no means entirely new, as this sort of thing dates back at least to the 1910s and some of A. Merritt's work (*The Moon Pool*, for instance). It was especially the case with a lot of the writers of the 1940s and 1950s, where the blending of sf and fantasy was often quite heavy. Moorcock has done such on occasion, too. And this is only referring to the technology aspect. As for bringing the "real world" into fantasy... that goes back as far as you care to take it, and (again, when done well) can make for excellent stories....


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## Foxbat (Dec 2, 2007)

Anything that allows me to step out of the real world for a few hours reading is Fantasy as far as I'm concerned.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Dec 2, 2007)

j. d. worthington said:


> While this is a trend that seems to have caught on (again) fairly recently, it is by no means entirely new, as this sort of thing dates back at least to the 1910s and some of A. Merritt's work (*The Moon Pool*, for instance). It was especially the case with a lot of the writers of the 1940s and 1950s, where the blending of sf and fantasy was often quite heavy. Moorcock has done such on occasion, too. And this is only referring to the technology aspect. As for bringing the "real world" into fantasy... that goes back as far as you care to take it, and (again, when done well) can make for excellent stories....


 
Which is why I recommend Piers Anthony's Incarnation of Immortality series to any reader who wants something fairly new and refreshing in fantasy.

And I understand that super-technology has been around a while in fantasy, but I still don't like it. As David Eddings said, fantasy and sci-fi shouldn't even look at each other. Fantasy deals with the past, while sci-fi deals with the future. That's why I tend to read his material more than anyone else, really.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 2, 2007)

Manarion said:


> As David Eddings said, fantasy and sci-fi shouldn't even look at each other.



Although I don't think much of Eddings as a writer, I would have thought that someone who has been writing in the field as long as he has would have more understanding and respect for the history of the genre and the great works within it.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Dec 2, 2007)

He got into the field BECAUSE he had no true respect for the classic type, at least in some respects. He pretty much said so in The Rivan Codex...where, incidentally, I should site as the source of his other quotes I've used.

He found, like I did, that character development is a little more important than background history...though, if you've read Belgarath the Sorcerer or Polgara the Sorceress, he's given his world history.


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## Overread (Dec 2, 2007)

I like fantasy that is in the past and Sci fi that is in the future.
I also like Final Fantasy X and The Dragon Riders of Pern series -- both of these are scifi/fantasy interactions - granted I will say that it is harder to get the balance in a tale right so that it stands well as a story, but I see no problem with it.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 2, 2007)

There _is_ no one classic type; the great classics in the field are all different.    

Fantasy is about stretching the boundaries of the imagination, about expanding our hearts and our perceptions into realms where they might not otherwise go.  It's not about compressing the imagination into neat little packets, that just happen to fit what a particular author is writing.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Dec 2, 2007)

And this woman, ladies and gentlemen, has hit the nail on the head of what a true fantasy is.

Fantasy deals with the outer realms of impossibility. Enough said, I think...


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## j d worthington (Dec 2, 2007)

Manarion said:


> Which is why I recommend Piers Anthony's Incarnation of Immortality series to any reader who wants something fairly new and refreshing in fantasy.
> 
> And I understand that super-technology has been around a while in fantasy, but I still don't like it. As David Eddings said, fantasy and sci-fi shouldn't even look at each other. Fantasy deals with the past, while sci-fi deals with the future. That's why I tend to read his material more than anyone else, really.


 
The problem is, while such a division can produce some good work, such a rigid approach quickly stultifies creativity in any branch of literature... very much what we've seen in fantasy (and are now, apparently, gradually getting away from). And, as has been pointed out time and again, both fantasy and sf come from the same origins, such a separatist ideal is less than truthful to the facts.

Nor has much of the best fantasy been oriented toward the past; S&S, yes (largely). But most branches of the field run the gamut. Dunsany (certainly one of the most important names in the history of the field) went from the past-oriented to present-world to future. Harlan Ellison's fantasy is almost exclusively centered on the contemporary world, and is immensely strong work. Andre Norton blended technology, the contemporary world (and, occasionally, politics), and the "traditional" semi-mediaeval milieu in her Witch World tales, quite often to great effect... and certainly she was long a mainstay of fantasy, very important to the field. The examples contrary to such an assertion are well-nigh endless.....


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## j d worthington (Dec 2, 2007)

Manarion said:


> And this woman, ladies and gentlemen, has hit the nail on the head of what a true fantasy is.
> 
> Fantasy deals with the outer realms of impossibility. Enough said, I think...


