Chris, Mike, and Oren discuss the ups and downs of using history in worldbuilding. They question whether historical realism is a worthwhile goal, cover the pitfalls of using the history of other cultures, and critique settings derived from real places and events. But mostly, they talk about pirates.
Show Notes
- Seventh Sea
- The War of the Roses
- The Gentleman Bastard Series
- Women Pirates
- Cultural Appropriation
- Rokugan
- Telling a Story in a Prejudiced Setting
- Balfour and Meriwether
- Way of Kings
- Great Chain of Being
- Six Consequences of High Magic
- His Majesty’s Dragon
- Mistborn Series
- Eberron
- Guns, Germs, and Steel
- The Malazan Series
- Pirates of the Carribean
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I agree with you on almost everything. Towards the start, one of you mentions anthropology as a possible approach. I kind of like that – in a way, it’s a good alternative to the “historical” approach. Looking at how cultures function and develop can give you the building blocks to create brand new cultures rather than just resting on tired old parallels.
Your comments on the Malazan series are quite on the mark, and I say that as one of the aforementioned dedicated fanbase. I think a big problem with these books is that they deliberately go for the “irreducible complexity” (did you use those words?) of the real world that Chris brings up right at the beginning of the podcast. As a result, even the authors get lost on occasion, and the readers (even some long-term fans) exist in an almost perpetual state of bewilderment. The Roman-style warfare of the early volumes gives way to a Vietnam-style marine invasion with small squads acting in coordination towards the mid-series, and then shifts to a combination of the two in the late volumes. As for the motivation for expanding and fighting, it’s an odd amalgam of geopolitics, resource control, and saving the world as we know it.
I think these are the two most compelling issues, in a way – first, the balance between making a parallel culture or constructing something from scratch, and second, the balance between “realistic” (chaotic and complex – intellectually satisfying but not always fun to read) and “concise” (fun to read but not always intellectually satisfying).
Off topic somewhat, but another area worth thinking about (and please forgive me if you already brought this one up) is technological imbalance. Like the role of women in history, this is one area that’s frequently misunderstood. There’s this myth of Europe slowly steamrolling the rest of the world from 1492 to 1900, due to sustained technological superiority (“firearms” being the cliche). There are three events that give rise to this myth – the mass disease that swept the New World after the European arrival, the destruction of the Aztecs (due to longswords, not firearms, actually), and the 100-or-so years of European dominance following the industrial revolution (due to organizational skill as much as firearms).
In reality, technological imbalance usually corrects itself in a matter of decades. From 1500-1800, European influence in most of Eurasia and Africa was strong, but by no means dominant. In the 1640s, for example, the most powerful European power (the Dutch) lost a war against one of the weakest mainland Southeast Asian powers (the Cambodians). Turns out that Dutch ships (their main advantage) aren’t that effective when you have to sail them far upstream to fight, and Dutch firearms are easily matched by the Japanese firearms acquired by the Cambodian king.
I suppose what I’m getting at is that you don’t REALLY need to alter history in order to give agency to anyone who isn’t a white male.
Absolutely. As complicated as it is, history often turns on a few tiny factors that could have turned out differently.
Maybe not Johnny Depp pirate movies.