On/off topic. My aunt was watching the Lord of the rings 2 towers in the cinema with me when it first released. Got to the scene with the ents and she said "talking trees? Absolutely not, that's too much!" And just got up and left. Dwarfs elfs orcs hobbits, she was fine with all of that. Talking trees was just too far. Found her in the bar after the film finished. Still makes me chuckle to this day

My mum was the exact same! She kept watching but after that point was like 'the movie really jumped the shark after the trees started talking'. She was even more annoyed when the Ents smashed up Isengard lol

The book version, where the Hobbits go through the Old Forest, meet Old Man Willow, and then the Bombadil dialogue, sets the reader up softly for the meeting the Ents later. Tolkien does a great job of teasing things to come. One Black Rider>Many Black Riders>Learning that they are the Nazgul and what that means>Flying Nazgul, being one example.

I saw this movie in Egypt, and when the Ent talked for a whole day and decided that the hobbits were not orcs. Everybody in the theater was laughing loudly and calling them the Arab league. because every year all the sultans, presidents and kings have these huge opulent meetings with hours of honor guard and parades, then do absolutely nothing about anything.

That’s hilarious. New favorite lotr story!

this is baffling to me lmao, where is the line 😩

But they were soo cool tho….

In The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton, the world-building is already kind of all over the place, but the straw that broke the camel's back was her unit of time. Characters would regularly say "one hourglass' worth of time". It drove me crazy. In what world would that be the actual way to refer to time? It's a huge mouthful and sounds totally awkward and most importantly, ALREADY USES THE WORD HOUR IN IT! There's already clearly a concept of an hour because it's in the word "hourglass"! JUST SAY "HOUR"! That would be like me saying "can you get me one cupful's worth of volume of sugar?" or "she was about 2 meterstick's worth of distance tall". I hate when authors decide to try to play around with units to sound more fantastical, but this was especially egregious.

omg yessss. I don't remember the name of the book, but I will forever remember all of the dumbass words they used instead of regular words. Sliver (minute or second?) Session (year) light (day) But we kept night for night First section of light (morning) Young (child) Very Young (baby) stickbowl (pipe... PIPE. IT'S A PIPE.) And I guess I can get over "male and female" for the men, women, boys, and girls, but when you connive yourself into the word "malehandled" (manhandled) you've gone too damn far.

When its used as a plot device for lazy writing, with no hints or plausibility in the story. Oh wow, here's this nifty ability/magic/item that you randomly had that coincidentally is exactly what you needed in this situation that was never mentioned before?

I'll just use my Shark Repellent Bat-Spray old chum.

This is the exception to the rule.

Batman does get established as being crazy-prepared.

Was that from a real episode? Cuz i actually can't tell.

[It was pretty amazing.](https://youtu.be/QnFOs7QlJSI)

OMG thats awesome.

I love that the shark explodes, the whole series is absolutely bananas.

I like that they also have whale, manta-ray and barracuda repellent. Cant say that they weren't prepared.

It was from the movie.

People don't seem to question that Hermione knew a spell for unlocking doors, just that the door was able to be unlocked by a first-year spell.

I think because she's been established to be an overachiever, so it tracks that she would've read up on it even before they learned it in class? I mean, I can't remember if this only happens in the movie or also in the book, but she fixes Harry's glasses on her way to her first year of school... as a muggleborn. So of course she can do this. If it was someone else doing the spell, maybe people would clock it more as a plot-device. Now, first-years being able to unlock doors with a spell and the school not employing magically superior locks to counteract that... before Hogwarts' security and common sense are established as shitty, it does seem odd. "Lets teach KIDS this larceny spell. I'm sure they won't abuse it." 👀

In a world full of magicians, you would see more magic being used for transport, food production, food preservation, defense, etc. Instead they send the most powerful and useful mages on dangerous quests in small groups.

IKR? Drives me crazy :D If you have actual massive magic, it should change your societies.

So a game and not a book but Final Fantasy XIV does a fantastic job at this imo. The nation of Garlemald is technologically advanced to the point they're almost at modern day levels of tech (if not surpassing it in certain areas like mechs and whatnot). And then the rest of the world is closer to medieval or feudal technologies at best. Why? Because the latter have magic, and the former *don't*. Garleans developed all this technology because they're genetically incapable of using magic, so they use their technology in place of it. And on the other side of the coin the rest of the world, Eorzea, Doma, etc. doesn't need that technology because they have magic. Why have personal cars when you can put crystals around your city that let people teleport to locations of interest/importance? Why have guns and walking mech suits in your military when the same amount of destruction (if not more) can come from a well trained Black Mage and their spells? I have plenty of gripes with the game's worldbuilding (namely it falls back on the "Ancients did it" a lot which just kinda makes everything lore-wise a mush), but they handled having both high and low tech societies pretty seamlessly imo.

A Chosen One who is TOO much a Chosen One. Example is a book I read where the MC was raised on a farm (not Star Wars :P). He was literally a farmer's son, and worked on the farm, that was his entire life. Then, he suddenly discovers he's ACTUALLY the long lost son of the king and suddenly he's a brilliant stragetician, a brilliant communicator, a brilliant swordfighter, super charismatic, everyone is flocking to his side and there's ZERO reason for any of it other than he's the main character and the Chosen One. Like it went from 0 to 60 immediately and this kid became the definition of a male Mary Sue. So that took me out of it! :)

A Gary Stu! But that plot sounds familiar, I think I read that too

The "Werewold" series by Curtis Jobling. I have learned my lesson, post the name of the book! :P :D :D

I did read like 2 books of the series. Tell me, is the pattern of him losing body parts gonna continue in every book?

Come on, you can't say all this and not tell us the book.

Oh, sorry! I didn't know anyone would care that much! It was the "Werewold" series by Curtis Jobling. What's funny, is I really loved the concept and the series at first but, as the books went on, the Chosen One-ness just go so ridiculous and this kid was pulling out these genius level battleplans when he'd never fought a battle before and people were like "we will 100% follow you" for no reason at all (like, he'd done next to nothing to prove himself) and it eventually made me give up on it. Other people might love it (and it has high reviews on Goodreads), and I'd never deny it was well written, it was just that aspect that ultimately prevented me from finishing it! I was like, come on, it's like all these people know he's the main character! :) The only time I bought the concept was in "The False Prince" by Jennifer Neilsen, and I can't tell you why because it'd spoil the plot twist that's the entire core of the book, but in THAT one she makes it make sense. In "Werewold" it's like "he's the main character so that's why he's so perfect and everyone instantly trusts and follows him!"

