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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9593553" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Yes. This is one of the biggest examples of the inherently schizotech nature of the quote-unquote "standard" fantasy setting.Full plate armor is newer than hand-held gunpowder weaponry. Cannons are centuries older than rapiers. Certain engineering technology that we associate with the Renaissance actually long predates it. Meanwhile, the societal development is entirely jumbled, with things all the way from late-Antiquity/early-Medieval all the way up to late-Renaissance/early-Industrial stuff. Jewelcraft and goldsmithing/silversmithing, for example, are incredibly advanced, bordering on Industrial era, while chemistry (which is needed in order to do that advanced goldsmithing...) isn't even 12th century. Political borders and trade agreements verge on Westphalian, but monarchs and dynasties are very High Medieval (e.g. no splitting of kingdoms between your children), while the wars are openly Early Medieval.Reality is Unrealistic: the late-Medieval, early-Renaissance period was significantly more advanced than most "fantasy" fans think. And then of course there's the whole enormous issue with the objectively false Dung Ages trope, where the Medieval Period is painted as being a time of horrible drab drudgery where 99.999% of people never even leave town (objectively false, proven repeatedly, yet still a widely-held belief), literally have no idea that other skin colors exist (again, objectively false, otherwise English would not have needed words like "Blackamoor" to describe North African Muslim peoples they encountered and traded with), and die before the age of 40 (the average life expectancy was dragged down horrendously by infant mortality; most people who lived to adulthood still lived to see 50-60).The sheer mountain of utterly false, non-realistic claims, all defended with claims of "realism" or "verisimilitude", is profoundly frustrating.</blockquote>

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