Water Spells - New Materialist Theoretical Insights from Animated Fantasy and Science Fiction

Aug 23, 2026

This essay analyzes how water elementals in contemporary fantasy and science fiction animation suggest an aquatic materiality that enables alternative ways of thinking about a “History of Waters.” Drawing on three award-winning characters—Lapis Lazuli (liquid), Elsa of Arendelle (solid), and Masami Yoshida (gaseous)—it argues that animated narratives generate new historical possibilities while challenging certainty, permanence, and traditional notions of historical agency through the evental, ambivalent nature of time.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages24

Reading Time1 h 0 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Theoretical Foundations: Non-human agency and historical agency

Jane Bennett and Bruno Latour

Rethinking historical agency in environmental and posthumanist studies

Linda Nash and related debates

Case Study: Three hydrokinetic water characters across genres

Lapis Lazuli, Elsa of Arendelle, and Masami Yoshida

Water Spells: New Materialist Theoretical Insights from Animated Fantasy and Science Fiction André Vasques Vital1 ABSTRACT This essay analyses how water elementals in fantasy and science fiction animations created in the last decade suggest an aquatic materiality that raises alternative ways of thinking about a History of Waters. The analysis is conducted based on three characters from award-winning animations that embody, respectively, water in liquid, solid, and gaseous states: Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe, 2013– 2020), Elsa of Arendelle (Frozen 1, 2013 and Frozen 2, 2020), and Masami Yoshida (The Amazing World of Gumball, 2011–2019) . The initial assumption is that animations in the fantasy and science fiction genres, in addition to being based on the historical circumstances of their time and even incorporating theories of history, allow the production of new possibilities of thinking historically. The three characters enable us to explore alternatives for a history that incorporates the contingent identity of waters that challenge certainties, permanence, and the traditional notion of historical agency while highlighting the evental and ambivalent nature of time. Keywords: animation; science fiction; fantasy; history of waters. 1 Doutor em História das Ciências e da Saúde (Fundação Oswaldo Cruz), Professor do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sociedade, Tecnologia e Meio Ambiente (PPGSTMA), Universidade Evangélica de Goiás, Brasil. ORCID: [https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6959-3196. E](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6959-3196. E) mail: [vasques_vital@tutanota.com](vasques_vital@tutanota.com) HALAC – Historia Ambiental, Latinoamericana y Caribeña • [http://halacsolcha.org/index.php/halac](http://halacsolcha.org/index.php/halac)v. 12, n. 1 (2022) • p. 246-269 • ISSN 2237-2717 • [https://doi.org/10.32991/2237-2717.2022v12i1.p246-269](https://doi.org/10.32991/2237-2717.2022v12i1.p246-269) Water Spells: New Materialist Theoretical Insights from Animated Fantasy and Science Fiction André Vasques Vital Let`s stay on this miserable planet together! Lapis Lazuli Don't you know there's part of me that longs to go into the unknown! Elsa of Arendelle You are so perfect that it makes me want to rain on your parade until you swell, turn brown, and rot! Masami Yoshida I n an essay published in 2012, philosopher Jane Bennett noted how quickly scientists in the humanities fields identify the supposed efficacy and autonomy of human intentions and actions over matter while finding it difficult to understand how encounters with non-humans affect all dimensions of political, social, and cultural life.2 Bennett's reflection is in line with the criticism of Bruno Latour in the classic essay, We Have Never Been Modern (1993), about the problems of the separation between humans and nature, subject and object, the central dichotomies that permeate modern science.3 This problem is also seen in history, which in general, remains rooted in the separation between human and natural history, which was consolidated in the Scientific Revolution from the 16–18th centuries. The axiom resulting from this separation determines that historians can access institutions, policies, and representations in the past, as they are creations of human consciousness, but they cannot understand rivers and other bodies of water because they are unconscious entities that leave no records of their intentions. In practice, the primacy of intentional action consolidates as the engine of history, positioning the human as the only agent capable of interfering in the constitution of the past.4 Bennett follows Bruno Latour's proposition that advocates the non-existence of 2 Jane Bennett, “The Elements,” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 4, (2013): 105. 3 Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993) . 4 Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” Critical Inquiry 35, (2009): 187-222. HA

FAQs

What concept does the essay develop through a “History of Waters”?

It develops an approach that treats waters as historical agents, using their changing manifestations in animation to propose new historical thinking beyond human-centered agency.

Which three characters does the essay use as case studies, and what states of water do they represent?

Lapis Lazuli represents water in the liquid state, Elsa of Arendelle represents the solid state, and Masami Yoshida represents the gaseous state.

How do the essay’s theoretical influences challenge traditional historical agency?

The essay draws on ideas associated with Jane Bennett and Bruno Latour to question the separation of humans and nature, arguing that events often involve non-humans and produce non-intentional consequences that reshape historical agency.

Aug 23, 2026

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