I don't *get* the appeal of fantasy

There's plenty of potential for such conflict in a modern espionage tale - Rōnin, for instance. It was basically a Jidaigeki epic in post-Cold War Europe, and a pretty good one, too. And a John Woo Heroic Bloodshed movie will give you gunfights with all the grace of ancient swordplay. Conversely, medieval societies, particularly big cities, were just as policed as our own, and with as many complex subtleties. In that context, your standard issue romantic swashbuckling adventure makes about as much sense as a James Bond flick - both make concessions to reality in order to forward the story.

And something like the Dresden Files gets around the gun thing by having most of the major players not bother with guns, and actually hitting most of the villains is a big problem.

Also, accurately aiming a gun is really hard. Especially since firing the thing causes it to kick.

edited 16th Sep '13 9:52:06 PM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

I think we need to distinguish between fantasy books in general, and books that are marketed as fantasy. The fantasy sections of libraries/bookstores are mostly stocked with either pre-industrial secondary-world epics or urban fantasy action/detective stories. However, that's because fantasy books that don't fit those models are usually marketed as general fiction instead. For instance, most of Stephen King's books are in the fantasy genre, but Eyes of the Dragon and the Dark Tower series are the only ones likely to be put in the fantasy section.

And if we do go just by what libraries and bookstores market as sci-fi/fantasy . . . well, if my local Barnes & Noble is any indicator, something like 10% of science fiction novels are Star Wars tie-ins.

I saw "An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule" in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of a bookstore once. It was written by Isaac Asimov. It's not fiction.

The bookstore isn't a very good indicator because of random things like that.

Not Three Laws compliant.

I feel that, marketing-wise, science fiction has slowly shifted from being a genre - much like action, legal drama, comedy, horror and so on - into being used to describe a setting, namely one with futuristic robots or spaceships or what have you. In the strictest sense, a biopic about Leonardo da Vinci working on his experiments and inventions is science fiction, while the majority of space operas out there aren't.

Fantasy, on the other hand, has become a catch-all term for anything from ghostly horror to vampire romance to wacky magic hijinks. On its own, it's so generic as to make it useless for any practical purpose. Its sub-labels, for that matter - High Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, Steam Punk etc. - have too become useful for describing a setting, rather than a type of narrative. In terms of actual genre, something like Game of Thrones is prime-time political drama all the way, no matter how many dragons get hatched.

You know what I miss? I miss the adventure label. Straight, pure and simple adventure. Because a lot of what are officially science fiction and fantasy stories are just that - nice, fun, interesting adventures. When Indiana Jones nuked the fridge and met gold-plated aliens, people called it Ruined Forever for Doing In the Wizard, ostensibly switching from pulp fantasy to pulp sci-fi. But really, there was no switch - it was pulp adventure, and always had been, because the details of its setting made no difference to the nature of its genre.

<shrugs> The days of Adventure, Science Adventure and Fantasy (meaning Sword and Sorcery or Fantasy Adventure) as labels died a while ago, mate. Those descriptions still aren't dead, though, even if genre definitions are still changing and adapting.

I miss the days of Adventure as well. But it's dead now and it will never come back.

edited 17th Sep '13 1:36:48 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

Nick: As a swordsman, let me say that our art isn't some super-secret, esoteric skill that only Jedi expies can learn either. Think about it: there are only so many ways you can swing a sword, it's mainly a matter of timing, efficient motion, and distance when you get right down to the physical nitty-gritty of it. A rank novice could pick a sword up, swing and still inflict a wound, albeit not nearly as effectively as a trained warrior.

Swordplay and writing blog. Purveyor of weeaboo fightin' magic.

@Nick:

It's something of a misconception and misrepresentative to say that using a gun is easy; it's actually surprisingly difficult to hit a target with very high degrees of accuracy*

. As you take aim, you'll shift slightly*

It's highly unlikely you'll return to the exact same position after taking a shot for example

, atmospheric conditions might change*

Obviously this is more of a concern for snipers

, you may need to adjust your breathing and/or other factors, and this is all leaving aside the fact that the other guy is probably trying to shoot you too. Guns also have their own little quirks, even those manufactured on a production line. It's even more difficult for snipers, who have a lot more variables to take into account and have higher stakes. The qualities of each firearm depends on a multitude of factors. Moving targets make things trickier still.

