[Meta #3]: Real World Countries as Equated with FE Nations and the Nature of Fantasy
(please excuse the overly long and probably pretentious title; also, excuse this entire post its daily derpery)
As promised, now that tomorrow some day is finally here, I can provide the continuation of my previous meta-post about worldbuilding and versimilitude. Today I want to talk about my personal opinion on approaching worldbuilding in FE, both from the standpoint of a writer trying to flesh out a setting and from a reader/player interpreting someone else's story. It's a pretty common practice to try to link fictional countries and cultures with an analagous body in the real world or from history, both when writing and when reading/playing. It makes sense, of course: basing a country and its superstitions on something familiar adds a level of depth and enriches the reader's understanding of whatever country it is. If writing fiction has to evoke vivid images of places and things, there's nothing better than tying it in to a real place a reader could see pictures of in actuality. And as far as culturally, from the real world one can get ideas as to how the people act, how the military is run, what drives their economy, what they eat, and what their weather might look at, etc. (a lot of which has been more eloquently meta-ed on by some of my flist).
Ultimately, however, I think there is a limit to how far you can take the real-world parallels. In some cases, sure, someone might base a fictional nation completely off one from the real world (or in fact, recreate an entire real war,) but for the most part trying to equate a fictional place with a real world one 1-for-1 just doesn't work. In my opinion (and I'm not trying to be wishy-washy here or anything; I really do think there's no one objectively "correct" interpretation) a lot of the places from FE are mixtures of various cultural elements, and some are not particularly well-developed at all.
Let me use probably one of the most common examples of direct country equating: Sacae as representing the Mongol Empire. I find this comparison unreasonable for several...reasons. First of all, there were a metric forkliftload of Eurasian nomadic peoples throughout history well-known for their horseback archery, including the Parthians, the Persians, the Turks, the Xiongnu, the Huns, and the Scythians (from which Sacae apparently derives its name, according to http://www.livius.org/sao-sd/scythians/s
cythians.html), etc. It's true that the Mongol reign was most contemporary to the medieval setting and the most well-known to most, but it was definitely not the only nomadic group.
The second reason is why it becomes very difficult to compare Sacae to...basically any society ever. If there's one thing the Mongols are known for, it's conquering a LOT of shit. At its peak their empire comprised the vast majority of Asia, and were notorious for their brutality towards anyone who didn't surrender immediately. In which they were certainly not alone, but still...I have a hard time reconciling that with the seemingly peaceable clans of Sacae (with the exception of the Jute clan, but they were supposed to be eeeevil!) who seem perfectly fine derping around the land they already have, maybe with some internecine conflict between the clans, but not waging a decade-long campaign of imperialism and conquest. (The startling lack of any sort of bellicose or expansionistic behavior by anyone other than the OBVIOUSLY EVIL DUDES is also a bit problematic for me, but since that's the bent of much fantasy fiction, I suppose I can deal.)
I think trying to definitively pin-down direct analogues for any of the other countries is similarly fruitless (for the most part). The cultures and histories of real countries cannot be ascertained in a vacuum; every nation is neccessarily defined partially by its relation to its neighbors, and their interactions--and a lot of that is war. It goes without saying that since the beginning of written human history (and likely before), war has been a constant and very often brutal inevitability. Simply by the fact that several FE worlds are astonishingly peaceful (between the 800-year peace in Magvel and the only "occasional clash between nations" in Elibe mentioned in FE6, I think I can safely say that trying to pin down analogues to any Earth society, given how different the two universes' political climates are, is very slippery (though admittedly fun :P)
But the one thing that always brings me back when I get really deep into doing research on the webs for worldbuilding purposes is this: As much as they might have been fashioned after real places...this is just fantasy. XD Magic is real, the Pegasus from Greek mythology is a common war horse used for air raids, and there are dragons. Dragons! It's okay to make stuff up! Sacae is Sacae, Lycia is Lycia, Renais is Renais, and trying to view it all through a real-world geopolitical lens sort of defeats the purpose of having a different world to begin with.
In the end, though? Hey, it's fanfiction (and this applies to original fantasy fiction as well)! The great part about building worlds is that you can do it however you want, and the great part about interpreting someone else's world is that you can read into it whatever the hell you want and screw what anyone else thinks. XD This is just my personal two cents on the matter--what I personally adhere to when I sit down to write.