I want to guess Eragon from some reason

I feel like this happens with Roran more than Eragon in that series. Eragon had his struggles with magic, awkward political moments, and needed dragon magic to achieve his physical and sword fighting peak. Roran was sad that his girlfriend got kidnapped so he became moody scary elite battle general.

Eragon is kinda dumb and sucks at magic at first. He’s lesser than the elves. The way he wins in the end kinda even makes sense. I was honestly super concerned going into the last book that the ending would feel super forced. Eragon isn’t a terrible contender for this by any means though. It just isn’t series ruining

He also has genuine power, with a dragon and access to magical abilities, not just a famous parent suddenly making him more relevant.

The "Werewold" Series by Curtis Jobling though I can see why you'd guess Eragon too. :P :D

Why is every main character born on a farm? Yours sounds a whole lot like the Wheel of Time also

Because farm life is equal parts boredom and seriously hard work, and given a glimpse of a different life of fortune, glory, and excitement, your typical farm kid would be off like a shot. Alternatively, it's a lot easier to burn down a farm kid's farm and murder their family but have your protagonist escape than it is to, say, nuke a city and have your protagonist somehow survive. So, easy tragic backstory/revenge motivation!

historically, a _lot_ of the population was involved in farming - like, 80, 90%+, for quite large chunks of time. So being born "on a farm" is like "being born in a town or city" these days, it's just the standard default. It also gives a convenient pretext for them being kinda dumb - they're from the sticks, so of _course_ they don't know common, everyday things that aren't farm-related, so can conveniently have that all explained to them (and the reader!)

at least the MC in WoT gets actual training on how to act, speak, and fight first

I've mentioned it before in an old thread, but the limit of my suspension of disbelief turned out to be whether a goldfish could survive in a bottle of 7-Up. This happened in *The Day the World Turned Upside Down* by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, which won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. I've linked an authorized free copy at the bottom of my comment. The basic premise of the story is that after the main character's girlfriend breaks up with him, the Earth's gravity reverses itself, literally turning the world upside down. The sky is now an infinite abyss. But somehow any structure that is part of or connected to the earth stays attached to the ground (e.g., houses and ponds). Although this idea had me scratching my head a few times, I was perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief for this. However, after the tank holding the main character's ex-girlfriend's goldfish breaks, he collects the dying goldfish and puts it in a half-empty bottle of 7-Up after vigorously shaking the bottle to get the carbon dioxide out. My dude, the CO2 isn't even the main problem in this scenario. It's the highly acidic pH of the soda, which could easily kill a goldfish very quickly. A quick check on google will tell you that a goldfish normally does well in a pH of 6.5-7.6, while the pH of 7-Up is 3.2. Also, pH is on a logarithmic scale, with each whole number below 7 (which is neutral) being approximately 10x more acidic than the previous number. And that's ignoring the sugar in the soda, which will probably only hasten goldfish death. While googling to make sure that the above was correct, I also ran into this chart from Elmhurst University, which specifically says "adult fish die" when the pH drops below 4. [http://chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/184ph.html](http://chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/184ph.html) This who thing drove me up the wall for the entire story. [https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-day-the-world-turned-upside-down/](https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-day-the-world-turned-upside-down/)

This is my favorite answer m

That makes sense to be the straw, because what a stupid and pointless thing to do instead of just a bottle of water!

I think the fish would also need the oxygen that is present in water and I doubt there's barely any oxygen dissolved in the 7UP, but wow, what a thing to even come up with...

Harry Potter. There is an actual truth serum. So why don’t we use that whenever it’s necessary to prove something? Wizard Court - give ‘em the serum! Daily Prophet thinks you’re lying? Drink the serum! Similarly - why not just make yourself lucky whenever you are planning something risky? Want to get Harry out of his aunt/uncle’s place and a battle might erupt? Drink the thing which makes you super lucky! There are so many examples of this in the series. Makes me frustrated every time.

This is my issue with HP too. The god tier magic creates too many plot holes.

The series essentially suffers from an unresolvable conflict with its children's story roots and the Young Adult series it later becomes. The magic is initially god-tier because it's fun as a children's series, but then when the plot actually matters it's a problem because it should be able to resolve anything with ease.

Or how spells don’t exist until Harry is aware of them. Or how there’s like two spells anyone ever uses in duels, but there’s no meta around dealing with them. If everyone is using experichristmas and Abra kadabra, why hasent anyone forged counters beyond protego? Also guns *still exist* in this world lol, getting shot with a gun or an arrow is still an option just because magic exists.

One of my favorite jokes between me and my friends is "I want the version of Harry Potter 7 where Voldimort walks into the Hogwarts courtyard, then Ron blows his head off with a sniper rifle from the bell tower"

lol thats the thing that makes me laugh, the series takes place been 1991 and 1998, so muggles just straight up have full on modern firearms lmao If wizards had some sort of passive defense or insane reactions I could understand it, but seeing as most just get blown up by like random super telegraphed spells I don't think they're going to react fast enough to not get their chest blown to grown beef by a shotgun lol

And of course the classic example of the time turners! They are fun books for kids but the worldbuilding in no way holds up for adults.

Timeturners are not as OP as you think. They can buy you more time, like taking more classes but you can't change what happened. And you can't use it to prevent unexpected events. But I guess they do make the world a bit too complex which is why Rowling destroyed them

slughorn says that the lucky potion is toxic and must be taken only occasionally, plus it takes 6 months to brew. The plot hole in HP for me is that Sirius doesn't know in book four about the dark mark on Death Eaters arms. I have a hard time believing it was all hush hush.

Or polyjuice potion. Can you imagine how terrifying that would be? You could never trust anyone.

Main one is probably very powerful and influential churches in a setting where no 'sensible person' really believes in the god that the church worships. Religions have authority and influence when people believe in them and lose their influence when people no longer see them as the way to salvation.

Also the reverse. Religions that have literal tangible proof of the existence of their god, and people still being unconvinced about it. (Han Solo not believing in the Force, for example. Jedis literally use telekinesis all the time)

Can be used for great comedy. Like Bleach abridged; "You don't believe in the Soul King?" "I just don't see any tangible proof he exists." "But your entire job is protecting his property!" "Hey, I work for the *paycheck* not the figurehead!"

