Daniel Abraham debunks the idea of "historically accurate" epic fantasy

[Sci-2]

I think there are 2 different issues which blur a little here:

1. Whether authors are responsible for defending their choices to portray races/gender/associated violence.

2. Whether authors are responsible for consequences of portraying races/gender/associated violence.

To me, these are very different. One has any merit only among readers, who basically care about the worldbuilding and the "why"s of sexism/racism being consistent. The other has social implications beyond the book. In the vein of: do violent games cause real-life violence? Does sexism portrayed in media cause/sustain sexism in real life?

Am I off here?

In the former, it's a question of saying something new, or using these defaults to tell an interesting story.

What's hard is not every reader is looking for the same thing. People have criticized Rothfuss for having too modern of a setting for example.

I think in the latter case it's readers and possibly writers who don't necessarily have a genuine grasp on actual history, and instead only a perception of history they got from their highschool and maybe college courses.

So it contributes to a false story. Does it always have RL effects? Possibly, I'm sure gender essentialism does. Another case might be one's perception of Islam and political options, as in someone trotting out the "Muslims will never be at peace with us" line.

[Prince Alexander]

In the former, it's a question of saying something new, or using these defaults to tell an interesting story.

What's hard is not every reader is looking for the same thing. People have criticized Rothfuss for having too modern of a setting for example.

I think in the latter case it's readers and possibly writers who don't necessarily have a genuine grasp on actual history, and instead only a perception of history they got from their highschool and maybe college courses.

So it contributes to a false story. Does it always have RL effects? Possibly, I'm sure gender essentialism does. Another case might be one's perception of Islam and political options, as in someone trotting out the "Muslims will never be at peace with us" line.

Good points. I certainly agree that authors, who want to be considered "good", should be able to provide enough (debatable and subjective amount, of course) consistency in their world, and have a good answer to the "why"s of various touchy issues, if any are present. That's not to say that the authors have to defend their work from every wacko critic on the net. I rather prefer if authors stay silent and if their work speaks for itself.

As to the wider, RL implications... this one I'm not sure about, and have tough time even contemplating. There are certainly silly outcries about videogames, etc being evil, but to deny that media has serious effect on our society is just as silly. As to what effect it is, I think is whole other can of worms.

But really, I think the line between the two is much thicker than merely argument for and against "historical accuracy". At some point, for some readers, the reasoning, no matter how consistent, simply cannot be good enough. Whether these readers are right or wrong is much bigger debate, of course.

[Shryke]

I don't find the idea that historical accuracy and sensible world-building don't matter to be terribly compelling when those are some extremely common complaints you'll read on boards like this.

Whether the reader has any idea about what actually constitutes "accuracy" is highly debatable, but they most certainly care about it alot.

[Instupituous]

I think a lot of people here are also forgetting that fantastical elements are definitely not the only reason people read SFF. This genre does have its share of history-nerds, too, who do like to see a fair amount of reality in their books.

It's sort of hard to ignore this, (and the thing about people complaining about accuracy that Shryke just brought up) when you realize how much time fantasy authors spend researching the middle ages.

[Errant Bard]

I found that most of the time readers complaining don't care about accuracy of the historical portrayal (they'd be horrified if it was actually accurate, anyway), they care about consistency.

Nobody complains that Tolkien made people live unduly long, had warrior women or had magical food and elves, but people start to moan when a society is portrayed one way (or badly portrayed so that the reader has to fall on his own preconceptions of what a place like that should be. I think the same Daniel Abraham wrote something some time back about the power of evocation, where mentioning a bar in Berlin brought up fog and the music of the 30s to mind, or something), and then the author goes against that portrayal one way or another.

I think a lot of people here are also forgetting that fantastical elements are definitely not the only reason people read SFF.

Just "F" in this case. I doubt people read SF (and most of the rest of speculative fiction for that matters) for historical elements.

And in any case, it's still not history, you can't pretend to historical accuracy when you have another world and dragons and magical swords and what not. So an historical unaccuracy somewhere? It's not a bug, it's a feature of the book not being history but Fantasy borrowing elements from history, but not the one considered, in this case.

ETA: Oh, by the way what's with the use of the word "debunk" lately? It seems that as soon as someone writes a piece of opinion nowadays, he "debunks" some other opinion. The word doesn't seem too accurate for that kind of things.

[Grack21]

I think a lot of people here are also forgetting that fantastical elements are definitely not the only reason people read SFF. This genre does have its share of history-nerds, too, who do like to see a fair amount of reality in their books.

It's sort of hard to ignore this, (and the thing about people complaining about accuracy that Shryke just brought up) when you realize how much time fantasy authors spend researching the middle ages.

My impression has always been they spend no time researching the middle ages.

With a few notable exceptions of course.

[Marcus Cicero]

Human nature is the answer. It's just an unfortunate fact that human males have historically had some disposition towards sexism. This can't really be disputed

it can be disputed. it is in fact disputed by the quoted language, wherein a proposition regarding so-called human nature cites to mere historical evidence, historical evidence that has been superseded by the presence of emancipatory politics in the modern era.

