anarchy65
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by anarchy65 on Dec 20, 2018 3:44:19 GMT
Never said it wasn't "fairly accurate", I said there are many modern characters that don't hold medieval values. Although women could rarely rise to power, like I said, it is rare, in GoT we have two women warriors who are probably the best fighters alive in the continent right now, two queens, possibly three (Daenerys, Sansa and Cersei), Queen Elizabeth 1 ruled at the same time as Queen Marie de Mici, both powerful queens, the latter would act as regent for her son until he came of age. Both came onto the throne not long after Queen Isabella of Spain, who ruled equally with the King, who was around the same time as Caterina Sforza, who was heavily involved in Papal politics. And those are just those with visible power, there were a host of women who wielded considerable power behind the scenes in medieval times. The warrior bit is a bit far-fetched, except there were very much women "bad-asses" in medieval times. Matilda of Canossa, for example, well known for her prowess in battle and feared. People like Lagertha who "fought with the courage of a man" and was called an amazon. The idea of two powerful queens at the same time isn't far-fetched. 3 might be rare though. The idea of great women warriors roaming the land isn't far fetched. And the idea that 2 or 3 queens and 2 women warriors isn't too far out of the realms of being believable that I would say it reflects modern values. Modern values would be to have equal representation, not a ever so slightly increased one. *sigh* I never said it never happened to have queens or women warriors, I just said it doesn't portray normal medieval values. And the most liked GoT characters actually hold very modern values. Daenerys is against slavery and makes speeches about equality. Jon Snow is basically your modern hero with very modern values, Tyrion is your modern smart guy, etc, etc. But you just seem to not wanting to understand the point by repeating things like "There are queens, so it is historically accurate". Just understand that you CAN'T create a world without inserting the values of the society you actually live in on it. You can never create a really "medieval" world, no matter how hard you try. Period.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Dec 20, 2018 3:48:43 GMT
What are you expecting? BioWare doesn't have a window into the ACTUAL future. They can't know what jokes will be relevant then. They aren't speaking to a future audience, they are speaking to us.
The whole purpose of sci-fi as a genre is to examine our existing society through the lens of imagined futures. Sci-fi is ONLY relevant to our society. By the time 2180 rolls around, Mass Effect will be completely irrelevent.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Dec 20, 2018 3:53:44 GMT
I like the social anachronisms - I wouldn't want to play in a world where I was treated like the women in GoT.... - but I haven't noticed many out of place references in Dragon Age, except people occasionally refer to days of the week ("What do you call it when you kill someone and take their stuff?" / "Tuesday.") that probably aren't called that in Thedas (why would Thedosians have a Tiw's Day?). Tbh, I always find this entire line of discussion completely moronic. BioWare isn't beholden to the moral standards of the medieval period, or any other time period, just because they borrow some of the aesthetic trappings. And besides, DA isn't actually set in, based on, or inspired by any particular real-life time and place. It takes influence from a lot of different places and time periods. If someone told me that a joke I'd made didn't fit into the world that I HAD CREATED, I would laugh in their face.
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Post by Nightscrawl on Dec 20, 2018 3:58:20 GMT
Thedosians are worse than us in some aspects Ignoring magical stuff, how is this even true? We've had slavery, rape, forced prostitution, racism, sexism, colonialism, and religious crusades -- everything realistic that Thedas has had. If we did have magic, you can bet we'd be doing all that horrible shit too. In fact, we do some analogous stuff with science, including chemical weapons and mind manipulation. The motivations behind every terrible act are human. The games are written by humans. It is ridiculous to say that they are worse than us in any way.
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Post by arvaarad on Dec 20, 2018 4:51:54 GMT
Thedosians are worse than us in some aspects Ignoring magical stuff, how is this even true? We've had slavery, rape, forced prostitution, racism, sexism, colonialism, and religious crusades -- everything realistic that Thedas has had. If we did have magic, you can bet we'd be doing all that horrible shit too. In fact, we do some analogous stuff with science, including chemical weapons and mind manipulation. The motivations behind every terrible act are human. The games are written by humans. It is ridiculous to say that they are worse than us in any way. When I’m saying “worse”, I don’t mean “worse when compared to all of history and all places”, I mean “for some moral questions, they’re less civilized than for other moral questions”. The result of that is, if someone tries to pin Thedas to a specific Earth era or culture, something’s going to mismatch. Either they’ll have some morality that seems “too advanced” for that era, or they’ll have some morality that seems “too regressive” for that era, or they’ll have some mix of both. They’re not directly mappable to any Earth analogue, just like no real world culture follows exactly the same moral trajectory as any other.