 
Except that I'd phrase it as the outer realms of imaginative possibility... whether possible in the real world or not.....


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Dec 2, 2007)

So you say, but eventually with such mixing, fantasy will lose its basic face. Already, it's not even considered its own genre anymore; rather, it's considered a SUB-genre of SF. The only reason why the two are ever closely linked is the fact that things that have never happened in any situation in this world is a staple of both genres. Other than that, I really don't find any similiarity.


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## j d worthington (Dec 2, 2007)

Manarion said:


> So you say, but eventually with such mixing, fantasy will lose its basic face. Already, it's not even considered its own genre anymore; rather, it's considered a SUB-genre of SF. The only reason why the two are ever closely linked is the fact that things that have never happened in any situation in this world is a staple of both genres. Other than that, I really don't find any similiarity.


 
No... what I'm referring to is that they are linked historically... they come from the same basic roots literarily, which began to diverge in the late 18th century, had a great deal of intermingling of various sorts throughout the 19th and early 20th, and became rather stultified into (as you call it) its "basic face" following the surge in popularity for Tolkien's work ca. the 1970s. Before that point, the similarities were much more evident if you had much of a knowledge of the field.

And, as Teresa noted, there _is_ no one classic type, no "basic face", as you put it. What you're referring to is one very limited facet of fantasy, by no means the whole....


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 2, 2007)

Manarion said:


> Fantasy deals with the outer realms of impossibility. Enough said, I think...



Which includes "outrageous technology", the combination of science and magic, and many other things that people who say things like that David Eddings quote have apparently never dreamed of in their philosophy.

It certainly doesn't mean rehashing forever the same sort of plot and characters and setting.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 2, 2007)

Manarion said:


> Already, it's not even considered its own genre anymore; rather, it's considered a SUB-genre of SF.



People have been saying that since the early 1970's, simply because SF was already a viable genre -- in terms of a marketing category -- and in that sense fantasy was the new kid on the block.  Nevertheless, fantasy has not, at any point during the almost forty years since, been in any danger of being absorbed by SF.  

If it's any comfort to you, Manarion, your fears have no basis in the history of the genre, and you have nothing to worry about.  Those writers who are exploring the outer boundaries of the genre, and those readers who enjoy what they are doing, are not endangering it in any way, shape, or form.  All the evidence suggests otherwise.


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## mosaix (Dec 3, 2007)

nj1 said:


> Most fantasy books i've read include a fair amount of magic. Do you think a fantasy movel must include magic to fire the imagination?



One of the greatest works of fantasy - the _*Gormenghast*_ trilogy by *Mervyn Peake* - has none. So the answer is no.


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## Alurny (Dec 3, 2007)

Foxbat said:


> Anything that allows me to step out of the real world for a few hours reading is Fantasy as far as I'm concerned.





Agree! I don't mind too much as it doesn't really matter. A new world, new cultures and new rules make a book for me.


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## Delvo (Dec 3, 2007)

Manarion said:


> The only reason why the two are ever closely linked is the fact that things that have never happened in any situation in this world is a staple of both genres. Other than that, I really don't find any similiarity.


That seems like plenty to me. How much more similarity do you expect between any two separate but related genres?


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## Delvo (Dec 3, 2007)

j. d. worthington said:


> Save for one rather loose mingling of the two (definition 4 for "magic"), they're quite different


Umm... no, not at all. "Magic"'s third and fourth noun definitions are things I hadn't thought of: the fourth is just a metaphor for the other definitions, and the third is also separate from "real magic" (as it's described in fantasy books where "real magic" is really real  ), as either a metaphorical reference, homage, commercial exaggeration, or fraud pretending to really be "magic". So even though I didn't think of those, they only stem from and refer back to the "real thing" anyway.

And other than those two, every definition you just quoted for "magic" has the word "supernatural" built in, or "unaccountable" in the last case (which describes the same thing: can't be accounted for by the laws of nature).



j. d. worthington said:


> a great number of ghost tales have the spirits anything but in control of their actions.


Not that it would make any difference, especially if someone ELSE is in control, but describe some examples.



j. d. worthington said:


> And, as is evident from Teresa's entire statement, the emphasis is on "uncontrolled or uncontrollable by those within the tale".


