Hedwig (HP's owl familiar) performs useful functions for protagonist as well, in extremis on multiple occasions, right up to the noble sacrifice.
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Replying to @danlistensto @Aelkus
you can have spec fic fantasy; Harry Potter religiously avoids doing the math, leading to an enormous amount of fan industry doing the math and being amused at itself at the absurd results, and occasional JK forays into pretending to do the math which turn out even worse
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"prior to the invention of the toilet wizards just shat themselves and disapparated it"
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Replying to @chaosprime @Aelkus
Ok, so terminal nerdism here, but let's go deeper. is that "speculative" fantasy? I think fantasy can be allegorical but not speculative. I think if it is speculative I'd classify as a sub-genre of magical realism rather than fantasy.
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Replying to @danlistensto @Aelkus
was the point of 'speculative fiction' not to break out of the technical fetishism of the 'science fiction' label and embrace fantasy that tries to have a coherent worldview? how much are we trusting the Wikipedia article here exactly?
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Replying to @chaosprime @Aelkus
I think it was to distinguish between technology focused fiction vs. culturally focused fiction. Fantasy is specifically fiction told in a mytho-poetic mode and spec-fic does not umbrella that type of fiction.
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so 1984 is spec-fic but probably not sci-fi, though you will usually find it on the sci-fi shelf (among other places)
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Replying to @danlistensto @Aelkus
but we're absolutely awash in extremely popular fantasy novels, at least by everybody's categorization of them, which would not know a mythopoetic mode of storytelling if it bit them on the ass and which are hugely devoted to nuts-and-bolts doing-the-math worldbuilding
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Replying to @chaosprime @Aelkus
name 3 and convince me that they are not using the mytho-poetic mode (as opposed to using it as a secondary element, or using it badly)?
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Replying to @danlistensto @Aelkus
well, i had three series in mind: A Song of Ice and Fire, The First Law, and The Wheel of Time i mean, it's probably always possible to say the mythopoetic mode is being used badly, but if the actual storytelling is all about nuts and bolts, maybe it's just not being used
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like, if i wanted i could summarize the story of Ringworld in broad mythographic terms, but that doesn't mean that's what Niven was doing
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