Technological Advancement in Fantasy

[Maia]

We're not talking about small differences, Maia. India was at worst a couple of hundred years behind Europe in terms of technological advancement.

You can't know that. Some civilizations never make the next technological step on their own and/or lag millenia behind. Central American civilizations never invented the wheel or the usage of metals. At say 800 AD both India and China were centuries ahead of Europe, by 18th century they were centuries behind. Nothing says that the speed of technological progress in RL Europe during the last millenium was how things are supposed to go, rather than a very lucky and unlikely fluke.

But 150,000 years of people sitting around twiddling their thumbs for no other reason than Because Fuck You, That's Why? That's poor writing.

Not talking about time-scales like that, obviously. But Middle Ages lingering? With different geography and different historical factors, I absolutely could see that. After all, no other civilizations iRL made the jump to Renaissance and Industrialization, despite having the scientific and technological level to do so _before_ Europe. But stars didn't align for them.

Now, I don't like the authors just copy-pasting the literary cliche of medieval societies into their works because of laziness/recognition value. And I like it even less when no allowances are made for how the differences to RL, both magical and other should have affected those societies from the ground up. Variety in what cultures and periods the fantasy settings are modeled on would be more than welcome too. But those are different issues.

[fionwe1987]

I think the character of Kallor was handled very well in TtH. From his POV you can learn that he has repressed his emotions like love and affection as a protective mechanism against the inevitable grief that comes from losing the loved one. Kallor has convinced even himself that he is a cold and unfeeling villain when he really isn't, deep down. He just acts that way because he cares too much and it's the only way he can go on, and Kallor is nothing if not persistent. That's why he's still alive.

First off, that was the worst retcon ever, and did not work at all. The man who cares too much deep down simply destroyed a whole continent full of people?:bs:

As for the differences between an adult and a child and how that relates to immortals, you have to remember that a child's brain is still growing and they also have a lot more to learn about the world than an adult. Small babies learn and develop very fast, children slower, and adults yet slower than that. The difference between a 1000-year-old and a 100-year-old is going to be a lot less than the difference between a 10-year-old and a 1-year-old.

Well, duh! But there will be a difference between a 100 year old and a thousand year old, and most certainly between a thousand year old and a hundred thousand year old.

That seemed to be what you were implying with your example of the old geezer. If you're saying that Kallor's brain should continue to develop beyond ours then maybe, but there is no reason why it should. And if we're saying that simply living for that long would give one an alien way of looking at things, it's again a reasonable assumption, but also by no means the only one you can make.

I was implying no such thing (I'd be out of a job if I ever made such a statement). I said that for all his hundred thousand years of experience, the man seems emotionally no different from a normal cantankerous old man. Which is plain ridiculous, because he clearly has memories of all he has experienced in these years. You cannot have memories, but no other effects. The brain is highly plastic, and the more it experiences, the more it alters. If it cannot alter, it cannot have memory.

So yes, Kallor is a dung heap of characterization.

[fionwe1987]

You can't know that. Some civilizations never make the next technological step on their own and/or lag millenia behind. Central American civilizations never invented the wheel or the usage of metals. At say 800 AD both India and China were centuries ahead of Europe, by 18th century they were centuries behind. Nothing says that the speed of technological progress in RL Europe during the last millenium was how things are supposed to go, rather than a very lucky and unlikely fluke.

But even so, you are talking in the frame of a few thousand years. What is unlikely is that for 150,000 years, people are stuck in the middle ages for no good reason. That makes no sense.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

You can't know that. Some civilizations never make the next technological step on their own and/or lag millenia behind. Central American civilizations never invented the wheel or the usage of metals. At say 800 AD both India and China were centuries ahead of Europe, by 18th century they were centuries behind. Nothing says that the speed of technological progress in RL Europe during the last millenium was how things are supposed to go, rather than a very lucky and unlikely fluke.

This is incorrect. China was a few centuries behind Europe in terms of military technology (and arguably culture) by the 1700s, but India most definitely was not. Look up the Sikh Wars and the Sikh Khalsa, which was a match for British troops in terms of technology and organization in the 1840s. Before that, India had widespread use of firearms and explosives in combat, putting them at best one century behind Europe.

As for China... were it not for the influence of Confucianism, China would likely have stayed ahead of Europe. The Confucianist system was reactionist and stifled new technological development - hell, even after the Europeans demonstrated with utmost clarity the superiority of Western military tech the hardcore Confucianist elite in China initially refused to modernize. My point being that there is a clear cultural reason that China did not advance, and such does not exist, or not convincingly, in any fantasy book I've read.

