“Getting the archaeology right” doesn’t actually matter that much when it comes to fantasy. The fact is, when it comes to secondary worlds, a lot of the absolutely basic assumptions don’t make any sense. Why are there people in this world, whose history—whose natural history—is so different from ours? If dragons and elder gods and all that were around for hundreds of thousands of years, why are the horses and carrots and stews and pie in that world exactly the same as ours?
Once you’re willing to swallow that horses are the same despite gryphon-related predation pressures, why strain at faceted diamonds a few centuries too early?
Even if something is set in an actual time and place, the sort of mistakes that archaeologists notice don’t matter that much. Writing about anything—mainly horses and guns, but really, anything—will upset people who know the subject well, but there are very few works that fail artistically because they annoyed experts.
Nobody can do all the research about everything, and specificity works better than generalities, even if the specificity is wrong, because most readers aren’t going to notice things that are wrong. Provided it’s not wrong in well-known ways—for one reason or another, readers are able to accept “hello” in a pseudo-medieval setting but will reject “okay,” even if those words were both late coinages. Potatoes in medieval Europe will be rejected, while orange carrots are accepted, although those were introduced at about the same time.
And even though people might notice a subset of blatant anachronisms, even those aren’t necessarily going to actually cause them to fall out of the work. There are lots of people who are annoyed by the potatoes in the Lord of the Rings, but that’s seldom sufficient to cause them to reject the work as a whole.
There are a couple of things that archaeology can do, though. One of the pleasures of reading fantasy is seeing people in situations that are greatly different from our own, and seeing how people did things in pre-modern times is a short-cut to differences of that sort.
In one of my early manuscripts, which is deservedly never going to see the light of day, I had a bunch of convict laborers being taken out to a work site. And I had them brought there by ox-cart. The reason why I did that was because I had the default assumption that when people are going long distances, they go in vehicles. It was set in olden times, so they had an old-timey vehicle, but I didn’t look hard enough at the default assumption. Prisoners wouldn’t have gone in a cart—they’d have walked. Getting the precise details of a 12th century ox-cart right doesn’t matter nearly as much as noticing whether or not there’d be an ox-cart there in the first place.
Similarly, there’s a tendency when writing in pre-modern settings to have people cooking in iron pots or skillets. Iron is old-timey, it’s not too different from what we use now, good enough. But the fact is, right up until the industrial revolution, for every iron cook-pot that’s been excavated, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of clay cooking vessels. And glazed cooking vessels come in relatively late, and are relatively uncommon.
There are a lot of reasons not to make cooking vessels out of clay. Ceramics are excellent insulators, heavy, likely to shatter if dropped, and will occasionally explode when heated. In addition, unglazed pottery is porous. Those pores retain flavors and fats from everything that gets cooked in them; when that fat goes rancid, the pot will taint everything cooked in it. But the reason why pottery was preferred over the conductive, resilient, and much less explosive iron was because people could throw pots in their spare time. Not that every single person living in pre-industrial society could manage that, but it was a sort of common adult skill—a bit like being able to set up a wireless network, or change the oil on a car.
That isn’t to say that there need to be more scenes where the stalwart heroes have their pots explode because of thermal shock (though I’ll admit, I’d like that.) But before machines did more of the heavy work of mining and refining and fashioning tools, people had a different relationship to their tools, and a glimpse of that in a story can go a long way.
Close attention to ancient material culture can cause dozens of similar insights into different ways people used to interact with their world. Light, let’s say. Oil lamps are a pretty common find, as are amphora used to transport and store olive oil. And using one of those lamps tells you that those lamps don’t give that much light.
Modern lighting is amazingly clean and bright, which causes the default assumption that if the light is on, you can see things. Oil lamps, or tallow candles, or even medieval fireplaces, simply didn’t give that much light. And when lamp oil was coming from overseas, and was also one of the best sources of calories available, people didn’t burn any more than they needed, not unless they were extremely wealthy. So there’d be a little bit of light; just enough to do let them see what they wanted to see, and no more than that.
There are similar things that could be mentioned about food storage, about the shapes of storage vessels, about the differences between dirt floors and stone floors, between ancient sheep and modern sheep, and so on, and so on.
