Modern colloquialisms in fantasy?

Discussion in 'Fantasy' started by Stormsong07, Jun 21, 2018.

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  1. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    The fact that ideas existed long ago doesn't mean that the phrases that we use now for those ideas were used for the same purpose long ago. There's zero reason to assume that, and you haven't offered any support for the assumption.
     
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  2. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    So it wouldn’t be an anachronism if:

    - Arya said that Joffrey was too stupid to change a light bulb
    - Tyrion said, of some strategy by Daenerys, “Only Nixon could go to China.”

    ?
     
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  3. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    Two centuries is by definition ancient. And 1840's is LESS than two centuries in the past.
    And I think you're missing one of the key points of context in fantasy stories. Magic works by pre-stablished rules. We are fine with magic because we understand how it is supposed to work and expect to break or bend certain rules. When you break rules in ways that are unexpected, especially if it doesn't seem particularly meaningful, then people will wonder why. It'll jar them. If you suddenly have a character change characterisation it's uncomfortable and needs to be justified. In the same way using an obviously historical setting that resembles real-world Medieval Europe and having a character suddenly shout "Ayy, LMAO, lemme see that dick!" is going to throw people off. It'll seem dumb or comical, probably both. So it's not usually a good idea. You would at least restrain it to something Victorian or Georgian so it doesn't feel so undeniably modern as 20th century American slang. Again, the reality is many of the best fantasy series utilise and offer some understanding of their setting. They don't have to be as stringent as an actual period or directly real-life historical story, but the time sense is there.
     
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  4. DK3654

    DK3654 Almost a Productive Member of Society Contributor

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    True.
    But if in a modern setting, a character shouts "Ayy, LMAO, lemme see that dick!" it would probably seem dumb and comical too.
    Not exactly the best example then.
     
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  5. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    Gottdamn it don't you undermine me, I'm trying to make a point here. :mad:
     
  6. DK3654

    DK3654 Almost a Productive Member of Society Contributor

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  7. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    Don't bee catty with me.
     
  8. DK3654

    DK3654 Almost a Productive Member of Society Contributor

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  9. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    Not an anachronism no. Not the first one. IF you want to, you could simply say in their world, light bulbs exist. Mind you in the Avatar universe, TRAINS and GIANT ROBOTS and LASER CANNONS co-exist with ancient Asian culture and chi powers. You can just as easily say they have light bulbs in Westeros. In fact, we have an entire genre based around this idea: steampunk and gunpowder fantasy. What you just described, a world where dragons and knights and swordplay co-exist with electricity and laser guns and spaceships, that's literally Final Fantasy 7. Hell, you just literally described Avatar: the Legend of Korra and Avatar: the Last Airbender, a world where one of the central plot elements is that the chi-powered heroes have to fight armies of people with rockets, carried in ironclad warships, and later Korra and her friends have to, as a CENTRAL PLOT POINT, stop an uprising with giant mecha and laser cannons...in a world where television would be looked on as some kind of magic, and where actual magic and sorcery is so commonplace that it's a defined element of society. Hell, let me whip out my inner Brony here, in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic they have electricity, most kinds of modern technology, aerospace technology and giant airships...in a world populated by anthropomorphic horses, some of whom have telepathic powers, and some of whom can fly and manipulate the weather by manipulating electromagnetic energy through wing-like appendages--one of whom is able to fly at FTL speeds because she's the physical avatar of the Spirit of Loyalty. This is a world where every modern technology save for cars exist, and the only reason cars don't exist is that two thirds of the population can fly at supersonic speeds or teleport, or both, so they're unnecessary. So no in GOT if they developed light bulbs, and it was shown early on or established early on not just out of nowhere, it wouldn't be an "anachronism" it would be a plot element in a fantasy story set in a world where dragons, zombies and sorcery is real sooo...yeah I'd just shrug and so "eh, ok, steampunk".