[kungtotte]

You can't know that. Some civilizations never make the next technological step on their own and/or lag millenia behind.

I'd argue that we don't know whether or not they never make the next technological step on their own, because they're saved from having to do it on their own by virtue of being introduced to it by someone else, or they are simply destroyed.

Central American civilizations never invented the wheel or the usage of metals.

See the previous point. The Central American civilizations were generally destroyed fairly quickly, who knows whether or not they would've invented the wheel given time? They also had some other fairly impressive advancements, such as accurate astronomical charts and calendars.

At say 800 AD both India and China were centuries ahead of Europe, by 18th century they were centuries behind. Nothing says that the speed of technological progress in RL Europe during the last millenium was how things are supposed to go, rather than a very lucky and unlikely fluke.

Nobody is saying that the exact rate of technological progress in Europe is the normative one, but people seem to be claiming that the entire principle of technological progress is null and void for some unknown reason and they hand-wave it away by shouting "fantasy!". So it would've taken India another 1000 years to replicate what Europe did? Maybe 2000 years for China? Swell. They would still have progressed technologically, even if things would probably have turned out differently.

People strive to better their situation and change their surroundings. We're the only ones who do that, it's sort of what makes us people. If animals can't survive in a certain climate, they don't try to change anything about their situation, they either die or they relocate. Humans invent clothes, build shelters, discover the secret of fire, create and use tools and they don't stop there. After discovering agriculture, were they content with scratching furrows in the earth with stones set in wooden yokes? No, they found out how to make animals do most of the work for them. Add several thousand years of refinement and we've got huge fuck-off John Deere tractors doing it for us.

Sooner or later, any human civilization that is sufficiently large will arrive at the huge fuck-off tractor stage, because we just can't help it.

I call it the John Deere-principle, and any fantasy author ought to follow it religiously or have a really good explanation for why not.

[Serious Callers Only]

So, resuming the thread, the conclusion is that Erikson is, like most writers, not good enough at characterization to write the story he wants to tell as it should be told (whatever that is)?

Bites more than he can chew, etc, etc.

[The Evil Hat]

Don't see how it results in that at all, nor do I understand the claims of poor writing or characterization. It's a timeline problem. Yes, it makes no sense; I'll admit that. But that doesn't mean that he's a terrible writer or bad at characterization. He made a bad decision in the timeline, okay, but that doesn't invalidate everything else he's done.

[kungtotte]

I've always thought that Erikson's main problem is that he can't pace himself. It feels like whenever he has an idea about the story, or a character, or whatever, it ends up in the book. It's like he lacks an internal editor, the angel on his shoulder that tells him that maybe he ought to rewrite this bit or leave this bit out, because it doesn't mesh at all with what he's already written or with existing characterisation.

I think a case in point could be Kallor.

He is more or less Ozymandias, undisputed emperor of a vast and powerful empire. But as always his lust for power drives some people to rebel against him, and seeing that he can't defend himself against the new power they brought forth to fight him he simply destroys his entire empire.

Millions of people are burnt to ash, a whole world devastated and made lifeless, just to deny his enemies the satisfaction of defeating him.

He is cursed by some elder gods to live forever and never regain any shred of his former power, and in turn curses them.

But it turns out that he's really a cool guy. He is cold, emotionless and distant because he cares too much. He pleads with an adversary to lay down his arms, because he doesn't want to kill him. :huh:

[Serious Callers Only]

Don't see how it results in that at all, nor do I understand the claims of poor writing or characterization. It's a timeline problem. Yes, it makes no sense; I'll admit that. But that doesn't mean that he's a terrible writer or bad at characterization. He made a bad decision in the timeline, okay, but that doesn't invalidate everything else he's done.

It never does (on any writer).

I wasn't referring to the timeline, but to Kallor.

Any way, i'm sure most of you have already experienced this felling when reading fantasy & SF (that is very imaginative compared to most lit):

"This is a good idea/theme, but i wish a better writer had had it" In relation to Erikson, the 100000 year old dude.

[The Evil Hat]

Well, I won't comment on Kallor yet (about a third through Return... now), but I do know the feeling.

