Have you ever wondered why science fiction and fantasy are so often spoken in the same breath? On the surface they may seem like polar opposites. Fantasy is supposed to be knights and kings and take you to a magical and old age. Often times it is compared to the medieval times of our own world, but with magic and dragons. Science fiction on the other hand is supposed to be in space and explore all sorts of amazing and technological advancements in science. You are supposed to see new planets and aliens all over the universe. Right?
While these things can be true for the two genres, they are only very surface and stereotypical. Think of some more creative stories. Think of Star Wars, for example. Star Wars has knights, magic, and empires. All things that can be found in Fantasy stories as well. On the flip side, think of the Warcraft universe and compare it to the science fiction tropes. There are aliens, spaceships, technological advances, and different planets. Yet Warcraft is clearly a fantasy world and Star Wars is clearly science fiction.
The worlds of fantasy extend far and wide. Some of it can be grounded in reality, and much in fact is, while some fantasy is incredibly ridiculous and has very little footing in the real world. Maybe consider the total fantasy world of The Lord of The Rings and how so much of what exists in those books is so creative and can be difficult to find direct parallels to in our world. And then compare that to something like Homer’s The Odyssey, which was heavily influenced by the events and culture of the time period that it was written. Sure there are plenty of mythical creatures and elaborate fantastical battles, but still fitting with what we know of the culture of the Greeks at the time.
Science fiction also exists on a spectrum of reality. Imagine genetically modified animals that have been mass produced and transplanted all over the world. And then a device is created that can digitally reconstruct these animals into small, pocket-sized files that can survive inside a ball until a button is pressed that again reconstructs them to their initial size so they can fight each other for the purpose of entertaining and earning money and fame for those who keep them prisoner in their dystopian futuristic world. I guess put like that, Pokemon might seem very sci-fi.
My point here is that if there was ever a line that existed between science fiction and fantasy, it has become so thin that you could blow on it and it would disappear. Thinking of how to condense my feelings on this subject, the first thing I thought of was, “Science fiction is pretty much just fantasy set in the future or in space.” And even this did not feel quite accurate. To really get an idea of how closely related science fiction and fantasy are, just think about what Thor says in his initial 2011 film, “your ancestors called it magic and now you call it science. Well where I come from, they are one in the same.”