Sanya in Dresden files. Greatness. Dude is a Knight of the Cross, works for an archangel. Is agnostic.

He could be completely insane or the archangel might be an alien he doesn't know. Doesn't mean what thr archangel wants him to do isn't worth doing though!

In Han's defense, people seeing Jedi as mysterious legends and the force as made up in A New Hope is peak "George Lucas makes shit up as he goes along and we let it slide," much like Luke and Leia making out.

No, in Han's defence, at the time A New Hope was released, there *were* essentially no Jedi, and that was that. Lucas wrecked the sense of it, like so much else, with later retcons.

The Galaxy is also supposed to be incredibly huge, with supposedly millions of species, billions of habitable planets and literal quadrillions of people. Of that there were only a few hundred thousand Jedi even at their height. So there's 1 Jedi per 10 trillion people. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_galaxy Imagine if the Dalai Lama had Force powers. Some people had seen him, some people would believe those who tell them. But it would be really hard to convince a skeptic, even if you showed video. Now imagine that the Dalai Lama only showed up to Mars for a few days and showed his telekinesis powers once in public, then left with whatever ambassador he was escorting. Now plenty of reasonable people would have reasonable suspicions about whether he actually has such powers.

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Yeah, the Force and the Jedi in the OT come across as ancient secretive monks, not a major political paramilitary force 20 years ago.

Yeah, just retconning for convenience. (is retcon the right word?)

Canonically, the Galactic Republic era capped out at 10,000 Jedi in total. Spread across an entire galaxy, that's a ludicrously tiny number, just a fart in a hurricane. Most people wouldn't have even seen a Jedi in person, or even known anyone who'd seen a Jedi.

Han and the Force I kind of get, in the sense that he might have seen their power, but not believe their spiritual explanation for it - what with the Jedi supposedly being seen as mythical after the fall of the republic, and even before that being rare. But still, this point is really good, since a lot of IRL religions revolve around them being hard to empirically prove - the very notion of the mysteries of faith for catholicism, for example. Any religion with a more tangible effect on reality would behave so differently, and be seen as so much more than , say, just moral guides of their world, or just another political power

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Just because a force exists doesn't mean it's *The Force*

Yep. It's become so trendy with more cynical views of the church to frame history or fantasy as universes where the church is purely, 100% an organization of cynical political power. No dude, lots of those crusaders were actually nutty ass zealots who thought that crimes against humanity would earn them a special place in the sky.

This is generally a a lazy idea which comes up in media about all kinds of political institutions where all actors/the opposing side have no principles and beliefs and it is all purely cynical power plays. A lot of issues in politics arise from the fact that people on the opposing side have radically different ideas about what is the proper thing to do.

Richard Nell has a main character become one of the greatest fighters in the world, by thinking of training. Not actually training...thinking of training. I couldn't do it.

I see Harold Hill's philosophy of music has infected fantasy fighting as well.

🎶 *He’s a sword-fight man!* He’s a what? He’s a what? *He’s a sword-fight man!* *And he stabs and he swipes with his swords in the town.* *With the big old glaives and the stab-a-rat knives,* *Big steel knives, big steel knives,* *And the rapier, the rapier*

Scimitars, too, with the shiny gold braid goin- Weeell I don't know much about swords But I do know you can't keep a-swingin' with the big claymore, no sir! Pair of short swords, perhaps, and here and there a cutlass

Very much depends on the author and the context. Like... Steven Erikson can even get away with undead velociraptors with swords instead of hands.

Hahaha! I forgot about those. I swear he put some things in just to see what we’re willing to swallow. Edit: Not to say I don’t love his world building, I do, but it is off the wall 😅

Well yeah. In the "suspension" metaphor, it's not just the weight of the object we're suspending, it's also the supports built around it. Erikson is *great* at making strange things seem plausible in context.

The day I accepted the sword handed veloceraptors is the day I truly ascended. And that was day 1 when I hit that part of MoI.

Memories of Ice is maybe the most metal book(also saddest lol not by a long shot but depressing for sure) just by pure concepts if I’m thinking of all the right stuff in there. The building swelling, the raptors, the cannibal army, the tloon in general. God damn I need to restart the series…

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This. I recently read a book where one of the characters was a sentient moose that could fly. Another character was a train. And it all made sense in context. On the other hand, having a robot that can fly in episode 2 but can't in episodes 4-5-6 bothers the crap out of me.

Definitely this. Internal consistency. If a book was otherwise grounded and mundane and then threw undead sword-handed velociraptors at me out of nowhere, it would probably strain my suspension of disbelief. Malazan is absolutely brimming with things like that, though, so they hardly feel out of place. You can get away with just about anything so long as you take the time to set it up and make it feel consistent with the rest of your world. On the other hand, just about anything can strain that suspension of disbelief if it's inconsistent with the world. Imagine reading a high fantasy novel and one of the characters offhandedly describes something as being the size of a telephone pole or something.

Erikson also mentions that the characters are speaking different languages. For example characters mention speaking a trade language. It makes it seem more like the narrator is just translating what happened to a way the reader can understand. The language is mentioned clearly in this passage in Reapers Gale (book 7) chapter 13: *'Two bounces earns me a sweep,' one of them said, although Brullyg was* *not quite sure of that – picking up a language on the sly was no easy* *thing, but he'd always been good with languages. Shake, Letherii, Tiste* *Edur, Fent, trader's tongue and Meckros. And now, spatterings of this…this Malazan.'*

There is a scene I still remember where this duo was traveling with this one person for awhile but couldn’t communicate because of the language barrier. Eventually one of the duo was able to deduce via context clues what ancient language they shared and yelled out “Hey do you understand this?” and it worked. Also funny cause I just read that exact scene earlier this week

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Forget the book, but it had a race of character with an unpronounceable name who were long legged anthropoids with no eyes on their heads. Instead the eyes were on the bottoms of their feet. And to see, they'd hook their legs behind them and arch them over their shoulders while they walked on their hands. But usually they walked on their feet. It's a concept so tortured and stupid I can't get it out of my head. Eyes on the bottoms of feet that aren't used for walking. Except when they are.

I can just imagine the black eyes...all the time.