Which is what archaeology does have to offer. Getting things wrong doesn’t necessarily matter. But getting things right, even just one or two small things right, can convey an authenticity that will carry the weight of any number of wrong assumptions.
History gives some of the same benefits for fantasy, as well as things that archaeology can’t offer. But history is what people who lived in those times thought was worth writing down. They had their blind spots, the same way we do; if all that survived of the culture of the 21st century were some histories, and a few novels and screenplays, it would be hard to figure out how we interacted with our wifi networks. Fiction that was based on those histories and novels might get some things right—it might get a lot right. But looking at the material culture could help people understand things about our lives that our history books don’t discuss.
Alter S. Reiss is the author of Sunset Mantle as well as an archaeologist and writer who lives in Jerusalem with his wife Naomi and their son Uriel. He likes good books, bad movies, and old time radio shows.
I sometimes think that the lack of good room lighting — or corrective lenses — in olden times is why so many of Shakespeare’s characters were able to get away with impersonating other people or pretending to be a different sex.
X never marks the spot! :)
Obligatory mention of the Malazan novels, which take archaeology very seriously, being written as they are by an archaeologist and anthrapologist.
I’m not an expert, but it does annoy me and take me out of the moment when things are anachronistic in movies, TV and books. If you don’t have an archaeologist or anthropologist friend to discuss things with (and you should, because they love talking about their work!), then watch a lot of history documentaries. You find out so much intriguing and useful stuff in them! YouTube is full of them, but I go mostly for BBC and HBO stuff. They have less sensationalism and more facts.
Hm, the potatoes in a fantasy world do not bother me. I’ve always thought anachronism is a tough call in fantasy or even science fiction unless it breaks the rules of the narrative without purpose.
I’m more annoyed by the poor portrayals of archaeologists than of anachronisms. There seem to be two default settings for archaeologists – globe-trotting adventurers like Indiana Jones, or exploitative pot hunters like the folks in Babylon 5’s IPX. There is almost never any mention of the science or purpose of archaeology – it’s a lot of “let’s dig up some flashy loot and sell it.” Cinematic archaeologists always manage to unearth intact treasures and perform carbon dating that’s accurate to the minute. There’s not much picking through screened dirt, or assembling pot sherds in the lab. There are Hollywood tru-isms: computers always beep a lot, security cam footage can be zoomed in to sharp detail, and archaeologists are only in it for the treasure.
I tend to find that it’s when a book does show that some thought has been put into it that the errors are most jarring. For example, in “To Say Nothing of the Dog” Connie Willis has clearly done a lot of research into the bombing of Coventry, and the history of Coventry Cathedral. You get more or less sucked into the period. Then some idiot says that even Hitler couldn’t stop the British from ringing their church bells, which is not only untrue but so famously untrue that most British children could spot the error – church bells weren’t rung during WWII because ringing church bells was set as the warning that the Germans were invading. The Germans never invaded, so most bells hung silent for half a decade, belfries went untended and severe damage was done to the art of change-ringing.
If you’re going to pick a fact to get wrong, make sure it’s definitely an obscure one. Though by the time you’ve done all the research to find out whether your facts are obscure you’re probably in a position to get them right…
“people could throw pots in their spare time”
I would never have thought that The Legend of Zelda was historically accurate…
@6 Real archeology is too slow for a lot of stories. People going straight for the shinies makes for easier story telling. Beside, though actual examples escape me, when proper archeologists do get time on the page it does not bode well for their research.
The thing I like about the results of archeology in books is it lets you pack in a lot of meaning into a few artefacts.
Why is it anachronistic to have potatoes in Middle Earth? In a historical novel set in Medieval Europe, sure, but in a fantasy setting I don’t see why. It’s like complaining that there are fireworks in RJ’s Wheel of Time.
@10
Or indeed, fireworks in Middle Earth.
If you have fireworks, why don’t you have more explosives, or siege rockets. The one soon follows the other.
And yes, I am counting A Wizard Did It in both cases.
Well, in Middle Earth as far as I remember it was only Gandalf who used them. They are very rare and everyone thinks it’s literary “magic”. And it actually is, right?