[jurble]

This is incorrect. China was a few centuries behind Europe in terms of military technology (and arguably culture) by the 1700s, but India most definitely was not. Look up the Sikh Wars and the Sikh Khalsa, which was a match for British troops in terms of technology and organization in the 1840s. Before that, India had widespread use of firearms and explosives in combat, putting them at best one century behind Europe.

As for China... were it not for the influence of Confucianism, China would likely have stayed ahead of Europe. The Confucianist system was reactionist and stifled new technological development - hell, even after the Europeans demonstrated with utmost clarity the superiority of Western military tech the hardcore Confucianist elite in China initially refused to modernize. My point being that there is a clear cultural reason that China did not advance, and such does not exist, or not convincingly, in any fantasy book I've read.

Everything this man has said is right.

Think of it this way: some societies can pull ahead of others every now and then. Europe was ahead, then China was ahead, then the Middle East and India were ahead, then Europe was ahead again. But overall, technology was progressing. Technology never regressed at any point. The idea that the Dark Ages of Europe were a technically regressive era is false. They weren't innovating as fast as the Roman era, but they were moving along - a knight in 1300 could have butchered a legionary from 300 with superiority of arms and weapons. Central America progressed slower than the Old World because of a lack of beasts of burden and agricultural limitations.

http://alpinmack.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/maize-teosinte.jpg

It took thousands of years for Central and South America to produce a grain worth growing. To turn teosinte into corn. The Old World had the advantage of wheat, einkorn, barley, and other shit. Even afterwords, corn at the time of the Spanish Conquest was still very small compared to modern corn. Their agricultural systems were far more labor intensive than European agriculture, so they had less class differentiation.

Basically, if you look at the Old World as one unit, the Americas as another, and Sub-Saharan Africa as another, all these civilizations progressed as fast as they possibly could. Locally some sub-areas pulled ahead of one another, but over all the progress rate was steady. Societies advance as quick as they can (except under exceptional cultural circumstances like China).

But the Malazan Empire isn't like Imperial China, they aren't anti-progress, and neither does the rest of the world they inhabit seem to be. Moreover, the agricultural systems don't appear to be especially labor intensive, since the armies fielded are massive. Therefore, there is no real reason they have not progressed further. It's like Tormund said - they progressed to the Middle Ages and then stopped. But they were progressing. They reached the Middle Ages equivalent era and then ended. It makes no sense.

[Sariel]

So, am I on some sort of ignore list or are my arguments just too stupid outside of my own head?

[Gigei]

Heh, I hadn't realized Kallor was 100,000 years old lol.

In Malazan though there are several factors that would retard technological progress.

- Geniuses go for magic. Magic is already there and advanced. Why would a Malazan Einstein grub around in the dirt with saltpeter and such when he can become immortal through magic?

- They have a huge problem with all the other races around that are much more badass. Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago on Earth. Now we developed to the point of interplanetary travel but we don't have to compete with other sentient species that are stronger and longer-lived. I would say this is the type of thing that would push back human development.

I could be wrong but from what I understand it was only "recently" in Malazan that humans became the predominant species around.

The Malazan Empire itself is only 100 or so years old.

- The question would be more of why the other races in Malazan never developed all the cool things like television and the internet. :P Oh wait, the K'Chain did have an advanced technological civilization.

Those are general things though. I am not sure why there would be a 100,000 year gap where nothing happened. This time period has not been discussed by Erikson but I do remember that Kallor and Desem's (can't spell the whole name) Empire were totaled so humanity went back to 0 lol.

[Gigei]

I think I hit a limit of some sort lol it wouldn't let me type in more so here's the last part:

Also, isn't their planet a sleeping Goddess? Do they even have fossil fuels? I though Quickben went down and it was all demigods and mythic beings inside of there. *scratches head*

[polishgenius]

Also, isn't their planet a sleeping Goddess? Do they even have fossil fuels? I though Quickben went down and it was all demigods and mythic beings inside of there. *scratches head*

It's both a sleeping goddess and a planet with a moon and presumably a star etcs. And she's only been asleep for six thousand years or so, so it's not her dreams that make the world.

[jurble]

Some religion started teaching the planet was the body of a sleeping Goddess, enough people believed -> poof the planet is now a sleeping goddess

[kungtotte]

Competition breeds advancement. If the human race on planet Earth made all these advancements this quickly by just competing with itself, the Malazan humans ought to have made at least similar advancements considering that they're competing with a bunch of other races too.

