The Historical Record and Its Impact on WritingThread

I mean, the Showa Emperor is basically the equivalent of a saint now, so that’s hardly a major obstacle.

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The Catholic Church is concerned with its optics considering what happened in Peru, the incident with Canada (namely those horrible schools they ran), and the affairs in Ireland. Declaring an Austrian Emperor a Saint is something that the Holy Father isn’t in the mood for. Especially since they didn’t need to crown them after Charles V.

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Allow me to touch on this for a moment, because I feel I’m partly to blame for derailment and so you can have a bit of fun. I believe a lot of the medicine was alchemical/herbal in nature? You could say ‘witches/hags’ brewed them in little huts out in the middle of nowhere. I jest here with the last part, by the way, about witches/huts. I do imagine that some people were wary of medicine though. (I imagine some of it was related to blood as well. Even though it’s not from the medieval times, ‘bleed me, damn you!’ springs to mind from Sharpe.)

Anyway, I never really explored it much myself, but alchemy was present in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. You had the mortar and prestle and everything, having to follow various recipes.

I also want to take the time to say I’m looking into these now, finally, and to say thanks again for sharing them. I think Boudica has also been mentioned. Lagertha, I think (as I noticed she was mentioned in one of your links), is fictional, no? Though I’m sure women like her did exist. I did think about Queen of Sheba myself, but from what I could find out, it doesn’t seem like she partook in combat. I could have just skimmed over it though.

I think this is an interesting argument/discussion. I admit I don’t know much about certain figures and while I’d like to say more on it, it’s probably best I don’t as I am not that informed and it’s a touchy subject, though I do feel confident in saying that when we start tearing historical things down, it can be a rather slippery slope leaving the road open for rewriting history instead of using history to help prevent future mistakes although it is not always successful in that. Robert E. Lee, though, I have always thought that while he fought for the south, he didn’t necessarily condone slavery or at least he didn’t take it as far as others did. I am fully aware I could be totally wrong, however. One thing I do know is that on a quick search, it seemed he wasn’t actually as good a general as he may have been made out to be, in one key area. He was great in winning battles, but poor when it came to planning excursions into Union territory. So basically, logistics etc. Is this correct? Afterall, I believe the turning point was when he invaded the north.

It’s quite possibly not the most reliable source, but in Total War: Atilla, the Geats do fall under the Norsemen culture group with the Danes and the Jutes.That culture pack itself being sold as The Viking Forefathers.

Indeed. Different beliefs, customs and way of life.

So here, partly with you saying there’s not much information regarding it, I’d add that it’s likely that there were quite a few orgies in those days? A lot obviously involving women, along with men. I’m mostly getting this from the Spartacus tv show, which I know shouldn’t be held up as the pinnacle of historical accuracy, but the whole time period seems like a kind of . . . decadent time, where modern concepts of morality and such were in short supply if I make sense. So, I can see there being plenty of that going on in the houses of the rich and such. And outside of the orgies, I imagine this must translate into female - female relationships outside of that as well even if they weren’t recognised.

In total agreement, and nothing to apologise for. It was a good post, which I’d like to say thanks for.

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You can say that, you can absolutely say anything you like—the problem is when you claim that.

There are few, if any, unbiased or unembellished sources regarding the private goings-on of Roman citizens or the elite.

Caligula, for example, is known as possible the most tyrannical and decadent of Roman emperors, yet we only have two very biased sources to go by. All other primary sources have been lost, and we only know they even existed because they were partly referenced in other works.

Thus, because they’re so few sources to begin with, any writer would be largely fabricating the entirety of whatever scenes that happen behind closed doors.

Please do remember that Christianity characterizes pagan societies as decadent chaotic times, especially in comparison to Christian societies, which are often upheld as pinnacles of morality and temperance. This would include Christian Rome demonizing Pagan Rome.
It’s just how Christianity rolls.

As a result, the modern idea of decadent Rome is as an amalgam of truth and rumors, and it’s difficult to unravel which is which.

The way I usually try to understand things is by thinking that things are probably no less weird or crazy than they already are. If James Cameron did unnatural acts upon a pig’s corpse, then I don’t see why a hella drunk Roman senator wouldn’t do that either.
My rule of thumb is: if it happened now, it’s probably happened before.

