History Main / DeliberateValuesDissonance

*** [[Discworld/SmallGods There's good eating on one of those.]] As [[{{QI}} Stephen Fry]] is [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wapX3uz-dtI only too happy to tell you.]]
*** Take note, however that on several occasions in the novels, Stephen[[hottip:* :Stephen Maturin, not Stephen Fry.]], ardent naturalist that he is, rebukes the men for going overboard in killing huge numbers of animals and birds.

* In the ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' series, Anamaria's gender makes Gibbs wary of bringing her on the ship, but there were a few female pirates, like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bonny Anne Bonny]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Read Mary Read]]. While no one blinks at the fact that she's black, many pirates were in fact either free blacks or escaped slaves. The...intentions of most pirates towards women is not downplayed either, leading to a few rather uncomfortable scenes.

* Timeline, despite its poor reception, has one of the most accurate depictions of medievel values in modern fiction, moreso in the book. It's rather well summed up in the scene where the main party is escaping and the Scotsman (though Dutch in the novel), standing a few feet from the guard, with an arrow pointed at his chest and says something to the effect of "Stay quiet if you value your life." The guard picks up his sword and yells "Traitors!" Before promptly being shot in the chest.

*** Of course, the Moral Guardians were also a bit put-out by the fact that the main character finds "love and happiness" in a romance with another man. Which may have been all well and good in Ancient Greece, but apparently not so much so in 1972 America.
* In ''How Few Remain'', an alternative history novel based on the premise of the South winning the American civil war, the word "nigger" is tossed about casually.

* ''Snow Flower and the Secret Fan'' is a historical fiction story set in 19th century China, and features the main female character making remarks about how she (and her daughters) are worthless to her family and going through foot-binding to improve their lives. The author has [[ShownTheirWork Shown Her Work]] by going to China and talking to real women who went through foot-binding, and the deliberate value dissonance is commonly viewed as the best part of the book. At least one book on the role of feet and shoes in sexuality, in its extensive discussion of footbinding, reveals that, for many centuries, footbinding was actively sought out by '''every single Chinese family that could afford the procedure''' because small, dainty feet were considered ''the'' foremost mark of beauty and sexual attractiveness in classical Chinese culture, so girls as young as 5 were sent through it at the risk of infection and even death. Footbinding was universally viewed in classical Chinese culture as ''improving'' the shape of the foot to give it beauty and sexual allure. Class issues also enter into the question; bound feet were associated with wealth in general and the upper classes, and unbound feet were considered uncouth and a mark of a woman's peasant status, and several references are made in the book to how "big footed girls" are looked down upon and relegated to servant status.

** One other nominee for best from the newspaper is the story about the kidnapping of [[spoiler: Bonnie MacFarlane]]. The writer dismisses the idea it was for "personal" reasons as she's an old spinster clearly too ancient to marry or have children. She's 29.

* Frank Miller did this with ''[[ThreeHundred 300]]'' by making the Spartans homophobes. But unlike other examples of this trope, it's a product of DidNotDoTheResearch. Homosexual relationships between men and adolescent boys were common in Sparta, as pointed out by AlanMoore.
** Leading many to question if the dissonance was actually deliberate.

** It is casually mentioned that two servants who could be seen as ruinous to a spy operation are to be killed; the person it is mentioned to is not worried in the least.
** This sounds more like [[LeaveNoWitnesses standard literary spycraft]] rather than any type of values dissonance. A Bond villain (or even [[RealLife the real KGB or CIA]]) would do the same thing.
** During said spy operation, the spy is married to a native German woman and has twins, and when he leaves, it is likely they will be killed by the others of the tribe. He saves them out of sentiment, not morality.
*** Later, when Caesar encounters one of the (grown) twins, now a powerful German tribesman, the German casually remarks that he has many daughters, "the prettiest ones, the ones I let live."
**** Which may be historically inaccurate. Tacitus wrote that infanticide, even of daughters, was a capital offence among the Germans.

* The Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe writes historical novels about the Igbo people, and doesn't fail to include disturbing cultural practices like abandoning newborn twins in the forest to die, a certain caste being forbidden to live with the rest of the people or one protagonist killing his adopted son due to an inscrutable oracular order. The point is that while many aspects of Igbo culture were good and their loss a tragedy, the novels ''also'' make it clear why so many Igbo were willing to trade that in for the colonial Anglo-Christian culture, which is also portrayed as neither wholly good or bad.

** Also in ''Guns of the South,'' in which time-traveling South Africans are even more racist than the Confederate soldiers who have been living alongside black servants for years.

* In [[GeorgeRRMartin George R.R. Martin]]'s ''{{A Song of Ice and Fire}}'', marriage of girls barely out of prepubescence to men twice their age is considered perfectly normal, to reflect the ''perceived'' values of RealLife medieval times. In reality, marriages were not consumated quite so early.
** The series does this quite a bit. For one thing, trial by combat (where each side is represented by a champion in a fight to the death, with the victor "obviously" right in the eyes of the gods) is quite popular.

