Markup View

Author: Aielyn

Jul 21st 2011 at 8:12:34 PM

LeftJustifiedFantasyMap is about locations of oceans, and has nothing to do with climate or other related things. Mind you, it really should be called ''Right Justified'', since everything buts up against the right edge, with the uneven border to the left, but I won't quibble about that.

This trope, on the other hand, is about having cold to the north (or top), deserts and swamps to the south (or bottom), with a gradient of temperature, etc, between. Usually with mountain ranges somewhere in the middle, too, although that's not part of the trope. That this is most often associated with the ''northern hemisphere'' is indicative of the way that many writers think.

And it's not really a StandardFantasySetting, because you could just as easily rotate the map 180 degrees, and it would work just as well. It's not a trope about the setting, but about the ''map''. And it's distinct from the Left Justified property, and both are more than common enough to be their own tropes (especially since one can influence the story, whereas the other really doesn't, since the only effect of switching the "justification" of the map is reversing whether they turn left or right while travelling, whereas climate has a significant impact on story.