Is "We All Live In America" only for real life settings?

We All Live in America seems to be about cases where the mores and culture of the creator's home country seep its way into the setting. However, the way the description (and most examples) play out, it seems that this is restricted to places Like Reality, Unless Noted. Or something like the future or an Alternate History anchored in real life.

What about a Fantasy Counterpart Culture? While playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, I noticed that a lot of the heroic characters place value on "freedom". Freedom, as a concept, has had different meanings over the centuries and even millennia, but the story always takes it to mean political and social freedom as we understand it today. For example, the page quote on Freedom from Choice demonstrates The Hero's values on it.

So, in short, would the trope apply to a fantasy world? Especially a Fantasy Counterpart Culture?

edited 5th Jan '15 8:17:12 AM by KingZeal

I don't think it matters what the written culture is, just that there are obvious draws from the native culture of the creator. The difference might be that they're more obvious with real cultures, since we have a direct comparison there. Fantasy cultures can technically be whatever the creator wants, but if they try to emulate something (like a Fantasy Counterpart Culture), especially a medieval or other historical culture, you can notice the trope as well.

I think that's actually closer to Politically Correct History - though I'll admit I've always been skeptical about applying that trope to fantasy settings.

That trope I'm not sure I can see in fantasy, just because it's fantasy and not history.

Between the two tropes, there's certainly overlap, though.

The example does sound more like Politically Correct History.

The one I mentioned in the OP?

Even if it's a Fantasy Counterpart Culture?

Dragon Age would not be Politically Correct History no, as it is not history its fantasy and really the amount of crap that goes on in the backstory and in game is not 'Politically correct' in addition to the fact that everything is a choice, you make it your way, everyone could be dead by the end of it and under the rule of an iron fist.

edited 5th Jan '15 10:04:41 PM by Memers

It's closer to that than We All Live in America. But like I said, I'm not sure whether Politically Correct History should apply to fantasy settings. There might be room to create a third trope here.

There is a third trope - Culture Chop Suey. Only with clashing mores rather than mismatched visual trappings.

It was properly brought up earlier in this conversation that a fantasy culture by definition does not need to comply with historical mores, and so having a quasi-feudal society with Functional Magic and The Fair Folk value personal freedom and intellectual creativity cannot be "wrong", because it's already divergent from real life in enough ways to make the comparison meaningless.

In fact, due to Like Reality, Unless Noted applying in the audience's mind to their own time and culture, not past times and cultures, accurate representations of personal rights (or lack thereof) in fantasy-medieval works often run afoul of Values Dissonance and turn off viewers.

After all, would you necessarily enjoy Lord of the Rings if it portrayed arranged marriages between young girls and older men, with implied (or shown) marital rape, and made it clear that the characters found that not only normal but acceptable?

edited 6th Jan '15 8:34:04 AM by Fighteer

You could even argue that applying our history to medieval fantasy is a form of We All Live in America itself as it applies the mores of our history to that of a completely different world.

America is not the only country where personal liberty and intellectual inquiry are valued, you know. Some might argue that we value them less than others, for varying definitions of those terms.

edited 6th Jan '15 10:06:00 AM by Fighteer

But that's kind of the problem. The Fantasy Counterpart Culture in Dragon Age possesses elements of feudalism, lordship, fealty, and piety. But Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil still persists, and there's an entire country which everyone hates because it practices indentured servitude, and another culture uses a very rigid caste system and harshly punishes Thought Crime.

While admittedly, there's no reason that these cultures needed to develop their mores the same way that the real world did, it's anachronistic to say the least. I guess Duck may have the right trope for this, after all.

What, precisely, is it a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of? It has to be specific, not a vague mishmash of medieval stereotypes.

I'm not certain that the concept that you are reaching for is actually a trope.

edited 6th Jan '15 10:26:02 AM by Fighteer

It depends. Most of them are somewhere between Dark Age and Late Middle Age Europe.

• Ferelden is a counterpart of England.
• Orlais is a counterpart of France.
• Antiva is a counterpart of Spain.
• Nevarra is a counterpart of Prussia.
• The Anderfels are a counterpart of Scandanavia.
• The Tevinter Imperium are a counterpart of Byzantium.
• The Qunari are a mesh of Middle East and Far East Asia.

EDIT: According to Wikipedia, while slavery seemed to be out of style in the Middle Ages, the distinction between serfdom and slavery is a modern invention. There wasn't really a hard and fast line that people were afraid or offended to cross back in those days. Slaves weren't subhumans without rights the way we think of, and serfs weren't free persons with inherent liberties.

In short, it wouldn't be something that was constantly thought about or fought over like in the Dragon Age series.

edited 6th Jan '15 11:21:32 AM by KingZeal

I still say that this should be YKTTWed as a new trope related to Politically Correct History, as I share the feeling that applying it to something that isn't actual history is kind of questionable.

At best, this is more of an audience reaction than a trope. What would it contain examples of, exactly — every time a fantasy story diverges from some arbitrary standard of historically accurate morality?

The kind of freedom I've heard (not actually played Dragon Age, but heard a bunch) they're striving for is a very typical American kind. Saying that's politically correct sometimes comes off as Values Dissonance and We All Live in America just by itself to people who don't share those American values, or have different priorities. It's not about erasing what's politically incorrect, but about projecting the American culture into the game because that's what everyone should think is the best ideal.

As Fighteer said, I think it's highly questionable to say that America is the only country to value individual political freedom, or even to put a special emphasis on it. We All Live in America is more for specific national customs, and again I don't think it's meant to apply to non-modern day settings (we already have United Space of America, for instance).

Right. If the game in question had characters riding around on horses wearing cowboy hats and swinging lassos, then it would be fair to say that someone got a dose of American culture in there. But the concept of individual freedom and self-worth is broadly Western in nature, having started long before anyone from Europe settled the New World.

edited 6th Jan '15 11:58:59 AM by Fighteer

I will say, though, that I don't think this is an audience reaction. The decision to create a setting more appealing to and in line with the sensibilities of the intended modern audience than a completely authentically historical one would have been, is usually a deliberate worldbuilding choice by creators. That makes it tropable.

edited 6th Jan '15 12:22:21 PM by nrjxll

I suppose it's not as obvious if you live in America.

I didn't find Dragon Age: Inquisition's mores to be particularily American. They're certainly modern "Western", but not American. Bioware is from Canada after all.

For the record, beyond the trope name, I never said that the mores of the game are "American". I said they're modern. (And, yes, very much "Western".)

But yes, the fact that this is some kind of weird combination of Politically Correct History, Culture Chop Suey, and Creator Provincialism made it difficult for me to figure out which trope it fell under. We All Live in America seemed to be the most accurate, but I brought it here because even that was questionable.

edited 8th Jan '15 9:22:29 AM by KingZeal

It's just because we were arguing about Americans and their understanding of freedom when the games not even from the US.

If Culture Chop Suey involves your own culture as one of the ingredients, is it also We All Live in America? Even if it is intentional? I mean it's one thing to just assume something is the same as in your own culture but it's another thing if you conciously include it.