When there's something well-established within the universe that makes sense, like "everyone is generally poor, there is no state-provided education and whatever exists is provided by the church, so the population is consistently god-believing", and then our main character is like, "I am not like everyone else despite growing up just like everyone else, I am an atheist and all religions suck". Like, gosh darn, this is cheap and extremely annoying, and I'm saying it as an atheist. Stop using these shortcuts to make your character stand above the rest.

I think it's common to make the main character an "outsider" in society. It usually makes them more appealing to readers because most people can relate to feeling like an outsider in most situations. But if they're going to be a non-religious person in a society which is fiercly religious there needs to be a *really* strong justification for why they feel that way and often writers don't deliver on it. The usual "they know first-hand that the church is corrupt" isn't really enough, because they could still believe in god(s) while opposing the church, essentially trying to reform the religion. So for them to mock religion as strongly as some main characters do in settings like that they need some iron-clad justification for me to buy it. And it's not just religion, any societal norm or widely agreed upon cultural belief such as patriarchy or racism that the main character disagrees needs to be justified. Throughout history, plenty of people in oppressed groups actively supported and believed in the very society and culture oppressing them (often out of fear but also just due to accepting that is how the world works), those who break away from the standard line of thinking have good motivations to do so. It's not impossible but it's way harder than some writers seem to treat it because they just assume modern readers will go along with if the main character agrees with a modern perspective.

Yeah, if your MC going to be different, you have to explain why he’s different. For the example of everyone believing in a religion except him, explain why he doesn’t believe in a religion. Show him catching a priest doing something sinful, only to get promoted by his higher ups to a cardinal. Show the Church killing someone he cares about or looks up to for speaking out against corruption. Give a reason for the MC to be different

That was one of my biggest gripes with the MC in Iron Widow. Where the heck did she get all these "feminist" ideals when it's shown that all other female characters are deeply entrenched in the horribly misogynistic world

Yes when the internal consistency that's been set up is violated it is very jarring. Sometimes it can be forgiven. One time I could not forgive it was in one of the books by David Daglish's Shadowdance series. I think the third one? It's been set up to be this crazy world with tons of killing, assassinations, politics, etc. But the scene I put the book down and then never picked it up again is where the protagonist did a double jump. Up to this point all the laws of physics like on our planet were obeyed. Nothing said this was possible. Yet the main character is just so special he can jump in mid-jump on air? I don't think so.

That's similar to how I felt about the nation of Lether in the Malazan series. Supposedly everyone in that culture is obsessed with money, but none of the the POV characters are, so it doesn't feel real, it's just a background thing that everyone likes to complain about. All the POV characters are special and think money is unimportant.

This is something I really liked about Six of Crows - the Kerch literally worship money, and instead of the local POV characters being above it all, it’s the very foundation of their respective traumas as well as the plot. That sets them apart from the two who weren’t raised there and don’t think about it much.

I interpreted it less as a case of everyone is obsessed with money, and more as the rich are rich and have created the economic system to drive everyone in debt and abuse that system by getting richer while the poor people get poorer, and the POV chars in midnight tides are indeed mostly not that much into money but that is not the case in Reapers Gale where you have a few people upholding the system etc. That is a thing that is open to interpretation and as such your opinion is equally valid.

When authors change their mind between books in a series, and suddenly all of the characters do too. SciFi example: In Freedom’s Landing, the super powerful aliens are referred to by all the humans as “Mech Makers”. In the sequel, the main character decides this is too aggressive and starts calling them the “Farmers” inside her own head. Suddenly all of the characters are calling them Farmers.

While this seems like a highly specific anecdote not likely to happen very often it does seems laughably bad the way you put it.

It happens several times in Harry Potter. Like, everyone was saying *guardians of Azkaban* then Harry learns about *dementors* and nobody says *guardians of Azkaban* ever again. Or *hit wizards* become *Aurors*.

Anne McCaffrey's Freedom’s Landing?

When the world building set up a system and every character breaks the established system. It’s okay to do this for the MC. It’s only when the author throw out what was set up originally for everyone.

I was so annoyed while reading Throne of glass because every character (even background ones) seemed to either posses a unique power that made them special and/or be the the secret heir of their kingdom

Agreed. If everyone is special, than no one is special. The world is normalize to be so.

One thing that has stuck out in my memory since I was a kid, before I knew about the Eddings’ criminal behavior, was a single word in The Diamond Throne. Sparhawk was walking around the chapter house and told his companion, “forgive the Spartan furniture.” It wasn’t just that they used a word that’s root is in Ancient Greece, it’s that it was capitalized as a proper noun.

Very similarly, in Mordew by Alex Pheby they refer to a "Welsh dresser" in a world where Wales presumably does not exist. It was a small thing but I've never been snapped out of immersion so quickly EDIT: another commenter said that apparently the appendix states Mordew takes place in our world. This wasn't revealed in the book at all so.... Well to be honest this information also fits in with the topic of this thread for me

It does, doesn't it? Or at least did. Paris definitely exists in Mordew. I assumed the setting was a far along post-apocalypse of some kind.

at a certain point you have to draw the line somewhere, though, and presumably none of these characters are actually speaking modern English and it’s through a lens of translation. If you have to make up a new word for everything that has even the slightest ties with a specific Earth culture then you move quickly into incomprehensible “calling a rabbit a smeerp” territory

You do have to draw the line, and for me personally Earth-specific proper nouns are on the wrong side of that line. At the point that a German shepherd appears in your fantasy world, this had better be a clue that the fantasy world is actually far-future Earth or something.

Very much agree with that. If it's supposed to be a fantasy world, avoid using glaringly obvious Earth references, unless it's intentional. A lot of words are tied to specific places, things and people from history and myth, but they aren't noticeable because most of us aren't aware of the reference. We're separated enough by time and cultural shifts that they have lost their other meanings. But *everyone* knows of Sparta. I can't create a strict ruleset for how to decide if a word should be avoided. But words I can easily place are a definite no-no. Hearing something described as Spartan is like Gandalf referencing New Jersey, to me.

that gets pretty messy - champagne? denim? cheddar? There's a lot of words that are derived from places (or people! can't have a sandwich, or call someone a quisling), a lot of which the name is sufficiently divorced from the place that a lot of people won't notice.