The fact that emancipatory politics come so late in human history, and only within democratized and/or industrialized societies, only serves to prove my point. Dispute my use of the word 'nature' all you want, but my argument still stands. The disposition towards sexism has been the norm and not the exception, but it's our capacity for reason, nourished under certain cultural conditions that I've already outlined, that allows us to reject it.

[sologdin]

serves to prove my point

the point about "human nature"? heh. if you say so...

[Errant Bard]

Plus, dragons and magic have not really been the norm in history, and they still feature in Fantasy, right?

[Kynokephalos]

Can I still like my gritty dark pseudo-Hundred Year's War/Crusades style fantasy or is that something I shouldn't? I feel somewhat left out of the loop...

[Lummel]

Does it have Joan of Arc? Does it have the Templars? Does it have money lending? Does it have ransoming? Alliances that run across religions? Crusading shepherds? The Latin Emperor of Constantinople mortgaging his son?

[Sci-2]

Seems like the general lesson is don't be lazy.

Don't think to yourself, "Hmmmm, how do I show that Mr. Z is evil? I'll just have him rape a maid or something." and when someone points out tired that trope is don't trot out that it was part of showing how gritty and really medieval the setting was.

I also don't think every novel has to have a diverse cast but the lack of one is better for having a point. Part of Westeros's problem is they aren't quick to react to international events, because they don't really think about the rest of the world as mattering, and this willful ignorance ends up mattering.

[Marcus Cicero]

Plus, dragons and magic have not really been the norm in history, and they still feature in Fantasy, right?

O rly? Thanks for educating me. Oh well, at least I still have Santa Claus.

If an author wants to blur the line between historical fiction and epic fantasy, then why can't they depict a society with realistic social forces and then layer the magic on top of that?

I just don't see why adding magic to a story means that you can't attempt to depict the human side realistially. And as I've tried to show in my posts, it is realistic for a feudal society to be sexist or racist, with or without magic.

serves to prove my point

the point about "human nature"? heh. if you say so...

No, the broader argument that I layed out in my first post on this thread. I already did give ground on using the word 'nature.'

[Arthmail]

Basically just a, "well it's fantasy guize you can do anything you want so stop making women and minorities suffer plox" which I hate.

Since when did people start pretending that historical authenticity is not a large reason why some people like fantasy? GRRM is renowned for portraying Westeros in a similar fashion to how a group of middle aged states (at some time in that mutli-century span) would have existed. And yes, people do complain when an under-researched writer makes a huge, ridiculous anachronism in his/her book. It's not like they just complain about women and races being oppressed.

Seriously, just because it's fantasy fiction doesn't mean that we can't have any interest in accurately portraying a real world society that once existed. I think some of us are a little level-headed enough to accept the fact that dragons and magic obviously didn't exist back then and enjoy them for their fantastical elements, while at the same time, both enjoying a semi-accurate depiction of civilization along with an author's creative twist on it.

I really do hate that medieval fantasy set in Europe that features a wealth of non-European characters sort of reeks of modern sensibilities shoved down history's throat for the sake of not hurting my people's feelings; it ruins my suspension of disbelief. I am all for more non-euro based societies in fantasy, but there's a right way to do it without annoying some of those people who feel that pre-Industrial societies being inherently racist and sexist is a universal truth, and that portraying it otherwise is just for the sake of pc'ness is jarring. I get tired of reading about 21st century Americans wearing Conan clothes.

And if I, as a minority, get tired of reading books that depict sexist societies because of historical authenticity, then I just....you know, try to find something set in a society that is more likely not to be rife with prejudice.

I'm too used to seeing white people randomly insert minorities in places that don't make any sense, even if it is fantasy, just to show how tolerant they are, when if they really cared to write about non-euro stuff (which you no means are under any obligation to do--write what the fuck you want). they'd put more thought into it and come up with some interesting ways to include minorities in a largely non-minority society.

But, I also do agree it is also a terrible excuse for lazy, non-imaginative writing. Even in the most dystopian misogynist secondary world, you can have some interesting female characters who do more than just suck dick and fuck and cry all day. There's so much shit that can be done in fantasy, but people are still literally stuck in the middle ages when it comes to creativity.

Except why? This has no bearing on anything. The wide spread movement of people has been happening for thousands of years. They are finding traces of civilizations that should never have known each other. Migration patterns are one thing, but trade and war are entirely different. A quick as shit wiki search found that there is evidence of black people in Britain during the roman times, and some of these people were members of the upper echelon of society. Cultures and kingdoms are not nearly as homogenous as you seem to think.

There are some reasons why someone might or might not, depending on the project. I hope I haven't said that all fantasy worlds should have to cleave to a utopian gender standard. I've included sexism and racism in my work, just not because the middle ages were sexist and racist. I've also chosen to tread very lightly around sexual violence. I think there are perfectly legitimate reasons to incorporate problematic material in fantasy projects. "Accuracy" doesn't hold water, though.