    As for Daenerys mentioning China and Nixon, that would also not be an anachronism. It would be a PLOT HOLE, because it would infer their world is our world, since China and Nixon aren't concepts or ideas they're physical places or actual people who existed in history. Therefore the only way she would have any idea who Richard Nixon is or what China even means is that in their world, the United States must exist, with all the histories that implies including our connection to English history as a former colony, and their histories too as a result...and then their history would have to exist beside our own, along with the wars and political parties for Nixon to even exist let alone become president, and THEN you have explain how all of this also is coeval with the histories and development of China, how none of these people ever were directly involved in the wars and foibles of the primitive, iron-age tribes of Westeros, and what that means for our economy and history too since it would also by definition mean concepts like DRAGONS now coexist with our world history. And even then, you could pull a kind of plot twist out of some of it and say "It Was Earth All Along" after some kind of nuclear cataclysm destroyed our society...which frankly, would be a brilliant plot twist, and I kinda would love to see that if only to see how they go about doing it but they wouldn't soooo....I just have to dream.



    And the thing is there is a literal trope, seen in countless fictional stories and movies and books, which covers that. It is literally called It Was Earth All Along. Gaze upon the hundred trillion series where they did precisely what I described, introduce our world history into what seemed like pure fantasy only to pull back and reveal it was always our world but after a nuclear war, and be in awe of how difficult it truly is to have an "anachronism" in utter escapism: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EarthAllAlong
     
  10. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    Ok but that's the thing, they were used for basically the same purpose. Has there EVER been a positive connotation to "suck" or has calling someone a brother ever been seen as a bad thing or in a negative light? If not then no it wouldn't be outrageous to say someone is your brother, your bro, and therefore mean a good thing or to say someone sucks and mean something negative or at least unpleasant. The BEST possible interpretation of suck is to say someone sucked at their mother's breast, I GUESS, and even then it infers infantile behavior and could be used as an insult--i.e., he still sucks at his mother's breast despite being a forty year old. So these ideas, concepts, idioms and terms existed since...forever as far as I can tell, and just are what they are. And even then, in a world of pure fantasy it would still not be an "anachronism" since you can always just say in their world, the terms evolved to have the meaning they did in ours. Again, in Avatar: the Last Airbender (btw one of the greatest fantasy shows ever made) they use these terms, and their modern meanings, and they do it in a world where sorcery and psychic powers co-exist alongside steampowered technology and a CYBORG ASSASSIN with pryrokinesis! It's fantasy it can never have "anachronisms" because it's not remotely realistic. I'd genuinely argue it's more "anachronistic" or at least unrealistic that they use LATIN as a primary language in the year 40,000 A.D because it's barely known to a few people today let alone in the distant future, and even then I can easily see ways you could work around it, which Games Workshop used in WH40K!

    Ok fine let's say a century or two isn't ancient, the point I believe still stands. It's always been seen this way in what we can discern of recorded history, or most of it, and so the terms are likely not "modern" or even "new" but evolved from concepts even older. Changing characterization is a plot element, a plot hole, not a part of the setting. And even then we've had characters DRAMATICALLY change character in the middle of a scene, it's called a heel-face turn or face-heel turn, being seemingly good then turning out to be a serial murderer or something, it's a plot twist used all the time in fiction. And it entirely depends on the setting. Because again, I can cite dozens of series where modern colloquialisms, concepts, language, slang, etc are used alongside ideas and plot elements that are literally straight out of ancient Asia, ancient Europe. So yes it would seem, I guess, kinda odd it wouldn't by definition be an anachronism in a world where the history is purely fictional. You can just make the very plausible argument that, in Westeros, the term LMAO exists and has the same meaning it does here--I'm laughing my ass off. And "ayy" isn't even a colloquialism it's a pronunciation or accent, "Ah yes! LMAO, let me see your dick!" would be just as "accurate" and again, in a world of sorcery and dragons and zombies how can that be "unrealistic"? Just say it is in that world. The fact that dick has the same meaning regardless, and asking to look at something has meant the same throughout ALL OF TIME means someone simply adding a minor, irrelevant sidenote that in their world, they shortened down "I'm laughing my ass off!" to LMAO isn't some massive leap of logic, and sarcastically demanding to, say, see your lover naked is a concept so ancient I'm certain if you did go back to ancient Europe and say that to like a male prostitute or something they'd know what you meant almost immediately and do it.
     
