@@razorflossrazor2937 If memory serves, the Mayans had human sacrifices on a much smaller scale. Although if they could have had magic to help fight of the droughts that we think helped their civilisation collapse, I'm sure there would have been a lot more dead people. Come to think of it, if killing someone could make your magic stronger, any civilisation could have conquered the world. Capturing people from one nation gives you plenty of fodder to fuel the conquest of the next kingdom. And there wouldn't be any taboos against human sacrifices in at least most societies, it would be like refusing to get nukes while an enemy's arsenal is aimed at you. Sounds like Ann interesting population control method, albeit a gruesome one.
@@gideonjones5712 mayans did the sacrifice near the end of their time and even then it was a fairly small ritualistic scale considering the azteks did about 300 sacrifices per day.
of course if human sacrifice granted power, they would have been used more often by every "civilisation". So the Aztecs, if they existed, would remain weak to others comparatively, given the isolation of the americas.
1500s Americas: Europe somehow conquers the natives, despite the Native mages being able to fireball them at will. Then, when the colonies rebelled, the British Empire refused to use magic to stop it.
*Me before watching this video:* Oh come on, how bad it could it be? *Hears that the world is exactly the same in 1847 despite there being magic:* Oh. Oh, it's going be be one of THESE series, huh?
I'm not sure this is a huge problem, honestly. This sort of suspension of disbelief is something we use for all urban fantasy, and anything even slightly Harry Potter-esque. *EDIT* I think what needed to be done here is a bit of lantern hanging or at least some active hand-waving.
In the series where magic is a hidden and secretive thing, I think it's alright (although lazy). Because, who knows, maybe magic is what led to our being the way it is, or something like that. But the fact that magic is known _and_ used _and_ has affected history in this world takes it up a notch from lazy to confusingly stupid
@@the_major At least with HP they have magic that literally "obliterate" people's memories and in one of the books it starts with wizards talking to a muggle prime Minister, so at least it tries to cover some stuff.
I currently can’t imagine anything funnier than a European person finally docking in the United States and suddenly just re-gaining the ability to use magic and being like ‘wait what the fuck’
TactlessC If anyone actually had to deal with a distinctly magical Astolfo - in any form - I have a strong feeling that sealing away magic would have been a good idea XD
Well, naturally. They were running around casting Detect Evil and smiting everyone in sight, it got pretty annoying after awhile dealing with their holier-than-though Lawful Good hijinks.
Just stepping in to say two things: they didn't execute witches via burning, and the idea that witches existed did not go unopposed but rather was itself often viewed as heretical.
Yousef Walid They are really missing an opportunity there. The Turkic people use to be Tengri shaman before Islam. Maybe, in this universe, Islam was imposed on the people in order to control Access to magic. So the Sultanate would sell a false narrative of a Muslim nation while secretly using pagan magic.
If the author cares so much about history, she could just write a historical novel. If she cares about building an interesting fantasy world she should do that. Not... this clumsy fusion.
She kind of seems...whatever the hungarian version of a weaboo is. "And then the poor, oppressed Hungarians valiantly fought off the yoke of the mean foreign austrian oppressors (please ignore their terrible treatment of non-ethnic hungarians under their control) Magyar über alles"
@@sherlocksmuuug6692 Interestingly enough, she is American. I read about it on a Hungarian book review portal (I am Hungarian myself), and they mentioned that it is mostly fiction, with bits of real history spiced in. To clarify some points: the separatist movement of Jelasics (and the other minorities) was a reaction to the Hungarian quasi-separatist (they wanted a more independent and Hungarian-centric system) movement that started in Budapest (and was partly inspired by the French revolution), and escalated into a civil war as the minorities went against the Hungarians, were eventually defeated, and then the emperor (with the help of Russian allies) eventually crushed the Hungarian armies. The whole thing was basically the result of the "nationalist awakening" on all parts of a very diverse empire.
I think it's possible to fuse the two, it just takes a good explanation for why things are the same. The popular trope of magic being so far underground that one would need a shovel to find it would be a simple enough answer. As would having magic be a new thing which has previously not existed. A more contrived option being perhaps establishing specific universal mechanics, like cyclical periods of divergence and convergence, though that also raises questions of predestination and causality (which could be interesting topics to explore if given enough effort). That said I think "clumsy" is a very apt description of BRR's fusion.
