Line #80 AnachronismStew/Literature


1	[[AC:Myth/ArthurianLegend]]
2	* If Myth/KingArthur was a real historical figure, he lived in TheLowMiddleAges -- the 5th or 6th century. Most texts telling his story date to TheHighMiddleAges -- the 12th to 15th centuries -- and take on the trapping of their day.
3	** [[KnightInShiningArmor Plate-and-mail armor]] with big chargers didn't get to Western Europe until hundreds of years after these myths supposedly took place. This dates back to ''Literature/LeMorteDarthur''.
4	** Huge stone castles. There were no new stone fortifications built in Britain between the 6th century and the 11th century. Most of the old Roman forts were abandoned, dismantled for their stone, or repurposed. All of the great castles were built following the Norman Conquest.
5	** The Knights of the Round Table themselves. Feudalism had not yet arisen in the Roman-era Britain when the historical Arthur is believed to have lived.
6	* The majority of the anachronisms in Arthurian legend came from French poets reading the ''Literature/HistoryOfTheKingsOfBritain'' by Geoffrey of Monmouth and changing society/technology to coincide with medieval French society/technology.
7	* ''Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing'' carries this farther than most, even apart from those anachronisms introduced by [[MerlinSickness backwards-living]] Merlyn.
8	** Arthur meets [[InsistentTerminology Robin Wood]] as a child ([[BlatantLies totally different guy]]).
9	** The narrator tells the readers at the beginning that some of the anachronisms are done [[TranslationConvention just to give them the general feel for what is going on]]. For example, the first chapter tells of Sir Ector and his friend drinking Port. White explains that it's not really Port that they're drinking, but [[CallASmeerpARabbit he uses that name because readers would be familiar with it]].
10	** Actual monarchs of the 14th century are referred to as mythical figures. Which places it after the 14th century, or an alternate 14th century where Arthur and the historic monarchs swap places or something. And [[Literature/LeMorteDarthur Tom Mallory]] (1415-1471) appears on the eve of the final battle. White [[WordOfGod once said]] that if you piece all the references from the different books together, you will be forced to the conclusion that the end of Arthur's reign came centuries before its beginning.
11	* White's book was, in turn, referenced by Creator/TerryPratchett's story ''Once and Future'', where Mervin, a time traveller stuck in the past, adds to already anachronistic setting of the Arthurian mythos. He ends up re-enacting Arthurian legend.[[spoiler:.. except for that final [[GenderFlip twist]]...]]
12	* The "courtly love" mythos -- including the very existence of Sir Lancelot -- and the [[MacGuffin Grail]] legends were introduced to the Arthurian legends by remorseless {{retcon}}.
13	* The all-time champion of Arthurian anachronism was Wolfram von Eschenbach. ''Literature/{{Parzival}}'', his version of the [[MacGuffin Grail]] Quest, adds sixth century Africans who worship Jupiter and Juno while practicing high medieval courtly love.
14	* Creator/PeterDavid's ''Literature/KnightLifeSeries'' of Arthur in the modern era. Percival, who gained immortality by drinking from the Grail cup while healthy, is portrayed as a Moor.
15	* ''King Arthur Pendragon'' deserves mention for resolving the AnachronismStew of the Arthurian legends by having King Arthur's reign magically feature technology advancing at super speed from Dark Ages to high medieval, until history re-asserts itself after the Battle of Camlann.
16	* Justified and {{lampshade\|Hanging}}d in ''[[Literature/{{Nightside}} A Hard Day's Knight]]'', in which the shiny armor is worn by Arthur and his vassals was forged by armorers acting under the explicit instructions of Myth/{{Merlin}}, who'd peeked into the future to see how later generations of warriors were kitted out. This also explains ''why'' Arthur could kick ass on every other military force in 6th century Britain: his guys were more or less invulnerable to the weapons of his rivals.
17	* The same idea is used in ''Webcomic/ArthurKingOfTimeAndSpace'' baseline arc -- In one ''Webcomic/TheHeroOfThreeFaces'' [[http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/3faces/bbqi.htm strip]], Merlin specifically says it will be forgotten, just like so much Roman knowledge is forgotten in his time, and then rediscovered at around the time Arthurian myth is becoming popular, so that the public perception of Arthur's knights will always be accurate, but people are going to think it's wrong.
