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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 7972624" data-attributes="member: 22779">Well, let's not get too sidetracked here.&nbsp; We're discussing the difference between fantasy and SF, not SF (or spec fiction) vs other genres.&nbsp; And, of course, it gets even more convoluted when you add in humorist and satirical SF and fantasy writers like Pratchett or Douglas Adams or Jonathan Swift.&nbsp; Yeah, I agree that &quot;ethics&quot; is the wrong word, but, I've never been able to find a better one that isn't the mouthful of &quot;what it means to be human in the face of some fictional change&quot; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />&nbsp; Because, really, that's generally what separates SF from Fantasy.&nbsp; They share too many tropes for tropes to be a good divisor.&nbsp; But, even fantasy stories with prophesies generally don't concern themselves overly much with the notion of free will.&nbsp; You usually get the standard, &quot;Why me?&nbsp; Why do I have to be the chosen one&quot; sort of thing, but, rarely do you get, &quot;Well, if prophesies come true, then there is no free will.&nbsp; If there is no free will then morality cannot exist since every decision I make is predestined therefore, I'm going to go on a murder spree and kill myself because, well, that's that the universe wants me to do&quot;.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue&nbsp; &nbsp; :p"&nbsp; data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />Or, to put it another way, you cannot really tell Flowers for Algernon as a fantasy story any more than you can turn Lord of the Rings into an SF story.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 7972624, member: 22779"] Well, let's not get too sidetracked here. We're discussing the difference between fantasy and SF, not SF (or spec fiction) vs other genres. And, of course, it gets even more convoluted when you add in humorist and satirical SF and fantasy writers like Pratchett or Douglas Adams or Jonathan Swift. Yeah, I agree that "ethics" is the wrong word, but, I've never been able to find a better one that isn't the mouthful of "what it means to be human in the face of some fictional change" :D Because, really, that's generally what separates SF from Fantasy. They share too many tropes for tropes to be a good divisor. But, even fantasy stories with prophesies generally don't concern themselves overly much with the notion of free will. You usually get the standard, "Why me? Why do I have to be the chosen one" sort of thing, but, rarely do you get, "Well, if prophesies come true, then there is no free will. If there is no free will then morality cannot exist since every decision I make is predestined therefore, I'm going to go on a murder spree and kill myself because, well, that's that the universe wants me to do". :p Or, to put it another way, you cannot really tell Flowers for Algernon as a fantasy story any more than you can turn Lord of the Rings into an SF story. [/QUOTE]

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