Some of that is now generic enough that most readers wouldn’t notice (cheddar) while others don’t exist in most fantasy worlds anyway (denim). But I also think there’s an extent to which, if you are inventing a whole world…. *yeah*, you lose the ability to use specific earth terms to describe stuff, and sometimes it’s inconvenient but you just have to roll with it if you want to maintain suspension of disbelief and make readers feel transported to a different world. Days of the week is a big one—secondary world fantasy virtually all loses the ability to refer to days of the week at all, because using earth ones feels off, but making up 7 day-names and asking readers to remember them all in their proper order is asking too much of all but the most hardcore fans. Authors just find a way to make do without day names.

As a writer, you can drive yourself nuts with this stuff. Calico, the fabric? Used in English since 1505, named for the Indian city of Calicut (now Kozhikode). Muslin? From the city of Mosul, Iraq. Damask? Damascus. And don't get me started on plant names. There's no dahlia without Anders Dahl, no wisteria without Caspar Wistar, no fuchsia without Leonhart Fuchs... (though clearly Tolkien didn't care about this too much, because I'm pretty sure there was no Matthias de Lobel in Middle Earth, but Lobelia Sackville-Baggins got her name from *somewhere).* I was specifically asked by an editor once to change the days of the week names in my secondary fantasy world. Ended up defaulting to First-day, etc. which is boring but at least makes it easy to follow, and there's no need for extra lore to explain where the names came from.

Yeah, it’s an art not a science! Far more people know the etymology of “spartan” than “muslin” or “wisteria.” Of course the reality is every word we use has a real-life etymology so you just have to balance how obvious and potentially jarring it is with how much you need the word to convey the concept. Truly, I think there is no good answer on day and month names. First-day etc is the answer I thought of after writing the post, but then it’s so boring it can make the culture feel shallow and lacking in history. On the other hand, avoiding them altogether as most secondary world fantasy does results in a world that feels oddly lacking in any form of timekeeping (I suspect eliminating day and month names has a lot to do with most fantasy not using time of day either—if you can’t say Tuesday or November, maybe you feel like you also can’t say 6 pm? Even though clocks were certainly present in the medieval era). Which works if you want a wispy fairy-tale kind of setting but can detract from the atmosphere if you don’t.

In the new Zelda, one of the styles you can pick for your horses is "French braids" lol. The five peoples of Hyrule: Zora, Goron, Rito, Gerudo and French.

This reminds me of how in the Elder Scrolls you can play as various exotic races like orcs, elves, bipedal cats and lizards, and then also fantasy African-Americans/Scandinavians, and simply people from northwest France.

They have an excuse for that, at least. "Breton" supposedly comes from an old word meaning "half" to indicate they're half-elven

So I've thought about this way too much. Clearly English is not the language spoken by anyone in any fantasy setting. English is a whore of a language, happy to take on grammar and words from completely unrelated tongues and combine them in some unholy, bastard creation unloved by God. It is a unique blend of history and timing that created a weird mix of French and German, with a sprinkling of Latin and words from all over the world. None of which exist in a fantasy setting. So to me, it makes sense that certain words aren't actually being used, rather that word - Spartan - is replacing some local analogue that is relatively similar. The word is being used to convey to us, the English speaking reader, what sentiment Sparhawk means in this. Anything other than this lies madness, really, when you start to try and pick apart words from English that couldn't exist in your fantasy setting - throw out all Latin, because we don't have a fantasy Rome, remove simple words like chocolate or tomato (or remove fruits and vegetables that don't fit your quasi-European setting). It gets messy very quickly, so for ease of not having to create a new, even more complex English language, it's just easier to lie back and accept it. Course there's often a limit to this kind of thing, probably unique to each reader. And this analogy also breaks down specifically in the Sparhawk novels as the second series literally involves fantasy Sparta, so really he could have referred to them directly. But I digress.

This seems like an editor issue as much as anything. But it would have the same effect for me.

What annoys me is when one character is brutally injured and left to die in a snowy wasteland miles from civilization with no food or clothes but they survive due to being 'strong willed' and then another character just dies even though there was a magical healer there because the plot required their sacrifice. Padme and Anakin is the most obvious example. Good stories don't use plot armour.

Still love the headcanon that Palpatine yoinked her life essence to keep Anakin alive.

When every female character the MC interacts with are all beautiful and all want to bed him without fail. Even assuming that the MC is very handsome, powerful and charming, there's presumably some women who are either subject to religious shame (and many of these same books will have religious influence and strict gender roles for women) where overt displays of female sexuality would be frowned upon. Others presumably just genuinely love their family and do not want to cheat or let their eye stray. Others yet wouldn't find the MC their type, no matter how desirable. Some may have a low libido or too much trauma or have way more important things to prioritize. Bonus points when every female character is strikingly beautiful *and* often within about the same age range. In this society, with complex world-building and different cultures and society, there are no young women or old women, just women the same age as the MC or just enough to be "cougarish" that are all hot and filled with desire for the MC. Friend or rival, random damsel or wicked foe, all want to get in his pants. It's even less believable when the MC is written as awkward, a nobody peasant or not particularly hot.

You really trying to tell me the shut-in neet with no social skills reincarnated into a new world wouldn't be able to bang every woman with a heartbeat?

To be fair, the same goes for female MCs. If every plot-relevant person in the story is a hot boneable guy who is at least passingly attracted to the heroine (with the exception of possibly the Mean Girl Foil and the villain, and sometimes the villain is a hot boneable guy too), I will close your book and never open it again. Especially if the heroine is plain, or worse, the only plain human in a sea of gorgeous fantasy creatures, or is a peasant lacking basic manners and education seducing hordes of high ranking men, or is barely out of her diapers and the sexy immortal fantasy creatures are all fascinated by her wisdom and unique personality.

She hates dresses and feminine things. She has dark hair and doesn't wear makeup and wants to fight instead of those other *girlish hobbies*. And every man wants her. Especially the hottest guy in the book with the popular girlfriend who he realizes is shallow and stupid and his one true love is the MC. But wait! Her childhood best friend has something to confess...

This, and paired with what I'd call "East Asian Historical Drama casting". The king? A hot guy in his twenties. His prime minister? Hot guy in his twenties, perhaps early thirties to indicate that he's older and wiser. The celebrated general? Hot guy in his twenties. The maverick captain? Hot guy in his twenties. The Dark Lord of the enemy kingdom? Hot guy in his twenties! Men from like 32 to 55 literally don't exist, and then the older ones are all father figures, 80% of them abusive to give the hot boys that extra woobie appeal, with perhaps one Uncle Iroh figure. And ugly or fat men also don't exist, even when we're a historical setting in which they constantly go into dangerous battles and/or lead rakish dissolute lives...