That's a bad way to categorize something as magical or not. It means the very same thing becomes magical or unmagical just based on which of the people involved are and aren't in the story. It's like saying a story in which the characters' lives are strongly affected by politics still doesn't have politics in it if the politicians who made things that way aren't shown doing it.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 3, 2007)

You seem intent on missing the point, Delvo.  Magic is part of the supernatural, but not everything that is supernatural is magic.  The part is not synonymous with the whole.  A drop of water is not the Pacific Ocean, a grain of sand is not the Sahara desert.

Magic is the attempt (in fantasy, often the successful attempt) to control supernatural forces from the outside.  The magician works magic to call on forces beyond himself; those forces do not need magic to express themselves.
Is this really so difficult a concept for you to grasp?


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## Hilarious Joke (Dec 3, 2007)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> Magic is the attempt (in fantasy, often the successful attempt) to control supernatural forces from the outside. The magician works magic to call on forces beyond himself; those forces do not need magic to express themselves.


 
Magic can not simply be an attempt to control supernatural forces. I just made an attempt to _will _the rain away. That attempt isn't magic, its an attempt at magic. The rain remains. Damn rain.

I always thought that magic was an entity in its own right. In the Discworld, magic is a colour and perhaps an element. In Cecelia Dart-Thornton's _Bitterbynde_, magic is infused in seelie and unseelie wights. In Hobbs' assassin books, magic seems to be a heriditary trait (I'm talking about the Skill) passed through generations.

I think I may have misintepreted Teresa's statement in its context; but I find the subject fascinating and couldn't help throwing my own tuppence out there.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 3, 2007)

Hilarious Joke said:


> Magic can not simply be an attempt to control supernatural forces. I just made an attempt to _will _the rain away. That attempt isn't magic, its an attempt at magic. The rain remains. Damn rain.




But the rain is a natural force, Hilarious Joke, so simply attempting to will it to stop is not magic.  It's only when you try to bring in supernatural forces  to aid you in stopping the rain that you start using magic.  

Whether you succeed or fail is quite beside the point.  A child brushes paint on a piece of paper.  Whether or not he actually produces the picture that he is trying to transfer from his mind to the paper, he's still painting. It's the same with magic, because it's the act itself, not the result. What distinguishes fantasy from real life is that the accomplishment almost always follows the act -- when even among the people throughout history who have believed in magic and who have practiced magic, they never imagined it was that dependable.  

But, be honest, you weren't really trying to make the rain go away, were you?  I suspect that what you were _really_ doing was trying to prove that it _couldn't_ be done that way.  Remember, I said it's the attempt to call on supernatural forces -- not just pretending to try, when you actually want to do something else, but really making the effort.



> I always thought that magic was an entity in its own right.  In Cecelia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde, magic is infused in seelie and unseelie wights. In Hobbs' assassin books, magic seems to be a heriditary trait (I'm talking about the Skill) passed through generations.



In all these examples you are describing some element of the supernatural that the characters are using or calling forth through magic.


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## j d worthington (Dec 3, 2007)

Delvo said:


> Umm... no, not at all. "Magic"'s third and fourth noun definitions are things I hadn't thought of: the fourth is just a metaphor for the other definitions, and the third is also separate from "real magic" (as it's described in fantasy books where "real magic" is really real  ), as either a metaphorical reference, homage, commercial exaggeration, or fraud pretending to really be "magic". So even though I didn't think of those, they only stem from and refer back to the "real thing" anyway.
> 
> And other than those two, every definition you just quoted for "magic" has the word "supernatural" built in, or "unaccountable" in the last case (which describes the same thing: can't be accounted for by the laws of nature).


 
First, the fourth definition is not "just a metaphor for the other definitions"... it refers to the numinous, that sense of wonder and a feeling of something sublime, supernal, something transcending our understanding (but not necessarily nature) that excites a feeling of awe, mystery, and/or reverence. It may or may not be supernatural in origin or effect. And, as Teresa has (once again) restated, the supernatural itself is not necessarily magic, save by the very loosest use of the term magic. Once again, "magic" is a systematized thing; the supernatural may be chaotic, systematic, or simply hinted or adumbrated without necessarily being explained. It may be as subtle as a sense of something, a delicate apprehension or feeling, an air of, etc.

