I'm a science fiction fan. I'm a fantasy fan as well, and don't ever ask me to pick which I prefer - it depends entirely on what mood I am in. Kiless and my bookshelves are filled to overflowing with everything from Asimov to Zelazny, with a side stop at Pratchett, Rowling, and so on and so forth.
I've never really been sure whether I'm "supposed" to like fantasy, though. As a committed skeptic, I have a feeling that some people might argue I should view "The Goblet of Fire" with distaste, condemning it as promoting belief in a magical world. Whereas in fact my actual attitude is more along the lines of "it's not that I can't appreciate magic - it's just that I know the difference between fact and fiction". And it seems that the Amazing One himself (according to a recent radio interview that was linked to on SWIFT) is a Harry Potter fan, so I'm not alone.
(Bear with me, I'll get to a point soon).
I really don't watch a lot of television. Now that Mythbusters is finished for the year, and BS season 4 is (hopefully?) still being made, I'm basically just playing Sims 2 instead of watching TV. The exception is the show Smallville.
It occurred to me the other day that Smallville and Harry Potter have something in common - they are, to coin a new genre, "antiscience fiction".
Isn't that just a weird way of saying they're fantasy?
Well, no. Most fantasy is not antiscience fiction. Take David Eddings "Sparhawk" series (the Elenium and the Tamuli). That is a highly magical world, yet at one key point the crossbow is recognised as something that has the power to change the face of modern warfare. In Amber, Brand's attempt to use magic to conquer the highly magical Amber fails, whereas Corwin's attempt to do so using automatic weapons does not. It is possible to argue that Tolkien is antiscience fiction, if you accept the whole orc thing as an invasion of technology and the death of the elves as an end to magic (which is a valid interpretation of the text, I concede).
Antiscience fiction is characterised by a disregard for science or even hostility towards it. Since I mentioned Harry Potter and Smallville, I'll use those as examples.
Spoiler free summary of Smallville for those unfamiliar with the show: it's basically about Clark Kent in his pre-Superman years, documenting his discovery of his powers and how he learns to be the Man of Steel he will eventually become.
Anyway, Clark (in the tradition of all superheroes everywhere) doesn't openly use his powers. The reason for this is not "Well, if I did then the bad guys would kidnap my Mum" or even "If I did then every idiot that loses his keys would be after me to use my Xray vision to find them", but rather "If I do then some scientist will cut me open in a lab somewhere".
Alright, what the hell? It is possibly true that somewhere there is a scientist that would prefer to use kryptonite laced surgical implements to vivisect a live, peaceful, humanoid alien - but the concept of such a being is far harder to swallow than the concept of Kal-el in the first place. All people can be vaguely classified in one of three ways: they are either moral (in which case Clark is clearly a good guy, and keeping him alive is a good thing), immoral (in which case you want to use Clark to steal stuff, kill your enemies, and so forth) or amoral (in which case the selfish thing to do is keep him alive purely because you can learn more from a living specimen than a dead one).
It doesn't end there, though. Scientists on Smallville are virtually never shown in a positive light. We see a paranormal researcher who uses his psychic patients to kill and steal for him, various scientists prepared to perform experiments with "meteor rocks" on humans, and then there are all of the guys working for LuthorCorp. To all intents and purposes, if there is a scientist on the show, he's either the villain or working for the villain.
With Harry Potter it is in some ways more blatant and in other ways more subtle. It is blatant in the sense of the various derogatory terms used to refer to the non-wizard world - "muggles", "mudbloods", and so forth. All wizards are superior to non-wizards - even the "good guys" portray a fairly condescending attitude to their ungifted counterparts.
The subtlety is conveyed in such phrases as Harry's "I love magic" (no non-magical tent is "that cool" - Goblet of Fire, opening sequence, if you're wondering what I'm referring to) and the use of primitive technology (quills rather than ball point pens; steam trains to get to Hogwartz, candles for lighting, and so on). I've read all the books, and I do not recall anywhere where it was pointed out that ballpoint pens wouldn't work in Hogwartz. I suppose if you are of a mind to be sympathetic you could argue that if they had a generator or were connected to the power grid for electricity, that occasionally they would need servicing by "muggles" - but that cannot excuse not letting the students use Bics or Kilometricos.
At the end of the day - I'm not suggesting that the writers of Smallville or J K Rowling are pursuing any sort of neo-Luddite agenda here. I just thought it was interesting - and ironic, perhaps, in the sense that it is after all technology (inextricably wed to science) that allows so many people to view these shows that essentially indict the very medium that permits their existence. I'm wondering whether this trend is seen elsewhere in modern cinema and television - as pointed out above, I really don't watch a lot of TV, and the movie scene this year has been a bit sparse.