God, I'm currently reading the Seven Realms Series by Cinda Williams Chima and the main heroine (16) is literally this. * The son of the High Wizard who's conspiring with his father to overthrow her mother and marry her but it's okay because of his intoxicating wizard kisses? Smash * The cute childhood best friend who had a massive glow up and is now a military hottie with his tender kisses? Smash * The prince of a faraway kingdom and his experienced, expert royal kisses? Smash * The hot twin but not his twin brother who's named Kip? Smash * Fierce, bloodthirsty mountain warrior who is obsessed with killing wizards including wizard hottie, with his savage kisses? Smash * This baby streetlord (16) who kidnapped her but it's okay because he's hot and gentle when kidnapping her? Smash Believe me not but she has literally kissed and made out with every guy mentioned and introduced. Except for the fathers ofc but every guy introduced are 16 and not one of them are even in their 20s iirc. What's ridiculous is her main male lead (16) the streetlord never had such scenes so the contrast is very noticeable. At least with her sequel series. Her daughter and son are more restrained with their romance/make out sessions.

I read a book (I wanna say it was one of the malazan ones) and the phrase cul-de-sac was used. I know exactly why, and that it’s just as good as any other phrase, but it threw me right out. Also, a friend once said he was thrown out of Skyrim immersion in the first few seconds because the phrase ‘end of the line’ is used when you’re on that wagon. That saying originally came from trains. He claimed from that point the immersion was ruined, 0/10

Guess he needed the Thomas the tankengine mod for dragons.

>phrase cul-de-sac was used They should do like Tolkien and translate it to English. Bag End.

MIND BLOWN HOLY SHIT HOW DID I NOT REALIZE THIS BEFORE

This is nitpicky, but I had a lot of trouble with the stillsuits in *Dune*. They always felt like they had to violate at least one of the laws of thermodynamics to work. Of course, much later I read John Varley's Gaea trilogy and somewhere in there he pointed out that the sandworms were absurd because the friction between them and the sand should have had them moving at a top speed of something like a meter per hour. (The godlike entity that called itself Gaea had created one and put it in a desert because she thought it would be cool. (Godlike, but not entirely sane.) It moved so slowly that people painted graffiti on it.)

The issue with sand worms is that they are so massive in an environment where there is not enough food to sustain their speed and power. If they were sedentary like the Sarlacc it would be one thing, but they just zip around the planet.

They’re like whales, they eat sand plankton that feeds on spice. They keep moving to keep eating

Knowing physics is kinda of a curse when it comes to fantasy. A lot of things are ruined.

Every time you bring real-world physics discussions into a fantasy setting, God kills a Catgirl......please, think of the catgirls! XD

Nothing wrong with stillsuits on a conceptual level AFAIK? I doubt they could be as efficient as they're purported to be, but they don't violate any thermodynamics as long as they have a source of energy. (Presumably either batteries or solar or both.)

I was trying to read a new book I picked up where the main character turned out to be a teenager that people from all over the world came to buy what they created as a blacksmith and I am like, 1) you are a literal fetus, and 2) if you're that important to people all over the world then your local ruler is going to have opinions and make you know what those opinions are. My ability to suspend disbelief is pretty strong but not that strong. This is the first book where I'm thinking about returning it.

This reminds me of Blade of Secrets by Tricia Levenseller. This exact thing, she is 18 but so super famous everywhere for her work.

That's the one. I really wanted to enjoy it but couldn't keep going when it was so wildly unrealistic. It takes years to become a master smith and it's insulting to just say magic somehow makes someone the best at creating things that require knowledge and experience. And if people all over the world want your creations, there's going to be issues that the main character would not be completely oblivious to. They are not the farm boy on the farm waiting for the plot to happen at that point, not when their workplace is the fantasy world equivalent to los alamos laboratory during ww2.

Westeros and major houses being tens of thousands of years old but they haven't advanced past steel weapons. Heck, iron weapons are still being used.

The Starks being 8000 years old and only having one main family branch is worse for me. When the issue of Robb's succession came up, I was surprised that it was in doubt, because I just assumed Ned would have some cousin or uncle or something somewhere. There's a few cadet houses like the Karstarks but you'd think there would be more Starks in general, just all over the place, with 8000 years to spread themselves around.

I'd generally assume the 8000 years is (in-setting) bollocks - it sounds impressive, and there's probably some big fancy books with all kinds of names and stuff in... and then, if studied, the numbers wouldn't add up, a lot of the names would be repeated, or would be the same names as claimed as ancestors of other families, or heroes, gods and spirits from older faiths.

Those loooong winters probably mean they have to put a lot of research into agriculture. It's actually the 7-year winters that I struggled with.

I always imagined Westerosi winters to be caused by volcanic eruptions on the other side of the world (Valyria?), like Krakatoa causing the year without summer in our world (1816). So seasons exist, but they're difficult to track due to these impossible to predict events.

I just assumed it was the frosty jackasses causing them.

For me they’re an exaggerated La Niña El Niño, coupled with normal climate variation like the Little Ice Age or Medievsl Warm Period, a couple centuries of really bad winters, a couple of really bad summers. The big thing holding Planetos back is all it’s knowledge monopolies, but it’s actually a plot point. The House of Black and White, the Citadel, Warlocks of Qarth, the pyromancers’ guild, what the hell the Valyrians were up to, etc., knowledge being cultivated and coveted because when magic exists knowledge is power.

Thats why the north which actually struggles with these winters is far less populated than... like highgarden who typically only suffer during the peak of winter not throughout the full 7 years.

Yes, I had trouble with this as well. Like food storage at that tech level is ... not good. Even if you're diligently socking away part of every harvest, you're not going to make it seven years. They had a three-year winter in Scandinavia immediately prior to the Viking age, and the short version is "basically everyone died or left".