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19	[[AC:Other]]
20	* An in-universe example in ''Literature/AdrianMole'': Among many factual inaccuracies in his novel in ''Wilderness Years'', Adrian writes a description to be slotted in somewhere: "The fried egg spluttered in the frying pan, like an old man having a tubercular coughing fit in a 1930s National Health Service hospital." The UsefulNotes/NationalHealthService was founded in 1948.
21	* ''Literature/{{Anachronauts}}'' plays with the concept, as different variations of Earth in different technological (or magical) eras exist on the same planet.
22	* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'':
23	** The film, deliberately. The characters, environments, and vehicles seem to be early 20th century, but fax machines and reel-to-reel car tape decks and carphones seem to be 80s, and Olaf mentions a cell phone in a deleted scene. Given that Poe actually has to feel himself to check, one assumes that giant 80s-style cell phones aren't common at the time.
24	** The books keep the time period as vague as possible, easily taking place any time in the 20th century, and the only real definite is that it takes place in the past but whether it's a hundred years ago or last month, it's never certain.
25	** What with the computer in "The Austere Academy" being small and able to display a picture and may or may not be able to fake photographs, it definitely takes place sometime after the 50s, or at least at a point when computers did not fill a room.
26	** Handler has way too much fun with this. At one point a location is mentioned to have three shops. One is a computer repair shop. Another is a blacksmith shop. Have fun figuring out what time period those two establishments could coexist in.
27	** There is a story that goes when Handler was asked when the story took place, he simply answered, "The year of the rat."
28	* ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales'' has the Knight's Tale, which ostensibly takes place in Bronze Age Thebes under the reign of the legendary hero Theseus, but borrows a lot of terminology, social norms, and technology from medieval courtly-love stories. This is one of the reasons it's often assumed to be something of a parody.
29	* In ''Literature/JohannesCabalTheNecromancer'' and related works the time period is deliberately vague so as to accommodate numerous different contradictory facts-the Germanies are a thing as opposed to one German nation-but its implied World War 1 is over. Cars don't seem to be a thing, but fairly fantastic aeroships are. References to Al Capone and media of the 1960s are tossed about, but the settings largely resemble early 19th century Europe.
30	* The ''Literature/DinosaurCove'' series features 2 kids who go back in time to some point in the Cretacious, where they meet a T. Rex, Triceratops, Ankylosaurus, Quetzalcoatlus (all appeared about 68 million years ago) and Velociraptor (which went extinct 71 million years ago).
31	* ''Literature/EatersOfTheDead'' is remarkably true to real history, aside from the obviously fictional and fantastic nature of the "Eaters of the Dead", and the fact that the real ibn Fadlan never traveled all the way up north to help the [[HornyVikings Vikings]] fight Neanderthals, given that much of the book is based on a historical figure's travelogue. As a result, it's ''so much'' cooler. However, there's one minor anachronism... in the basic premise. The plot of the novel is obviously meant to be a "real life" inspiration for ''Literature/{{Beowulf}}'', a poem that most scholars think was written at least a century before ibn Fadlan lived.
32	* Also used by none other than the poet Creator/{{Homer}}. ''Literature/TheIliad'' and ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' were set in Achæe (Mycenæan-Era Greece), but contain a wild mixture of elements from the Archaic and Classical periods with a few Mycenæan leftovers thrown in for good measure. For example, boar-tooth helmets were Mycenæan, but funeral pyres belong to a later era.
33	* ''Literature/TheAeneid'' features Aeneas, fleeing the destruction of Troy, landing at Carthage... which wasn't founded until hundreds of years later. Also, it's noted that characters fight using steel weapons, despite bronze being the material of choice at the time (something Homer's works got right).
34	* The ancient Irish epic ''Literature/TheCattleRaidOfCooley'' features chariot warfare, but there is no archaeological evidence that chariots were ever used in Ireland. This suggests that the tale (or parts of it) is very old indeed, dating to the time when the Celts still lived in continental Europe.