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ahglock
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Post by ahglock on Dec 20, 2018 4:53:36 GMT
What are you expecting? BioWare doesn't have a window into the ACTUAL future. They can't know what jokes will be relevant then. They aren't speaking to a future audience, they are speaking to us. The whole purpose of sci-fi as a genre is to examine our existing society through the lens of imagined futures. Sci-fi is ONLY relevant to our society. By the time 2180 rolls around, Mass Effect will be completely irrelevent. There is a difference between using Sci-Fi to examine current themes relevant to society and making a McDonalds reference in a setting without McDonalds.
Edit to add my initial do you want to take off my shoes joke is kind of on point for this. ME2 actually covered though not deeply themes relevant to the TSA and perhaps being too security conscious. This was just a joke that didn't fit the setting.
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Post by river82 on Dec 20, 2018 5:30:49 GMT
What are you expecting? BioWare doesn't have a window into the ACTUAL future. They can't know what jokes will be relevant then. They aren't speaking to a future audience, they are speaking to us. The whole purpose of sci-fi as a genre is to examine our existing society through the lens of imagined futures. Sci-fi is ONLY relevant to our society. By the time 2180 rolls around, Mass Effect will be completely irrelevent. There is a difference between using Sci-Fi to examine current themes relevant to society and making a McDonalds reference in a setting without McDonalds.
Edit to add my initial do you want to take off my shoes joke is kind of on point for this. ME2 actually covered though not deeply themes relevant to the TSA and perhaps being too security conscious. This was just a joke that didn't fit the setting.
I preferred the way the trilogy handled it. When Aria's goon scanned Shepard she waved her pistol and said - if you're looking for weapons you're not doing a very good job. I thought that was pretty cool. Ryder's humour is that awkward sort of passive-aggressive teenage thing you say and ... bleh
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Post by Arijon van Goyen on Dec 20, 2018 7:09:50 GMT
The authenticity of Game of Thrones is rather debatable. So how close is the "Game of Thrones" world to the real Middle Ages? Spot-on, in some aspects, experts say, but the real medieval Europe was likely far more boring and somewhat less brutal than Westeros. It was also far more religious, with the Christian Church involved in every aspect of life.
www.livescience.com/44599-medieval-reality-game-of-thrones.html
Yeah, I prefer medieval Europe to Westeros
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House Targaryen
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by House Targaryen on Dec 20, 2018 7:13:02 GMT
No jokes period. Jokes suck. Solas is trying to destroy the world, there ain't time for any jokes or worthless attempts at humor.
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Post by witchcocktor on Dec 20, 2018 7:17:59 GMT
No jokes period. Jokes suck. Solas is trying to destroy the world, there ain't time for any jokes or worthless attempts at humor. Yeah. I know it comes down to me being dull and a killjoy, but I hate puns and witty clever jokes unless the purpose of the thing I am consuming is to entertain me through comedy. Stand up, comedy shows, that's FINE.. but I don't laugh at jokes and stupid puns made by video game fantasy RPG writers
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Post by Ieldra on Dec 20, 2018 9:29:14 GMT
Please no jokes/comments that are tied to todays society. Things like in MEA where Ryder makes a do you want me to take off my shoes joke made me cringe. There were a decent number of them in MEA and each time it dropped me out of the games story. I can roll with Easter Eggs to other games, but I hate throwing in a 201X reference. Seems like a rising trend in storytelling. Jeremy Jahns did a video review of The Last Jedi where he said "when I first saw The Last Jedi I had that feeling, a feeling I'd never had in a Star Wars movie before where I felt like I was watching characters not from a galaxy far far away but from our own galaxy. And our own solar system. Our own planet. From the intro from the way Poe was talking to Hux, I was like that's from our world. That had never happened in a Star Wars movie before." He went on to say it reduces the scale, it reduces the escapism factor. We're seeing it more and more in stories and I just don't like it either. I fully relate with the sentiment. It also jerks me out of the experience every time it happens. I can't say if it's a rising trend but it certainly is annoying when it happens. I also fully relate with the sentiment, and it also pulls me out of the fictional world.
I have a suspicion why this happens, too: with the amount of money that goes into the making of movies and games, people are more concerned about the sales than they are about telling a compelling story in a compelling fictional world. Often that goes hand in hand, but I suspect that people for whom world integrity is a major concern are actually in the minority everywhere, and so if someone has an idea they think get more people to watch the film, they're prepared to compromise world integrity for it.
This doesn't happen as much in books. Or rather, perhaps it does, but there are still enough books where it doesn't. Meanwhile, nobody can afford making a film or game only for the nerds.