In the WOT, warfare, in every aspect (technology, organization, numbers, etc), is very underdeveloped compared to the development and size of the nations. Combine this with the fact that fireworks were performed by an extremely secretive guild and no one really understood the nature of the bright lights in the sky.
It is easy to see why fireworks didn’t catch on in warfare in ME and Randland.
It is easy to see why it’s very wrong to have spuds in Cornwell’s Agincourt. Why there shouldn’t be potatoes, besides leeks, tobacco, etc., in settings like ME or WOT? Or horses, donkeys, oaks, willows…
I agree with the premise of the article very much, but the thing with the potatoes felt too out there.
Because Middle Earth is not a parallel world: it’s supposed to be Europe, Asia, and Africa in deep history. America is there, but not yet populated, and the Undying Lands are not round the Atlantic to the west, but off in another direction (or dimension) West.
I’ve been reading “The Glass Magician” by Charlie Holmberg. Paper magic in a Victorian England setting. Yet she keeps using American paper sizes and measurements. Sorry, 8×11 paper is a modern thing.
I double checked with friends overseas. It is not the size of paper they use. So yes, it throws me out of the story.
Much like saying a person is baking a potato dish in 12th century Ireland. When they could use turnips.
Eh, it’s complicated
If potatoes are a problem, smoking hobbits should be, too. Maybe the potatoes are simply a mistranslation of African vegetables like yams, but tobacco cannot be explained away so easily.
16: you’re assuming that’s tobacco they’re smoking…
For example, in “To Say Nothing of the Dog” Connie Willis has clearly done a lot of research
Dubious… wasn’t she the one who forgot that Britain used to use pounds, shillings and pence?
@@@@@ 17 – if anything you’re reinforcing my point, since the whole of what I said was (emphasis added here) “Connie Willis has clearly done a lot of research into the bombing of Coventry, and the history of Coventry Cathedral“
She’s researched her specific, plot-critical stuff but managed to miss major parts of everyday life, which just makes the everyday life mistakes even more jarring because she clearly has at least some research skills, just didn’t put them to full use.
By way of contrast, in the Cadfael books Ellis Peters gets the history of the Anarchy right (and even clears up King Stephen’s real-life OOC moment in a way that makes sense) but also manages to get everyday life for the period as right as one can reasonably expect.
@15: Oh, I know. Our paper sizes can be traced back to the size of a cow hide. Vellum.
I’ve worked with an advertising company and now work next to a company’s print shop. I’m around paper all day. Thus why I noted the size and thought it was odd.
We could probably say pipeweed was different from tobacco, but tobacco or not, it seems clear that the hobbits smoked it all, which is why people thought it wasn’t introduced in England until later.
@1: I have never even considered that, and it makes so much sense.
Given how much else there is in Middle Earth that was never part of our actual history or prehistory — magic rings, supernatural beings, hobbits and elves and dwarves and dragons — I don’t see why potatoes are so hard to accept.
I remember getting so irritated when an author had all the women riding inside the wagon of a small, merchant party. I think there were five or six women. Assume an average weight of 130 pounds, and that’s 650 to 780 pounds of trade goods they’re not carrying. But, I was caught by surprise a few years after reading that book to find out one of the advantages of ox carts was that the oxen could be lead. You didn’t need a driver holding the reins. Also, they could be lead by a relatively young child, so an adult was freed up for other work.
Although, for what it’s worth, I see Middle Earth as a composite of things Tolkien loved about the British Isles, both in his own era and in the past. That meant potatoes and tobacco.
You think you know the details and then you get surprised by the things you didn’t know because it never occurred to you to ask that particular question.
@14 et al. I recently looked at a newly published mystery novel set in North Carolina in the early 1700’s. For over 20 years I was a volunteer at an 18th century historic site with a working farm, where we dressed in period costume and demonstrated agricultural life at that time, so I was naturally eager to read this, since it had also gotten good reviews saying how “authentic” it was.
Just a few pages in, there’s a description of a farm where, among other crops, they’re growing broccoli.
Broccoli wasn’t introduced to the United States until 1925. So much for “authentic.”