35	** Although the description of Cuchulain's chariot as being festooned with hooks, blades and scythes on the wheels so as to rend and cut down the foe had one surprising consequence. Victorian translations of the Irish mythology were taken as fact by period historians, who assumed ''all'' Celtic chariots had scythes on the hubcaps. Thus, Boudicca acquired the courtesy detail by default, as was only fitting. In fact no chariot, at least in the British Isles, ever had scythes and the Romans never mentioned coming up against them...
36	* Chris Elliot's novel, ''The Shroud of the Thwacker'', set in the 1890s, features [[SteamPunk gas-powered cellphones]], among other things.
37	* ''Literature/OneForTheMorningGlory'', where it is {{lampshade\|Hanging}}d as well; when Sir John drinks tea, he wonders whether it is really suitable to be drinking tea, and the Duke dismisses that as a consideration only for those lands that are merely actual.
38	* Gene Wolfe's ''New Sun'' series of novels take place a ''looong'' way in the future (the techno-fantasy "post-historical" era where Stone-Age Man, the Modern Era, and the Galaxy-Spanning Imperial Era are all lumped together as the "Age of Myth"). The basic technology and society are late medieval. But at some point time travel had been commonplace, so remnants of all eras of history are common - military energy weapons right along with swords, antigravity craft and ox-drawn wagons, sabretooth tigers and starships, electricians organized like a medieval craft guild, medical men just as likely to use genetic engineering as an herbal infusion, etc. One of the appendices even points out that there are three separate levels of technology: the "smith" level (medieval), the "Urth" level (roughly 20th century plus some genetic engineering) and the "stellar" level (highly powerful artifacts that can only be obtained from extraterrestrials.) It's all justified by the fact that [[ScavengerWorld the planet has been exhausted of most resources]] and can no longer sustain a technological society or educate most of its inhabitants, but the old knowledge remains in a few places.
39	* In ''Literature/TheHouseOnTheLagoon'', protagonist Isabel is writing down her and her husband’s family history. She includes details like Buenaventura, a Spaniard immigrant to Puerto Rico, eating a hot dog and the polluted waters of the capital's bay. Quintín, her husband, points out that at the time, hot dogs would not have been available at the island and the water was not polluted yet.
40	* The ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}'' series is built on this. While at first glance it appears to be your standard medieval setting, it turns out there are working pocket watches, gunpowder (though it isn't used), and a knowledge of metallurgy and medicine that rivals our own. Turns out this was intentional: What do you think happens when the world is ruled for a thousand years by an immortal god-emperor who doesn't like change? Said god-emperor, while deliberately stagnating many technological developments, also develops the canning process (metal cans were invented in 1810) and other advancements but keeps them strictly under his own control.
41	** As well, the knowledge of metallurgy is a JustifiedTrope given that the magic used by the world's nobles is run on specifically mixed metals.
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43	* Creator/GeorgeMacDonaldFraser's ''Literature/ThePyrates'' is a colossal AnachronismStew, with seventeenth century pirates riding around in catamarans and using face cream. Fraser was a diligent researcher and knew exactly what he was doing, even lampshading it in a few places. At one point Captain Firebeard is described as being fond of singing the songs that Creator/JohnMasefield ''is going to write''.
44	* ''Literature/ThePrincessBride'' actually uses the invention of stew to clarify its chronology. Most definitely RuleOfFunny and metahumor. Creator/WilliamGoldman often states that the time he's talking about is before one thing, but after another -- often putting them in ahistorical order, as when he says it's set "before Europe and after America".
45	* ''Literature/SecretOfTheSixthMagic'' has an in-universe example (for ''another universe's'' history) -- the sorcerer Farnel is said to have lost out in competitions against other illusion-crafters, because his simulations of many famous historical events succumbed to AnachronismStew. Apparently this trope isn't just universal, it's multiversal.