This difference is evident from their very etymology: _magic_ deriving from "magi" and _supernatural_ simply being a compound of words that together mean "above nature [kind, disposition; part of the physical world]". Just going from the definitions given above, the difference should be evident, as definition 1 of "magic" specifically says "the art that purports to control ... _by invoking_ the supernatural" (emphasis added). In other words, magic is _the art_, the supernatural is _the means_ by which it effects its purported results. It is, if you prefer, the "field" which magic "taps into" -- much greater than the very tiny realm of magic just as the electromagnetic spectrum is much greater than our ability to manipulate (portions of) it through technology. To confuse the two would be like confusing the entire realm of art with the technique used to evoke a certain response.



> Not that it would make any difference, especially if someone ELSE is in control, but describe some examples.


 
"How Love Came to Professor Guildea", by Robert S. Hichens
"The Ghosts", "The Highwayman", "The Doom of La Traviata", by Lord Dunsany
*Jurgen*, by James Branch Cabell
"Silence, A Fable", "Shadow, A Parable", by Edgar Allan Poe

(_Most_ of these also involve the supernatural but _not_ magic; all are examples of ghosts, gods, or supernatural forces not acting under their own volition -- in most cases they aren't under _anyone's_ volition.)



> That's a bad way to categorize something as magical or not. It means the very same thing becomes magical or unmagical just based on which of the people involved are and aren't in the story. It's like saying a story in which the characters' lives are strongly affected by politics still doesn't have politics in it if the politicians who made things that way aren't shown doing it.


 
All right... though I would have thought it would have been evident from the post, I'll clarify: by those within the world (or universe) of the story.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 3, 2007)

j. d. worthington said:


> All right... though I would have thought it would have been evident from the post, I'll clarify: by those within the world (or universe) of the story.



I think it would be clearer, JD, if you added, "and not by the supernatural agencies themselves, but by other persons or entities."


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## j d worthington (Dec 3, 2007)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> I think it would be clearer, JD, if you added, "and not by the supernatural agencies themselves, but by other persons or entities."


 
Or perhaps "or by other persons or entities, save the writer" would be more appropriate to my meaning, yes.....


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## Hilarious Joke (Dec 3, 2007)

I understand what you were saying now Teresa. Interesting definition!


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 3, 2007)

Thank you, Hilarious Joke, but it's not really my own definition, you know.  I'm going by the dictionary and by the historical use of the term.  

* * * * *

And here is the point that I should have made earlier, and will make now in an attempt to drag this thread back on topic:

Within his or her invented world the writer can call anything he or she chooses "magic," and for that world it will be the proper term.

But for purposes of discussion, if we are ever to arrive at any understanding, we can't just invent our own definitions for words, or say what we think they mean, or would like them to mean, or what our favorite authors use them to mean.  If we are going to have any sort of dialogue, and not bog ourselves down in endless confusion, we have to use definitions that are available to everyone:  and so far as I know, no one has come up with a better way of doing this than opening up a dictionary and using what one finds there.


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## j d worthington (Dec 3, 2007)

At risk of being redundant on that... this was exactly the point, I think. By the accepted definitions (and historical usages) of the term, no, fantasy does not have to have magic. (As pointed out with the Gormenghast books, it may not even have the supernatural, though that is indeed a very rare bird!)


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 3, 2007)

As you probably know, I love the _Gormenghast_ books.  And I think what makes them fantasy is three-fold:

1) They describe a culture and a way of life so gloriously grotesque and improbable that they have only the most tenuous connection to reality.

2) Though there is nothing directly supernatural, there is little of the truly natural.  Many of the characters are so very much larger than life (or, in a few cases, like Nannie Slagg and the wretched Bright Carvers, smaller), that they are ruled by unnatural obsessions and unnatural passions.

3)  There is no other genre or classification into which they could possibly fit.


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## j d worthington (Dec 3, 2007)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> As you probably know, I love the _Gormenghast_ books. And I think what makes them fantasy is three-fold:
> 
> 1) They describe a culture and a way of life so gloriously grotesque and improbable that they have only the most tenuous connection to reality.
> 
> ...


 
I'd tend to agree on this. The Gormenghast books -- and, for that matter, Peake himself, to a large degree -- are rather _sui generis_, but fantasy is the only classification I can think of where they would fit. Superb books, and one of the great examples of what fantasy can do at its best... to defy all preconceptions about the genre and become something wonderfully unique and special... and evoke that sense of wonder and the numinous while saying so very, very much about the human heart along the way. Like another favorite we share, Hope Mirrlees' *Lud-in-the-Mist*; or David Lindsay's *A Voyage to Arcturus*, or Cabell's wonderfully quirky, witty, satirically biting, provoking, and often moving, almost unclassifiable _Biography of the Life of Manuel_....


