Nisa Faheem: "A Distinction Built Upon Beliefs"

A Distinction Built Upon Beliefs

By Nisa Faheem

            The genres within speculative fiction all propose some sort of “what if?” question to their readers; it asks them to challenge what they see and know in their own world and to accept whatever new constructs that the book builds. To read, and further enjoy, these types of stories, the reader must be able to lend some belief to the book. Even if the story revolves around very plausible happenings, the speculative nature of the text requires the reader to accept the unreal material and the consequences that follow. Thus, all types of speculative fiction, including science fiction and fantasy, require belief from their audience in the world that has been built. The distinction between the two genres really lies in how the book itself deals with belief, especially that of religion. Science fiction, over many decades, has shown a tendency of using science to show religion in a negative light, whereas fantasy uses the ideas of belief/faith to propel a story forward. 

            Science Fiction, as according to Farah Mendlesohn's "Religion and Science Fiction", in the 1920s utilized a sense of mysticism and belief in the early writings, but as the interest shifted into a more precise and in depth depiction of science, the use of belief changed. The religion trope in writing emerged to mock humans’ (or other characters’) dependence on superstition and belief to justify the world around them, rather than solely using scientific judgment. This formed the idea that characters that would use faith as some sort of justification were inferior intellectually and were seen as different/primitive, a side effect of the “high fantasy world that heavily relied on the exoticization of ‘the Other’”. The rejection of faith based reasoning has been seen to be a theme in novels discussed in class. In Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, the original settlers establish a religion-system where they can keep order. The logical reasoning to keep a new colony alive develops over years into an oppressive power against the humans that worship underneath them. Scientific advancement is limited to those with power already; meaning those at the bottom cannot do anything for themselves until they are saved. In this specific example, religion is seen to be a disabling force that inhibits man from utilizing scientific based reasoning; those that are subjected to be faithful suffer. 

            Although science fiction can adopt some high-fantasy elements involving the plot (hero’s journey), the fundamental difference between the genres is how fantasy treats belief without proper reasoning. Philip Martin, in his piece “Fantasy and Belief", states that “fantasy celebrates the nonrational”, telling us outright that both readers and the characters engage in the imaginative world that fantasy authors build without need for proper reasoning. There are several ways fantasy propels the story forward, focusing perhaps on the discourse between good and evil or some sort of prophecy that the characters must fulfill. One of the earliest examples of modern day fantasy, Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland's Daughter, depicts a story in which magic is sought after repeatedly but there is little reasoning explaining the character’s actions. In this case, the beauty of the story lies with the imagery rather than the plot, meaning that the whole story is subject to imaginative world building rather than reason-based action. More modern examples may have more of a logic-based plot, but some elements of the story strictly work due to the characters’ belief in them, and further, our belief that it works in the novel. In Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, the main character originally struggles to believe that there is a world that exists beyond, or underneath, his own, but as the story progresses he slowly is able to accept this idea along with all the other irrational happenings in London Below. The works within fantasy do not have to reject the ideas of logic, but they certainly do embrace the imagination in ways that science fiction simply cannot.