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Where is the line drawn for Medieval Universal Literacy?

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Coachpill Taxidermy (he/him) from Gen Z Since: Aug, 2022 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
Taxidermy (he/him)
#1: Aug 30th 2024 at 8:37:45 AM

Looking at the TLP archive for Medieval Universal Literacy, I'm kind of confused about...well, everything to some extent, but I think the biggest issue is how examples stack(ed) up against each other:

  • Before the trope was declared omnipresent, a lot of aversions were creeping up despite the first few examples being fairly consistent about generational literacy coexisting alongside more general universal literacy, the Inheritance Cycle, Eternal Darkness and Merlin examples probably being the clearest in that regard, since they related characters being born into a certain class to the overall trope.
  • Larkmarn pointed out that the Eternal Darkness example shouldn't count, because Ella is supposed to be an anomaly for a younger slave anyway. I don't necessarily disagree, but I got the impression that many groups of people being illiterate isn't surprising if only one of them isn't, since the contrast would be outlined by the narrative anyway as it's meant to be intertwined with Artistic License – History.
  • It was pointed out several years later that many examples were non-noteworthy aversions, and the topic was debated in the crash-rescue thread. This point was eventually brought up about why aversions might be notable. The point was eventually dropped and the draft sent back. Given all the general drama there's bound to be a lack of clarity here, so I can't comment much on this.
  • ...But the possibility of this trope being omnipresent was finally brought up here, seemingly as a compromise. This does kind of corrobrate my point about "groups of people being illiterate isn't surprising if only one of them isn't", since the troper mentioned that "Very few fantasy works, at least in my experience, actually treat near-universal literacy as anything out of the ordinary". They also mentioned that it's two tropes in one, though, and a comparison was later made to Stepford Consumer that I'm not really getting? It's not really the issue that I want to address here but it would be nice if ~XFllo or someone else could clarify for me (I think they're inactive, but I could be wrong).

I guess my main takeway from all of this is—don't the ways in which this trope isn't omnipresent outnumber the ways in which it is? Aside from knowledge passed down from generation to generation for only one particular person/set of people, there's also Rule of Funny at play making it inconsistent (i.e. lots of Monty Python joints), colonization not bothering to push for it, characters who take more pride in being streetwise, etc. From what I can tell, the intended definition refers to the trend of medieval literacy rates being higher than they would be in reality, but what really qualifies as "universal" anyway? Just more than a 50% LR? An LR closer to 100%? The examples have drifted from implying the latter to either stating the debatability of it, or implying the former only in the sense of "From a random sample, some are literate and some aren't."

The trope also isn't listed on No Straight Examples, Please!...which is a comparatively minor issue, but makes the trope feel kind of detached? (FWIW it's not on Omnipresent Tropes either, but those seem free to add.)

Edited by Coachpill on Aug 30th 2024 at 1:22:19 PM

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WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
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#2: Aug 30th 2024 at 10:02:16 AM

Uck. Yeah. This one had issues and I forgot it even launched.

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themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
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#3: Aug 30th 2024 at 10:08:25 AM

Luckily, there's only 41 wicks, so wick checking this shouldn't take too long if we need to do that.

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DoktorvonEurotrash Lex et Veritas from Not a place of honour (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#4: Aug 30th 2024 at 10:48:33 AM

Erk. I think there's a valid core here, but I see a bunch of aversions mixed in without comment. And that's before we get started on whether Medieval European Fantasy examples should even count.

Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on Aug 30th 2024 at 10:49:00 AM

Tremmor19 he/him (Y2: Electric Boogaloo)
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#5: Sep 3rd 2024 at 10:35:02 PM

oh, thats much worse than i expected. I honestly thought this trope was pretty straightforward (examples of medieval-type societies where reading is taken for granted, like it is in our world. This is totally a thing, particularly in works that are more of the Theme Park Version of historical societies), but it seems to be having far more issues than that

I have no idea why its listed as Omnipresent, its very much not. That makes it much harder to fix, since currently its just listing "examples of fictional/historical settings where literacy is not universal", which is barely even a trope

Salvageable concept, needs a lot of work


[up] regarding fantasy versions, I could see either way, depending on how closely the setting is based on real history. I personally think it could also be expanded to cover other usually-illiterate societies, which was most of them

Edited by Tremmor19 on Sep 3rd 2024 at 1:40:32 PM

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