So…in a sense, yes, I do believe that you’re correct @DavidGil, there was probably scores and scores or orgies in Rome that we’ll never really know about, but not because Rome was more decadent or morally bankrupt than we are now (as I’m pretty sure there’s scores and scores of orgies happening right this moment within a hundred mile radius around either of us).
No, I agree with your assumption because humans have been making alcoholic drinks since at least the Stone Age, so we’ve probably been getting up to the same damn Roman shenanigans for millennia before they even existed, and will continue to do so long after Rome has fallen. :wink:

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Absolutely, there’s a difference between three things and I say this generally, because I know that you’re well aware of this:

  1. Opinions. They are simply that, opinions.

  2. Saying I believe something to be a fact. The believe part is important because, if I say a certain area is bad, then you can turn around and say it’s not a fact, because I have nothing to back it up other than my word. Until you actually experience the area to be bad yourself, you will consider it to be an opinion. And that is without getting into the whole can of worms that ‘bad is subjective’. So, until a fact can be verified by multiple sources, so that it is more or less universally accepted, it will always be in the realms of ‘subjective belief’. (I’ve probably gone a bit off the deep end here)

  3. Facts. Unequivocally true, verified.

I feel this needed to be said because I feel we live in an age where opinions are often miscontrued as fact. And it’s one of the leading causes behind arguments online, I think, where we get into arguments over pretty much nothing.

Absolutely. Though this is also why I said ‘where modern concepts of morality and such were in short supply if I make sense’. I meant in comparison to what we view as non-decadent times.

Ironically, I’d say the opposite is true as well at times with regard to Christianity.

I don’t doubt it. I discovered something rather sickening to me the other day. Not related to orgies, but yeah.

PS: Apologies if I haven’t written this post very well. I keep getting disturbed, as we’re packing for a brief vacation.

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Oh, goodness! I’m honored that you would take the time out of packing to reply to me. :blush:

Honestly, I think we’ve sufficiently discussed our particular bit of topic, so if it’s alright with you, I’d like to end this discussion here.

After all, you seem to have a vacation waiting for you! I hope you have a fun and relaxing time. :grin:

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Sure thing. And it’s alright. I actually prefer this discussion to packing. Just I can’t concentrate due to the interruptions, making sure the post is perfect. It’s on Friday and I’m pretty much just going to be the helper anyway.

Many of the statues in question are being moved to museums, instead of being on public display. And of course, you have to think not only of the original intent of the statues (which was, in most cases, a glorification of the last gasps of an era when "you-know-who knew their place), as well as the fact that erecting a public statue has a very different meaning from say, comissioning a painting.

Unfortunately, you are wrong in that regard. Robert E Lee was one of the early deserters of the US military, was a slave owner himself, and was staunchly committed to upholding the ideals of the Confederacy (those ideals basically boiling down to “keep slavery around” and “satisfy Jefferson Davis’s ego”). The idea that he was a reluctant hero who fought for “Southern honor” was part of the rhetoric pushed by Reconstruction-era Lost Causers (who also painted the war as a Lost Cause when it was considered a Sure Thing at the time, and also painted it as a war of Northern aggression when it was the Confederacy that fired the first shot). And even in the context of him being an important general in an historically important conflict, there are hundreds of statues of him. Likewise, it’s not just him, although he makes up the largest percentage of Confederate statues. Confederate Commander-In-Chief and cronyistic incompetent Jefferson Davis has a few dozen knocking around, and there are a few commemorations to Stonewall Jackson (including the road I live on).

Also, your assessment of Lee is broadly correct in terms of prowess: he was good at defense, but very quickly mucked up offenses he was caught in. The Confederate army in general was poor when it came to offensive planning, along with the other disadvantages it faced like poor logistics and being outnumbered 2 to 1. The fact that they were willing to fire the first shots at Fort Sumter is a testament to how much they were aware of their strengths and weaknesses.

Creative Assembly isn’t exactly sterling when it comes to historical accuracy. “Viking” is basically a catch-all term for all the Norse nations that used the term “vikingr” to refer to the act of raiding. If I recall, the Jutes have a different linguistic root for the word, and therefore are technically not Vikings in spite of being Norse raiders.

It’s a very strange distinction to be sure.

Also, enjoy your vacation!

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Hey, for my story i’m writing about a character who’s ancestry has been living in this small canadian town for around 200 years.The problem is that in the early 1800s there were only 3 groups of pocs that I could find in Canada at the time, chinese canadians, african canadians, and aboriginal canadians. So basically not a lot. So I just wanted to ask how do other people balance writing about history while still being inclusive?

You also had the French-Canadians(Creole in America) , Métis, the actual Half-breeds, and a few other groups. … Remember some European emigrants (Irish, Southern European, etc) were seen in the same vein as poc …

In my historical fiction project, the available backgrounds I have: Irish, German and Half-breed (accepted by none, excluded by all) and I have major NPC characters which will be AmerIndian, American Black, Mormon, and others.

My point in writing all of this is: there are ways to accomplish your goals; you just have to dig a little bit more to find them at times.

