@Cataphrak – as I’ve said elsewhere, I appreciate any fantasy setting where the author’s thought through the social details of every change from a historical base, in much the same way that I appreciate fantasy worlds whose geography shows that the author has clearly thought through plate tectonics and climate patterns. But I’d have thought they both reflect a praiseworthy but somewhat extraordinary investment in worldbuilding, not the acceptable minimum if you don’t want to be “dishonest.”
George RR Martin is much praised for his “realism”, but of course the climate of his world makes no sense – not just in terms of what causes these multi-year summers and winters (sure, magic, whatever) but the consequences. Given such an immense change, the hydrology and land cover -> agriculture -> economics -> social structure of Westeros would be highly unlikely to mirror War of the Roses England as closely as it does. And yet most readers are happy to run with it. It’s a cool idea, it has metaphorical resonance with the alternating good kings/bad kings, it’s well within our willingness to suspend disbelief given the genre.
Most “realists” are in my observation relatively happy to accept fantasy cultures that are e.g. “imagine the Aztecs with Renaissance Italy tech and a Zen-style monastic tradition” as long as it isn’t 100% handwaved and the author includes some details that show the different historical strands playing off each other in fun and interesting ways. There’s not an insistence on explaining what process of cultural evolution could possibly have brought together such diverse elements. Yet the same readers will often talk as if changes in gender roles put an aesthetic (verging on moral) obligation on the fantasy author to thoroughly describe the implications of the change and justify any social structure that stays the same. A double standard? It’s at any rate a very different standard.
I’m reading a book right now from a friend of mine who hitchhiked from London to Kuala Lumpur, through areas of the world where I’ve spent a fair amount of time. He’s very honest about his reactions to the cultures he passes through, and many of them are “This seems wildly impractical – this seems totally inconsistent – how can people believe/practice both of these things at the same time?” But of course the necessity and consistency of practices seem obvious to people within that culture, and to people who have lived there for a while. It’s renewed my ability to suspend disbelief at the combination of the familiar and the alien in a fantasy world.