What bugged me most was, this is something pretty easy to research. There are a lot of books out there, including reprints of period diaries and farm journals, that anybody could access for a list of what crops were common during that era, not to mention any number of living-history sites (and there are several good ones in North Carolina) whose staff I am sure would have been happy to help a writer doing research (I know; I have answered such questions for a few writers I know, and have done con panels on the subject).
Trial lawyers have a saying that goes, “Never ask a witness a question in court unless you’re sure of the answer you’re going to get.” I’d extend that to writing historical fiction: “Don’t include a detail unless you’ve got a source to back it up.”
Even if Middle Earth was the Old World before history, it still was possible for there to be potatoes there. Lots of time between Middle Earth times and our recognizable times (when the Earth was round) for Old World potatoes to go extinct, just like there were horses on the New World, but they became extinct before Native Americans came there.
I could theoritically invent an Hyborian-age like American continent with lots of civilizations that used horses. And then they disappeared in a cataclism and we have no records of their era now. Thousands of years after that cataclysm, the first native americans come. See?
I’m pretty sure there’s something you once read in a fantasy novel that you didn’t think was right. I’ve never met anyone able to really live the Snowman rule in their own reading life.
@25/Ryamano: But the very existence of archaeology and paleontology tends to take away from the plausibility of “lost civilizations” in our own past. If there had been orcs and dragons and goblins living in Europe’s distant past, surely we would’ve found skeletal remains of those species, or dug up the ruins of Minas Tirith or Mordor. The idea that a major civilization could’ve existed for a long time and then vanished without a single archaeological trace defies credibility. Life and technology leave remains.
@27 That raises an interesting question: what events could remove all traces of a civilization beyond our ability to detect them?
Ending up at the bottom of a sufficiently deep ocean would do it, I think. Massive upheaval of the crust, burying the top few hundred meters of the surface a few kilometers down? Thoguh we’d be able to tell something big happened.
Would a direct meteor strike leave anything recognizable at the bottom of the crater?
@27 The oldest structures we have are only 10k years old (Göbekli Tepe) and we are lucky to have that, time and weather are hard on structures. There is plenty of room for small scale civilisations to have existed and been lost to deep time or scoured clean by the elements. The archaeological record still has massive gaps, and the further back you go the less is likely to have survived and you can say we’ve just not dug in the right place. Or go the route that Tolkien and the Flight of Dragons animated movie did and have a wizard seal them off (you can use “quantum” and dimensional shifts if you want to be more sciencey-wiencey)
I am with ChristopherLBennett here. I had always found that the “lost worlds” trope, or however you call it, doesn’t stand to the slightest scrutiny. Conan, WOT, LOTR, even BSG and its ending… E.g. if you raise the issue that there shouldn’t be potatoes in Middle Earth because there weren’t in Europe then you open the lid to whole host of other questions- ones you wouldn’t enjoy if you are a fan of the premise that the story was set in “our” past.
That’s why I personally ignore the parts of the cannon which deal with this, to avoid spoiling my enjoyment of works which I otherwise like.
I suppose another conclusion that can be taken out of this article and the issue it raises is that readers have to be careful of what gets them aggravated ;)
@29/Random22: Small-scale, yes, but that’s my point. Something as pervasive as Middle-Earth would surely leave a record, if not buildings, then at least bones. And if dragons had existed, they wouldn’t have just existed there and then; there would’ve been a whole taxonomy of related and ancestor species in the fossil record. The more we unearth about our planet’s prehistory, the narrower the window that you have to postulate a lost civilization.
And really, the moment you bring wizards and magic into it, you’re past pretending your world has anything to do with our reality.
We just call the dragons dinosaurs.
The potatoes and tobacco in LOTR didn’t bother me, or the fireworks themselves, but in describing the fireworks at Bilbo’s party Tolkien described them as being like swans, or eagles, or spears, or snakes, or a thunderstorm, or golden flowers, or sailing ships, which was all fine, but a duff anachronistic note was sounded when he described the final firework as a dragon “that passed like an express train”; I don’t think there’s room for express trains in Middle Earth. As well as fireworks, though, Middle Earth did have a “blasting fire” for sieges.
