What we read in Harry Potter books isn't science fiction & related fantasy. So, why do moderators allow these type of questions?
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6Have to agree with everyone else here, SFF is for anything that can be considered SF or F. I'm willing to extend that to mean pretty much anything that is about something that doesn't exist. (Preemptively avoiding a future battle about "What is fantasy? Is Look Whose Talking on topic?")– DampeS8NMay 1, 2011 at 0:12
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Maybe because J.K. Rowling has said she is "not a huge fan of fantasy"?– Goodbye Stack ExchangeMay 1, 2011 at 1:20
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7@neilfein Sounds like she has a personal problem.– user1027May 1, 2011 at 4:13
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3 Answers
This site decided some time ago to accept any form of Fantasy, not merely those related to Sci-fi. While there is still a bit of sci-fi bias in the site (Most principally, the domain name), and while there is far more sci-fi than fantasy, fantasy is on topic, period. See Is Fantasy in spec for this site? , Should we change the name of this site to include fantasy? , When should we change the name to include fantasy? . It was also discussed on Area 51, but that topic has since been deleted, probably because it didn't link to any open proposal, they all got moved here.
answered Apr 30, 2011 at 23:03
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2"While there is still a bit of sci-fi bias in the site (Most principally, the domain name)" - only the primary domain name; fantasy.stackexchange.com also redirects to this site.– Rand al'Thor ModJun 15, 2016 at 17:42
Er, what? Harry Potter is fantasy by any reasonable definition: it has wizards and magic, it's considered fantasy by every review I've ever seen, it's marketed as fantasy (except that the earlier volumes are lumped into children's lit, but that's not a distinction we make here)…
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1You can find fantasy in James Bond movies also. Do you think it should be also here.. Apr 30, 2011 at 23:00
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6@Sachin: As far as I know, James Bond has no wizards and magic. And no, Solitaire is not a wizard. Apr 30, 2011 at 23:01
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9@SachinShekhar: This site is about science fiction and fantasy (as per the site name), and more generally speculative fiction. Borderline cases such as technothrillers are ok where their sf-nal aspects are involved.– user56Apr 30, 2011 at 23:15
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Let's go to our good ol' friend Wikipedia to see how do they define fantasy:
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common.
So now breaking it down for Harry Potter:
- Uses magic as the main plot element (✓)
- Shows magic in the world(✓)
- Has magical creatures(✓)
So this establishes that Harry Potter Series indeed belongs to Fantasy genre and therefore is on-topic here. That's why Questions about HP are on-topic here and as it happens, it is among the top three tags on this site.