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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orius" data-source="post: 7785035" data-attributes="member: 8863">Ah yes, static unchanging histories, one of the things about fantasy fiction that tends to bug me.  I definitely fall into the camp that views historical timelines that last millennia as absurd.With LotR, there are of course the elves and their immortality to take into account.  Going beyond the elves, much of the Second Age saw ME under the rule of Sauron who likely was most certainly not interested in seeing much technological or social advancement under his rule.  The Numenoreans were a different case of course, but they lived longer and Numenor was blessed with rich resources for them.  As they went into decline they became more imperialistic which could be partially the result of declining resources.  The Third Age is primarily the fall of Arnor and the rise and decline of Gondor, and both are somewhat plausible.Other fictional worlds get pretty ridiculous.  A big offender is Eddings' Belgariad and Mallorean series which has a 7,000 year history in which nothing happens for centuries at a time.  Utterly ridiculous.  Never got into the Game of Thrones universe myself (when is Martin going to finish that last book!?), but doesn't it have something like an 8,000 year history?    By comparison, 8,000 years ago is 6,000 BC IRL.  That's 2 or 3 millennia before the development or writing, and before the emergence of Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations and maybe  thousand years or so before the first usage of copper, and so on.  I can't take a time scale that lasts thousands and thousands of years seriously.Look at the longest lasting human civilizations.  Ancient Egypt had a history of about 3,000 years, with over 2 dozen dynasties from the Early, Middle, and New Kingdoms, with intermediate periods until going into a long decline until being conquered by the Romans.  Said Romans had a culture that lasted 2,000 years with about 5 centuries under the Republic, and an Empire that took another 4-5 centuries to collapse in the West, while the Eastern half managed to hold on for another 1,000 years, coming close to the brink of collapse several times until it finally ended in the 15th century.  Rome's dynasties didn't last very long, and there was often a pretty high turnover rate among emperors.  Chinese culture has been around for about 32 centuries or so with a few strong dynasties like the Han or Tang that lasted a few centuries with periods of war and division in between.  Fantasy human cultures that last thousands of years with a single dynasty ruling over the whole thing is hard for me to take seriously at all.</blockquote>

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