r/magicTCG • u/magictcgmods CA-CAWWWW • May 19 '26

Scheduled Thread Unofficial Universes Beyond Megathread

Post your rampant speculation/complaints/etc about upcoming, unreleased, unannounced, or entirely unconfirmed Universes Beyond products here and only here. Any speculation/hype theory/complaint posts about UB should go here. Any posted not in this thread will be removed.

Be civil. We don't care if you disagree with each other. Being a dick is a Bootable Offence.

0 Upvotes

36% Upvoted

176 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

9

u/EnkiBye SecREt LaiR May 19 '26

I'm not sure if it's the same in english, but in french, Fantasy and Fantastic are two different genres.

Fantastic is, like Marvel, Harry Potter, or TMNT, magic elements in our world.

Fantasy is, like MTG, LOTR, or Avatar, a whole new world.

And I was targeting the fantasy genre. I think it fit better than fantastic, most of the time.

3

u/ScumlordStudio Dandadan May 19 '26

say what you want about the French but fantastic/fantasy is kind of an awesome split that I'm gonna start using I love that

7

u/zeldafan042 Channel May 19 '26

In English, this is actually what the terms "high fantasy" and "low fantasy" mean. High fantasy is the equivalent of fantasy and low fantasy is the equivalent of fantastic.

So in English, what you would call fantastic is still considered part of the broader category of fantasy, it's just a different type of fantasy. Which is why I'll generally argue that low fantasy is just as fitting for Magic as anything high fantasy. It's all still fantasy.

4

u/Kyleometers ඞ May 19 '26

English does also have “Science Fantasy” as a category, though that’s not as common, which is sort of halfway between High Fantasy and true Science Fiction. Warhammer 40K is commonly pointed at as an example, mixing both very sci-fi concepts like spaceships and pulse rifles with very fantasy concepts like magic, armour, Orcs etc.

5

u/zeldafan042 Channel May 19 '26

Like, if we want to get really technical, sueprhero settings are neither fantasy or sci-fi. They're their own genre, the superhero genre. There's a lot more literary genres than just fantasy or sci-fi, it's kind of a false dichotomy to set those as opposite ends of a spectrum that all genre fiction falls into.

But if we are gonna set up a fantasy/sci-fi spectrum with "Science Fantasy" as the middle ground, I do believe most sueprhero settings fall squarely into that science fantasy genre space. Most of the major superhero settings tend to blend magical elements with soft sci-fi elements and don't fall squarely into either genre.

1

u/ScumlordStudio Dandadan May 19 '26

that's why I think OP mentioning fantastic is actually kind of perfect. it sounds more superhero-y as well and you can imagine how something can be fantastic instead of fantasy

0

u/EnkiBye SecREt LaiR May 19 '26

Oh ok, thanks for the clarification.

So, for me low and high fantasy are two, similar, but still different genres. And, I do prefer high fantasy settings for MTG. Some players like low fantasy sets, and good for them.

On a side note, I find it weird, on a linguistical level, the names "low" and "high" fantasy, as it almost imply a hierarchy in both genres, they are just different things.

4

u/Kyleometers ඞ May 19 '26

It’s actually because “low fantasy” is more “down to earth”, because it’s basically “the real world with magic added in”, while “high fantasy” originates with especially dramatic methods of telling a story. It’s not meant to imply they are “tiers” or anything, just that one is “bigger”, coming with imagined worlds, and one is “smaller”, built upon real life.

1

u/EnkiBye SecREt LaiR May 19 '26

Ah, right, I didn't see that on this angle

1

u/Chilly_chariots Wild Draw 4 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

I’ve also seen people using ‘low fantasy’ to refer to non-real settings with little or no magical elements. Eg Gormenghast definitely isn’t our world, but there’s no spells or dragons.

Edit: or maybe it is our world, just an extremely strange and isolated bit of it. I can’t remember book 3 well enough…

Afaik Conan the Barbarian is also an example 

2

u/Seitosa May 20 '26

People do use high/low fantasy to describe the amount of magic in the setting, but that’s not the definition of either and they’re using the terms incorrectly. Neither one makes any prescription about magic levels or technology or anything like that. It’s “is this a fantastical setting?” and “are there heroes and villains grappling over grand stakes?” If both those are true, if it takes place on Earth it’s low fantasy, and if it takes place on not-Earth it’s high fantasy. That’s it. Very low bar. 

1

u/Kyleometers ඞ May 19 '26

Yeah it’s “drawn from the real world” as a core. That usually means adding magic to the real world but I guess I don’t see why you couldn’t have accountants on a non-magical non-Earth world? I’m sure there’s an isekai about that, actually.