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Fantasy economies


Alytha

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Now I'm really not an expert on economy and logistics, but I know that cities need food, smiths need ore and coal, villages need all the goods they can't manufacture themselves etc...

Which fantasy worlds solve this problem in a realistic way, and which ones fail?

I'm not quite sure about The Lord of the Rings in this regard. Now the Shire and Rohan seem to be pretty much self-sufficient, and it is stated that Mordor has great field in the south where its food is grown.

But in general it is said that trade throughout Middle Earth has pretty much failed, and apart from the Shire, Rohan, Gondor and the elf kingdoms, all of Middle Earth seem to be deserted wilderness. Where are all the people to grow the food for the cities, or mine ore and stone?

How is Lothlorien supplied? Somehow I can't imagine the elves doing agriculture in the middle of the woods, and outside, people either don't know about them or don't trust them.

Or am I just thinking too much? ;)

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What bothers me about LOTR is the feeling of... Anachronism. Rohan is clearly early middle-ages, and Gondor kind of "fits in" there.... But the Shire? It's entire socioeconomic structure seems to be very different, at least early-modern if not positively modern! This bugs me. It's probably me greatest pet-peeve with LOTR.

Furthermore, what do the dwarves eat?

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Furthermore, what do the dwarves eat?

Gravel? ;)

That's something I wondered about too. Im the days of Moria, there was extensive trade between the elves and the dwarves, but "now" as they live in the Lonely Mountain, I don't think there was a mention of how they were supplied in the Hobbit. There was trade between the Mirkwood elves and the people of the lake, but I don't think they had much contact with the dwarves, and the elves probably didn't like them much anyway.

With regards to anachronism, the whole thing is a metaphor again industrialisation (to an extend), and the Shire is the personification of the good old days of England. But don't the Hobbits have luxury goods that could only be made on a certain industrial scale...

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My point is precisely that The Shire isn't pre-industrial England: It's England as JRR grew up. Or maybe a bit older (like what he might have been told from his parent's or grandparent's generation.

I always assumed the Dwarves imported their food from Laketown, and I always asumed the Mirkwood (and Doriath in previous age) elves were mainly living in small communities dotted around the place (with the major settlements, eg. Menegroth and whatever the Mirkwood place is called) mainly as ceremonial/royal centres, and not actual cities per-se. (IE: They lived on the taxation/tribute fro the other communities)

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K.J. Parker is phenomenal at this; economics are the core of her books, really.
:agree: especailly in the folding knife lots of realistic economic there.

Interesting question about the Dwarfs in lord of the Rings maybe they wen out to hunt? And yeah the west of middle earth is really empty the east is much more packed with Rhun in the north then Mordor and Khand and then the Haradrin and Umbar and all these nations have complete borders that touch, as opposed to the west's scattered kingdoms. Seems Sauron managed his land better, But then I always found the eastern Kingdomsin LOTR really interesr me with their human populations that follow Sauron its a pity Tolkien did'nt flesh them out more.

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 Dwarves could...grow lots of mushrooms? 

I never could figure out how the Two Rivers maintain a world famous cash crop economy with a total export-import capacity that consists of Padan Fain coming by once a year.

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 Dwarves could...grow lots of mushrooms? 

I never could figure out how the Two Rivers maintain a world famous cash crop economy with a total export-import capacity that consists of Padan Fain coming by once a year.

Actually there's mention of Merchant trains coming down in the Two Rivers fairly oftenish.

That's where Mat learned to play dice from.

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Actually there's mention of Merchant trains coming down in the Two Rivers fairly oftenish.

...and nevertheless, the appearance of 'the peddler' is enough to bring every single person in the village out into the street due to the novelty of the occasion. OTOH, someone must stay at that huge inn. I guess its not so much the pure economics, as the social consequences and the storytelling impact that make no sense whatsoever. The Two Rivers is a comfortable, prosperous, hobbity sort of place, but its also so cute, quaint and isolated they get news only a few times a year and none of our intrepid heroes have ever been further than the next village over in their lives. Having your worldbuilding cake and eating it, I suppose. 

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...and nevertheless, the appearance of 'the peddler' is enough to bring every single person in the village out into the street due to the novelty of the occasion. OTOH, someone must stay at that huge inn. I guess its not so much the pure economics, as the social consequences and the storytelling impact that make no sense whatsoever. The Two Rivers is a comfortable, prosperous, hobbity sort of place, but its also so cute, quaint and isolated they get news only a few times a year and none of our intrepid heroes have ever been further than the next village over in their lives. Having your worldbuilding cake and eating it, I suppose. 

Well, Merchant trains would only come down during Sheering season or harvest, so visitors would still be infrequent otherwise. Padain Fain coming in the spring (it is spring in the first book, isn't it?) would be the first outsider they'd seen in months.

I mean, the economics don't quite work but it's not a huge stretch either.

And the main characters never having gone very far from home is pretty believable. Even today tons of people don't travel that far.

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Well, Merchant trains would only come down during Sheering season or harvest, so visitors would still be infrequent otherwise. Padain Fain coming in the spring (it is spring in the first book, isn't it?) would be the first outsider they'd seen in months.

I mean, the economics don't quite work but it's not a huge stretch either.

And the main characters never having gone very far from home is pretty believable. Even today tons of people don't travel that far.

