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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wombat" data-source="post: 1394092" data-attributes="member: 8447">Inertia, tradition, and all the rest are factors.Consider:  what we call "fantasy" nowadays is actually a continuation, in many ways, of medieval epics.  Wizards, dragons, magical swords, underground chambers, strange towers, and the like are found in variants in Beowulf, the Arthurian legends, in the Peers of Charlemagne, in the Niebelungenlied, in Icelandic sagas, in The Firebird and hosts of other tales going back into the dim reaches of time.  For that matter we could even back the process up to even earlier mythology, Classical and not-so-Classical.This material is re-invented and re-worked throughout all of Western literature -- Shakespeare, the Gothic writers, Tennyson, Lord Dunsany, etc., right up to this very day.  In a way, what we have here is a tradition.That being said, there have been variants in technology over time.  Arthur's knights start out in chainmail and end up in full plate (that is quite the advance ... at least in terms of the Middle Ages).  There are tales where cannon have appeared.  But even more importantly than the technological factors what doesn't change is the basic social structure.  Why?  Because no one wants to deal with lawyers, bankers, and the like.  If you want a clear example of this, just read Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur -- in the 15th century many nobles were actually poorer than most merchants ("How can they have so much money?  They sell time, yet they did not manufacture this time.") and lawyers are putting limits on what people may and may not do.  Mallory ignores all this and actually uses many passages in LMA to lambaste then-current practices, pointing back to a "simpler and nobler" time.This, more than anything else to my eye, is the origin point of modern fantasy -- wishing for something simpler, a world in which it is alright to just go out and whack someone you disagree with because he is obviously the Bad Guy, without having to look over your shoulder for a lawyer or worry if some merchant is going to be able to buy and sell you.So modern fantasy might include a few innovations (rapiers replace broadswords, sailing vessels have compasses & wheels, etc.), but the social innovations are kept at bay because of their implications.</blockquote>

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