@@franjokrajinovic3534 You mean when your entire army (which by the way was just licking the boots of the Austrians, because we already declared Croatia independent from Hungary) was defeated even before anything else had happened? Yeah, that sure was a great time! Oh and it's nice to see that you're proud to be on the same side as the Russians. That's sure is a thing to be proud of.
@@franjokrajinovic3534 That's true. It was a huge mistake. Anyway, I have nothing against Croatians, I like your country, it's an amazing place, you seem quite nice people, and it was a shame that we were fighting each other. The Hungarian politicians of the 19th century really did fuck up in regards to minorities. And I'm glad that we helped you during your fight for independence in the 90's.
@@theblancmange1265 Yeah by the way that is what had happened. And also Kossuth should had stayed out of the military planning, because he didn't no shit about that, he should had leave it to the proffesionals like the genius Görgey.
@@franjokrajinovic3534 Actually, the romanians were there before the hungarians. They even wrote that in Gesta Hungarorum, which was one of the first and most important hungarian historical documents. They conquered us, and that is why we also rebeled against the hungarians around 1848.
So, it sounds like the author had 2 different conflicting ideas in her head (historical vs fantasy settings). They cancelled each other out, so she couldn't cast a good story? :)
This series feels like it was written by someone who wanted to be the author of a popular epic fantasy series, but they didn't want to go to the effort of world-building, so they just copied down a bunch of events from some history books and crossed out some stuff here and there, replacing it with their basic magocracy concept. It's the most blatant laziness I've seen since Christopher Paolini went through the alphabet, replacing the first letter of the word dragon until he came up with a useable character name.
5:18 1) Why people would believe another religion if only christians can use magic ? 2) If we consider first christians were people from middle east, than why didn't they conquer rome and created their own empire instead of some pagan tribes? (and change history of course) 3) Janissaries weren't christians they were raised with turkish tradition, fighting style and islamic religion, how they can still use magic ?
To be fair, jannisaries were recruited from Christians of the ottoman empire. Still don't know why they worked for the Ottomans if they had magic and the empire didn't.
@@alexsnyder1569 They weren't really "recruited". They were kidnapped as children and raised as muslims and slave soldiers. If Islam bans the use of magic it's also banned for Janissaries. The only way it makes sense is if the Ottomans used vassals or mercenaries who haven't converted,
@@bdrago5420 And that wouldn't make sense either, because how would they get the money to pay the mercenaries or the dominance over those vassals in a setting where they've rejected magic and so are at a disadvantage compared to all of their neighbours?
passing viewer, i appreciate your leniency with the napoleon on dinosaurs book. sometimes, writing doesnt need to be taken seriously. it can just make for a good joke and an enjoyable time.
I do not know how many Hungarian followers you have, but as a member of that group, I profoundly thank you for your accurate coverage of the events that took place in our country. I think there is some stuff that needs a little bit of adjustment, but for a period/chain of events that is so unknown in the West, with you only having had access to sources that were translated into English (I'm assuming, I do not know what languages you studied) you did a superb job, and should be applauded. Thank you, again.
14:11 This is why a concept like equivalent exchange is important. Only allowing your magic system to work with the materials the magic user has: A) Makes sense and adheres to scientific laws people know about. And B) Prevents the magic users in your world from being more stupidly overpowered. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk. Edit: Thank god I’m not the only person who immediately thought of Fullmetal Alchemist. Also the reason why you can’t just make precious metals in that universe is partially because of equivalent exchange. Edit: Also wouldn’t the presence of human sacrifices being used for powerful magic possibly make older polytheistic traditions more wide spread and prevalent. Since many of them were ok with or endorsed animal sacrifices for prayer??? I thought of this in 5 minutes and apparently Rosalyn Eves can’t even be bothered to think through the world she made for that long.
