Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

I suppose, also, the difference is that in Fantasy of any kind, the magic is exploitable/predictable/etc or at least a solid and acknowledged aspect of the universe. Magical realism tends to be more dream-like, where the odd things are just sort of accepted when they happen as a thing that is actually happening and later the details are seen as sort of unimportant, i.e. if a girl floats away because she's too pure to be earthbound the story later will be just that she's gone because she was too pure to be here. Sort of. People don't really learn from the occasions, they don't start tying their pure daughters by the leg to heavy tables, but in a Fantasy world, they would.

I guess, basically, the difference between Physics and Poetry. Magical Realism has things happen for the sake of imagery and metaphor and so on, Fantasy has them happen because that's the way the universe in the story works. It's really a spectrum, though.

I have noticed that one thing that tends to make a difference is that Magical Realism magic is more... possible anywhere for any reason whereas magic in a Fantasy setting, even if it's vaguely "poetic" magic (i.e. based on Love and Passion and Dreams and Stories), there tend to be more rules or at least more specific places where and why it happens.