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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wild Gazebo" data-source="post: 2267235" data-attributes="member: 24413">First off--I didn't read the whole thread...sorry.  If I am simply reiterating a view already expressed sorry.It was my impression that the two genres were not separated through imagery but by ideology.  Phantasy is a setting where it is believed that the past contains more power than the future or present.  There is/was a de-evolution.  The past holds all of the secrets and the societies of the past were more advanced.  Which is why I believe typical imagery for phantasy works contain middle age imagery.  The middle ages being one of the few times in human history when it was generally believed that past civilizations were more advanced (though arguably not in actuallity).  And with this mystery of past springs usually a secondary or tertiary form of mytery such as magic or monsters--devils of our lack of knowledge if you will.Science Fiction is a setting that is just the oposite.  The future always contains more knowledge and mystery.  The further you go into the future the more advanced and powerful you become...understanding controls mystery allowing a leashing of the power through discovery.  Magic is usually developed rather than found (magic being a catch word for mysterious powers) and can eventually co-exist as a form of ultimate understanding.  Mysteries are a matter of debate and disection rather than faith and acceptance.  Some maintain that science fiction is any medium that contains a degree of science that doesn't exist and phantasy is environment that can never exist save for in the imagination.I believe these are the general parameters for old genre theory, but with the slow seeping of new genre theory, from rhetoric to literature, I imagine most of these arguments will become mute--if not irrelevant.</blockquote>

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