Well i love Sandrson's word creating. Magic is just perfect. First is portraied in simple matter, then you get more information, but still general informations from the begining are true. Is so good, when you reread book
I tend to either go with "magic books that have charges for magic in them" ala Fire Emblem or my "soul system". Each creature's soul produces a set amount of magical energy that, if they want, they can learn to control and manifest into different forms of magic. Most folk opt to using things like spellbooks because it helps give them guidance and control over their power. You CAN increase how much energy is generated, but it requires strengthening of the spirit that honestly I haven't delved into yet, but it'd be like working out the body to get more muscle. If you try to cast a spell you aren't strong enough to do, you risk damaging your soul, and even if you manage to squeak out something, there's no guarantee that it'll be more than a small sliver. Or...something like that. Still playing around with it.
You should write an alternate histort story in which the POD is that these books were never written. What would the world be like today? Better, probably.
So wait...the Ottomans and other muslims can't use magic, and that somehow doesn't change anything? You're telling me that what could be considered to some as miracles is just the some force? You're telling me something part of the setting that's so important to most and presumably a powerful force affected nothing? No one said "wow that religion has literal magic and/or miracles." I know he said that but I'm still baffled.
@Atakan Tekin added to the fact that what distinguishes, for example, Christianity and Islam isn't that big. Similar ethnic groups worshipped either, the beliefs aren't massively different, especially back then, and the cultures were at least similar. If it's not genetic, belief, or society, it just feels like the writer has some weird views on the Ottomans.
The more I hear, the more interesting a challenge of rewriting all of world history to include magic sounds. You'd totally have to start from scratch at the beginning depending on how your magic was implemented, and that sounds fascinating
Which is why every other good fantasy story/setting either has magic just appear suddenly (Shadowrun), or they simply create a new world (the other 99% of Fantasy stories).
It works for plenty of anime series. Wanna have an action series that revolve around some sort of magic system? A good series not only has it taking place in a completely different world, but the weapons and everyday technology reflects it.
Eh, I think there are ways to make it work. I also think, it's a matter of taste. Alternate universe stories ARE a thing! As long as it's entertaining, I can suspend my disbelief.
@@teslashark no, that would be Kamu Geri (aka Karácsony Gergely) who fucked everything up in BP and did nothing useful since he was elected. but hey, he can't even find his own hs and uni diplomas (if he has any, yet he got a high salary in Corvinus), so how could he make sense :>
Your review of this makes me quite happy about my own alternate world novel. I've written a fantasy book where humans live side by side with magical creatures in the modern world. To achieve this, I made it that simply, until the late 19th up to the early 20th, humans were the vastly dominate race and other species mostly kept to themselves in the corners of the world, very rarely interacting with humanity. Also, magic, while powerful, is so complicated and incapable of doing more than a singular, simple task that science and machines went along their normal course to modern technology. By basically making it that until the world wars broke out that a natural segregation existed, much of human history can progress as it normally world.
Just to make a point for some people. It is perfectly posible to merge fantasy and history in a setting. Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrel does a wonderful job of it. Of course the autor there actually gives explanations to things, even if world building is far from her focus. For example, why magic hasn't significantly changed the history of the world, its tied to Britain and it died out in the Medieval/early Renaissance era. There were some changes to Medieval Great Britain (the existence of the North Kingdom), but just that. And why events, even after magic enters the scene are not very different from our world, well, there is only two mages and even if magic is impressive, cannons and good tactics are still more effective in winning wars (this is even pointed out when the ability of scrying is said to annoy the military by Wellington because it means that polititians think they are more informed than they actually are and the major use they find for the army wizard is jsust building better roads). And mixing fantasy and history has it's advantages, in that articular novel, it helps to highlight both literary themes (Classicism vs Romanticism) in a different and interesting way and also comment on problems of race and gender from a different angle.
Your mention of the rebellion being portrayed as a bunch of hypocritical jerks for wanting to oppress minorities is actually a pretty good point to make - one that isn't often made, especially because a lot of authors of speculative fiction want us to side with who the author says we should side with . Rebels are always in the right in tehse types of stories - because history (Written by the winners of course!) write them as the good guys since the people recording history have a very self-serving bias. In fact, your whole point about how the ethno-nationalist hungarians would oppress all non-Hungarians is a very good one - and one that is rarely seen. Why don't we have more rebellion stories in which our rebellion wins, and our idealistic freedom fighters see them doing the EXACT SAME THING they accused their oppressors of doing, only this time to them and the other thoughts? Why don't we see our idealistic rebels note that they aren't including the Roma or the Jews in their whole 'ideal independent state' and call them out on it, or find out why? I mean, just look at the puritan settlement of the states - history books depict them as trying to escape religious persecution. it does *NOT* say how they proceeded to... treat the natives and other people like trash for not being puritans themselves.
