r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Alextral • 1d ago

I really hate this

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Fantasy and science fiction being cramped in the same section, which is already so small :(

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u/Madmonkeman 1d ago

Well the Force is magic but the droids, lightsabers, and ships are tech. I’d classify Star Wars as sci-fi because the overall aesthetic is futuristic. Fantasy for me would be modern day or older level of tech plus magic.

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u/RobotWantsPony 1d ago

And yet you can have science fiction in the past, that's the whole point of steampunk. Aesthetics feel like it can define the genre but it actually cannot

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u/Madmonkeman 1d ago

Fair, although I’d consider Steampunk its own genre. The Final Fantasy game series is more complicated though because that tends to mix the two a lot.

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u/brokebackzac 1d ago

Final fantasy goes to great lengths to not be sci-fi at all. The most powerful bosses are almost all magic users, powered by magic, or created with magic and need to be destroyed with magic.

The only real exception I can think of where the final boss is a machine is FFX-2, but even Vegnagun one has its entire backstory based in magic and the Al Bhed (machina users) are treated as heathens and killed on sight throughout the first game then only mildly accepted as people in the sequel.

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u/Madmonkeman 1d ago

I’d consider that series to be a hybrid.

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u/OvalDead 1d ago

Futuristic is a pretty strange way to classify a story that is literally introduced with “A long time ago…” TBH.

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u/LifeLikeAGrapefruit 1d ago

Or something like Book of the New Sun by Wolfe or Lord of Light by Zelazny, both of which read like fantasy but... well, I won't ruin anything.

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u/loosie-loo 1d ago

I’d argue lightsabers straddle the line a little bit based on their context in the story. Tbh I’d class Star Wars as science-fantasy, it’s like halfway between the two because the ‘fantasy’ elements are so strongly entwined with the plot even if the aesthetic is more sci-fi - but that’s just my opinion!

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u/Madmonkeman 1d ago

I can see that honestly

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u/Jashugita 14h ago

lightsabers (and the death star ray) comes from magic crystals, hyperspace comes from magic hyperdrive fuel...

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u/Madmonkeman 11h ago

Oh interesting I didn’t know that

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u/FireFly_209 1d ago

I thought the Force was explained as powered by Midi-chlorians, which link a Jedi to the Force, and allow them access to their Force-based abilities?

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u/Madmonkeman 1d ago

Yeah something like that. I don’t know a ton of the in-depth lore for Star Wars.

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u/FireFly_209 1d ago

I just vaguely remember it being mentioned in the prequel trilogy. Even after reading the wiki article on it, I still don’t really understand how it’s actually supposed to work. The rabbit hole of Star Wars lore can go very deep.

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u/Madmonkeman 1d ago

There were a couple episodes of Clone Wars where they had actual deities that controlled the light and dark sides of the Force. I didn’t think that was a good addition to the lore but it definitely made it crazier.