Zergling
Permabanned
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2007
- Messages
- 1,377
- MBTI Type
- ExTJ
I was thinking earlier about how various fantasy ideas (mainly from computer games) follow or don't follow various science laws, but than realized that a lot of them are based on ideas that are very, very recent, so would not show up in, say a greek myth.
Some things I noticed:
The concept of controlling "magical energy", used in a lot of computer games and possibly movies and books (most of these come from omputer games, so don't cover a lot of examples). This is the first one I noticed, when I remembered that energy is a concept that has only existed for the past 2-4 hundred years or so (the ideas were in constant developement, with experiments during that time.). The concept of storing magical energy likely would not have been tought of until even more recently, since technology was not based on energy storage until very recently. (with things like rechargable batteries, fuel conversion, etc.)
The idea that magical energy can be converted and used for several different things: This would likely not appear until recently, since the idea of energy being converted to different vforms is, again, something from only a couple hundred years ago. (Most description before than would likely just involve having power over one thing.)
The idea of other worlds with creatures on them: Obviously ideas such as hell, heaven, etc. and other "planes of existence" ideas have been around for awhile, but the idea of other worlds with other creatures in them (Which is used in a few computer games) seems a relatively recent one, thanks to knowledge of environments on other planets increasing over time, which would allow more understanding of stories involving the concept.
I'm not sure where I was expecting this thread to go, but was wondering if other people have noticed modern ideas that would almost certainly, or likely, not appear in ancient fantasy type stories (such as myths about gods, monsters, and such) thanks to the concepts only appearing relatively recently.
Some things I noticed:
The concept of controlling "magical energy", used in a lot of computer games and possibly movies and books (most of these come from omputer games, so don't cover a lot of examples). This is the first one I noticed, when I remembered that energy is a concept that has only existed for the past 2-4 hundred years or so (the ideas were in constant developement, with experiments during that time.). The concept of storing magical energy likely would not have been tought of until even more recently, since technology was not based on energy storage until very recently. (with things like rechargable batteries, fuel conversion, etc.)
The idea that magical energy can be converted and used for several different things: This would likely not appear until recently, since the idea of energy being converted to different vforms is, again, something from only a couple hundred years ago. (Most description before than would likely just involve having power over one thing.)
The idea of other worlds with creatures on them: Obviously ideas such as hell, heaven, etc. and other "planes of existence" ideas have been around for awhile, but the idea of other worlds with other creatures in them (Which is used in a few computer games) seems a relatively recent one, thanks to knowledge of environments on other planets increasing over time, which would allow more understanding of stories involving the concept.
I'm not sure where I was expecting this thread to go, but was wondering if other people have noticed modern ideas that would almost certainly, or likely, not appear in ancient fantasy type stories (such as myths about gods, monsters, and such) thanks to the concepts only appearing relatively recently.