You speak as if oppressing your enemies and genetic competition is a bad thing. Have you not heard of "natural selection"? The world is always "kill or be killed". Morality is a chain to bind the weak of will. "Hypocrisy" is merely an example of one knowing the truth and acting in accordance, but denying the truth with ones mouth.
@@StarboyXL9 The humans became the domimant species BECAUSE we restructured the laws of nature to benefit us. We reinvented natural selection inside our communities according to our organisation and new found intelligence. We discovered that not opressing others is more advantageous than doing it. Species that share resources and territory with other species instead of competing for it have a greater advantage, and we do it at an incredible scale. We are also the only species to fight against natural selection to save other species, not just because we like them, but because, by preserving those ecosystems as we want, we still end up benefiting ourselves.
the thing is, that in real history, the Hungarian rebellion was crushed by the Austrians with the help of the Russian Tzar, as he concluded that any progressive movement setting a positive example would be a detriment to his power. In general, we look back at the rebels as heroes because they fought a stronger foe, and after being crushed, everyone suffered through tremendous oppression from the Habsurgs - Hungarians and other minorities alike. It's kinda true, that in the beginning, the Hungarian nationalist movement was very dismissive of other ethnic groups, and some argue that this was a major reason for the rebellion to fail, as they only started offering concessions towards these ethnic groups way too late into the war when it was already too late.
Why keep everything the same in an alternate history world with magic? Have fun with it, it’s extremely doubtful that magic wouldn’t change a thing. Literally everything would be different if magic existed
Never read the series but if it’s anything like you’ve described, this is such a wasted opportunity. It actually reminds me of a series called to aru majutsu no index, where its science vs magic (espers vs magicians). I think the worldbuilding in that is quite fascinating.
As an Austrian I got really excited when I found this book but thankfully I decided to look up some reviews before I bought it... The basic premise sounded like a great opportunity to re-examine an important moment in history from a "magical" point of view and play around with how differently everything could have developed from then on. I find it quite disappointing how badly the author handled it. However, kudos to you for working your way through it and delivering such a well-made video on it! :)
wait, if they know souls exist, how does it affect society? Knowing souls exist and where they go is an essential question of humanity, and I rarely see this examined in books (I'm looking at you, Harry Potter).
In the Harry Potter world. Voldemort was correct. Humans are weak peons for the actual lifeforms dominating earth. But sorry. Harry Potter is just shit. In my opinion, using magic should be reserved for fantasy or really old history. Throwing in complex magic after thousands of years of historical events, is too much for one middle aged woman to manage.
I had an idea once of a world where not only souls exist but the afterlife is pretty much understood (due to magic being a thing and so most religions' deities actually living and interacting constantly in the mortal world), because of that funerals are more akin to partying in name of the deceased who is going to the next stage in existence (although with sorrow mixed in, since it is still like seeing someone go away and you known it will be a long time before you see them again), this when the deceased doesn't simply comes back as a ghost for some time (as ghosts can "pass away" at will)
@@giuseppemassari9970 seems interesting, the fun thing is that people wouldn't really be afraid to die, would they? A big part of the fear of death is not knowing what awaits on the other side, or if there even is one, in your case death would be but a nuisance.
Hi! I hope you would also review Tokyo ghoul. I felt like it has the same problem with world building. It is implied that ghouls existed even in ancient times yet Humans are still somewhat the dominant species. The reason being the "tenacity of humans" still doesn't make sense. They don't have the technology back then to create weapons out of kagune or even if there are ghouls that are kind and protects humans doesn't mean they'll have the capacity to not make other ghouls take over humans. But maybe I'm wrong and the possibility that we'll still be the dominant species even if there is creatures intelligent and more powerful live alongside us. I really want to see your thoughts on it.
