Harry Potter: Fantasy or Sci-Fi?

[Rosemary]

No: HPFGUIDX 14054

I said:
>The marvelous cannot by definition be a part of everyday 
life, and 
> therefore stories of the marvelous must take place in a marvelous 
> milieu. If this milieu is supposed to have been produced by the 
> application of scientific understanding, then we have a science 
fiction story. 

and Naama asked:
>>Can the marvelous be "supposed to have been produced by the 
application of scientific undestanding"? It seems to me that by 
postulating the existence of a scientfic explanation you take the 
marvel out of the marvelous, don't you? I mean, we say of 
technological innovations "wow, its like a miracle!", but we do use 
"like" and not "is", because we are sure there is a scientific 
explanation even if we don't know what it is at the moment. <<

	It's the Wow! reaction, that sense of awe, which the marvelous tale
aims to produce. That's a gut reaction and it's impervious to criticism
because it can't be analyzed. You either feel it or you don't. It's also
problematic from the political point of view because awe can be used to
control people.  So   whether a particular marvel is labelled 
"illusion" or "miracle" or "magic" becomes  a political decision rather
than a critical one. Our culture makes the judgement for us and we as 
individuals either accept it, or separate ourselves.  
	So, the star destroyer zooms over head at the beginning of  Star Wars,
and I say, "Wow" and then I say "special effects" and I presume that it
was created by the wizards at Industrial Light and Magic, because that's
what I've been told. I put it in the 'illusion' category and I give it
what Tolkien calls "secondary belief". I believe it's a starship, but
only in the context of the movie. 
	But if I didn't know any better, I might have screamed and tried to run
away, as film audiences are said to have done at the beginning of the
twentieth century when the screen first showed a head-on shot of a
locomotive bearing down on them. The audience in that case gave the
image what Tolkien called "primary belief", and they didn't stop to try
and figure out whether the locomotive was magical or miraculous, they
were too busy trying to get away. 
	
and Naama asked also:
>>But 
perhaps your "marvelous" is not the same as the "miraculous"?<<

	 "Miraculous" implies to me the operation of a divine agency. I used
"marvelous" because I was trying to discuss "wow" producing phenomena
without making implications about the cause. 

Jim said:
>>The Harry Potter books are a recognized subgenre of 
science fiction, the "scientific magic" type.  In Harry's world, magic 
*is* discoverable. Albus Dumbledore himself is known for having 
discovered the uses of dragon's blood during his researches with 
Nicolas Flamel.  Remus Lupin takes a potion to control his lycanthropy 
which wasn't available when he was a student.  Sounds like research to 
me.<<
	Good point. The wizards are using scientific understanding...or are
they? How do we know it's not magical understanding? Could a Muggle or a
Squib discover the twelve uses of dragon's blood, or produce an anti
werewolf potion? I think not. One could write  about the attempt of a
non-magical person to deal with the magical world by means of scientific
understanding, and that would indeed be science fiction. Your "The
Letter" story might be an example. The Lord Darcy books might be
another.  But that's not what Rowling's books are about. "This," says
Dumbledore, "is magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable." (Prisoner
of Azkaban, ch. 22) Try substituting the word 'science' for the word
'magic' in that sentence. Doesn't make sense, does it?

"Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic" -- 
Arthur C. Clarke (Grand Master of SF, author of 2001, 2010, etc.)
	Well, to quote another acknowledged master, "A great many of the truths
we cling to depend upon our point of view." <g>
Pippin