[HoneyBadger]

Exactly. One of the big points of science fiction is that it can afford to be ambiguous about what's right and what's wrong, and make that ambiguity a central focus of theme and plot.

Who knows what's going to be right or wrong in the future?

On balance, fantasy can, and often does, offer us the comfort of taking away the guesswork.

The orks-by any other name-are bad, the elves-by any other name-are good. That's all we need to know. Just point your magic wand and shoot, and the gods will know their own. There lacks even the moral quandry of slaughtering the bad guys. The universe *itself* can, and often is, a moral place, in fantasy writing.

Myth, on the other hand, is seriously whacked in the head. What's good and what's bad in myth can be just as ambiguous as it is in science fiction, except that we're applying those questions of right and wrong to things that have already happened, that are happening, people that have already lived and died, and cultures that we may still find ourselves living in. Suddenly, there's an "oh #$%*, what did we do?" factor there, a banning from the Garden of Eden, some fire stolen from Olympus, or a few Christians roasting over an open fire.

Suddenly, it's not the worry of a hell we may someday find ourselves heading towards, but a hell we're already confined in, because-with myth-the very morals of the Universe not only do exist, but can shift like an angry sea, at a moment's notice.

That's the real difference between fantasy and myth-fantasy's like going off to vacation in a welcoming world of black and white, where paradise is at most a promise away. It's all a lie, but it's a beautiful, comfortable lie.

Myth, on the other hand, is where you live. And it's where everyone lives, all the time, even if you're a scientist. We never know for certain everything that's going on, and even if we did, 100%, we couldn't accept it all, completely. There's always a mythological element to the lives we live, and the world around us, and you can never escape that, except through fantasy. Myth may be an illusion, but it's a very real, very concrete illusion, like darkness existing as the absence of light. It may not be fact, but it's real, and it absolutely is Truth.

Fantasy, no matter how real it may seem, is always a lie.