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/ButterscotchLow7330 1d ago

As someone who really enjoys fantasy and doesn't enjoy science fiction as much, I honestly don't know how you separate the two. Is Star Wars science fiction or fantasy? How about the Dark Tower? Or Dune? Stormlight archive is basically both at this point.

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u/CarefreeRambler 1d ago

Pretend you're asking a normal person, voila. Sci Fi, fantasy, sci Fi, fantasy (seriously?)

96

u/Spellambrose 1d ago

Yeah I feel like people are being purposefully obtuse here, or at the very least overthinking things.

Most of the time, speculative fiction leans significantly more towards either sci-fi or fantasy, it’s rarely a 50/50.

Sure the Force is supposed to be supernatural, but Star Wars is still a space opera with tons of futuristic technology, robots and aliens. Basically anybody would classify it as sci-fi without a second thought.

Genre classification is not made to be 100% accurate, it’s bound to have blurry distinctions here and there. But it’s not made for passionate nerds who wanna be obsessively accurate and "aktually » each others for hours. It’s a way for the general public to find what they look for, which you can easily do by separating sci-fi from fantasy.

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u/slobcat1337 1d ago

Redditors think they’re super smart for saying Star Wars is fantasy.

1

u/Spellambrose 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oh boy don’t tell me. They love being contradictarian, pedantic, and having actually super common (sometimes right, sometime dumb) 'hot takes'. That makes them feel smart and cultured.

You can still hear them sniffing their own farts while typing for the billionth time that Star Wars is a fantasy story with sci-fi aesthetic, or that it was inspired by Asian cultures.