When I published my last article on unicorn creature design, someone asked a question that I knew was inevitable. While reading the suggestion about using the proto-horse eohippus as inspiration, she wondered why your average fantasy story would need to provide the exact biological lineage for a unicorn. It’s a fair question, and the kind that I sometimes wonder myself. Stories are stories, and only rarely does their purpose have anything to do with the nitty-gritties of natural history. A dash of realism in fantasy is great and all, but why do these articles get so specific?
Well, there are several reasons for that. The first and simplest is the same reason that speculative biology exists in the first place. It’s why we see so many realistic takes on Pokémon, for example. And it’s why there are whole blogs on hypothetical evolution in bizarre what-if scenarios involving hamsters or something. For us science nerds who also enjoy a dose of fantasy or sci-fi, those speculative biology what-ifs are simply fun.
There are other reasons to consider these questions for less academic-style writings, however. Let’s take a moment to look closer at that link between fantasy and science.
Wait, what’s this about “realism in fantasy?“
For some of you, the first question might be why we’re concerned with scientific realism in fantasy in the first place. After all, isn’t fantasy defined by having unreal elements?
It is, of course. And if you’ve read anything else here, you’ll know that I’m not saying not to make stuff up with magic. But putting a little scientific realism in those fantasy elements can help them feel a little bit more, well, real.
Just how much this matters depends on the nature of the story you’re writing. Nobody’s expecting a comedy cartoon about a talking dish-shaped sponge to be filled with accurate portrayals of marine life. But even Spongebob Squarepants gets mileage out of using marine science in some of its material. It’s more for humor and storytelling purposes than a feeling of “realism,” but more on that later.
In more grounded works, fitting science and realism in with your fantasy elements has several benefits. It lends you credibility as an author and garners appreciation from readers or watchers who are passionate about the given subject. It also makes the world feel more immersive and lessens the chance of distraction. If readers are thinking, “Oh, so that’s how the dragon gets around,” and not, “Hey, those wings are way too small to hold a creature that size,” they’ll more readily stay within the story.
The secret lives of science and fantasy
That said, it’s not like every novel or movie is going to be a treatise on speculative biology. A story about a boy and his dog likely won’t go into detail about how dogs relate to wild wolves or the biological drives behind their social behaviors. So why would replacing the dog with a gryphon change that?
But this doesn’t mean you can’t use the right biological facts to bolster your story. If this “boy and his gryphon” book ever uses the gryphon’s point of view, for example, it would help to know just how gryphons perceive the world. Do they have sharp day vision with colors humans can’t see, like most flying birds? What about acute feline hearing? How intelligent are they, and how does this affect the way events are described?
And even when the fantasy science isn’t described in your story, it can still help for you as the author to know it. One of the great secrets of writing is that you don’t have to give away every “background” detail. You just have to know enough that you can let those details inform your world.
Let’s go back to our example of eohippus-descended unicorns. Maybe your story is set sometime before modern taxonomy or the discovery of eohippus. In that case, your characters couldn’t know exactly how these things relate to horses. But they would know how unicorns look and act. Narration could say they’re smaller and less social than horses, with two-to-three hoofed toes per foot and a donkey-ish tail. (Plus, you know, the horn.) To most readers, this is an interesting and immersive take on unicorns as more than a horse with a horn tacked on for some reason. And to biology nerds and equine experts, it’s a hint as to just how your unicorn operates that makes it feel even more immersive.
Inspirational science
So, readers don’t have to know the exact science behind the monsters for its realism to help your fantasy story. But believe it or not, this goes beyond immersion and can even apply to not-so-realistic fantasy. Notice how, a moment ago, I suggested that readers would likely find the mere look of an “eohippus unicorn” interesting?
This is where that Spongebob tidbit mentioned before comes in, too. The show tends to treat its characters like humans, talking, walking around, and perceiving the world as we do. But it also digs into Spongebob’s status as a sea sponge for anything from quick gags about budding or regeneration to a conflict detail in an episode where he locks himself at home out of fear and plans to get by as a filter feeder. These dashes of real marine science take the show from an “ordinary” wacky comedy to one that stands out by the fact that most of its cast are sea creatures.
So, too, can a bit of biology in your mythology make it stand out. If you stop to ask yourself just why dragons hoard gold or how phoenixes set themselves aflame, you can find some fun answers. They can give readers new insight into how your variety of creatures operate. They could also pose a unique problem, or a unique solution to a problem. Does the dragon need precious metals as part of its diet? Does the phoenix secrete a flammable oil that hunters hope to exploit? Answer the right question in the right way, and it may even form a plot on its own.
That is, after all, what storytelling is all about: firing up the imagination and exploring worlds both real and invented. And even when readers aren’t expecting to learn literal science, a dash of realism can take even the wildest of fantasy stories far.
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