46	* ''The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists'' by Gideon Defoe, is set in the 1800's and yet there are things like tap water onboard a ''pirate ship'', crazy golf, after eight mints, and Coco-Pops. It's not as a jarring as other examples though, as it's [[RuleOfFunny all played for laughs]].
47	* This is the signature style of Andrei Belyanin, whose novels are deliberately filled with anachronisms. Justified in several cases due to magical settings and/or TimeTravel. Since his books tend to be humorous in nature, the readers don't mind it in the least. The attempts of a modern-day cop at lecturing a medieval tsar on the concept of "innocent until presumed guilty" (instead of the tsar's usual OffWithHisHead approach to all suspects) and the need for a proper investigation are downright hilarious. Sometimes, though, it makes no sense, such as in ''Jack the Mad King'', where Jack is talking with a giant using modern-day street slang.
48	* This is generally averted for historical settings in ''Literature/TimeScout'', as the authors attempted to be as accurate as possible. However, the time terminal that forms the main setting is deliberately a stew, and justified, as every time gate is surrounded by a lot of shops and restaurants based on that time period's theme, and the time terminal's residents wear whatever they want and tend to wander. Connie Logan, proprietor of Clothes and Stuff, is ''walking'' AnachronismStew, wearing multiple articles of clothing from multiple periods as she tries out new designs for comfort and wear. She switches out multiple items over the course of a conversation. As for the historical destinations, the authors tried, but made a few mistakes. Not egregious.
49	* While the main setting of ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'' is a classic MedievalEuropeanFantasy, it also features doorbells, submarines, elevators especially in the fifth book.
50	* Invoked in ''Return to the Willows'', a fan-written follow-up to ''Literature/TheWindInTheWillows'', when the characters must dress in armor to disguise themselves, but in order to get everything to fit have to mix 17th and 18th century armor, which one of the characters notes normally shouldn't be done.
51	** ''Literature/TheWindInTheWillows'' itself places a medieval-style dungeon in the Edwardian setting, in an example of bedtime-story logic at its finest.
52	* The children's book ''Literature/KoziolekMatolek''. Matołek encounters brigands straight out of a fairytale, visits a medieval castle, ends up in feudal China, later travels by plane to Poland and drives a car...
53	* ''The Mummy or Ramses the Damned'' by Creator/AnneRice. It's set fifty years after Verdi wrote ''Music/{{Aida}}'', which makes it TheRoaringTwenties, but the fashions are [[VictorianLondon Victorian]], no-one mentions the UsefulNotes/FirstWorldWar, and the Egyptian Department of Antiquities (founded 1858 to ensure that Egypt got first claim on their own treasures) doesn't appear to exist.
54	* Most adaptations of ''Literature/TheGreatGatsby'', especially [[Film/TheGreatGatsby2013 the 2013 adaptation]] its and paraphernalia of depicts cars, clothing, and architecture coming from the second half of TheRoaringTwenties despite the novel itself being set in 1922. It takes this to extremes, much like in ''Film/MoulinRouge'', with clothing fit for 1927 instead of 1922, taller skyscrapers, streamlined ArtDeco themes, and HipHop. ''Especially HipHop.''
55	* ''Literature/NewArcana'': The setting is inspired by fantasy {{Role Playing Game}}s, and the characters use swords, armor, and other medieval-style equipment. Their world, however, has trains, skyscrapers, electric lights, and factories; technology seems to have been developed to about the point of the early 20th century. The characters themselves have early 21st-century attitudes and speech patterns.
56	* An in-universe version in ''Literature/TheSixtyEightRooms''. Ruthie finds a pencil in an eighteenth-century French room and a late seventeenth-century American mug with a plastic barrette inside in a sixteenth-century English room. These are shown to be clues in a mystery for her.
57	* ''Literature/SpectralShadows'' could be this, what with the Towns in Serial 11 having ideals and being modeled after things from different eras.
58	* The Literature/SpellSinger fantasy novels, while taking place take place in a DungAges Medieval Fantasy setting with wizards, dragons, fairies and anthropomorphic animals. The later books seem to imply that that world is slowly becoming one. As Jon-Tom gradually brings over our world's technology and influences (Though not beyond personal use within friends and family) such as [[spoiler: Mudge's kids who are anthropomorphic otters]] grew up watching Disney movies and Anime, and being fans of rap.