Sure it does. It still involves the same basic fundamentals, namely in the patterns and movement of society. Though this will seem in direct oposition to my last post, simply adding dragons and magic "might not necessarily" alter how humans in a non-earth world would evolve. Ultimately it most likely depends on the means of control. If men somehow manage to corner the market on magic (and or dragons) early on, as say the church managed to with their religion, then things can easily become oppressive for women. While women were not helpless flowers throughout our history, they were still constrained by the pressures of the society around them (just as men often were) - a society that might not yet have come to accept the ideas of the enlightenment or some such movement of thought. A society constrained by the ruinous influence of organized religion.

This is simply an issue that can go either way, and it entirely comes down to personal preference. But articles like Sady Doyle's piece of tripe do nothing for anyone. There is going too far, and not going far enough. Saying anything absolutely, one way or the other, is misguided.

[Kynokephalos]

I'm actually still waiting for some fantasy that includes a potential Emperor being castrated and/or blinded to keep him from ascending to the throne. The Children's Crusade of 1212 might be interesting too. Some pseudo-Lombardian story might be interesting too: How a region occupied by "barbarians" turns into the banking central of the continent, despite a religious objection to lending.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

The fact that emancipatory politics come so late in human history, and only within democratized and/or industrialized societies, only serves to prove my point. Dispute my use of the word 'nature' all you want, but my argument still stands. The disposition towards sexism has been the norm and not the exception, but it's our capacity for reason, nourished under certain cultural conditions that I've already outlined, that allows us to reject it.

No, wait, hang on, just because your impression of 2,000 years of global human history (vastly generalized) is that sexism is the historical norm does not mean that an historical world, as imagined by an author, needs also have that norm. It is called speculative fiction for a reason. That's not to say that the imagined world CAN'T have a system like that in place, but I find the choices interesting. That is, why include women without agency, rapes and other sexual violence, but NOT include an analogue to the cult of Mary, or women with agency (of which there were many - the monks, who wrote history, generally demonized them, but that [prejudiced] narrative voice certainly does not need to control how the author of the book portrays them)? Maybe there is a valid reason within the story or the world, but just saying "it is so because it's historically accurate" is both false in fact and false in logic.

[Seli]

I'm actually still waiting for some fantasy that includes a potential Emperor being castrated and/or blinded to keep him from ascending to the throne. The Children's Crusade of 1212 might be interesting too. Some pseudo-Lombardian story might be interesting too: How a region occupied by "barbarians" turns into the banking central of the continent, despite a religious objection to lending.

It is SF rather than a fantasy reworking but there is a Dutch classic involving the children's crusade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_in_Jeans. And in a way Erikson used some of the images in the final books of his Malazan sequence.

[fionwe1987]

O rly? Thanks for educating me. Oh well, at least I still have Santa Claus.

If an author wants to blur the line between historical fiction and epic fantasy, then why can't they depict a society with realistic social forces and then layer the magic on top of that?

Because it is silly to believe that the presence of magic won't drastically alter the meaning of "realistic social forces". If the poor butcher boy from Fela Bottom can become the most powerful wizard in the world, wouldn't the kind of social pressures that shape hierarchy get altered?

I just don't see why adding magic to a story means that you can't attempt to depict the human side realistially. And as I've tried to show in my posts, it is realistic for a feudal society to be sexist or racist, with or without magic.

How so? If a feudal society has women as capable as men of being powerful magicians, how do the sexist tendencies in this society not get altered?

[ambyr]

I'm actually still waiting for some fantasy that includes a potential Emperor being castrated and/or blinded to keep him from ascending to the throne.

Wait no longer, because K.J. Parker has written that book.

Spoilers, obviously.

[Errant Bard]

O rly? Thanks for educating me. Oh well, at least I still have Santa Claus.

If an author wants to blur the line between historical fiction and epic fantasy, then why can't they depict a society with realistic social forces and then layer the magic on top of that?

I think you misunderstood me. They can but the point is, if they do it's not to be historically accurate, because they don't write history, and if they can include such breaks from reality as dragons or magic, they can just as easily toy with something different than the trite misogynistic faux-middle-ages-europe. If realism was holding them down, they wouldn't put dragons in.

As for "realistic social forces", I raise you Galadriel and the whole Greek pantheon, for the Fantasy nobody has anything to say against, and Livia, Alienor d'Aquitaine, Anne de Bretagne, Joan of Arc, Margaret of Anjou, Mary of Medicis, among others, for history, and ask you to consider reading stuff like Druon's The Accursed Kings (which is historical fiction, but the role of women is probably quite different from what you expect.) What features in most Fantasy is only "realistic" for the same who would think Sir Walter Scott wrote pretty accurate historical fiction.

Seriously, when Tolkien is both the most successful modern Fantasy author, and the one farther from "realistic social forces", I don't see where that "accuracy" thing has a leg to stand on.

But it doesn't mean that you cannot write about misogynistic societies if you want, just that the excuse that "it was like that" is fake: the author is not forced to follow that path, as it's fiction he's writing.