Are works that may or may not just be dreams on topic?

Question

The question Is Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a symbol? was recently closed with the reason of unclear what you're asking.

The question is unclear, so the final close reason makes sense, but John O stated that he voted to closed it for a different reason.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about an unsupported genre.

Further citing:

Comic books aren't a genre, they're a medium. Some comic books are westerns, or 1930s noire. Those aren't supported genres. Furthermore, from what I can gather on Wikipedia, these fantasies only exist inside his daydreaming head. That or it's a farce. Neither of these are supported.

The definition of exactly what is on-topic has changed slightly in the past, but looking through the questions tagged scope and close-reasons, a fairly rough general rule has been that if it includes elements of science fiction or fantasy, it's on-topic. This was discussed a little further when the movies Twins and Junior were brought up.

The question of whether or not the entire story was all in a characters mind is not an uncommon idea in sci-fi/fantasy. Does the fact that the story, or the sci-fi/fantasy elements may simply be a dream invalidate those sci-fi/fantasy elements?

Answer 1

Fantasy elements being part of a dream or series of dreams, or even potentially being dreams, is not justification for closure.

I do agree that Anthony Grist's Scrubs example is a valid indication of something that is off-topic, but only because the fantasy/dream sequence is not a major part of the show's theme.

However, the idea that any work that could conceivably be explained as a dream or sequence of dreams should be off-topic, no matter how many fantasy elements are incorporated, is one that I would strongly oppose.

This has been discussed before, to some extent, and I'll quote part of the accepted answer (that currently stands with 13 upvotes and 1 downvote) to that question:

As for the story's implication that its fantastical elements are merely a hallucination--it doesn't matter. This site has a proud tradition of treating possibly-hallucination-based fantasies as on-topic: alice-in-wonderland, the-wizard-of-oz, and so forth. By that criterion, buffy isn't on-topic either: "But ultimately the entire series takes place in the mind of a lunatic locked up somewhere in Los Angeles, if that’s what the viewer wants."

Judgement on whether a question is or is not on topic based on just how pervasive a fantasy or sci-fi theme is within the work should be based on at least a marginal understanding. Reading a wikipedia entry is probably not sufficient background information upon which to decide that the fantastic elements aren't quite (for lack of a better term) "good enough" to qualify.

Furthermore, I must say that the idea that movies like Sucker Punch, which contain extensive and lavish fantasy and sci-fi scenes throughout the movie as a main focal point, are off topic strikes me as absolutely absurd. If questions of a certain type are problematic, such as falling outside of the general knowledge base we cater to, then declaring them off topic may be reasonable, but we shouldn't be drawing completely arbitrary lines in the sand and declaring "everything on the other side is forbidden... just because!"

Answer 2

One could argue that every single sci-fi or fantasy work is a dream inside someone's head - that someone being the author.

Nonetheless, I'm really uncomfortable with this cited close reason. A dream-sequence is just another form of the common "story within a story" trope; taken to it's logical extreme this could easily lead to closure for questions about the unicorn in Blade Runner, or even all of Total Recall, to name just two examples. There may be cause for distinction where the primary work isn't on-genre but the embedded story is, but I'm not sure that's relevant.

Besides, dreams aren't a genre either - they're a medium too.

Answer 3

If the only science fiction or fantasy elements of the work take part in something that is clearly a dream sequence or a daydream, I'd say that said work would likely be off-topic. There are multiple episodes of the television show Scrubs in which one character imagines himself as being capable of separating his head from his body and the two acting independently to a degree; the show clearly isn't science fiction or fantasy though. The fact that a character in an otherwise mundane world is capable of imagining something fantastical in nature doesn't make it on-topic.

If there is doubt then the work is on topic. If it's not a dream, and the events are actually taking place, then the universe of the work is clearly one where elements of what we'd consider science fiction or fantasy are facts.

Answer 4

The other answers identifying these works as on-topic are good. Another avenue to consider is H. P. Lovecraft's works. Essentially all of them are recognized as inherently on-topic, but some of them (for example, The Festival and The Shadow Out of Time) are written in such a way as to make the existence of the eldritch abominations less than certain. The stories leave us with an implication that the SF-nal occurrences were real, but "leave the door open" to the possibility that they were solely in the mind and/or dreams of someone with a psychiatric disorder. Some stories (e.g. The Festival) literally end with the protagonist committed to a mental ward and subject to treatment by skeptical therapists. If these works are well-regarded as on-topic, it doesn't make sense to treat other works as off-topic just based on the possibility that they might be dreams.

Answer 5

Scott Pilgrim isn't a fantasy story in the same sense of Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings. Those describe another world where the laws of physics and metaphysics differ from our own. They are self-consistent, to the best ability of the authors.

Scott Pilgrim isn't a fantasy story in the same sense as something like Videodrome, where the story relies on the surreal nature of the main characters experience.

Scott Pilgrim describes a mundane, non-fantastic world with a particular (and peculiar) perspective meant to be farcical. It is not self-consistent, it's meant to be what some loser teenager daydreams about after playing too many video games or watching too many movies. This is not fantasy as commonly understood in the context of "science fiction and fantasy".

And, even if it were borderline (it's not even close), the question itself doesn't actually address the (then) fantastic nature of the work. It's sort of like asking "What did Boromir have for lunch". I stand by my VTC.