This is the same sort of problem that a lot of vampire stories run into. There's a non-human species that feeds on humans to live, is physically stronger than humans, and yet hides out of fear of the humans retaliating. For ghouls it's a little different because their existence in known to humans, but I still agree that it's weird for predators to not control their prey when they're smart enough to figure out how to do it.
@@Samm815 Outside of dying of starvation and inability to eat things outside of their very specific diet, they're weak to other Ghouls who resort to cannibalism.
Building on that, it seems ghouls are really bad at collaboration and coexistence, next to humans. Ghouls are pretty territorial and at a certain point you'd just have bigger societies with humans. That and we see ghouls in much smaller numbers next to humans. You also have things like yeah ghouls can become stronger by eating other ghouls, though it's easy for them to lose control with that, and in general there's morals against cabalism (ghouls are born, and mostly see themselves as a different species from humans). But you still do have individuals who will do this, which adds to the general distrust. It's not perfect but it does make it easier to accept humans being dominant then most vampire fiction.
Maybe this author had same editor that Carlo Zen had. Afterword of Vol.1 of 'Saga of Tanya The Evil' had author wondering how his editors did not ask him to make any changes to his script. "The publisher known as Enterbrain has most definitely got a screw loose."
@@robertgronewold3326 Why anyone today would sign over 75% of their potential earnings to a publisher, instead of self-publishing is beyond my understanding. The minimal editing and advertising you get from a publisher in no way justifies the lost revenue.
Muslims : Made up of multiple empires that have Egyptian, Arab, Moorish and Persian influences, with their own soldiers, formations and styles of fighting. Writers : I diagnose you with JANISSARY. Also, Janissaries were taken as children, and raised to Islamic themselves. It makes no sense for them to still have magic if they themselves are Muslim.
At least its not as bad as Harry Harrison's 'Stars and Stripes' trilogy. That series really set a bar how lazy one can be when writing alt-history novels.
I love it. At least they admit it’s fantasy instead of just believing retarded historical conspiracies. And otherwise having no understanding of history.
@@acefire7714 that had a clear divergent point, and if you go to the games with little to no bethesda involvement it's actually got quite the deep narrative some hunting for answers may be required, but that's half the fun
Just a small tip: if you mess up on a line, you should probably re-record it. It makes the video more professional and easier to watch. No one is going to be mad if you retry a line. :) Love your videos too, btw!
"... Was the idea of a planet where massive storms can tear apart cities..." Yeah it's called Oklahoma. Come by and visit some time but keep your radio on. And if the sky turns green it's about to get mean.
I am so glad I found this channel! I'm learning a ton about world building (always been my weakest point) and I love how informative and entertaining your vids are, thanks for putting in so much work, you're doing awesome!
How do you feel about Naomi Novik's "Novels of Temeraire" books? That features dragons during the Napoleonic Wars. I enjoy those book, especially #5, but I do have some problems with the "dragon magic" (they aren't 'technically' magic, but there are contrivances to necessitate how dragons grow & women in the period's military). My question primarily concerns whether world-building contrivances are allowable if the characters are engaging?
I was hoping Croatians shouting Deus Vult from one side and the Ottomans Allahu Akbar but NOPE. Both decide to raise middle finger going vacation on the books lol. It was a missed opportunity if the worldbuilding was better.
Dude. I am myself an economist. And it is a breath of fresh air that someone looks at the worldbuilding strictly from the financial and economic background.
"People usually don't fight for vauge notion of freedom" - */ Poles whistling in the background /* Well, we apparently didn't get a note, cause I cannot think of a rebellion of Polish that wasn't for that reasons. Solidarność protests weren't really rebellion and second closest is the Pagan Rebellion, but even that was a fight for freedom to religion.
People will always fight because they don't have something and they want it. Fighting for freedom of religion only exists when someone wasn't allowed to worship his/her own faith as dictated by their faith due to some legal/political shenanigans. Wars of independence happened because the people who are rebelling (often entire ethnic groups) felt that they have no say in governing their own lands.
