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| - Many works of horror or science fiction have at least toeholds in the realms of real science, however much they end up straying from it. Even when actual science and its tenets are exceeded, super-science, more tentative but still based on known scientific theories and speculation, can step in to bridge the gap from firm established laws to takes on what could be possible. Past that is pure fantasy, which can use science as a gateway but rapidly veers into things that only work because the author says they should. Fantasy for this article refers to an idea that states a scientific basis but ends up working in a manner similar to magic in other fiction, but not to magic or magic users, something that does not appear to exist in the series in any, way, shape or form.
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| abstract
| - Many works of horror or science fiction have at least toeholds in the realms of real science, however much they end up straying from it. Even when actual science and its tenets are exceeded, super-science, more tentative but still based on known scientific theories and speculation, can step in to bridge the gap from firm established laws to takes on what could be possible. Past that is pure fantasy, which can use science as a gateway but rapidly veers into things that only work because the author says they should. Fantasy for this article refers to an idea that states a scientific basis but ends up working in a manner similar to magic in other fiction, but not to magic or magic users, something that does not appear to exist in the series in any, way, shape or form. Elfen Lied is replete with examples of these three levels, but for the sake of common reference, we will start with a figure decidedly more iconic and usually a good deal more heroic than Lucy. This figure is the Man Of Steel, Superman. Over his three-quarters of a century, his powers show the use, abuse and the dilemma of looking at the science in science-fiction. When he debuted in 1938, Superman was not a physical god, but merely a man of high strength and durability. Often cited in that era but much less so today was his heritage from a world, Krypton, once said to even be in our own solar system, that had much heavier gravity than our own. This was science, for a heavier-gravity world would have caused development that, when the subject was exposed to the lighter gravity of Earth, could well have produced a person capable of power and toughness. Whether such a person could live in a place so much lighter without ill effects is debatable, but it starts out with known science about pressure and gravity. As time went on, again the gravity explanation was discounted, and it came that any Kryptonian arriving on our world would benefit from their bodies being living solar batteries, capable of metabolizing the light of Earth's Yellow Sun. This would be Super-Science, no pun intended. There are life forms that use sunlight to feed and grow, albeit non-bipedal non-hominid life, usually plants. Since Kryptonians are an alien life form now firmly from another galaxy, under Super-Science this excursion from standard scientific law is allowable, but only as the proverbial thing that cannot be easily disproved. Then come the classic and still-growing range of the array of extra powers at Superman's disposal, perhaps the most iconic of these being his heat vision. In some accounts, this has been described as a telekinetic excitement of an object's atoms, causing the release of heat that travels back along the telekinetic projection and seems to be a red line moving out from Superman's eyes. Most incarnations, however, use the idea that this is essentially laser beams emitting from Superman's eyes, pure and simple. This power is fantasy, as there is no science firm or speculative that allows a living being to do this. Even the power of flight has a better foothold in science than heat vision among other of his offensive and defensive cosmic abilities. Back in the world of Elfen Lied, the strange powers seen on a constant basis can be similarly classified in these three ways.
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