59	* The most glaring anachronism in Jane Gaskell's ''Literature/{{Atlan}}'' series is ostensible humans coexisting with a variety of animals described as dinosaurs--actual dinosaurs, flightless birds that were not contemporary with ''Homo sapiens'' (and were indigenous to a different continent than the novels' setting), and giant reptilian monsters the heroine refers to as "dragons." The scene that best underscores the series's inconsistent sense of time is the heroine comparing a ''T. rex'''s arm motions to a ''robot's'' as she watches said ''T. rex'' mate with another member of its species.
60	* There's a lot in the ''Literature/RubyRedfort'' book series by author Lauren Child. You could assume it's set in the 40's but the mentions of Ruby's snarky t-shirts don't fit, you could assume it's set in the modern day but there's no mention whatsoever of any kind of modern technology. The later books place it in 1973, but some of the characters talk like they're in a 30s film noir.
61	* ''[[Literature/HalfWorld Half World's]]'' titular purgatory is a mishmash of various eras and technologies. It's Justified in that Half World is influenced by the memories and the lives of the people who enter it.
62	* ''Literature/TheLastUnicorn'', intentionally to create a feel similar to ''Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing''; for example when a bandit expresses a hope to be immortalised in the Literature/ChildBallads, thereby simultaneously dating the story to both the medieval period, when the ballads were written and set, and the 19th century, when Francis Child started collecting them.
63	* In ''Literature/TheIronTeeth'' web serial most of the world is set in a medieval period, but the mage guilds have somewhat advanced chemistry, given that they know what nitrogen and sulphur are, and can use them to alter properties of crystals.
64	* Used for laughs in ''Literature/ToBeOrNotToBeThatIsTheAdventure'', a {{Gamebook\|s}} adaptation of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' that includes (among other things) Ophelia inventing indoor heating, Hamlet signing to Ophelia "YA SERIOUSLY WTF" and the characters occasionally discussing the sexism inherent in the time period.
65	* ''Literature/IronWinter'' shows the Northlands developing steam railways, guns, clockwork devices, etc. in the Mediaeval period, even with the Wall having support systems inside driven by steam engines, all extrapolated from the Antikythera device in real history. The geopolitical structure of Europe is completely scrambled. There is still a Carthage, and there is (less now due to the impending global disaster) routine contact with the civilisations of the New World.
66	* ''Literature/{{Graveminder}}'' has Byron enter a tunnel under the funeral home with his father, leading to a strange place where a hopeless scramble of architecture, costumery, transport and weapons exist, where whitewalled model Ts and Thunderbirds share traffic with horse-drawn vehicles, cowboys carrying openly walk about amongst girls in flappers and pinstripe-suited gangsters, and the skyline starts with colonial miners cottages and continues through castles, Gothic cathedrals and brownstones to Art Deco skyscrapers and Streamline Moderne diners. It is eventually revealed to be [[spoiler: the land of the dead, and the stew is caused by the lives of all the dead who enter.]]
67	* In ''Literature/TheSorcererOfTheWildeeps'', the story itself is set in a time reminiscent of the [[AncientRome Roman Era]] and the action itself happens in a fantasy equivalent of the African continent, where warriors use spears and swords are an exotic thing. However, the language the brothers use among themselves is flat-out modern hip-hop slang -- or modern French, in T-Jawn's case --, and not only is Demand knowledgeable in modern genetics and medicine, there's mention of existing, practical [[FasterThanLightTravel faster-than-light]] and interplanetary travel.
68	* In William Morris' utopian novel ''Literature/NewsFromNowhere '' characters dress like they are Renaissance peasants, or at least how Morris understood Renaissance peasants dressed.
69	* The ''Literature/{{Gatling}}'' novels are [[ShownTheirWork meticulous in their research]] regarding the [[GunPorn automatic weapons that are the series focus]]. However, they often use other elements from TheWildWest without regard for their historic context. For instance, in ''Outlaw Empire'', Gatling uses a Skoda machine gun; a weapon not in production till 1909. However, he is fighting the Sydney Ducks; a san Francisco gang whose power was broken in 1854.
