Discovery is at the heart of Speculative Fiction. Yet resistance is also crucial.
Speculative Fiction is a term, which categorises a number of sub- genres such as fantasy, science fiction, horror and dystopia. Each of these sub-genres investigates the classic question of “What if?” and uses the imagination as a tool to explore fictional realities.
At the heart of speculative fiction lies the essence of discovery to drive a unique plot separate from the reader’s everyday life, together with the key element of resistance, which is commonly initiated through the journey of one or a number of characters against the stories darker or controlling facet.
I will be using a selection of texts such as Peter Jackson’s film ‘The Lord Of The Rings’, ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Attwood, ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ by film maker Guillermo Del Toro and the first novel of the Harry Potter series ‘Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone’ as a basis …show more content…
We are immediately drawn in to the unfurling discoveries of the struggle of Middle Earth against the corrupted power of Sauron and the flight to destroy ‘the ring of power’ in the naive hands of the unsuspecting, ‘diminutive race’ of hobbits. The film entails many of the generalised aspects attributed to speculative fiction and its sub-genres such as magic, mythical creatures, legends and a general medieval theme.
J.K Rowlings fantasy novel ‘Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone is another reflection of this structure. The story is an expression of the genre of fantasy/ ‘magic realism’ as it entails a creation of a parallel world of magic existing coextensively in secret along side the world of ‘Muggles’[3], the world of the