*** Take note, however that on several occasions in the novels, Stephen, ardent naturalist that he is, rebukes the men for going overboard in killing huge numbers of animals and birds.

*** This is a reference to the belief of many historians that Caesar and Octavian did have such a relationship. It's referenced in NeilGaiman's ''{{Sandman}}'' where Octavian allows Caesar to repeatedly rape him in return of power and prestige, that eventually allowed him to become the Emperor Augustus.
**** Can one "allow" themselves to be raped? Sure the two are mutually exclusive?

* Timeline, despite its poor reception, has one of the most accurate depictions of medievel values in modern fiction, moreso in the book. It's rather well summed up in the scene where the main party is escaping and the Scotsman (though Dutch in the novel), standing a few feet from the guard, with an arrow pointed at his chest and says something to the effect of "Stay quiet if you value your life."
The guard picks up his sword and yells "Traitors!" Before promptly being shot in the chest.

* Quite sympathetic protagonist Lawrence in ''SpiceAndWolf'' considers slavery a necessary and productive trade. Meanwhile his companion, Horo, who is a wolf in human form, sees nothing wrong with killing and eating humans if the situation demands it, but refrains from such actions during the series in order to not {{Squick}} Lawrence too much. A great deal of the show's entertainment consists of the two judging each other by their own set of values, and especially in Lawrence's case coming to wrong conclusions because of it.

* Beautifully played with in a ''NonSequitur'' strip. A customer at Flo's diner was talking about all the wonderful things about TheFifties and how America going back to that time and those values would be better for everyone, and Flo replies that she agrees and will turn the diner retro, "starting with this vintage sign..." She writes something down and shows it to him, but with her back to the camera, all we see is his horrified reaction. In the next panel, we see what the sign says: "WHITES ONLY." The man concedes, "Well, maybe not better for ''everyone.''" A CrowningMomentofAwesome for Flo.

** Women (whores in particular) get it pretty bad as well, basically seen as servants/fuck machines even Trixie explains to Sol that "All a whore knows is her pimp" as to why she can't just leave Al behind, and Cy Tolliver treats his whores (even Joanie, who he may love) as his property.

* The ''Twisted Toyfare Theater'' strip featuring the thawed out [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] Spider-Man took this trope to town, highlighting the fact that Golden Age Spidey's values and priorities are incredibly screwed up; As the normal Spider-Man says, "He guns downs bank robbers and ''punches'' dictators!" Also, the first thing he says after being unfrozen is "What the-?! There used to be a ''foreigner'' at the end of this fist."

* ''DoctorQuinnMedicineWoman'' featuring a female doctor/adoptive mom coming to work in a frontier town, without PoliticallyCorrectHistory coming into play. "Dr. Mike" and her children were exceptionally enlightened, as might be expected, but most plots derived from the ignorance of the townsfolk over natives, Jewish immigrants, reconstruction, Darwinian evolution, or (most commonly) single mothers as doctors.

* ''AmericanDreams'' being set in the early sixties plays with this trope extensively. While it contains a certain amount of [[NostalgiaAintLikeItUsedToBe nostalgia]] there were pains taken to give characters realistic attitudes in regards to things like race, sexuality and war. There was also a fair amount of care taken to avoid Strawmen (althought there were some arguable examples) and people's attitudes and actions were often conflicting. Pete Pryror was shown to be casually racist in his dealings as a cop but also seemed to genuinely respect Henry, his brother's BlackBestFriend . Jack Pryror might have somewhat archaic views on women but allows his wife to work and offers to help his daughter attend college despite his initial misgivings. Even borderline MartyStu JJ objects to his his sister's budding inter-racial relationship. Some critics (especially since ''MadMen'' has come along) have said it could have hit this trope harder but many others feel that not having a specific political viewpoint gave the show a more expansive perspective on the period.

* AmericanDreams being set in the early sixties plays with this trope extensively. While it contains a certain amount of [[NostalgiaAintLikeItUsedToBe nostalgia]] there were pains taken to give characters realistic attitudes in regards to things like race, sexuality and war. There was also a fair amount of care taken to avoid Strawmen (althought there were some arguable examples) and people attitudes and actions were often conflicting. Pete Pryror was shown to be casually racist in his dealings as a cop but also seemed to genuinely respect Henry his brothers BlackBestFriend . Jack Pryror might have somewhat archaic views on women but allows his wife to work and offers to help his daughter attend college despite his initial misgivings. Even borderline MartyStu JJ objects to his his sisters budding inter-racial relationship. Some critics (especially since Mad Men has come along) have said it could have hit this trope harder but many others feel that not having a specific political viewpoint gave the show a more expansive perspective on the period.