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Post by river82 on Dec 20, 2018 10:50:18 GMT
I can't say if it's a rising trend but it certainly is annoying when it happens. I also fully relate with the sentiment, and it also pulls me out of the fictional world. I have a suspicion why this happens, too: with the amount of money that goes into the making of movies and games, people are more concerned about the sales than they are about telling a compelling story in a compelling fictional world. Often that goes hand in hand, but I suspect that people for whom world integrity is a major concern are actually in the minority everywhere, and so if someone has an idea they think get more people to watch the film, they're prepared to compromise world integrity for it. This doesn't happen as much in books. Or rather, perhaps it does, but there are still enough books where it doesn't. Meanwhile, nobody can afford making a film or game only for the nerds. I believe it happens all the time in YA books these days, which might be significant because I get the feeling Andromeda was aimed at a younger audience than the trilogy. I always go by a rule of thumb, that the age of the protagonist kinda represents the age of the targeted audience, and Ryder felt teeny to me.
Anyway it's a damn shame because YA fantasy didn't use to be like this. Take a look from this excerpt from Tales of Earthsea and compare it to modern day Red Queen. One sounds like it's from a historical fantasy novel, and the other one sounds very modern. Should be noted that I believe 'punching bag' is a semi-modern North American phrase, but whatever: and then this one:
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Post by pessimistpanda on Dec 20, 2018 11:09:14 GMT
I can't say if it's a rising trend but it certainly is annoying when it happens. I also fully relate with the sentiment, and it also pulls me out of the fictional world. I have a suspicion why this happens, too: with the amount of money that goes into the making of movies and games, people are more concerned about the sales than they are about telling a compelling story in a compelling fictional world. Often that goes hand in hand, but I suspect that people for whom world integrity is a major concern are actually in the minority everywhere, and so if someone has an idea they think get more people to watch the film, they're prepared to compromise world integrity for it. This doesn't happen as much in books. Or rather, perhaps it does, but there are still enough books where it doesn't. Meanwhile, nobody can afford making a film or game only for the nerds. I believe it happens all the time in YA books these days, which might be significant because I get the feeling Andromeda was aimed at a younger audience than the trilogy. I always go by a rule of thumb, that the age of the protagonist kinda represents the age of the targeted audience, and Ryder felt teeny to me.
Anyway it's a damn shame because YA fantasy didn't use to be like this. Take a look from this excerpt from Tales of Earthsea and compare it to modern day Red Queen. One sounds like it's from a historical fantasy novel, and the other one sounds very modern. Should be noted that I believe 'punching bag' is a semi-modern North American phrase, but whatever: and then this one: And if I think both excerpts are terrible?
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Post by river82 on Dec 20, 2018 11:12:09 GMT
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Post by Andrew Waples on Dec 20, 2018 11:13:43 GMT
No jokes period. Jokes suck. Solas is trying to destroy the world, there ain't time for any jokes or worthless attempts at humor. In a 40hr+ plus game, theres time for jokes. Plus, jokes help make characters feel human.
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Post by SofaJockey on Dec 20, 2018 11:19:34 GMT
Something I remember from one of the 'Lord of the Rings' documentaries.
They treated those movies as serious retellings of the accurate historical events in middle-earth.
By treating it that way, those films were wonderful and authentic 'recreations' with no pop-culture winking references (that I can recall). That didn't mean there were no laughs, but the laughs were contextual.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Dec 20, 2018 11:55:31 GMT
Well, while I'm here, it's also worth pointing out that Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard, isn't set in a medieval-inspired fantasy world (for that matter, neither is Earthsea, but nevermind). The setting of Red Queen has complicated machinery, explosive devices, and even electricity. It's a bad book, so I didn't stick with it, but there were multiple indications early in the story that the society they lived in had previously been very advanced, but had been brought low by some sort of disaster (also common in YA these days). It's perfectly feasible for punching bags to exist in the setting. In fact, while a cursory google search reveals that the "punching bag" was patented in 1872, boxing as a sport has existed since the ancient Olympic Games, and I seriously doubt it took until the late 1800s for someone to come up with the idea of stuffing a bag with material and dangling it from the ceiling to be hit in various ways. So I'd go so far as to say that the existence of punching bags is perfectly feasible in any and every setting. But there's really no reason why a fantasy world, even if it is "medieval-inspired" (whatever that means), shouldn't have any technology that the author likes. There's no such thing as "anachronism" in a fantasy work, because fantasy isn't beholden to human history, and their society and technology does not develop in whatever imaginary parallel is being enforced by the MENSA members who praise GoT for its (lol) "historical accuracy".
