A Tale of Two Genres

And why the argument is stupid.

Star Wars vintage poster

Recently, my Twitter timeline blew up with a rancorous debate between pulp-rev and indie authors over the question of whether science fiction and fantasy are the same genre or separate ones.

We have some writers claiming that the two are distinct, and appealing to the obvious differences between books such as The Martian and Sword of Shannara for evidence. Then we have others claiming they are the same, or that science fiction is a subgenre of fantasy, and taking Star Wars for evidence.

This is another iteration of a recurring debate throughout the history of science fiction. It is, like the Plato-Aristotle debate in philosophy, a conflict that appears repeatedly in different forms. As the argument takes shape, it reveals itself to be more or less another version of the Campbellian vs. New Wave argument, between those who want their science fiction pure and rigorously scientific, and those who … well, don’t.

Defining Terms

I don’t usually debate genre boundaries myself. This is an argument over definitions, which is a waste of time, and as it progresses, it ultimately devolves into an argument over taste, which, strictly speaking, is not an argument at all, for “in matters of taste there can be no argument.” Eventually, one side says, “I like my science fiction hard with rigorous science” and the other side says, “But that’s boring.” In other words, they end up arguing over preference.

The way I see it, the reason for the disagreement is that everyone has jumped into a fight over what the science fiction genre is and what the fantasy genre is without first asking what a genre is. Stories are made up of building blocks called motifs or—on the internet—“tropes.” A storyteller may mix and match tropes as he pleases. Genres consist of clusters of tropes. Because they are clusters, they can be fuzzy at the edges and overlap. Nonetheless, it is still possible to define the clusters. Science fiction and fantasy share a great deal, but can generally be distinguished from each other.

Science Fiction’s Fantastical Elements

Although I dislike taking part in these arguments, watching them usually strengthens my own opinion. The side arguing that science fiction is really just a brand of fantasy tends to have terrible arguments: They will point out, for example, that science fiction often contains faster-than-light travel, which is fantastical. A defender of sf, however, could easily answer that the limitation of the speed of light is a real scientific problem, and that stories of FTL attempt to deal with that problem in some fashion, such as by folding or warping space. Some of these are passably rigorous and others less so, but they are attempts to deal with a real scientific subject.

Take, for example, the film Interstellar: It contains both faster-than-light travel and time travel, yet nobody could seriously claim it is not a movie about science. We might criticize it on scientific grounds, such as by pointing out that frozen clouds are impossible or that the planet on the rim of the black hole would be orbiting at near light speed, but those are scientific criticisms of scientific speculation. Nobody, or almost nobody, would make similar criticisms of Gandalf’s magic or Superman’s ability to fly because it is understood by everyone that those are not supposed to accord with what we know of physics.

When hard sf represents physics incorrectly, it can be criticized on that ground. Fantasy cannot be.

The Case of Star Wars

The reason Star Wars gets brought up in these discussions is because it borrows motifs heavily from both the sf and fantasy genres. It deals in extremely cursory fashion with faster-than-light travel (first appealing to hyperspace and later simply calling FTL “light speed”) and represents different star systems as conveniently close to one another. Its beam weapons are impossible, and the Force is more-or-less a mystical, magical power.

It is for works like this that the term “science fantasy” was coined, though that never entirely caught on. Star Wars can also be called “space opera,” but that is a genre definition almost entirely based on setting; the science in a space opera may be hard, or not.  Star Wars has many elements of sword-and-sorcery, but it is also set in space with spaceships and laser guns. It is both science fiction and fantasy; it deliberately crosses the genre boundaries. If we were forced to put it in one category or the other, we could go either way—but most of us, if pressed, would call it science fiction because people looking for “science fiction” are more likely to be searching for stories set in space. So that is where most of us would shelve it, even if we admit it fits in either category.

But Star Wars is no excuse to argue that science fiction and fantasy cannot be distinguished. I notice that this argument is only made about science fiction and fantasy, but no one ever claims that science fiction is the same genre as the western even though they are closely related and science fiction as we now know it in some ways grew out of westerns. No one would be so silly as to argue that Firefly proves there is no difference between science fiction and westerns, so it makes no sense to use Star Wars for a similarly silly argument.

Historical Arguments

Perhaps the most fascinating phase of the argument appeared when Brian Niemeier—a very good writer who, like many good writers, says crazy stuff on social media—claimed that the distinction between fantasy and science fiction was invented by communists.

This is a genetic fallacy, though that fact was missed by Niemeier’s interlocutors, who instead mistook it for ad hominem.

In any case, even if the genre boundaries and contents were not solidified until later, works that are identifiably science fiction, such as the novels of Jules Verne, predate the coining of the label.