  11. S A Lee

    S A Lee Contributor Contributor

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    I think looking into old colloquialisms and curses is fun, for example, to describe someone as 'coal-raking' means they are outstaying their welcome, or zoilist to denote someone who is excessively critical or vitriolic.
     
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  12. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Ideas, maybe. Idioms and terms, no. And you have yet to offer any evidence whatsoever for your claim that they have. “It must be so” is not evidence.

    And a fantasy world that is designed to have a given technology level can indeed have anachronisms. Oh, you can coin another name, but the functional concept is the same.

    Now, an author can make the style decision to use modern terms. Almost every author using an “old” setting is going to modernize the language. But exactly how they modernize it is a style decision, and it should be a deliberate and conscious style decision.

    Me, I’m trying to avoid any idiom, phrase, whatever, that came into existence in the lifetime of any likely reader, and avoid words that have a too-obvious origin. Platonic, puritan, and watt, for example, aren’t terribly new but it’s easy to point to the our-world origin.
     
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  13. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    I write fantasy and a reader objected to my using "okay" in my dialogue. As in, "Are you okay?" as being too modern o_O I asked a second reader and he said the same thing :cry: I would have thought "okay" is deeply ingrained enough into English that it doesn't sound modern!?

    Anyway, I find it funny how people are weird about these things with a fantasy novel. I guess I get it when it comes to slang and colloquialism. It's all part of that suspension of disbelief - different world = different language. You don't want to hear modern colloquialisms in a fantasy setting because you're reading fantasy to escape the real world in the first place.

    But for me, I don't care half as much about technology. Sure I wouldn't stick in a computer in a medieval fantasy setting. But this whole "tech needs to be appropriate to the period" is nonsense to me. What period? It's fantasy! For me, anything before the 18th century is game :supercool: I don't do "tech from one specific century". Not got time for that sort of research - there's a reason I'm writing fantasy and not historical fiction!
     
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  14. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    @ChickenFreak
    Ok, so then you're saying since the term and the concept of a brother has existed since as far as we can discern the dawn of civilization, and bro is a shortened term for brother, calling someone your bro and having it mean positive things is a "modern" colloquialism? That's not snark I'm genuinely trying to get what you mean here, these terms and ideas have existed forever, you're asking for "proof" that human civilization has used an idea as old as mankind to mean "this person is like my sibling"? But ok fine because I honestly think it has no impact on the argument, I'll concede brother only came into existence as a concept in the 1980's, yet another thing Regan did right I guess. Using a term from modern times in a fantasy setting explicitly NOT set in our world means nothing since it's not our world and therefore the setting doesn't preclude it. If it were actual, period-set fantasy like 300 or something then it wold be out of place, but otherwise it's just a term that exists in our world and their world, and since their world is fantasy it's impossible to say it "wouldn't" or "couldn't" exist or fit. ANYTHING can fit in fantasy because it's fantasy, it has no actual setting in our reality so the physics, world concepts and ideas are made up ad hoc.

    Read Discworld, it was set on a giant disk of land carried on a turtle's back, if they suddenly started playing video games it would in no way be out of place in a world so absurd from the start that our modern ideas seem almost mundane and irrelevant by comparison. Or hell check out the Highlander movies, where ancient shamans from an alien world teleported to Earth, became immortal warriors and have sword duels for fun.