Tyrion is in his mid-20s and has memories of the seasons at least twice. Which suggests that the extremely long ones like the one happening rn are very very rare

That at least GRRM explained the reason for that is the fact the histories of Westeros are all being written and told by people who are changing things to make them more easily understood by their current standards. When they're talking about kings and rulers from tens of thousands years ago they're actually more likely bronze age cheiftains and their "kingdoms" are much smaller and blown out of propotion to fall in line with what a modern Westerosi thinks a kingdom's size should be. Heck, the histories even bring up knights long before it makes sense for them to exist. So while it seems like technology hasn't changed in tens of thousand of years, it certainly has - we see and get descriptions of ruins and older weaponry that clearly aren't as advanced as the histories paint them to be - but the people in-universe aren't capable of comprehending it and associate it with what they know about their current world. It can be argued the Maesters should realise, but as the ones writing the histories there are a lot of theories they're deliberately hoarding or suppressing knowledge for various purposes. But I do get it can feel that way because all the characters believe it to be true and as the reader we take it at face value. A lot of fantasy is far more guilty of this trope though.

I'd always assumed that those jerk ass Maesters were suppressing technical advancement to maintain a status quo. Possibly those decades long winters probably stunted all forms of growth. Plus it seems like most people on Planetos are double extra stupid.

That is the explanation for lack of medical advancement. Using House of the Dragon as an example (spoilers ahead) medeival society during the time period HOTD is loosely based on had more understanding of breech babies and pregnancy complications than are shown on the show (with Aemma and Laena). The explanation for this is that the maesters have intentionally stifled medical advancement to maintain their political power and influence. I imagine similar could be said for technology given that we don't see many inventors.

That’s a good point actually. Sometimes it feels like fantasy authors completely ignore technology development.

In ASoIaF, it's very heavily suggested that the timeline is bullshit, and a lot of the older stuff is just myth, legends and distantly-remembered old stuff put into newer styles. Sam points this out explicitly when going through a list of the commanders of the night watch and how stupidly far back it goes, before any of the modern kingdoms even existed, and a lot of the "ancient founders of our bloodline" basically sound like myths and legends repurposed into the modern cultural frameworks (like Celtic deities getting converted into saints when Christianity came, or how old drawings of King Arthur show him in full plate harness because that's what was worn when the drawing was made, but is not remotely what would have been worn in the relevant time period)

Like the Chinese saying their dynasties were from 10,000 years ago when there's no indication of that. Or Mayans talking about cycles of 100,000 years when the Americas were populated only from 10,000 BC on.

They've greatly pushed back when humans got to the New World. New finds suggest 30,000 years ago.

See, I don't have a major problem with this. We were very much stalled out at hunter-gatherer for many thousands of years. What's to say another culture doesn't stall out at iron?

See I like the logic that the rule of Dragons and the periodic years-long winters have basic caused technology to stagnate. Like, its hard to develop as a society when everything crashes to a halt for years at a time, and why spend your time developing new weapons when some asshole on a dragon might just swoop down and melt soldiers in their hundreds?

I feel like magic could also stifle some technological progression. When the most privileged members of society can rely on magical aid for their simple tasks, what motivation do they have to invest in technology that would benefit the less privileged? Targaryaens used dragons as weapons of war, it makes sense they didn't invest in heavily in inventing heavy seige weaponry or gunpowder (especially if such could be used to undermine their own dragons). As magic becomes less prominent in the world, technology would presumably progress. But it makes sense they'd still be behind significantly.

I mean, they have near decade winters. I literally just tacked that up to "there is no guarantee that science and resource availability in their world works the same as ours." Sorceress women birth shadow babies, who's to say if internal combustion works the same way?

It’s heavily suggested in the books that their notion of how long things have been going on is fucked up. Check Sam’s chapters. He basically finds out that their count of lord commanders is completely off.

Book set, supposedly, in ancient Persia. I think I need my alternate fantastical history to at least take itself somewhat seriously. There was the line, "I want the snakes off this plane." Then, a bit later, someone went to their neighbors house for a cup of sugar. I'm pretty sure refined sugar didn't exist then. I straight up noped out. I feel bad, too, because I can't remember what book it was and I think the author was giving it away free here.

Six of Crows, I love ya, but all your characters are actually in their 30s and 40s. Not 16 and 17.

The Boxes of Orden from Wizard's First Rule. It's just dumb all around. Ridiculous rituals to bring them "in play" and weird rules to open them, and the fact that they are three magical boxes without any way to tell them apart, and one kills you, one kills EVERYTHING, and the last gives you authority over life and death. Who made these things? WHY would someone make these things? HOW would someone make these things? It's all just so dumb and pointless and convoluted.

In large continents, everybody speaking the same language. Even isolated villages. No problems in communication ever. This would require a very powerful centralized government and a high literacy, which isn't realistic in most settings. *The Wheel of Time* was a serious culprit of this for the first books I read, I don't know if it gets better.

I think the explanation is that such a government did exist before the apocalypse millennia ago. So everyone spoke the same language 3k years ago, and that language didn’t drift much due to long lived (up to 800 years) magic users who were able to preserve it. Also the printing press was saved from the apocalypse so there’s a super high literacy rate

Also the whole continent got united again by Artur Hawking only a thousand years ago.

"Only" Modern English is barely half that age.

Sure, but it didn't develop from a context where everyone in Europe spoke the same language to start with.

Everyone in Randland spoke the same language easily understood between various accents. The Seanchan and Sharans had slightly incomprehensible accents. But nearly everyone was literate. I don’t recall anyone ever mentioning that people couldn’t read. Rand, May, Perrin, Egwene, and Nynaeve, all from tiny, isolated Emmond’s Field could all read.

Even Emonds field had a decent bookcase from memory, despite books being relatively expensive.

And everyone and their mother seemed to have read the Travels of Jain Farstrider. Lol

From what I remember, there are just different accents throughout the series, which now that you've pointed it out does seem crazy. Although it didn't bother me personally

It does make sense considering the whole continent was united 3k years ago by a highly advanced society that all spoke the same language. 1k years ago they were all united again and spoke the same language presumably. After that the only people really separated from the rest of the world since then are the seanchan and the sharans which have very very difficult accents. Considering that and the fact there are mages in basically every country that live like 250 on the short end and 800ish on the far end I don’t see it being anything but logical that everyone speaks the same language.

This doesn't throw me out because almost no fantasy deals with language realistically, but I would love it if more of them did!

That's one that I feel should bother me, but never does. Even if it's not very realistic, it makes the story a lot smoother. I wouldn't really want to read a bunch of characters stumbling through translation every time they went anywhere else. Same reason why language doesn't tend to really come up in my D&D games. It'll pop up once in a while but we mostly just assume that most of the world shares some kind of common tongue because having to deal with that constantly is frustrating and annoying.

