Oddball Nerd
"Part of what makes a Ruritanian setting attractive in the eyes of an average Westerner (especially West European) and which sets it apart from its equivalents from other continents, is the pure nostalgia factor. Unlike a Banana Republic or Qurac, Ruritania does resemble what much of now developed Europe used to look like just a few decades ago: a highly conservative, racially homogeneous Christian society that is nevertheless fully literate, has relatively few children and doesn't suffer from lack of food, clean water or electricity, even if their daily routine tends to be shaken every once in a while by some kind of political upheaval."
That...doesn't make much sense. This trope is about East European countries, so how could westerners have notalgia for that? Not to mention the description of Ruritania as being a backwards and rural place doesn't match the supposed ideal described here.
"Detecting trace amounts of mental activity. Possibly a dead weasel or a cartoon viewer" Hide / Show Replies
I'm not saying it's right, but the idea seems to be that Eastern Europe is culturally close enough to Western Europe to not look too foreign, while at the same time its supposed backwardness means it looks like what Westerners believe their countries used to be like. So, nostalgia. Like I said, I'm not saying this is right, but it does seem to be consistent.
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Needs some redirects
, started by shimaspawn on Feb 22nd 2011 at 8:42:51 AM
I'm of two minds about this trope (and its sister tropes). On one hand, there will always be those who would say "country X is not like that!", as stated below. But others would like the work simply because their country is featured at all. For example I've seen that many Bulgarians have this reaction to Viktor Krum and don't really mind the inaccuracies.
On the other hand, I personally view the invention of a fictional country in a region to cover for Did Not Do The Research as a greater sign of disregard ("I know nothing about this continent/region so I'll just put Whateveria somewhere on the map, it won't make a difference"). It shows that the author doesn't care about the locals (i. e. it only matters that they're foreigners) and that's especially jarring when there are traits of several nations, often hostile to each other, mashed up into one. Besides, now everything is two clicks away and doing enough research about a real country shouldn't be that hard anymore.
Mike Lawrence
I've never understood why fake countries are used in fiction. For me, it is a real fourth wall issue as it severely disrupts my own suspension of disbelief. My attention to the story at hand is replaced by the nagging knowledge that no such place exists.
Except for the fantasy genre, I don't understand the need or utility of inventing a country. It smacks of an early draft of political correctness.
Anyway, it just plain bugs me.
- Why* is this trope in use?
Two reasons. First, nobody can tell you "Ruritania's NOT LIKE THAT!" if you just made it all up yourself. You can arrange the politics and geography to suit your story.
Second, after the work is released, you won't get hostile letters from the Ruritanian Ministry of Tourism, or a fatwa on your head from the High Cleric of Ruritania, or an anti-defamation lawsuit from the Ruritanian-American Society.
Back in the Poland-Lithuania days there wasn't a distinction between Ukrainian and Belorussian. Both would be regarded simply as Ruthenian.
Trimmed the Harry Potter example: the exact details of the derivations of character names were getting off topic. Moved the Harry Potter film material to the film section. Placed the original (long!) entry here for reference.
- It can be argued that the Durmstrang Institute of Magic in the Harry Potter universe is effectively in a Ruritania, even though knowing Rowling's style of handling real-world elements in the books it's probably "really" in an actual country. While Hogwarts is known to be somewhere in Scotland, and Beauxbatons was explicitly identified as a French institution, the location of Durmstrang has never been revealed, but the known details point to somewhere in Eastern Europe, probably not far from Germany. In the film version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the Durmstrang students showed up for the Triwizard Tournament in a ship bearing the double-headed eagle of
Imperial Russiathe Byzantine Empire. They were all young men in neat crewcuts and presented in a very disciplined and proud manner (like archetypal German students), wearing tsigeika coats and karakul hats (which are Slavic). Meanwhile, their headmaster Igor Karkaroff has a Bulgarian-sounding surname, looks like Grigori Rasputin, and behaves like a stereotypical Russian. Durmstrang's most famous student, Viktor Krum, is explicitly identified as Bulgarian and plays for the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team. Further complicated in the seventh book, in which we learn that Gellert Grindelwald, wizard Hitler and love of Albus Dumbledore's life, attended Durmstrang; his Hungarian first name and German surname (also the name of a town in German-speaking Switzerland) does little to clarify the question.- Gellert Grindelwald's name is not as silly as you might think: in the Middle Ages there was a large German-speaking minority in Transsylvania of all places (Saxons specifically, there are still a few left over but they are heavily discriminated against), and do you remember Sisi of sickeningly sweet movies fame? She was empress of Austria and queen of Hungary. In fact, German was the lingua franca of large parts of Eastern Europe until the Nazis put a stain on the language that time has still not removed.
- Well, the Czech German minority and the ethnic Carpathian Germans from Slovakia, Hungary, western Ukraine and former Transylvania (now part of Romania) certainly qualify. And "Gellert" is the Hungarian version of "Gerald", a pretty common name in anglophone countries too.
- The name Durmstrang is a virtual anagram of Sturm und Drang ("storm and stress"), a well-known German literary and musical movement (or trope) of the late 18th century.
- More like a Spoonerism. "Gellert", a variant of "Geller" ("cryer" as in "towncryer"), is also a German surname, e. g. born by the poet Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715-1769).
- Gellert Grindelwald's name is not as silly as you might think: in the Middle Ages there was a large German-speaking minority in Transsylvania of all places (Saxons specifically, there are still a few left over but they are heavily discriminated against), and do you remember Sisi of sickeningly sweet movies fame? She was empress of Austria and queen of Hungary. In fact, German was the lingua franca of large parts of Eastern Europe until the Nazis put a stain on the language that time has still not removed.
I'm not sure about the claim that the Greater Kneck Economic League in The Discworld Atlas is "a kind of embryonic Russian Federation". Given that it consists of countries that used to be part of the Uberwald Empire (also known as the Uberwald Sorcerous Republic, or USR) before it collapsed, and and one of them is literally called Mouldavia, a better analogy might be countries that aren't in the Russian Federation.