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On one hand you can focus on the details and the specific groups you know were there – I think 1917 would be an example of this through the character of Sepoy Jondalar, whose presence shows the contributions of the Sikh soldiers during WWI.

On the other hand, you could focus on the overall record even if it makes some of the details inexact – something like @AllenGies’s WW2 Armored Warfare, as there were famous female tank drivers during WWII. It’s just in history, it was in Russia, but in the game, it’s in Britain and America too.

I think it just depends on what you want to focus on.

I was curious so I started looking this up – if you do decide to focus on the overall, perhaps you can use Jose Maria Heredia (a Cuban poet) and the other romantics of that time as inspiration. Apparently they visited Niagara Falls, and it would be in character for some of them to head into Canada for the nature. :smile:

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Oh yeah thank you for the advice, I was thinking about doing the overall record thing. My thing kind of was like as long as as one person of that race or group was in Canada at that time then it could be possible that some of them could have moved to the specific area of my story. I.e. some of the the Chinese artisans in 1788 in British Columbia could have decided to move to Ontario. Also thank you for the info about Jose, I didn’t know that. I was also thinking that you could be mixed? Like after choosing where part of you comes from you, you have the choice to choose somewhere else your family originates from, because nowadays in Canada no one is really only one ethnicity.

This is a widely accepted but also wildly incorrect view.

[My credentials: lots of research on the second half of the 1800s for the last nine years.]

“History” is not as accurate and unbiased as we’d hope, and there is a startling amount that is not at all what we expect (based on our ‘knowledge’ of history). A lot of actual history is even the opposite of what we think. It is, after all, written by the “winners”, who are often straight white men (who, bless 'em, are often oblivious to the existence of anyone who isn’t just like them. That’s a big symptom of privilege).

(There was a Doctor Who ep that was problematic in some ways but also had a fun moment of a female character telling a flirting male she doesn’t swing straight and all the other ancient Romans thought she was a little odd for ‘only’ liking one gender… because their social construct was that almost everyone is bi.)

Here in Australia a book called “Dark Emu, Black Seeds” is dramatically changing the mainstream view of history, because historian Bruce Pascoe had the bright idea of looking at primary sources and paying attention to WHAT THEY ACTUALLY SAW rather than their conclusions, like so:

White explorer: “Ah, isn’t nature amazing! What a beautiful and functional area this is! It is almost as if it was created on purpose… but of course it’s all just nature and her mysterious beauty.” [I’m paraphrasing; read the book]

Rather than taking this as proof that explorers were brilliant, you can clearly see that they are describing the careful work of generations of Aboriginal people… not nature.

So the ‘traditional’ view of Aboriginal peoples as hunter-gatherers and most definitely NOT farmers (which was important for legal/racist reasons, since farming = civilisation)… is wrong. Aboriginal people baked bread (before the Egyptians), built houses, made clothes, lived in caves, and—yes, farmed the land (although in a manner suited to Australia eg. no fences, because kangaroos jump fences… so instead they semi-cleared forests, so there was a whole lot of delicious young grass to lure kangaroos, while still having convenient patches of trees from which to shoot them).

The same biases towards real history play out when it comes to both gender and sexuality. Yes, men have often controlled women and limited their freedom horribly. Yes, LGBTIQA+ folk have often suffered horribly, throughout history… but no matter the historical period, there are active women doing interesting things, and there is every kind of LGBTIQA+ person (although an Ace person might be described as “a confirmed bachelor”, lesbians might be described as “close friends who lived together and chose not to marry” and so on). It tends to take some digging, but even if only a few minority members manage to survive and thrive, there are always women around (even in war; cross-dressing is always possible if there are no other avenues), and there are always LGBTIQA+ people (and there are always friends of LGBTIQA+ people, too—your NPCs don’t HAVE to be horrid towards them just because most of society is awful at the time; there’s always a decent number of people who think for themselves).

I’ve personally found it extremely difficult to find any historical pictures of Aboriginal women that aren’t topless (sigh). But here are some cool historical pics of women of colour that are real and NOT tragic at all (both came up in my facebook feed in the last week):

Steampunk Interactive Fiction (that’s one of my fb pages but I pinned the relevant images to the top of the page).

tl;dr History is a lot more inclusive than we think. “Not historically accurate” is a kneejerk reaction to unfamiliar diversity that is often not factual, even when us liberal types think it is.

Stories with diversity are more accurate than stories without it. Diversity exists in every time period, but it is often deliberately or accidentally hidden by historians. We’re all learning, and un-learning too.

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Just to note (for those who aren’t aware) that this phrase was also very frequently used in English-speaking countries as a delicate and thus socially acceptable way to indicate that a man was gay.

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