I could go on and on about this, but I just don't feel it's fair to make a blanket statement like "Guns are boring/easy to use therefore they suck/dull/lame", just like it wouldn't be fair for me as a major gun nerd to say "Swords are boring/easy to use therefore they suck/dull/lame".

/gunchat

---

Aaaaanyway, quick question - what does the "Adventure" genre imply that makes it distinct from science-fiction or fantasy? I'm trying to figure it out, and I can't really think of anything that would differentiate it - after all, don't the other two genres imply that there's going to be adventure involved*

?

edited 15th Oct '13 3:46:24 AM by Flanker66

Locking you up on radar since '09

Genres are, at the end of the day, bullshit. They are a handy way of categorizing things but really a story is just a story. People sometimes describe stuff as "genre busting" but all that means is that the writer ignored the little box people arbitrarily drew around a particular set of tropes.

Maybe it is crap but it does give some form of distinction as well as some escapism.

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

Yeah, but my point is a genre is just a box of tropes. You can define them by setting or story type or a combination of both, so an "adventure" story is just one that follows a particular plot. It can take place in pretty much any setting, from a medieval world with dragons to an interstellar romp with planet-hopping space pirates. The genres overlap because one exists on a different axis to the other.

edited 15th Oct '13 6:31:10 AM by Elfive

Additionally, guns kick back every time you fire them. This is one of those things that everyone knows, but nobody really understands until they've actually fired one. Guns kick back hard. It is very easy for an untrained person to completely lose control of their weapon the first time they fired it because they were completely unprepared for the kickback. This is something that's commonly overlooked in fiction, where guns don't seem to kick at all and gunplay styles like Guns Akimbo that provide absolutely no stability to the firearm whatsoever are propagated because they look cool.

Likewise, it's commonly ignored that the stronger the round, the greater the kick. Special ammunition that can explode tanks is common in fiction, and what's commonly ignored is the fact that a rifle bullet that can vaporize a tank is probably going to dislocate your shoulder when you fire it. Google Tyrannosaurus Rounds to see what happens when the bullet is the stronger than the person firing it.

Proper use of firearms isn't nearly as devoid of skill as writers like to make it out to be.

edited 15th Oct '13 8:51:14 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

It's funny to think about, but characters with low to mid level super strength would theoretically make better gunslingers than brawlers. The only place I can think of where that idea got explored at all is Hellsing.

@Tobias Drake:

Very true! Anti-materiel*

rifles (which are meant to be used on lightly armoured vehicles and/or parked aircraft/helicopters, not tanks*

As an aside, the reason why the anti-tank rifle fell out of favour was because it was becoming impractical to create and use rifles that could chamber a large enough round to damage tanks as they became better protected

), which are probably going to be the largest man portable guns you're going to come across, have extremely potent recoil that can and will mess up your shoulder if you don't fire them from a braced prone position, making them a fine example of the sort of thing you're talking about. There's actually a lot of nuance in the production and use of firearms. I just wish guns got a fairer shake than they normally do in fiction.

However, I think that's a discussion for a different thread.

@Elfive:

I definitely understand where you're coming from, but genres do make it much easier to pin down which story has what elements (and therefore whether or not you'd like it).

Locking you up on radar since '09

Oh absolutely. They're a bit like taxonomic classification in that regard. Very useful for identifying patterns and families, but ultimately an artificial set of divisions. The way I see it, you have setting genres - what the world your story is in is like - and plot genres -what happens to people in that world. Which is why it doesn't make sense to have "adventure" as a separate genre. It's a plot genre the two setting genres are both good at hosting.

Further:

• On the arguments against my earlier points; Fair points, I suppose. I did not really consider all that about guns. All this brought up really kind of highlighted how little I really knew about them.

I suppose another point that appeals to me about fantasy is that, even if the city is well guarded or well policed, the big battle will be between the hero and the villain. Nine times out of ten, the villain - regardless of how many guards there are policing the city - will shred the guards to pieces.

The bad guys in fantasy will almost always be taken down by the heroes in a spectacular battle where everything is riding on the victory here - now - or its all for naught!

In the modern day, the villain is mostly either evading police, or hiding away, and for me, this is very unsatisfactory. The villain of the piece is most often defeated by being arrested or otherwise detained instead of being slain in a final confrontation. There is no emotional fulfillment for me in knowing that someone's just been arrested or taken away by a bunch of vanilla "guardians".