@33/Narmitaj: I think that at the time, there was less of a preference for writing narration as if it were within a story character’s point of view, and more for writing it in the voice of a present-day storyteller relating the tale to a present-day audience. A lot of older books even had the narrator directly address the audience, as you may know, Gentle Reader. After all, that’s how oral storytellers would’ve done it for thousands of years (and my own earliest experience of Tolkien came from my father reading The Hobbit to me as a bedtime story — he loved hamming it up with his Smaug and Gollum voices). So the “express train” reference wasn’t anachronistic in the context of a modern (at the time) narrator relating an account to a modern audience. If it had been used in dialogue, that would’ve been an anachronism.
The potatoes, like the pipeweed (clearly some version of Nicotiana), were brought to Middle-earth by the Numenoreans, who found them on their voyages and introduced them to their colonies. Obviously.
@35/Anna_Wing: I suppose that’s possible for potatoes. Apparently Tolkien once estimated that the War of the Ring took place 6,000 years ago, i.e. about 4,000 BCE, and the Native Americans had domesticated potatoes by then. However, the earliest known tobacco cultivation sites date only to 1500-1000 BCE, though there’s a rival speculation that it may have been domesticated by 8200 BCE.
Of course, the idea of LOTR taking place as recently as 4,000 BCE is problematical, because that doesn’t seem like nearly enough time for the archaeological evidence to be completely effaced, and there is existing archaeological evidence of European cultures from that era.
@30: I completely agree. Although I really appreciate it when the writer has done their research, I think the points raised in this article are important too.
@31: I was disappointed that the question of dragon taxonomy hadn’t advanced more at the end of Voyage of the Basilisk. I do hope that the next book in the Lady Trent series will tell us more about it (at least there will be cute baby dragons!)
@37/Athreeren: Yeah, my one disappointment with the Lady Trent books is that there’s too much politics and not nearly enough dracology. I’m hoping at some point Tor will publish her “actual” book on dragons as a supplement to the memoir series.
There is something like that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonology:_The_Complete_Book_of_Dragons
@39: Yeah, but I want to see the Lady Trent universe’s version. It’s a great series except for not having enough focus on the science itself. I mean, Isabella wants to focus on the science, but she keeps getting sidetracked by all this annoying political stuff, and I share her frustration at wanting to get back to the more interesting business of learning about dragons.
Is there some bit of LOTR canon that I’m unaware of that stipulates that it’s ‘deep history’ of our earth? Because I thought it was pretty clearly implicit from Tolkien’s notes on language and pronunciation that it was not our history at all. That’s why he bothers to point out that he’s making all these languages up because we couldn’t possibly understand the real ones.
For this reason, although yes, the potatoes, stirrups, gunpowder, steel, the existence of mithril (for pete’s sake), and countless other small details bother me to a greater or lesser extent (stirrups – greater / mithril – lesser), i accept that this is not historical earth, and that any resemblance to it has been injected by the “re-teller” to make it easier for us to understand.
One of the things that throws me off when watching or reading fantasy/medieval fiction is knowing too much about the history of textiles. Knitting pops up frequently long before its time. As does lace.
And then in nigh every movie version of the story Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on… the distaff. :|
I am a huge fan of science fiction, particularly film and tv. I am constantly amazed at the frequent mistakes made in depicting basic math, physics, and machinery. A notable example is the gunshot fired within close range that has no effect on the shooters hearing. Can’t the prop gun have a fake silencer? I understand that putting bulky headphones on the handsome star is a deal breaker, but would it really detract if he casually removed foam earplugs while delivering his next line?
That is unfortunately the tip of a very large, research poor iceberg. In the internet age how long will it be tolerated by viewers? Time will tell.
There is a notable exception that anyone who relates to my frustration should stream immediately: the film “Primer.” A scientifically sound take on time travel based on current research, materials and even the current economy of garage inventors. Skip the Steve Jobs movie and watch this online for free.