You want bad world building? Do "The Dinosaur Lords" and its sequels. Not only is it pretty damn poorly written, but, good lord, is it dumb... It's an alien planet! Or, its the far past... Maybe? An alternate reality? A technologically regressed post-apocalypse? Who the Hell knows! Point is, there are knights riding dinosaurs. The world is literally just early Renaissance / late Medieval Europe. There's an HRE, there's a Church and a Pope. Even the geography, countries, cultures, and languages are all more or less the same. The only real difference is that the climate is a bit warmer and wetter, and all the country names are swapped out for non-English equivalents (i.e. 'Alemania' instead of 'Germany'). Oh! And their Christianity is some weird "bizarro world" version of the religion. It lauds male homosexuality as a virtue, and it promotes hedonism, polyamory, and promiscuity. Abstinence and self-denial are thought to basically be heresy. Of course, how in the Hell this would work in a medieval society lacking effective birth control or reliable means of disease prevention, without everyone being neck-deep in bastard children and population crippling syphillis, is completely beyond me. Though... I guess that ultimately doesn't matter, given that, even though we're explicitly told that the prudes are fringe heretics, basically every overtly religious person we see is associated with them anyway, and super stoked about punishing sinners (gotta keep the stereotype alive, I suppose, internal consistency be damned). It's also fairly hilarious that, for all the lip service the author pays to his "woke" views on homosexuality (there's a whole order of world famous gay / bi-sexual knights who supposedly do nothing but go on epic quests and bone one another), he clearly finds the actual act to be far too "icky" for him to actually show any gay sex scenes. There are, however, several extremely graphic hetero sex scenes... Involving the leader of the gay knights, no less. His male lover was (very conveniently) killed off screen, you see... Almost literally right before the story starts. He fell overboard and got eaten by a Moasaur while on a sea voyage to the story's opening scene! But, yeah... Definitely think this series might be worth a look if you've got some time!
@@luizfelipevbf5567 Lol. 'Fraid not. The author is Victor Milan. There are at least two books in the series I'm aware of, though I only had the stomach for the first. Its basically a shameless GoT knock-off, with dinos tossed in as a gimmick, as imagined by someone with the writing abilities, sensibilities, and maturity of a slightly above average wannabe edgy teenage slash-fic author.
New to your channel and really like it. Have you read anything from L.E. Modesitt jr? I really like his books and would like your opinion on the worldbuilding and all of that. I mainly read the recluce series books, and some of the Imager books; it's pretty hard finding his books here in sweden.
@@IamMeHere2See I would say so, as i have read every book out so far, of the recluce series. But then i am a big fanboy of him, and wouldnt say anything bad about his books for my life. I'll just say that if you aren't sure, and don't mind jumping in the intended order, you should read magi'i of cyador or the white order. I personally think those are the best in the series.
What kind of genre does he write? I frequently see his books at my local coles bookstore. The art covers are great and that intrigues me. But what is his writing about?
@@DoReMi123acb well, fantasy and sci-fi. I haven't read much of his sci-fi, but i found solar express to be enjoyable. His fantasy, at least in the recluce and imager series, isn't the kind of "tolkien" fantasy, with elfs, and dwarves and grand adventures where they set out to save the world. A way of describing it is him telling the story of characters that inhabit the world. Often characters that bring large changes to the world. I guess you'd also call it low fantasy, but just on the verge of being low fantasy. Im not very good with the terms describing what genre it is.
"human history would not have been anywhere close to what it was IRL if people could use magic and there were monsters running around" is what I think about any premise that involves retroactively adding magic to the real world.
Just had this video recommended to me and I thought it was pretty cool but I subscribed the moment you praised the stormlight archive, you’re obviously a man of good tastes
I love your videos. I'd really really really enjoy watching you review a Court of Thorns and Roses. Half hate it half love it so it would be interesting :D
i'm starting to do my own world building, i know you've done about armys but is there any other advice you give to avoid mistakes like these, (aside from the obvious)
Story world has some good videos of this guy doesn’t cover them. I suggest taking your time with it. A lot of factors come into play in how things are the way they are
A very well-made video. I was wondering how often you read and for how long? I started reading again recently after many years but everyone else seems to be burning through books.
Since you did the look at the Southern Victory series, any chance you would look at the world building of Taylor Anderson's Destoryerman series? Or another alternate history series?
Man now I have to go back to the drawing board, again! I mean I would call my story an alternate history story but I feel that it falls into the same trap as BRR. I wonder just how I could pull this off?