The Case of Setting

One of the claims by those who argue science fiction and fantasy are the same is that the only real difference is setting: Fantasy is in some otherworld setting (usually) and science fiction is set in space or in the future. Like other attempts to define genre narrowly, this will break down at some point, such as in cases of urban fantasy and cyberpunk.

I think it is no coincidence that Brian Niemeier, a few days after the genre argument ebbed, tweeted this:

A few days before, he was dismissing setting as basically superfluous, and then he later wrote that a writer should never start a story with setting. He is arguing here that a story should start en medias res with action, and for support he quotes the oft-quoted opening line of Richard Stark’s Hunter: “When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, Parker told him to go to hell.”

This is often good advice—but it should not be the only way to start a novel, and in fact the result of religiously following this recommendation is a parade of novels that are simple and pre-digested.

Like all writing advice, this advice is only good in certain situations. A story should open with setting when it’s appropriate and not otherwise. I open Rag & Muffin with setting and don’t think it was wrong to do so. As it so happens, I recently got this feedback on the manuscript:

The opening description of the city is simply breathtaking. As good as anything I have read in Lord Dunsany.

I’m not trying to start a game of “let’s you and him fight,” so I’m not going to tell you who said that, but I think it makes my point. To bring it back around to the original genre debate, setting is not superfluous: It has major influence on the story. To say Star Wars is just fantasy except for its setting is to miss the importance of setting. As I stated before, there are indeed reasons to call Star Wars a fantasy, but it is the setting that tips the scales in favor of calling it science fiction; if it were in a typical fantasy setting, it would be a very different story. We know this because it exists: Star Wars set in a typical fantasy setting is called Eragon. And it is clearly quite different from Star Wars even though it has a noticeably similar plot.

In the same way, we might take as an example the runaway bestseller The Martian, a very hard sf novel. The premise is that of Robinson Crusoe—but it’s on Mars, and the setting on Mars makes it a markedly different story from Robinson Crusoe. The setting is everything. If placed in a fantasy world, it would be a very different type of story—isekai, perhaps.

The Case of the Magical Girl

I almost got pulled into a debate like this once, though I resisted. It caught me by surprise when I stated, on a Miraculous Ladybug fan group on Facebook, that I considered Miraculous Ladybug the best entry point into the magical girl genre.

Cat Noir kisses Ladybug's hand while she stares in shock
Miraculous Ladybug

I immediately got taken to task by someone who told me plainly that Miraculous Ladybug is a superhero story and not a magical girl story.

I almost answered, but then remembered how pointless these arguments are. Again, I refer to my earlier definition of genre: Genre is a cluster of tropes, and a single work can potentially cross the boundaries of more than one cluster.

In fact, the so-called “magical girl warrior,” beginning explicitly with Sailor Moon (though having precursors), is a genre mashup, combining the magical girl with the Power Rangers-style superhero. So influential was Sailor Moon that this became the standard image of the magical girl in many people’s minds, but it was originally a deliberate crossover.

In the case of Miraculous Ladybug, I would point out that the heroine is a girly girl who sleeps in late and is clumsy except when she isn’t, who moons over that hot bishie boy in her class, and who has a cutesy talking animal companion that can transform her into a warrior of love and justice who fights monsters that personify the adolescent problems she’s dealing with that week. If that doesn’t say “magical girl,” I don’t know what does.

However, someone arguing that it’s a superhero show could point out that Ladybug wears spandex and a domino mask instead of a mini-dress, that she has approximately the same superpowers as Spider-Man, and that she’s part of a superhero team with both male and female members.

The ultimate answer is that we’re both right: The two genres are distinct, but overlap, and Miraculous Ladybug fits into both. Whether we call it “superhero” or “magical girl” depends on which elements we prefer to emphasize.

However, it would be silly to say that magical girl warriors are not actually a thing because they share traits with superheroes. “Magical girl warrior” is obviously a real genre. It can be defined, and many examples of it can be presented.

It is similar to what I said of Star Wars above. Is it science fiction or fantasy? The answer is yes. If we must claim it is one or the other, that is only because we have to decide where to shelve it in the bookstore or library, which we can do by considering (or guessing) at its likely audience. In the case of Star Wars, that is most likely to be science fiction fans—though fans of science fiction and fantasy are of course often the same people.

In the case of Miraculous Ladybug, I would shelve it with the magical girls, and I would say the decision is more important in this case because fans of magical girls and fans of superheroes are not often the same people. The girliness of it is what makes my decision: Fans of Spider-Man and Black Cat might have reason to dislike Ladybug and Cat Noir, but fans of Pretty Cure and Loli Rock will probably like them.

Author: D. G. D. Davidson

D. G. D. Davidson is an archaeologist, librarian, Catholic, and magical girl enthusiast. He is the author of JAKE AND THE DYNAMO.