That is why I like fantasy, there will be an important confrontation of note and which changes things down the line, where hopes and dreams are resting on victory one way or another.

edited 15th Oct '13 12:41:27 PM by NickTheSwing

You like explosive final confrontations between Good and Evil, and don't really consider police or miltary types to be sufficiently Good for the task?

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

It is wish fulfillment, plucky heroes versus unbeatable villains so the military, police and enlisted men are just cannon fodder. Buffy is one of the most annoying examples with The Initiative, they are portrayed as being surprisingly incompetent by any standard but that is because Joss is anti authoritarian or so I have heard.

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

Joss's early works were definitely anti-authoritarian. It's evident in Buffy, Angel, and Firefly alike. Even Avengers has definite shades of it.

Personally, I think police and military get a bum rap in fiction. They're often portrayed as being next to useless compared to the random civilian hero. This is especially true of anime and superhero comics, and it's pretty rare to find a story about soldiers and law enforcement officers - people who have actually dedicated their lives to Protecting and Serving the common man - behaving as heroes. It's almost paradoxical to me that we admire characters who devote themselves to saving lives and helping people, just so long as they don't make a career out of it. True Heroes only dabble in saving lives as a hobby?

If you go, alone and unarmed, into the middle of the Big Bad's fortress to fight overwhelming odds and end his reign of tyranny, you are a hero. But if you sign up in your nation's army to march a thousand men up to his gates and cram liberation down his face hole, you are a worthless Cannon Fodder mook at best, and an inevitably corrupt tool of the next Evil Empire at worst.

edited 15th Oct '13 1:50:07 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

@ Gus vs swords debate: Have to point out that while it takes some skill to use guns, it is much easier to acquire such skills to use a gun to a level good enough for a battle than a sword, or else armies around the world would be using swords for battle instead. In fact, swords are lousy weapons even amongst melee (eg, quarterstaves and polearms outreach swords dramatically and are the primary army weapons before gunpowder) and require a much more dedication to training in order to use them properly.

@ police and law enforcement in fiction: I find that to be interesting as I grew up with action movies where a policeman is a main character, so I wouldn't say that "having police officers arresting criminals" to be boring necessarily. It's all a matter of how to tell te tale.

edited 15th Oct '13 1:57:48 PM by IraTheSquire

Armies using guns over swords isn't a matter of training, it's a matter of effectiveness. Guns are objectively better weapons than swords. They're lethal at greater range, while still being small enough to be man-portable. An army of swords versus an army of guns will lose before they ever even get into range to start swinging. Not because swords are easier or harder to train than guns, but because guns can start killing the swordsmen long before the swordsmen even reach the marksmen.

Swords, quite frankly, are obsolete in a world where firearms are widespread. Blades are not, but swords absolutely are, which is blades have evolved into bayonets and combat knives instead; the purpose of a blade in modern warfare is to be able to kill someone at a range too close to be able to effectively get your gun into a killing position, and for that purpose, a smaller blade is better than a larger blade. You don't need a 3-foot blade to stab someone in the gut while wrestling on the ground and, in fact, a 3-foot blade would be very unwieldy for that purpose.

EDIT: On that note, it IS true that swords are lousy melee weapons. They're not supposed to be high-skill weapons. They're basically sharp clubs that can be mass-produced to easily supply an untrained militia. They're the melee equivalent of an AK-47; they do the job, but they are utter shit compared to the alternatives.

edited 15th Oct '13 4:28:00 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

That wasn't the case with the earliest guns though. It was because of the fact that they were quicker to train with that people used them long enough to develop rifling and cartridge based ammunition that completed thier domination over other personal weapons.

You say I am loved, when I don’t feel a thing. You say I am strong, when I think I am weak. You say I am held, when I am falling short.

Not really. Spears are a lot easier to make and train the rabble with. And it doesn't really jive with swords being a nobleman's weapon in most places in the ancient world. They could afford to spend their lives training and buying equipment for war, so it didn't really matter much that swords aren't that great of a weapon; and for that matter swords tended to be secondary weapons anyway.

Anyway, just from what I've seen in this thread, the terms "fantasy" and "science fiction" have such wildly varying meanings from person to person that it's hard to have a meaningful discussion on what they do and don't do and what exactly their appeal is.

It's best to think of the sword as a medieval fighter's sidearm on the battlefield, and what he would use in a duel on the street. The polearm, bow, or gun was usually the primary weapon. And if you were dealing with plate you'd have something like a warhammer.

Swordplay and writing blog. Purveyor of weeaboo fightin' magic.