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## Kissmequick (Dec 3, 2007)

While I agree with Theresa that magic, in the sense _we_ know it, is a person or entity trying to control supernatural forces, I think that magic in fantasy is 90% your/the character's perception of the world. It is what they consider magic that is the key.

To a caveman, the use of electricity is magic. To a medieaval man the car is magic. Both our control of electricity ( a 'supernatural' force until science explained it) and the internal combustion engine are easily explainable _to us_, but not to them.

In say The Chronicles Of Morgaine, Morgaine has devices that she considers explicable and merely the result of science. Yet to everyone else in the world(s) they are magic, because they control forces which the people who live there cannot, and as such in that book, they _are_ magic.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 3, 2007)

Yes, the Morgaine books -- which I love -- are like Andre Norton's Witch World books, in that they combine familiar fantasy tropes with an imaginary science so advanced that it appears magical.  Somehow, the two blend seamlessly.  Maybe because we aren't so far removed as we like to think we are from the time when the scientist and the magician could be the same person.  

When Morgaine uses the sword Changeling, she's calling on the principles of an advanced science which the readers doesn't understand, but she does.

But when Vanye holds the sword, he believes he is dealing with something far different, and he wields it in the spirit of a magician's apprentice in awe and in terror.

I think both work, because to some extent readers can view the sword from both sides:  we are comfortable with the idea that incredible things can be accomplished with science, but we don't know how Changeling (and the gates) works anymore than Vanye does.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 3, 2007)

Kissmequick said:


> While I agree with Theresa that magic, in the sense _we_ know it, is a person or entity trying to control supernatural forces, I think that magic in fantasy is 90% your/the character's perception of the world. It is what they consider magic that is the key.



This is exactly what I have been trying to say, except that I would say that it's 100% the character's perception.

But many books are told from more than one viewpoint, and the reader can experience more than one perception.


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## Delvo (Dec 3, 2007)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> Is this really so difficult a concept for you to grasp?


Yes. You got me. I'm amazingly stupid.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 4, 2007)

Delvo said:


> You got me. I'm amazingly stupid.



I'm sorry to hear that.  I just thought you were too stubborn to admit you were mistaken, but since you tell me otherwise I guess I'll have to trust you.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Dec 5, 2007)

Personally, I think this topic's finally ran offtrack. When the word "magic" was first used, I think he asked if it needed, for lack of a better term, internally-controlled energy manipulation. Not far-off technology or any such matters.


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## nj1 (Dec 6, 2007)

Manarion said:


> Personally, I think this topic's finally ran offtrack. When the word "magic" was first used, I think he asked if it needed, for lack of a better term, internally-controlled energy manipulation. Not far-off technology or any such matters.


 
Exactly!


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 6, 2007)

But after we've all said, "No," (or yes) what then?  Either we expand on what a fantasy might have instead, or the thread comes to a grinding halt.


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## j d worthington (Dec 7, 2007)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> But after we've all said, "No," (or yes) what then? Either we expand on what a fantasy might have instead, or the thread comes to a grinding halt.


 
And, as Arthur C. Clarke pointed out many years ago, at some point, the difference between advanced technology and "magic" becomes negligible... something many fantasy writers have played on over the years, blurring the lines quite effectively (and adding a level of epistomological ambiguity to their work -- and the field -- thereby); Michael Moorcock with his Dancers at the End of Time being an especially notable example, considering the way he blends this in with his Elric series as well....


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## Ice fyre (Dec 7, 2007)

Dammit JD you've just beaten me to a point I was going to make.

In a fair few Fantasy novels especially Mr Moorcocks we see the use of technology far enough advanced to be considered magic.

As to it being necessary, I do wonder if a novel is actually fantasy unless it actually involves a little "higher power" divine or magical. 

While I like the Gormenghast books, are they fantasy? Depends on what we percieve as fantasy I suppose. Isnt all Sci-Fi just fantastic fiction really?


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## j d worthington (Dec 7, 2007)

Ice fyre said:


> Dammit JD you've just beaten me to a point I was going to make.


 
LOL... Whoooops!



> In a fair few Fantasy novels especially Mr Moorcocks we see the use of technology far enough advanced to be considered magic.
> 
> As to it being necessary, I do wonder if a novel is actually fantasy unless it actually involves a little "higher power" divine or magical.


