(no subject)

I have been reading more about medieval history.
England really is a tiny little backwater of history for a really long time.
And fantasy history is really really really too thin. Oversimplified. Small.

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Also, any fantasy story that says the status quo holds steady for thousands of years? Is not playing in the realm of plausibility.

Given any hundred year stretch you see major churn in political systems, let alone political entities and the rulers thereof, much of it driven as much by changes in technology as by ideology and the plague/famine/war events. Water wheels and windmills and improvements thereof made such a huge difference. Three field crop rotation. Ploughs. Knowing how to attach horses to things without choking them (which took a depressingly long number of centuries, ugh). And it all changes quick quick quick, in a big feedback loop where every agricultural change makes changes in how many men in armour there might be wandering around.

It is glorious. Way more fun than fantasy books today.

Also the book I'm reading keeps on having women in it. As if we've always been there. Wonder of wonders.



But I can see why inventing anything even vaguely in its league is a teensy tiny bit challenging. Like, everything is connected, sometimes globally, and things that happened a thousand years ago can still get people moving, and it's just... way bigger than any one story is going to cover.

But it's still weird and frustrating when they get the demographics wrong and have some epic stagnation to make it mythic.



History is fun to learn when I find the right books though.