And I get that magic can slow things down, but not by 100,000 years. Sure some geniuses might turn to magic instead of technology, but the nature of people like Isaac Newton would mean that given magic, all that happens is that they reach their discoveries quicker or perhaps differently.

[Nerdanel]

First off, that was the worst retcon ever, and did not work at all. The man who cares too much deep down simply destroyed a whole continent full of people?:bs:

What I was after was that it was revealed that Kallor is not a sociopath like, say, Snell. When I say that he "cares too much" I don't mean that he necessarily cares unusually great deal for a human. In fact, he could even care less than the average. There isn't enough information to say.

Kallor's problem is that caring any at all is too much for him, as he is immortal in a world where most people are mortal. If he lets himself to fall in love with his current mortal wife, he's guaranteed heartbreak watching her grow old and die (assuming she doesn't die before that). And, by the way, Kallor says/thinks somewhere that he doesn't share his immortality, but we know from the flashbacks that he once shared it with his wife. She couldn't take it, and it's implied that she committed suicide, probably due to having too many loved ones die before her.

Well, duh! But there will be a difference between a 100 year old and a thousand year old, and most certainly between a thousand year old and a hundred thousand year old.

But who are you to say what is the correct amount of difference? If the development of personality vs. time is logarithmic, like it appears to me, huge time spans could amount to relatively little as long as they occur late in someone's life.

I was implying no such thing (I'd be out of a job if I ever made such a statement). I said that for all his hundred thousand years of experience, the man seems emotionally no different from a normal cantankerous old man. Which is plain ridiculous, because he clearly has memories of all he has experienced in these years. You cannot have memories, but no other effects. The brain is highly plastic, and the more it experiences, the more it alters. If it cannot alter, it cannot have memory.

What struck me was how well Kallor's long experience came through. You may be familiar with the trope where a royal person demands to be served hand and foot in sharply reduced circumstances, such as a dangerous trip through a wilderness, instead of pulling his share. This trope is normally applied to spoiled brat princes, whose entire lives had been in luxury, to show how spoiled they are. If the prince is not the villain type, he will learn to work hard and respect the necessary work the lower classes do which he used to take for granted, so that he eventually will become a good and fair king.

Kallor is a twist on this. He expects the others to serve his every whim, but he is far from some naive princeling. He is perfectly capable of taking care of himself in a desert and can do with practiced ease things like using a thrown dagger to kill a rabbit for food. That combination of easy-as-breathing arrogance and competent self-reliance is what truly speaks of his age. In a normal lifetime there isn't enough time to develop both as far as Kallor, as they take totally different attitudes and circumstances and even undermine each other.

So yes, Kallor is a dung heap of characterization.

In your opinion.

[Wastrel]

I'd like to make two factual points here:

- first, it's just not true that central american civilisations never invented the wheel. We've seen them in their art, and we've even found examples of them. The issue is that none of them seemed to have the idea of using wheels in a mode of transport - they created wheeled vehicles, but only for small children's toys, not for real-size things. This is a bit weird - my guess would be that without horses, llamas, camels or bovines to PULL the carts or chariots, the marginal benefit from wheels wasn't worth the effort of sustaining a wheelwright industry. [Reliable cart-sized wheels are surprisingly difficult to make, and took millenia of development in the old world - as central america didn't have the animals to pull heavy loads anyway, it just wasn't worth investing in that sort of tech]. So I don't think we've got a strange lack-of-invention here: they invented the concept, but lacked the resources that would make full-scale implementation of that concept viable. They took to the wheel rapidly enough when horses were introduced. [bigger question: why so few boats? Suggests to me that, as some people think, early boats, at least in inland areas, developed as animal-drawn barges, like canal boats, with oars and sails later inventions - if that's the case, central america would never have started down that tech tree, even though the later stages would have been useful to them]

- It's a bit strange to blame "confucianism" for China's sudden stagnation. Confucianism had been around as a state orthodoxy for... what, a thousand years at least before the time we're discussing? Maybe two thousand? I'd suggest instead that the burdens of such a large empire were too great for their technology to sustain. They were held up by their massive urbanism, but the Mongol invasions and the following chaos decimated their cities, and they never managed to recover culturally - from that point on, it was all they could do to keep the empire together. If the mongols had been less united, like the goths, China would probably have fallen like Rome did, but their conquerors managed to keep it together.

[Galactus]

Yeah, native americans were extremely quick to adopt european technology when they got the opportunity.

That's actually a larger issue: not so much technological stagnation but sharp divisions.