@43/EMarling: I’m surprised that the existence of Mythbusters and the decade they’ve spent debunking the nonsense in movies hasn’t prodded Hollywood to up its game and try to retire some of the lazy cliches about guns and cars and so many other things. Particularly with explosions. Seeing many different types of real high explosives go off on Mythbusters has ruined movie explosions for me, because it’s clear that they’re just low-energy liquid-fuel fireballs designed to cause minimum damage. Well, that’s a lie, because I got tired of seeing the same old orange fireballs decades ago, but Mythbusters has made it clearer what the overlooked alternatives are. Of course the reason filmmakers favor those fireballs is because they’re both safer and flashier, but surely a creative pyrotechnician could figure out a way to fake a more realistic explosion, with less fire and more dust and shrapnel and blast effects, without any added peril.
@43: GAH! this is my pet hate! So few ever do it properly, so I had a mini nerdgasm in ep1 of The Walking Dead when Rick lets one off in the tank and everything goes blurry and ringy. Though that was for story effect rather than a typical in-scene gunshot.
Well everyone, there’s certainly a lot that can be said, but you’ve all argued so entertainingly, and all I really came here to say is that @Braid-Tug has the best name.
Tobacco in the Hobbit and Lord of rings was a far bigger anachronism to me. Even if potatoes and carrots are not native to Iron Age Northern Europe, they had root vegetables. Tobacco? Tolkein might as well have head Gandalf and Bilbo light a joint. Marijuana has a written record gong back to Chinese Emperor Shen Nung in 2727 B.C., and is probably much older. Smoking, as we know it, did no exist in Europe or even in Asia. Smoking incense was common in ritual, but sitting around and relaxing over a pipe or a cigarette or a joint was not.
the importance of getting things right is creating willing suspension of disbelief using specific details.
@46/Frank Darbe: Well, clearly Tolkien’s goal was not to create a plausible prehistoric civilization, but to create a fantasy allegory for modern societies. The Hobbits were the English, so they had recognizably English customs and habits. The whole “Earth’s ancient prehistory” angle always struck me as a largely irrelevant conceit. It doesn’t really matter to the story whether it’s in our world’s prehistory or is simply some other world altogether, since it’s not like there are any overt connections to any specific places on Earth or specific cultures from antiquity. Back when I read the books in my youth, I’m not sure I was even all that aware of the idea that it was supposed to be our ancient past. That’s how incidental the idea was. So I don’t see these things as anachronisms, since the story isn’t really part of our past in any meaningful or story-relevant way.
It was actually a huge deal to Tolkien though; the whole point was that it was a ‘true’ myth. It doesn’t really come out in the books (unless you read the appendices and how he talks about the ‘translations’ themselves not even being the ‘real’ Elvish, stuff like Merry’s real name is Kalimac because Kali means ‘happy’, etc, and how he translated their calendar, etc), but if you read a lot of his writings/musings on the subject he agonized over this his whole life, even to the point of re-writing portions of the Silmarillion to abandon his original conception of how the sun/moon were created and the flat earth because it just didn’t match our astronomical history (at times he was leaning towards the idea that the ‘myths’ we hear about these things are themselves corrupted because they are the Mannish versions of the real Elvish myths, and the Elves know the truth abuot how the universe was created).
In all honesty, that kind of makes me sad, because I love a lot of the things/imagery about those old myths (like the Noldor coming to middle earth at the first rising of the Moon) and I kind of want them to be the ‘true’ ones in that universe :)
He also had a lot of interesting essays/ideas on what ‘The Fall’ was for Men and how it relates to the histories in the Silmarillion. It happens ‘offscreen’ but there are some really interesting musings in his non published (by him, I mean) writings, including about how Men and Elves will contribute to the ultimate salvation of the world. (Although some of it he DID abandon because it was getting way too obviously Christian).
But yeah, in general you are right that you can read it without knowing any of that. But it’s all really fascinating stuff, although I’m inclined to think Tolkien was just a bit insane (in a good way). :)
I’d have thought he’d recognize that the geographic and temporal details of his myths mattered far less than cultural connections; like bronze armour and iron tools in the Illiad or full plate in King Arthur. Does it matter where Beowulf took place so long as the myth resonates with people?