This sounds incredibly similar to The Licanius Trilogy, it may actually be copied directly. The plot and timeline basically matches extremely well, however The Licanius Trilogy is ACTUALLY a fantasy world. I just started reading A Shadow of What Was Lost, (first book in Licanius) and the Earthsea books. You should give them a peek if you haven't.
Have you ever read the Tamuli series? It has a prequel I'm yet to finish also but I started by picking up Domes of Fire and continued from there, realising after opening book two that the stuff they were referencing actually had a series I could read >_
An idea to help the worldbuilding aspect of the novel: Make it so that magic wasn't discovered (or was suddenly unleashed, or etc. etc.) in that instant or just a few years ago. The pre-modern military-industrial complex and imperialism of the old world clashing with the new world of magic that has just been discovered. All the tensions caused by colonialism and industrialization brought to a boiling point in an instant.
I found your channel recently and it's helping me a lot as an amateur writer with my worldbuilding, especially with avoiding mistakes lol. I was wondering if you'd read the Cycle of Arawn by Edward W Robertson? It's one of my favorite ongoing fantasy series which has flown under the radar for years. Basically it's chronicling this kid's rise from farmboy nobody to great sorcerer and political leader, and he falls more under the anti-hero category than a typical heroic protagonist, and the world expands with each book. I'd love to see a video from you one day talking about the worldbuilding and the magic system (which is fairly unique).
You seem to have an extense knowledge of history, James (or at least that's what it seems to me, I never liked history in school tbh), I wonder what would you think of the Wild Card series edited by George R. R. Martin.
The Charlemagne thing has been bugging me. I am wondering if the author of this book knew that historians think Charlemagne was illiterate. This was why he pushed education. I remember learning that in my Civilizations course years ago.
I'll start my worldbuilding project, and I hope with that eventually I can start my story. Looking forward to the day you can critique (or maybe burn) it.
If you want to read an amazing magic book, read The legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron. At the end of the series you’ll be speechless on how deep and fun the series was!
I like it too... but it runs into quite a few of the same problems about points of divergence. With the added twist that, while the other continents we visit in later books have had very clear points of divergence earlier in their timeline. England and France's history and culture haven't changed at all. Including their colonialist mindset being completely undaunted by having every continent they travelled to be filled to the brim with dragons ready to bite their faces off.
@@bificommander yeah, like legit: if that african tribe with all the dragons had made themselves known im pretty sure england would have thought at least a little bit about taking the people.
Hearing about stuff like this makes me glad I spent my young-adult years reading the Redwall and Pern books. I at least remember them seeming well-thought-out....
Looking for some history buffs! I need some help! So I came up with this alternate history idea about the American Revolution fought with sword and shield rather than muskets and gunpowder. Light levels of magic exist within this world (it is not ubiquitous so much to the point that most people don't believe magic to be real). My questions would be: when did knights start to go obsolete? What could be reasons to suppress the development and discovery in the West? Any other thoughts, please lemme know! Thank you!
Knights in Europe started to fade in the 15th century and we're completely gone by the 16th, but even then they were seen more as "enforcers" for local law. The issue was as soon as gunpowder was efficient enough for mass use a knight was pointless. Their armour couldn't withstand the impact of a bullet, was fairly expensive and the training needed was more rigorous than that of a foot soldier. What needs to be remembered is that even during the medieval era knights were not exactly common place within an army, where most fighters were either mercenaries or civilians who were called to arms by the monarch, to be armed with nothing but a pitch fork and a wooden shield, with the knights being the elite who had earned the favour of the crown.
James, you said history and alternate history are uncombinable genres (9:06). Did you watch the man in the high castle? (I didnt watch it through yet though, so there might be such issues later on)
13:35 You sound for all the world like a soundbyte from Terrible Writing Advice. Which isn't a bad thing, if you haven't seen it. In any case I love this sort of breakdown analysis you do, picking apart lore instead of the technical aspects of writing in such detail isn't something I can find much of. Great work!
This talk about alternate histories or divergent histories makes me wonder what you thought of the Leviathan Trilogy by Scott Westerfield. Have you ever read that series?