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Post by river82 on Dec 20, 2018 12:08:04 GMT
Well, while I'm here, it's also worth pointing out that Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard, isn't set in a medieval-inspired fantasy world (for that matter, neither is Earthsea, but nevermind). The setting of Red Queen has complicated machinery, explosive devices, and even electricity. It's a bad book, so I didn't stick with it, but there were multiple indications early in the story that the society they lived in had previously been very advanced, but had been brought low by some sort of disaster (also common in YA these days). It's perfectly feasible for punching bags to exist in the setting. In fact, while a cursory google search reveals that the "punching bag" was patented in 1872, boxing as a sport has existed since the ancient Olympic Games, and I seriously doubt it took until the late 1800s for someone to come up with the idea of stuffing a bag with material and dangling it from the ceiling to be hit in various ways. So I'd go so far as to say that the existence of punching bags is perfectly feasible in any and every setting. But there's really no reason why a fantasy world, even if it is "medieval-inspired" (whatever that means), shouldn't have any technology that the author likes. There's no such thing as "anachronism" in a fantasy work, because fantasy isn't beholden to human history, and their society and technology does not develop in whatever imaginary parallel is being enforced by the MENSA members who praise GoT for its (lol) "historical accuracy". Punching bag is the American adaption of the English phrase punch bag. So Romans wouldn't have used the term punching bad for starters. Furthermore referring to someone as a punching bag, the idiom, didn't happen to much later.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Dec 20, 2018 12:12:29 GMT
Something I remember from one of the 'Lord of the Rings' documentaries. They treated those movies as serious retellings of the accurate historical events in middle-earth. By treating it that way, those films were wonderful and authentic 'recreations' with no pop-culture winking references (that I can recall). That didn't mean there were no laughs, but the laughs were contextual. Sure, but "authentic" to the content of the work as it was originally written by Tolkien, not "authentic" to any period of actual human history. Tolkien could have put modern advances in Middle Earth if he had felt like it, it was his creation after all. Which is sort of the crux of the argument: op has decided that a particular joke is out of place in the setting of Mass Effect, but he can't possibly be in a position to know that, because he only sees the tiny fraction of the Mass Effect universe that the writers allow him to. He has no idea what the TSA (or its fictional equivalent) is like in 2180. It's the difference between criticising a film adaptation for making changes from the source material, and criticising a wholly original work, because he thinks he knows better than the author about what belongs in it. He is making judgements (as many people do) about the content of fantasy and sci-fi works, based on an illogical assumption that because it "looks like" x period in history or whatever, that it can't have electricity, or jokes, or black people, or guns or, or, or. And that assumption is itself based on a perception of history that is wildly inaccurate, but even if it weren't, it wouldn't matter, because fantasy worlds exist independently from the real world, and they aren't required to be 1-to-1 equivalents to any period of human history.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Dec 20, 2018 12:13:40 GMT
Well, while I'm here, it's also worth pointing out that Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard, isn't set in a medieval-inspired fantasy world (for that matter, neither is Earthsea, but nevermind). The setting of Red Queen has complicated machinery, explosive devices, and even electricity. It's a bad book, so I didn't stick with it, but there were multiple indications early in the story that the society they lived in had previously been very advanced, but had been brought low by some sort of disaster (also common in YA these days). It's perfectly feasible for punching bags to exist in the setting. In fact, while a cursory google search reveals that the "punching bag" was patented in 1872, boxing as a sport has existed since the ancient Olympic Games, and I seriously doubt it took until the late 1800s for someone to come up with the idea of stuffing a bag with material and dangling it from the ceiling to be hit in various ways. So I'd go so far as to say that the existence of punching bags is perfectly feasible in any and every setting. But there's really no reason why a fantasy world, even if it is "medieval-inspired" (whatever that means), shouldn't have any technology that the author likes. There's no such thing as "anachronism" in a fantasy work, because fantasy isn't beholden to human history, and their society and technology does not develop in whatever imaginary parallel is being enforced by the MENSA members who praise GoT for its (lol) "historical accuracy". Punching bag is the American adaption of the English phrase punch bag. So Romans wouldn't have used the term punching bad for starters. Furthermore referring to someone as a punching bag, the idiom, didn't happen to much later. Okay, where did I lose you?