70	* The third ''Literature/WingsOfFire'' arc centers around an authoritarian dystopia- complete with security checkpoints and identity-confirming "collars"- although the setting is medieval and hasn't developed the printing press yet.
71	* ''Literature/AirAwakens'': The world is ostensibly medieval, with very strictly enforced class system, a ruling family with almost absolute power, swords and bows (and magic) as main weapons, horses as main means of transport, torches and candles as the main source of light, as well as parchment instead of paper and no printing press. And yet the palace has running water, hot and cold (there is a mention of aqueducts but they would not be enough to bring water to higher levels of the palace), there is a well-known fashion designer Chater with his own store and branded boxes for his wares, Vhalla's maternal grandparents worked at a post office and the servants' dining room looks like a modern-day canteen, complete with trays and a window to bring dirty plates to. And Vhalla, a lowly apprentice, has her own room.
72	* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' plays this for laughs: it starts off as a MedievalEuropeanFantasy setting with frequent usage of {{Magitek}} and {{Clockpunk}}, plus people with a rather modern outlook, and ends up being mostly a GaslampFantasy world where it's the FantasyGunControl and wizards in robes that stand out as anachronistic. In particular, in the early books it's weird that the Ankh-Morpork City Watch has elements of a modern police force; in the later ones it's weird that they're still wearing chainmail and iron helmets.
73	* The online game ''Three-Body'' in ''Literature/{{The Three Body Problem}}'' gleefully throws people and elements from all over history together; for example, Norbert Wiener, Isaac Newton, John von Neumann, and Nicolas Copernicus travel east because Qin Shi Huangdi's China is so much better organised than the Roman Empire under Julius Caesar, and both Nanjing and Rome have pyramids in variously Egyptian, Aztec, and Gothic style. The world also has three suns, and it's later explained that the Earth stuff is mostly to facilitate player understanding. The third time Wang logs on, he is greeted by Gregory I, Aristotle, da Vinci, and Galileo in a setting that resembles the High Middle Ages, and Aristotle attempts to burn him at the stake with a Zippo lighter. Repeatedly lampshaded by Wang, who internally comments on the anachronisms.
74	* In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', it's briefly mentioned that Dudley threw his Platform/PlayStation out the window during a temper tantrum. The scene is set in the summer of 1994, when the original [=PlayStation=] didn't come out in Japan until December of that year nor in Europe until September of 1995.
75	* ''Literature/ACourtOfThornsAndRoses'': Not quite played straight seeing as it's a fantasy story set in a ConstructedWorld, but the setting generally indicates it's a MedievalEuropeanFantasy. Trouble is, it tends to mix this with technology and what-have-you from much later periods. For example, Feyre hunts with a bow and arrow, rather than a crossbow or firearm, but simultaneously there are flushing toilets in the setting. On top of that, there are frequent occurrences of a clearly anachronistic language, such as "pissy". The descriptions of people's outfits (and the accompanying illustrations in the official coloring book) just add to the stew because the clothes seem to be pulled from various different time periods, some centuries apart.
76	* ''Literature/LyttleLyttonContest'': From the [[http://adamcadre.ac/08lyttle.html 2008]] contest,
77	--> Queen Elizabeth sat alone, wondering when Napoleon was gonna get there.
78	--->--Jennian Leister
79	* ''Literature/HowToTrainYourDragon'':
80	** Fishlegs wears glasses, which wouldn't be invented until well after the Viking Age.
81	** Vikings ''did'' [[VikingsInAmerica go to North America]], but potatoes are from South America, and besides, nobody called it "America" yet, because Amerigo Vespucci didn't exist.
82	** The (Eastern) Roman Empire ''did'' exist at the same time as Vikings, and many of them even traveled there to work as mercenaries or in the emperor's CadreOfForeignBodyguards, but the Romans here seem to still be following Roman paganism, which was long gone by the Viking Age.

Context AnachronismStew / Literature