 
I'd say, again, that it has to touch on the numinous, yes... but not necessarily "magic" in the accepted sense of the term; the mysterious, the sublime, the ethereal, the suspected violation of natural law... all of these can (and do) qualify a book as "fantasy. It's like the book I'm reading now, Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. While nothing overtly supernatural has taken place so far (and, from what I gather, this is true of the rest of the novel as well), the intimations of the eerie, the supernatural, the uncanny, are all there, giving it that atmosphere of the weird tale. Add to that the subtle suggestion of the worldview that permeates the novel, where you can feel the presence of the unseen, and it lands squarely in the tradition of the supernatural-thriller-_cum_-late-Gothic. This is something that applies with fantasy as well, the Gormenghast books (and Leslie Barringer's Neustrian cycle, and Lud-in-the-Mist, and many of Dunsany's stories, etc.) included.

I would use as an analogy a passage from H. P. Lovecraft's brilliant essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature:



> The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain -- a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space....
> 
> Moreover, much of hte choicest weird work is unconscious; appearing in memorable fragments scattered through material whose massed effect may be of a very different cast. Atmosphere is the all-important thing, for the final criterion of authenticity is not the dovetailing of a plot but the creation of a given sensation. We may say, as a general thing, that a weird story whose intent is to teach or produce a social effect, or one in whic the horrors are finally explained away by natural means, is not a genuine tale of cosmic fear; but it remains a fact that such narratives often possess, in isolated sections, atmospheric touches which fulfil every condition of true supernatural horror-literature. Therefore we must judge a weird tale not by the author's intent, or by the mere mechanics of the plot; but by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point. If the proper sensations are excited, such a "high spot" must be admitted on its own merits as weird literature, no matter how prosaically it is later dragged down.


 
In fantasy, you have something similar, though the emphasis may be vastly different: it is a suggestion of the numinous or the "other" hinting of something vaster, perhaps grander, certainly alien (yet more fascinating than fearful) than the world (or reality) we know. Such may not actually be present in the incidents, but if the air of such is there, that qualifies that piece of work as indeed fantasy.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Dec 8, 2007)

Although in _Lud-in-the-Mist_ you do have the direct intervention of fairies and ghosts in human affairs (for all the efforts of the citizens of Lud to obscure the matter with their legal fictions about smuggled silk).

Here are definitions from three dictionaries:


(Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary)

_ fan·ta·sy 
Variant(s):
also phan·ta·sy \ˈfan-tə-sē, -zē\
Function:
noun
Inflected Form(s):
plural fan·ta·sies
Etymology:
Middle English fantasie — more at fancy
Date:
14th century
1obsolete : hallucination
2: fancy; especially : the free play of creative imagination
3: a creation of the imaginative faculty whether expressed or merely conceived: as a: a fanciful design or invention b: a chimerical or fantastic notion c: fantasia 1 d: imaginative fiction featuring especially strange settings and grotesque characters —called also fantasy fiction
4: caprice
5: the power or process of creating especially unrealistic or improbable mental images in response to psychological need <an object of fantasy>; also : a mental image or a series of mental images (as a daydream) so created <sexual fantasies of adolescence> _


(Oxford University Press)

_ fantasy, a general term for any kind of fictional work that is not primarily devoted to realistic representation of the known world. The category includes several literary genres (e.g. dream vision, fable, fairy tale, romance, science fiction) describing imagined worlds in which magical powers and other impossibilities are accepted. Recent theorists of fantasy have attempted to distinguish more precisely between the self‐contained magical realms of the marvellous, the psychologically explicable delusions of the uncanny, and the inexplicable meeting of both in the fantastic._


(American Heritage Dictionary)

_an·ta·sy       (fān'tə-sē, -zē)  Pronunciation Key  
n.   pl. fan·ta·sies 
The creative imagination; unrestrained fancy. See Synonyms at imagination.
Something, such as an invention, that is a creation of the fancy.
A capricious or fantastic idea; a conceit.
Fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements.
An example of such fiction.
An imagined event or sequence of mental images, such as a daydream, usually fulfilling a wish or psychological need.
An unrealistic or improbable supposition.
Music See fantasia.
A coin issued especially by a questionable authority and not intended for use as currency.
Obsolete A hallucination._


None of these say that magic or the supernatural _have_ to be present. 

Going by the Merriam-Webster definition, _Gormenghast_ definitely qualifies.


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