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Post by river82 on Dec 20, 2018 12:26:23 GMT
Punching bag is the American adaption of the English phrase punch bag. So Romans wouldn't have used the term punching bad for starters. Furthermore referring to someone as a punching bag, the idiom, didn't happen to much later. Okay, where did I lose you? I think you made some good points, but there is no way the term 'punching bag' is an ancient one even though the sport of boxing dates back to Roman times, and especially not when used to refer to humans. You didn't lose me, I'm just correcting a false impression you have. The term punching bag, as used in that book, is not suitable for any and every setting.
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Post by Ieldra on Dec 20, 2018 12:36:06 GMT
I can't say if it's a rising trend but it certainly is annoying when it happens. I also fully relate with the sentiment, and it also pulls me out of the fictional world. I have a suspicion why this happens, too: with the amount of money that goes into the making of movies and games, people are more concerned about the sales than they are about telling a compelling story in a compelling fictional world. Often that goes hand in hand, but I suspect that people for whom world integrity is a major concern are actually in the minority everywhere, and so if someone has an idea they think get more people to watch the film, they're prepared to compromise world integrity for it. This doesn't happen as much in books. Or rather, perhaps it does, but there are still enough books where it doesn't. Meanwhile, nobody can afford making a film or game only for the nerds. I believe it happens all the time in YA books these days, which might be significant because I get the feeling Andromeda was aimed at a younger audience than the trilogy. I always go by a rule of thumb, that the age of the protagonist kinda represents the age of the targeted audience, and Ryder felt teeny to me.
Anyway it's a damn shame because YA fantasy didn't use to be like this. Take a look from this excerpt from Tales of Earthsea and compare it to modern day Red Queen. One sounds like it's from a historical fantasy novel, and the other one sounds very modern. Should be noted that I believe 'punching bag' is a semi-modern North American phrase, but whatever: and then this one: Hmm....I can't see any incongruity in the Red Queen excerpt, though of course the storytelling style is very different. "Earthsea" (one of my favorite stories btw - I read it first in the 1970s and repeatedly re-read it, the last time this year) is more deliberate and retains some detachment from world to reader, leaving you time to soak it all up, while the Red Queen wants you to get into the thick of things with as little detachment as possible. The latter is justified to some degree and helped along by being a first-person-narrative. I agree that the latter style is more prevalent and has been for some years. It's the same tendency you see in movies - away from the reflective, towards the more visceral, and ever more speed. It is a popular trend in storytelling, and it is one I very much dislike - at times I feel all modern movies are made for people with ADHD, and there are those where I must close my eyes because the speed makes me nauseous - but it doesn't necessarily have any bearing on world integrity. I don't know the world of Red Queen (which I first mistook for "The Red Queen's War" by Mark Lawrence, definitely not YA stuff), but it appears to me that like Ged and the others in Earthsea, these characters exist convincingly within their worlds. They just come across as very different worlds and cultures.
As for punching bags, I believe there wasn't a culture where people who trained to fight with their fists didn't have them, and I'm not sure if there is an alternative English term that would fit a different storytelling style better. In any case, I'm probably not up to judging a borderline case like this because English is not my first language.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Dec 20, 2018 12:37:52 GMT
Okay, where did I lose you? I think you made some good points, but there is no way the term 'punching bag' is an ancient one even though the sport of boxing dates back to Roman times, and especially not when used to refer to humans. You didn't lose me, I'm just correcting a false impression you have. The term punching bag, as used in that book, is not suitable for any and every setting. I didn't say anything about the etymology of the term, but it doesn't really matter. If your story has bags that exist only to be punched then you need to call them something. If you're writing historical fiction about women's competitive fighting in Victorian England, then what you call that bag might actually matter. In a fantasy world like Earthsea, or the setting of Red Queen, you can call it whatever you like. Because it's fantasy.
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Post by river82 on Dec 20, 2018 12:40:11 GMT
I think you made some good points, but there is no way the term 'punching bag' is an ancient one even though the sport of boxing dates back to Roman times, and especially not when used to refer to humans. You didn't lose me, I'm just correcting a false impression you have. The term punching bag, as used in that book, is not suitable for any and every setting. I didn't say anything about the etymology of the term, but it doesn't really matter. If your story has bags that exist only to be punched then you need to call them something. If you're writing historical fiction about women's competitive fighting in Victorian England, then what you call that bag might actually matter. In a fantasy world like Earthsea, or the setting of Red Queen, you can call it whatever you like. Because it's fantasy. They weren't referring to bags, they were referring to people. And referring to people as punching bags is distinctly a 20th century phenomenon.
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mousestalker
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Post by mousestalker on Dec 20, 2018 12:43:07 GMT
So what do they call them in Thedas? My money is 'punching bags', because that's how the writers roll, typically.
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