I've never been sure of that. I've always been attracted to the idea of time travel, even though, going back a few years, I didn't see myself as a sci-fi fan. It appeared in the books and movies I avidly consumed, but was it science-fiction or fantasy?
How much scientific accuracy there needs to be for a narrative to be considered science-fiction? Is that even at all relevant? Sure you have time travel that is so technical and scientifically structured that you don't hesitate in calling it sci-fi - in perceiving it as such. Take H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, for example.
But then the lines start to get blurred. And a detective story - the movie Memento - or a love one - the novel & movie adaptation The Time traveler's Wife - get's you thinking. You even have a time-turner in Harry Potter, which there is no doubt of being Fantasy through and through.
So what does it take for time travel to be freed from the sci-fi spectrum?
Time travel is more often than not associated with the sci-fi universe, but it surely is not confined to it. Do you find it more often there? Is it more cohesive or realistic (if we can call it that)? Maybe, but it finds place in all kind of narratives.
From fantasy to romance to science-fiction, it can appear in any of these genres. The main difference is perhaps the level of imagination or scientific norms that rule that possibility: the paradoxes, the multiple timelines, what can or cannot be changed.
Through the Doctor in his TARDIS to Dr.Emmett Brown in his DeLorean we've been taught a lot about this matter, even if some of it is contradictory. We have seen a myriad of theories and rules, from the unchangeable force of the fixed points in time to the dangerous repercussions of changing the slightest moment in history.
We may question how something takes place, we probably don't even agree or think that some theories are simply too farfetched.
Nevertheless, I dare you: have you never dreamt of travelling through time?
And that's it. The universal force that binds us all to this story element, no matter the genre it is wrapped in.
S.G.
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