Why is it that fantasy fiction that goes into extensive detail when describing their "magic-systems" scare me away from them, but I get absorbed in the ones that don't explain the magic as much and keep it fairly mysterious or ambiguous (GRRM's "A Song of Ice and Fire", Sapkowski's "The Witcher," Abercrombie's "The First Law" ect.)? The only exception to this is Rothfuss' "Kingkiller" books.
Probably because the moment magic is given rules, the author tends to break them. Magic isn't science. It's not supposed to have rules. That's why it's called magic.
Red Centurion I disagree hard there. Magic should have rules. Making it have none makes it look like a blatant Powers As The Plot Demands thing. Magic in a setting should be like physics or any other natural law. We may not fully understand everything about it, but it has rules it must abide by.
They're called soft magic systems and hard magic systems, and what you're describing is a soft magic system. They're more like the two sides of a spectrum rather than two completely separate systems, though, You can have a magic system that keeps certain aspects of it mysterious, while it has very clear and definite rules in some other aspects. All in all, it's a matter of preference, really. Personally, I prefer magic systems that are a combination of the two but lean towards the "hard magic" end of the spectrum.
@@bretginn1419 Isn't that what magic ultimately is, though? A license to do whatever the fuck you want? That's often why pseudo-science in movies or fantasy is referred to blatantly as "magic", because that's the only way to justify it outside the realms of realism.
@@hmthisisit That does make more sense. I'm a realism-type of guy, so the more something has rules, the less I have to suspend my disbelief. So I'd probably be a "hard magic" type of person as well. To be honest though, I'm not a big fan of magic. I love science because some of it seems like magic, but is grounded in reality and is actually possible. Magic is this supernatural, occult-type instrument that can't be properly defined, isn't tangible and just doesn't seem compelling. That's just my opinion, though.
I haven't read the book but from what I've heard so far (the first 9 min or so as I'm typing this) I agree with a lot of the comments I've seen - that it sounds like the author liked the idea of a modern world with magic but just couldn't be bothered to do the legwork (or brainwork I guess) of actually creating a world that could stand on its own, or this may have just been a blatant and poorly executed attempt to cash in on the lucrative YA book market. Pretty lazy/sloppy. I guess possibly it is due to the fact that its a YA book and the author and publisher just felt that their demographic of readers wouldn't notice/care -which seems awfully condescending and/or patronizing. (mind you I haven't been in that demographic for a long time but I'm pretty certain my expectations would have been a lot higher than what this author provided - given I was reading Lord of the Rings at that point)
For a similar issue, you might want to look at the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. An "alternate history" series set during the Napoleonic wars, with dragons spicing it all up. For one thing, the series has that same flaw of not caring at all how having domesticated battledragons would have changed the entirety of history. More importantly though, it leads the story to mainly go on because of deus ex machina : Napoleon has a 1000 fire-breathing dragons? Guess the two dozen British dragons will still win because... because... well because surely you can't allow the greatest general in history to invade Britain, can you?
While I like the books, I do agree. I was actually willing to go along with England and France being exactly the same + dragons, much as in that dinosaur example. Where it lost me was in the travel-catalogue books in the series, where we visit basically every other continent and find out how different they are. They all have some pretty clear (if still later-than-they-should) points of divergence. Yet the fact that every continent is full of dragons ready to mauk expansionist colonials as soon as they reach the shore, this doesn't seem to have changed the European culture. Nor has their assumption that they should be and are the masters of the world been shaken at all. (While never visited, we do get very clear hints that in the United States there has been a big change and Native Americans have peacefully integrated into even the upper levels of its society. Nice of the author to wipe her own nation's record clean.) In a way, it might actually be worse than ignoring the point of divergence problem. Having history develop implausibly similar is IMHO easier to roll with than having different places work under different alt-history rules.
Thank you so much for the well-made video. It has made realize how dumb it is to keep the same key events' dates in a magic-filled Earth. I'm working on something that takes place in the Far East at the end of XIXth century, except with a different power distribution. Assuming magic has existed since Ancient Egypt, it's not silly to assume Hastings might've never happened and the Arabs had a much harder time building an empire. Napoleon could've stopped at Poland, Italy could've united earlier (or went deeper into fragmentation), the English could have clung to some bits of the US East Coast meaning "New York" stayed British, etc.