    And honestly explain how a world of pure fantasy can have anachronisms. Because I can find examples of stories where modern terms, concepts and ideas are fitted into "old" settings. Obviously modern PLACE NAMES and PEOPLE cannot fit into pure fantasy, but even then, as I said you can just as easily justify this by saying it was Earth All Along in a twist ending. There are thousands of works that do this. Sonic the Hedgehog, the video game, revealed that Mobius is actually Earth in the distant future after a cataclysmic interstellar war. Sonic the Hedgehog. The world where there are giant loops of Earth that superfast hedgehogs and echidnas use as ramps to run around on at FTL speeds. And you can call that a "style decision" or whatever but at the end of the day they're postulating that sometime in the future Earth goes to war with our colonies, they win, and the planet is so decimated by pollution animals become self-aware and an evil cyborg scientist becomes a dictator of a city populated by the broken cybernetic remnants of Earth-born humanity...and everyone says "dude" a lot.

    Fantasy is fantasy, it doesn't need to fit any actual world period or history, it can't be "old" or "ancient" because it never existed. If you postulate in a science fiction story that in the year 100,000 A.D. the song "Tearing Up My Heart" is still a top ten hit (btw I love that song) then you would have to explain why people millennia from now are listening to it...but if you just put forth that a fantasy setting has an all-male singing group who have popular hits with young women, on their equivalent of radio, then that's all you need--it doesn't exist so it's irrelevant why or how. Now if you say the ACTUAL band N Sync actually is preforming that actual song in Westeros then you have some explaining to do, since that all requires ACTUAL world history to make sense. But saying "they know what boy bands are" and leaving it at that requires no explanation since it's a fantasy world, just like if they start arguing about light bulbs. In their world, boy bands and light bulbs were invented in the iron age. How and why are irrelevant. Otherwise, again, you have some explaining to do with the ENTIRETY of the Final Fantasy series since it posits that laser swords, assault rifles, space craft and giant robots were invented in a world where dragons, imps and magic is real--which by the way is perfectly fine, IF you accept no actual anachronisms can exist in that setting which I do, because it's pure escapist fantasy. It's history just is.
     
  15. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    It's all about establishing expectations. You can have a fantasy story in any style of setting that uses modern language and slang, if you like. As long as you set that expectation early on, I think it is fine. It may turn off some readers, but any choice you make may turn off some readers. If you're adhering faithfully to pre-industrial language and then a bit of modern slang drops in, that's where you're more likely to run into trouble. That is jarring because it conflicts with the expectations you've set. Same thing with levels of technology in a fantasy story.

    There might be times where you don't set a complete expectation about relative time period or technology level, such as in a world that appears to be a more or less medieval fantasy world until the characters discover that it is a post-apocalyptic world, but even there you're managing expectations, and once the reveal is made you're dealing with reader expectations as to how this will unfold and work itself into the story and the fantasy world.

    If you do these things with deliberation, instead of by accident, you're a lot more likely to be successful.
     
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  16. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    It does sound modern to me.

    But a fantasy author may choose a period and a technology level--there's zero reason to assume they won't. You don't have to, but I certainly don't see it as nonsense--the fact that it's fantasy means that it's a different reality, not that it's an anything-goes reality. And technology affects society--for example, war in a world with guns is going to be different from war in a world without. Households with plumbing will be different from households without. A society with a printing press is very different from a society without.
     
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  17. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    @ChickenFreak
    Well, again, if you think a world with guns is dramatically different than one without the people who made every Final Fantasy game after VII want to talk with you because they had space ships, lasers, giant robots, AIs, cyborgs, genetically engineering and assault rifles co-existing with swords, magic, dragons, imps and LITERAL fairies.
     
  18. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/10/09/the-rise-of-the-portmanbro/

    "It wasn’t until the 20th century that bro’s meaning began to stray from familial relationships and religious titles."

    I seem to have proof that it hasn't. "Brother", yes. "Bro", no.

    That doesn't mean it's a good idea. It doesn't mean that it won't break suspension of disbelief. It doesn't mean it's not worth thinking about.

