by Big Bene » Thursday December 14th, 2017 1:21am
And what about poor medieval Europe?
Faerun, Middle Earth, The Old World (of Warhammer), the Hyborean kingdoms etc. pp. are such a distorted representation of the real world culture they are based on. Mixing myths with history with pure fiction, and late antique with middle ages with renaissance (and even modern era, whenever pirates become popular again).
A work of literature (a book, a film, a game, an opera or whatever) has a country of origin. It is part of and rooted in the culture of this country, and this is a good thing. It is written / made by and for people of this culture. Take a work of "realistic" fiction. When written in Europe, the story normally has an European cultural background. But sometimes, it is set in another part of the world, orpart of the story lead the protagonists abroad, or persons or motives from other cultures are included. This is never "neutral" or "objective" but will tell the reader something, it is a narrative tool (even if in a "realistic" work the author will see to get his facts right). And this works, it hits a chord in the readers (or moviegoers, or players), because they have a set of stereotypes ready that their culture provides about the other culture in question.
These stereotypes are partly true, partly not, partly positive, partly negative, but they are never "objective", or supposed to be based on pure facts,or otherwise they wouldn't work as stereotypes. The romanticized Native Americans of the early German westerns are just as historically inaccurate as the savages of the early US westerns. But at the end of the day, both were able to provide great stories and an exciting cinematic experience, something a historical accurate documentation about tribe X can not, and should not, do in this way (not saying a good documentation cannot be intriguing, but it's something completely different from storytelling),
Now, let's take a work of "realistic" fiction, from, say, China. It will be set in Chinese culture. When Europeans get a role, or part of the story is set in Europe, this will trigger Chinese stereotypes about Europe, even if all the facts are right. And this is not by accident, it is because the author wants to play with these stereotypes. He uses them as a narrative tool to tell the reders something he wants. Are Europeans upset by this? Normally not, and they shouldn't.
Now to fantasy. When I create a work of fantasy, I can take the hard route and make it up from the scratch, with no reference to real world history or myths (Thomas Ziegler's Sardor novels come to my mind, although he still borrowed heavily from earlier science fiction books - still love him, the density of his style is hardly reached by anyone, R.I.P), but there is the distnct genre of fantasy literature, as established by Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien and Michael Moorcock. The esxtensive makeup of a background world, which is based on medieval European history and mythology, is part of the genre type of this literature. So, this is what we normally have in mind when speaking of a "fantasy world".
So for us, as mostly western readers (players, moviegoers) and authors, the western fantasy with its western cultural roots is just the natural base to start from.
Using Chinese or Middle Eastern settings in a fantasy world is by no means a try to include anything about real China or the real Middle East.
It is a try to include what we like about the "Orient" in our heads, as a source of great stories (in our culture), i.e. about stereotypes.
We want to include the thief of Bagdad in our fantasy world, not Netayjahu.
We want to bring the mysteries of China to life - the fairytale that we made up in our heads, which is largely bsed in 18th century Sinophily.
We want ninjas that can jump 30 feet high and Samurai who can cut a person in half with one stroke. We are not intereseted in any real world facts that would disturb this images. The real oriental names, all the little pieces of real Oriental history, are there to help the fictional ones work better, to set the tone for the stereotypes.
The stereotypes are the motives that we want in fantasy literature, the real facts are just there to support them.
Now when we take a look on Japan, they have a flowering modern fantasy genre of thier own. Everybody who loves comics or computer games knows how happily they use pieces of western history and mythology and how they totally butcher these without a second thought, often with great narrative results. I, as an European, can be offended, can be indifferent, or evenlike it and be a little proud. But at the end of the day, I can do nothing about it, because this is how literature works.
Last edited by
Big Bene on Thursday December 14th, 2017 4:35am, edited 1 time in total.
And they are a biological reality. OK that question will certainly be used by homosexuals, too, but why not.