It was winter, IIRC, or something like that (possibly some kind of magic winter? Or was that later?). I have to admit, I don't remember any mention of merchant trains, but i'll take your word for it. Its just a bizarrely self sufficient enviorment for somewhere portrayed as that relatively prosperous. I mean, theres a market. Why isn't someone making a run to Baerlon every couple of weeks for salt, ribbons and news? Its economically a really tiny nitpick, but story-wise its this odd attempt to go for a very traditional beginning feel (the cosy little village all alone in the middle of the woods, not to mention a good way to make all the characters really, really naive) but also have at least quasi-realistic world building, and it dosen't quite work, for me. I guess we can thank the gritty trend at least for the fact that these days tiny isolated villages in fantasy books are firmly nasty, impoverished places. 

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It was winter, IIRC, or something like that (possibly some kind of magic winter? Or was that later?). I have to admit, I don't remember any mention of merchant trains, but i'll take your word for it. Its just a bizarrely self sufficient enviorment for somewhere portrayed as that relatively prosperous. I mean, theres a market. Why isn't someone making a run to Baerlon every couple of weeks for salt, ribbons and news? Its economically a really tiny nitpick, but story-wise its this odd attempt to go for a very traditional beginning feel (the cosy little village all alone in the middle of the woods, not to mention a good way to make all the characters really, really naive) but also have at least quasi-realistic world building, and it dosen't quite work, for me. I guess we can thank the gritty trend at least for the fact that these days tiny isolated villages in fantasy books are firmly nasty, impoverished places. 

I just did a quick flip through and it's at least a month into spring, although it still feels like winter cause of evil climate change.

They seemed fairly self-sufficient food and clothing and such wise. Mostly it was books and some other stuff they couldn't make themselves that they bought. It just kinda seemed like a regular run back and forth from Baerlon wouldn't have been profitably enough to be sustainable.

I figured it was like one of those tiny towns that only exist to extract some out of the way resource. One road in, one road out and no reason to come except to pick up the goods to be shipped elsewhere because they are self-sufficient enough to make most shit themselves.

The real question is how an inn survives, although one can figure it mostly gets by being a tavern and makes good seasonal bank selling rooms when merchants roll in to town.

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I just did a quick flip through and it's at least a month into spring, although it still feels like winter cause of evil climate change.

They seemed fairly self-sufficient food and clothing and such wise. Mostly it was books and some other stuff they couldn't make themselves that they bought. It just kinda seemed like a regular run back and forth from Baerlon wouldn't have been profitably enough to be sustainable.

I figured it was like one of those tiny towns that only exist to extract some out of the way resource. One road in, one road out and no reason to come except to pick up the goods to be shipped elsewhere because they are self-sufficient enough to make most shit themselves.

The real question is how an inn survives, although one can figure it mostly gets by being a tavern and makes good seasonal bank selling rooms when merchants roll in to town.

It seems to be the only place in town to get a drink...I can't figure out how large the place is either. Sometimes it sounds like its a dozen houses and an inn, sometimes like its right on the verge of being a small town, with a population in the thousands. 

I'm not actually all that nitpicky when it comes to anything but truly egregiously bad economics - if it serves the story, i'll go with it, without needing to see the quarterly accounts (yeah, yeah, ten year winter with a subarctic climate and 100k strong permenantly nomadic bands who don't do agriculture...Lets just roll with that.) but here its just obviously manipulative storytelling, becuase from there on out the worlbuilding becomes pretty different. 

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It is a terribly generic open, but that's sorta the idea anyway.

I can forgive it because having read the rest of the series, I don't think about it too much and because imo it's got just enough of a veneer of economic plausibility that it doesn't stand out.

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yeah, yeah, ten year winter with a subarctic climate and 100k strong permenantly nomadic bands who don't do agriculture

The area north and west of the Wall is pretty big, so it's possible that the wildlings were much more spread out until recently. My guess is that they probably live off of fish, reindeer, and other arctic creatures.

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Guest Other-in-Law

to the OP, Terry Pratchett is really good on this stuff when he has a mind to. He makes an especial point abut the vast economic network needed to keep Ankh-Morporck running, how many hundreds of cows and pigs are slaughtered every day to feed it's populace, how farmers and herders who never set eyes on the city worked their lives in it's service, since that's where their produce ends up. He expressed annoyance at the sort of worldbuilding where cities are little more than stage sets for the principals to act in front of, and wanted to give a sense that all the toil and struggle and daily commerce continues whether the main characters are standing in front of it or not.

And it affects events in the stories; when a revolution in Night Watch leads to streets being barricaded and traffic can't floe through the city, one of the issues is what do we do with all these cows that they keep bringing into the city, since we can't reach the slaughterhouse district? They have to go somewhere.

And there's long term economic changes with the increasing ethnic diversity of the city. The dwarves have been working steadily at making as much money as they could for years, but very recently people have been waking up to "the heavy dollar"; trolls have got quite a bit of money, too, so let's start thinking up things to sell them. One of the characters had a sideline selling troll cosmetics, which were basically just dye and plant food to encourage moss growth. The dwarves were the ones who came up with it, but they needed humans to sell it to them, so there was a market to be exploited there for different sectors.

Plus the whole story of the naive entrepreneurs who developed the clacks and were robbed by their shady backers, and the very lucrative world of dealing with human waste shown by Harry King. As always, it's a funny mix of the quite plausible with sheer absurdity.

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It is a terribly generic open, but that's sorta the idea anyway.

I can forgive it because having read the rest of the series, I don't think about it too much and because imo it's got just enough of a veneer of economic plausibility that it doesn't stand out.

How naive and isolated and quaint and generally from a different planet those good folksy Two Rivers kids are is something that takes, well, thousands of pages to really fade away though. (OTOH, Siuan was Amyrlin and still appeared to talk entirely in fish quotes. Randland dosen't do immigrant assimilation, apparently.) 

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