    They're made up, yes. Made up by an author who is establishing a reality.

    I recently wanted to know if it was plausible for my characters to have matches. I don't know what technology is behind matches, so I did some Googling, and it appears that while they didn't exist in the period that my novel is loosely based on, they reasonably could have--the underlying technologies did exist. So I feel moderately free to decide that matches do or don't exist in my world--I'm going to choose based on whether I'd like instant fire to just exist, or whether I'd find the problems around not having that to be interesting problems.

    However, if matches depended on some chemical refinement process that only came into existence in, say, 1930, I wouldn't feel comfortable. So, for example, I may allow my character to light a lantern with matches, but I'm certainly not going to give her a flashlight.


    I certainly think it would. The existence of one implausibility doesn't mean that others are easier--it often means that they're harder.

    I was just listening to Philip Pullman discuss how he created creatures that evolved to use wheels. Not evolved into tool-using creatures that created carts with wheels, but evolved, very early, to use wheels as adjuncts to their own bodies. It was a fascinating sequence of logic.

    Why make them teleport? Why not just have them appear? Why explain anything at all?

    Because readers need explanations and a structure for the fictional reality.

    Which world? You seem to be assuming that all fantasy worlds are identical? Narnia has a fairly clear and specific technology level. So does Game of Thrones. So does Middle Earth. Would you be fine, TOTALLY fine, if Sam and Frodo spent their evenings, on their journey to destroy the Ring, playing on their Playstation.

    Why not? You just declared that it's fantasy and anything goes. Why can't Bill Clinton walk up to Bill and Frodo and grab a game controller? Why not?

    Fantasy is what the author says it is--except you don't seem to think so. Frodo. Sam. Bill Clinton. Playstation. Surely you have zero problem with that right?

    Why? Anything goes, in your rules, remember?

    Not by your rules. Anything goes, remember?

    Then it's not the iron age. And of course it's relevant.

    An author decided what was in that world. It has its own rules. And there are other fictional worlds, including fantasy worlds, where the rules don't allow laser swords.

    A fictional world needs to have an internal reality to be satisfying for the reader.
     
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  19. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    ....and that world isn't changed, even a tiny itty bitty little bit, because those things exist? Those things are utterly and totally irrelevant to the world?

    Those things are a key part of that world. You're undermining your own argument.
     
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  20. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    Sure, but none of that means I have to stick to tech from just one century.

    Of course fantasy is "anything-goes reality" - you would accept the existence of magic but not, I dunno, that there's a piece of 18th century technology in an otherwise medieval setting? And sure authors may choose to stick to tech from one specific century, but it's the expectation that readers seem to have that the author must do this that irks me. Why should it be assumed that the author would do that?

    I don't get how having different tech affecting society means you can't use tech from multiple different centuries. I'm not saying let character A use a gun and have character B think it's a magical weapon because B has never seen one in his life.
     
  21. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    @ChickenFreak
    That was kinda broken up a lot so forgive me if I miss a major point you made, I'm trying to respond in total.

    Ok fine, like I said the term "bro" was created last week, I have no issue conceding that. IN A FANTASY WORLD it doesn't matter because it's not based on any current reality or timeline. If Bilbo says someone is a "dudebro" as an insult, I genuinely wouldn't care, since for all I know in their world that term has some negative religious meaning--I'm not a hobbit so I'll take his word on it. But if he starts talking about BILL CLINTON that changes things. Bill Clinton even existing in, say, Westeros requires AMERICA exists, which means our world is their world, which means it's no longer Westeros. Which means now OUR history overlaps with their own which means now you have to explain how all of Earth's history exists in the same world as Westeros. By that same Tolkein (see what I did there? :cool:) if you suddenly had an anti-Trump poster in the world of MiddleEarth that implies:
    1--America exists
    2--it is EXPLICITLY sometime in 2017 at minimum
    3--OUR ENTIRE HISTORY exists alongside that of MiddleEarth
    4--Trump was elected in their world (#HobbitsForTrump!)
    5--He's hated by the MiddleEarthian Left there as much as he is by our Left (#NotMyEmperor!)
    6--ALL of this happened alongside MiddleEarth's history
    7--We never interacted or were involved in this