I've never really been sure whether I'm "supposed" to like fantasy, though. As a committed skeptic, I have a feeling that some people might argue I should view "The Goblet of Fire" with distaste, condemning it as promoting belief in a magical world. Whereas in fact my actual attitude is more along the lines of "it's not that I can't appreciate magic - it's just that I know the difference between fact and fiction". And it seems that the Amazing One himself (according to a recent radio interview that was linked to on SWIFT) is a Harry Potter fan, so I'm not alone.
(Bear with me, I'll get to a point soon).
I really don't watch a lot of television. Now that Mythbusters is finished for the year, and BS season 4 is (hopefully?) still being made, I'm basically just playing Sims 2 instead of watching TV. The exception is the show Smallville.
It occurred to me the other day that Smallville and Harry Potter have something in common - they are, to coin a new genre, "antiscience fiction".
Isn't that just a weird way of saying they're fantasy?
Well, no. Most fantasy is not antiscience fiction. Take David Eddings "Sparhawk" series (the Elenium and the Tamuli). That is a highly magical world, yet at one key point the crossbow is recognised as something that has the power to change the face of modern warfare. In Amber, Brand's attempt to use magic to conquer the highly magical Amber fails, whereas Corwin's attempt to do so using automatic weapons does not. It is possible to argue that Tolkien is antiscience fiction, if you accept the whole orc thing as an invasion of technology and the death of the elves as an end to magic (which is a valid interpretation of the text, I concede).
Antiscience fiction is characterised by a disregard for science or even hostility towards it. Since I mentioned Harry Potter and Smallville, I'll use those as examples.
Spoiler free summary of Smallville for those unfamiliar with the show: it's basically about Clark Kent in his pre-Superman years, documenting his discovery of his powers and how he learns to be the Man of Steel he will eventually become.
Anyway, Clark (in the tradition of all superheroes everywhere) doesn't openly use his powers. The reason for this is not "Well, if I did then the bad guys would kidnap my Mum" or even "If I did then every idiot that loses his keys would be after me to use my Xray vision to find them", but rather "If I do then some scientist will cut me open in a lab somewhere".
Alright, what the hell? It is possibly true that somewhere there is a scientist that would prefer to use kryptonite laced surgical implements to vivisect a live, peaceful, humanoid alien - but the concept of such a being is far harder to swallow than the concept of Kal-el in the first place. All people can be vaguely classified in one of three ways: they are either moral (in which case Clark is clearly a good guy, and keeping him alive is a good thing), immoral (in which case you want to use Clark to steal stuff, kill your enemies, and so forth) or amoral (in which case the selfish thing to do is keep him alive purely because you can learn more from a living specimen than a dead one).
It doesn't end there, though. Scientists on Smallville are virtually never shown in a positive light. We see a paranormal researcher who uses his psychic patients to kill and steal for him, various scientists prepared to perform experiments with "meteor rocks" on humans, and then there are all of the guys working for LuthorCorp. To all intents and purposes, if there is a scientist on the show, he's either the villain or working for the villain.
With Harry Potter it is in some ways more blatant and in other ways more subtle. It is blatant in the sense of the various derogatory terms used to refer to the non-wizard world - "muggles", "mudbloods", and so forth. All wizards are superior to non-wizards - even the "good guys" portray a fairly condescending attitude to their ungifted counterparts.
The subtlety is conveyed in such phrases as Harry's "I love magic" (no non-magical tent is "that cool" - Goblet of Fire, opening sequence, if you're wondering what I'm referring to) and the use of primitive technology (quills rather than ball point pens; steam trains to get to Hogwartz, candles for lighting, and so on). I've read all the books, and I do not recall anywhere where it was pointed out that ballpoint pens wouldn't work in Hogwartz. I suppose if you are of a mind to be sympathetic you could argue that if they had a generator or were connected to the power grid for electricity, that occasionally they would need servicing by "muggles" - but that cannot excuse not letting the students use Bics or Kilometricos.
At the end of the day - I'm not suggesting that the writers of Smallville or J K Rowling are pursuing any sort of neo-Luddite agenda here. I just thought it was interesting - and ironic, perhaps, in the sense that it is after all technology (inextricably wed to science) that allows so many people to view these shows that essentially indict the very medium that permits their existence. I'm wondering whether this trend is seen elsewhere in modern cinema and television - as pointed out above, I really don't watch a lot of TV, and the movie scene this year has been a bit sparse.