Well, I think that’s why he went a bit back and forth on all these things. He wanted them to be True in the sense that they reflected what he knew as truth regarding the nature of man, salvation, etc, and then also the languages to really mean something (since his primary interest was really to create a world/mythos that would give rise to his languages). And I think he totally did that, regardless of whether you think Middle Earth is our earth or not (LotR is actually my favorite work of art). I suppose it just adds another layer of connection and it feeling authentic/real; this could be our history. There were also a lot of alternate writings where the Silmarillion is told with a framing story of an Englishman who is descended from Earandil somehow finds his way to Tol Eressea and gets the stories, or experiences via dreams the Drowning of Numenor.
I am not saying that’s the right way or wrong way to tell stories; I think it works on some level (Robert Jordan does this as well). But he definitely liked to obsess over stuff :)
But it’s obvious to me, why isn’t it obvious to him? [/Aes Sedai]
RJ had his cosmological cheat built-in at least.
@48/Lisamarie: Well, sure, but that’s from the peripheral materials and Tolkien’s writings about the story. It isn’t really evident in The Hobbit or LOTR itself.
Anyway, if he “translated” the names of the characters from what they really were, why not assume he just substituted the names of potatoes and tobacco as more familiar equivalents for what they really had? Seems a simple enough fix to me.
@43: I’ve seen one movie use the earplug bit. However, I cannot remember its title.
@45. Monolith – ahw… Thank you. :-D
I’m both a WoT fan and a fiber artist – so the name works for both hobbies.
@52 – agreed; I think the story works on both levels. And I actually tend to be the same way about ‘translating’ those types of things (which is why all fantasy worlds seem to have horses, etc :) ). Although I suppose in Tolkien’s mind and if you are being a stickler about ‘this is really our world’ he doesn’t mean some potato equivalent and like there are extinct vegetables we just don’t have now (aside from the stuff like mallorn, elanor and Elvish stuff. Perhaps there were Elvish potatoes ;)).
But if you are doing the ‘another world’ view of the story, then it totally works.
In all honesty, I never even noticed any of these things, even though I do enjoy the ancient Earth lens.
Now what really gets me is the fact that there are glaring time screw ups in the Harry Potter books, since you can actually trace those to a given year and there are a few things that just don’t fit :)
There is something wrong in the basic assumption here. And the basic assumption seems to be that a fantasy world should be a reflection of true-world history.
But that is not the case. A fantasy world is another world. Different natural laws might — and, possibly, do — apply. And the people that live there might follow a totally different logic than our own, in society, in warfare, in _anything_ basically.
It’s funny, also, that people seem to be annoyed by the slaves riding on a cart rather than walking, or the existence of potatoes, but they are not annoyed by the existence of dragons! Dragons cannot exist, according to the natural laws we know. They wouldn’t be able to fly in the first place. So, if you can have dragons in another world — or anything that cannot exist here — then why can’t you have potatoes? Or even electrical lamps to light the King’s room?
@55/YomHom: One of the fun things about Hercules and Xena was that they essentially made no secret of being fictional and tossed in all sorts of anachronisms and historical absurdities without hesitation. Xena was a contemporary of both Helen of Troy and Julius Caesar, and Hercules met both the baby Jesus (implicitly) and Vlad the Impaler. Characters in the ancient world were constantly inventing modern things. And then there was that insane episode presented as a TV documentary whose host was following Xena around and interviewing her and the people around her, and the presence of himself and his camera crew was an integral part of a story set in ancient times, and the anachronism was not even addressed or acknowledged, just taken in stride. And it wasn’t one of their out-of-continuity episodes, but a story featuring key events in the arc with lasting ramifications to the series. It wasn’t just historically inaccurate, it was aggressively ahistorical and timeless. Which is actually pretty fitting for a franchise based in mythology, since myths often played fast and loose with history and internal consistency and blended together characters who had originally existed separately or originated in different eras.
Great article, thanks. It reminds me of a book in which we meet the main character, a peasant boy as he comes downstairs in the morning to find his mother putting dried apple into the family’s morning porridge. His dad is already out working. I couldn’t get much further. I could almost see the carpeted stairs, the gas range, and the Nintendo 64 (this was a while ago) in front of the TV. The fact that a teenage boy wasn’t out working with his dad and the dried apple…I couldn’t take the book seriously. For all I know, it was a masterpiece of plotting and character development that would have brought tears to my eyes, now lost because of some dried apple.