    That's not an anachronism, that's not "anything goes", that's a plot hole. Anything goes, until you start bringing actual people and place names in, at which point you need to explain it to some degree and EVEN THEN you could argue that it was some future, post-apocalypse Earth and just as easily explain away this issue with just one scene of Bilbo crying as he looks upon a shattered Statue of Liberty. Bang, immediately you have explained this entire story arc. That is why that is a trope seen in literally thousands of works of fantasy. Because fantasy is a fantasy, unlike our world it has no true, set rules beyond that which the creator of the series wants to have and even then he can change them if he feels like it. The entire Highlander thing? THAT was a retcon, from the previous movie that just assumed Immortals existed, period...and THAT was retconned for the TV series which says they're just some mutant offspring of humanity with healing powers that render them effectively immortal and immune to all weapons and diseases, save decapitation.

    And honestly yeah, if you establish that electricity exists in MiddleEarth, and have them playing video games, why not? We also have established interdimensional travel, time manipulation and magical rings exist so that's not some monumental leap. As I said one of my favorite genres is gunpowder fantasy, a genre founded on and dependent on the very IDEA that somehow people developed electricity or guns or lasers or mecha or whatever before they developed the printing press, see Avatar: the Last Airbender. Tanks, cannons, cyborgs, trains, giant robots and lasers CO-EXIST with flying yaks and literal fairies in a world where psychic powers and magic is so omnipresent Benders are considered a dominant race and their equivalent of the Black Panthers is trying to bring them down by force of arms because NORMAL humans are being wiped out and oppressed. The main difference with SciFi is that SciFi assumes, at the core, that this is either some kind of future, coeval to our own world, and if not at least it must adhere to science...and even then, Science-FANTASY is a genre, which basically takes the "anything goes" aspect of fantasy and grafts it to the Xeelee Sequence. Again, Star Wars...laser swords mixed with literal wizards mixed with space fighters mixed with literal magic.

    I understand some people view fantasy differently but your argument depends on basically ignoring entire genres of fantasy and sci-fi that have existed for decades, since they debunk that argument. Fantasy is fantasy, it's not real, it has no grounding in reality so anything can happen. SciFi is expected to have SOME realism because of the "science" part and even then, most ignore that to a huge degree. So yeah, someone saying "dude" isn't as massive a leap as a space wizard with a laser sword hiring a farm boy to fight an evil sorcery and his cyborg companion in the future, or a magical flaming eye created a super ring that can rule the world and it takes a midget and his friends to stop them using the power of friendship.
     
  22. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    You can. I do this in one of my stories. There is a tradition of this sort of thing in dying-earth and lost colony-style fantasy, where you basically have a traditional fantasy level of tech predominant in the world, but the world has remnants of advanced tech in use, or is really a colony world in a story world where people travel between the stars.
     
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  23. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    As long as you remain consistent within the internal logic/rules of the fantasy world.
     
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  24. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    Uh, no. Have you played Final Fantasy VII? That's genuinely a question not an insult. No their world isn't changed remotely. They still live in basically a fantasy world, despite interplanetary and interdimensional travel being well-known. Genetic engineering hasn't done anything, cybernetics aren't even that big an issue despite being common enough they're seen on several characters, and people still organize armies and fight wars with swords despite guns and giant robots existing. No, the world isn't changed. A guy getting his hand on a MAGICAL GEM and turning into a literal angel changes the world more.
     
  25. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
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    So their world is EXACTLY like our world? Those things don't mean that their society or anything else is even a tiny bit different from our world? We could walk into the Final Fantasy world and not even know we weren't in, say, a suburb of Chicago?
     

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