Uh...sorry if any of this made no sense. My brain is still fried right now. XD
As promised, now that tomorrow some day is finally here, I can provide the continuation of my previous meta-post about worldbuilding and versimilitude. Today I want to talk about my personal opinion on approaching worldbuilding in FE, both from the standpoint of a writer trying to flesh out a setting and from a reader/player interpreting someone else's story. It's a pretty common practice to try to link fictional countries and cultures with an analagous body in the real world or from history, both when writing and when reading/playing. It makes sense, of course: basing a country and its superstitions on something familiar adds a level of depth and enriches the reader's understanding of whatever country it is. If writing fiction has to evoke vivid images of places and things, there's nothing better than tying it in to a real place a reader could see pictures of in actuality. And as far as culturally, from the real world one can get ideas as to how the people act, how the military is run, what drives their economy, what they eat, and what their weather might look at, etc. (a lot of which has been more eloquently meta-ed on by some of my flist).
Ultimately, however, I think there is a limit to how far you can take the real-world parallels. In some cases, sure, someone might base a fictional nation completely off one from the real world (or in fact, recreate an entire real war,) but for the most part trying to equate a fictional place with a real world one 1-for-1 just doesn't work. In my opinion (and I'm not trying to be wishy-washy here or anything; I really do think there's no one objectively "correct" interpretation) a lot of the places from FE are mixtures of various cultural elements, and some are not particularly well-developed at all.
Let me use probably one of the most common examples of direct country equating: Sacae as representing the Mongol Empire. I find this comparison unreasonable for several...reasons. First of all, there were a metric forkliftload of Eurasian nomadic peoples throughout history well-known for their horseback archery, including the Parthians, the Persians, the Turks, the Xiongnu, the Huns, and the Scythians (from which Sacae apparently derives its name, according to http://www.livius.org/sao-sd/scythians/s
cythians.html), etc. It's true that the Mongol reign was most contemporary to the medieval setting and the most well-known to most, but it was definitely not the only nomadic group.
The second reason is why it becomes very difficult to compare Sacae to...basically any society ever. If there's one thing the Mongols are known for, it's conquering a LOT of shit. At its peak their empire comprised the vast majority of Asia, and were notorious for their brutality towards anyone who didn't surrender immediately. In which they were certainly not alone, but still...I have a hard time reconciling that with the seemingly peaceable clans of Sacae (with the exception of the Jute clan, but they were supposed to be eeeevil!) who seem perfectly fine derping around the land they already have, maybe with some internecine conflict between the clans, but not waging a decade-long campaign of imperialism and conquest. (The startling lack of any sort of bellicose or expansionistic behavior by anyone other than the OBVIOUSLY EVIL DUDES is also a bit problematic for me, but since that's the bent of much fantasy fiction, I suppose I can deal.)
I think trying to definitively pin-down direct analogues for any of the other countries is similarly fruitless (for the most part). The cultures and histories of real countries cannot be ascertained in a vacuum; every nation is neccessarily defined partially by its relation to its neighbors, and their interactions--and a lot of that is war. It goes without saying that since the beginning of written human history (and likely before), war has been a constant and very often brutal inevitability. Simply by the fact that several FE worlds are astonishingly peaceful (between the 800-year peace in Magvel and the only "occasional clash between nations" in Elibe mentioned in FE6, I think I can safely say that trying to pin down analogues to any Earth society, given how different the two universes' political climates are, is very slippery (though admittedly fun :P)
But the one thing that always brings me back when I get really deep into doing research on the webs for worldbuilding purposes is this: As much as they might have been fashioned after real places...this is just fantasy. XD Magic is real, the Pegasus from Greek mythology is a common war horse used for air raids, and there are dragons. Dragons! It's okay to make stuff up! Sacae is Sacae, Lycia is Lycia, Renais is Renais, and trying to view it all through a real-world geopolitical lens sort of defeats the purpose of having a different world to begin with.
In the end, though? Hey, it's fanfiction (and this applies to original fantasy fiction as well)! The great part about building worlds is that you can do it however you want, and the great part about interpreting someone else's world is that you can read into it whatever the hell you want and screw what anyone else thinks. XD This is just my personal two cents on the matter--what I personally adhere to when I sit down to write.
Uh...sorry if any of this made no sense. My brain is still fried right now. XD