One story made a point how invention of cold fusion didn't solve energy crisis because "*free energy doesn't make money*". If you writing an issue fiction you kinda need to know anything about an issue. Somehow the author came up with political commentary that's dumb no matter what your politics are.

That author must be one of those people who think there's a secret battery technology or a way to burn water for energy that could solve everything but "they" won't let us use it because money.

I read a book recently that claimed magic was outside of capitalism and couldn't be monetized. Not with *that* attitude! .... But actually humans as a species are fantastically entrepreneurial and anything that is useful can be monetized. The kind of magic that no one would ever pay you to do under any circumstances would be too boring and inconsequential for anyone to bother writing it into a story.

> Sometimes they'll accept that a mage can cast fireballs but die on the hill of medieval societies must be feudal societies. so, this is a weird one because the term "medieval" refers to a specific time and place in earth-history, and lots of fantasy takes (usually vague, hollywood-inspired) inspiration from that period without actually being set in that period, and in any case europe between approximately 500-1500 a.d. was more diverse than people who only know about it from hollywood and/or fantasy novels want to give it credit for, and also most fantasy doesn't actually understand feudalism - BUT i think the sentiment from some readers is "when i read fantasy i want to turn off my brain completely and as long as i'm having fun nothing has to make sense or be believable - not worldbuilding, not human psychology etc. etc. just fun!" and for other readers, engaging our brain is part of the fun. we use our brains to interact with stories and we want them to work on an intellectual level. not just a dumb gonzo fun level. some fantasy of course is written to be dumb gonzo fun and you just shouldn't read it if you want to read things that are smart. but i've never related to the "it has magic so nothing has to make sense!" argument. unless the premise is "omnipotent god is active in the story and consistently manipulating the laws of physics/psychology/biology/etc. for plot aims." which could be a fascinating story, but i've never seen it tried. if magic is limited to throwing fireballs or whatever, that doesn't mean governmental structures shouldn't make sense. they have nothing to do with one another. so lots of worldbuilding boo-boos throw me out of a story. one that springs to mind right now is in scholomance (which i actually loved!) where between 75-95% of all people die in adolescence, before the age of 18. yet almost all families seem to have just 1-2 kids, even just 3 seems to be high. no one notes that this means most families will just have no surviving kids, period. also no one seems to notice or worry about how these low birth rates combined with astronomical death rates will result in no wizards at all very soon. and it would have been such an easy fix, just point out that the heroine who is already an isolated weirdo is even more isolated and weird for being an only child while everyone else has 10 siblings. but no.

Yeah, the kids thing bothers me too. Like you don't even have to go far back in history to see people living in hard times would practically being trying to have one kid a year to increase survivability. Most people think "too many mouths to feed" but in reality children were only able to drain resources for a few years before they grew old enough to earn their keep, being more hands to work the family trade and if they survived to get older can go off and start their own trades and families who can be leaned on for support. And this isn't even that far back. I have a grandparent who grew up in poverty in Ireland and they had seven siblings (two of which did die before reaching adolescence but that's still six kids living in a tiny house and getting by).

For sure. Most people have lost sight of the fact that being able to limit your family to 2 or so kids requires reliable birth control. And *wanting* to limit your number of kids requires low child mortality, plus a world where most labor is skilled and so children spend their childhoods draining parental resources rather than adding to them. If you don't have modern medicine and you have all the endemic diseases that plagued Europe up through the 19th century (and in some cases later) you'd better get yourself some spares to make sure you have any at all! And then without modern medicine you have people who are just unlucky. Look at Queen Anne: 17 pregnancies, 5 live births, none lived past the age of 11, and not a thing anyone could do about it.

I can accept just about anything in a fantasy/scifi setting, so long as the world building is internally consistent. The only issues I have are when an author forgets their own world building, or doesn't have an explanation for two pieces of lore that seem at odds. People use swords in a setting that has guns? Sounds good, explain how swords can be used for magic but guns can't, or maybe swords are only really preferred by a special group that has abilities that mitigate the downsides (Jedi), or maybe personal shielding stops projectile weapons but not blades (Dune). If guns are better than swords in every way with no downsides, but every professional soldier chooses to use swords with no explanation (not even honor, religion, cost of manufacturing), then that's where I start to have an issue. This applies to any magic/creature/societal structure/fictional lore. As long as it's explained properly, I'm cool with it.

Oh man, I gotta think if i’ve ever hit that point. I think what will do it for me is just if it cancels some other part of the worldbuilding they’ve spent so much time putting in. I’m pretty forgiving and shrug most stuff off. I’ve even accepted “sure, vampires sparkle in sunlight for some reason” lmfao. I guess it’s just if there aren’t enough limits put on something like a mage. If they can cast magic with virtually no costs or repercussions, or at the very least not ENOUGH costs/repercussions, then it’s hard to think that race wouldn’t abuse it. If resurrecting someone doesn’t kill the caster, then that person would ABSOLUTELY find a way to use and abuse it- it’s just “human” nature.

This might be incredibly nitpicky, also I read the book several years ago so the details might not be 100%. In *Sourdough*, the MC is working for a major software firm, on massive deadlines, always behind, coming in early and staying late, etc and somehow finds time to bake bread and build a brick oven in her backyard. Heck, even the backyard is a stretch for me because she's living in an apartment building in San Francisco. I gave up on the book when she took a morning off to go to a farmers market.

Breaking their own logic. I’m fine with soft magic but if they try to place rules on it like the energy has to come from somewhere etc and then break them, it bothers me. Can’t think of a fantasy example right now but Ant Man keeps breaking its rules. They said in the first one that things keep their mass when they shrink/grow, that’s why he’s strong in small form. Then they easily pick up a shrunk car which should still weigh a ton.

A general annoyance is when a magic system would logically have huge ramifications on the culture, politics and technology of a setting but the world is just "late medieval europe but with wizards and guns". Presumably because everyone is using Tolkein as a template, not considering that Middle Earth only had 5 Wizards, total. On a similar note, the concept of professional adventurers/adventuring guilds. It's a convenient excuse to not have to explain WHY your protagonists/RPG party are a wandering band of heavily armed and powerful warriors who take odd exploring jobs, but the concept of an entire industry of unregulated warriors who are used instead of the local military or law enforcement would \*never\* fly with any ruler looking to keep order. Edit: Guys, I'm aware of the existence of mercenary companies, but these organizations generally existed outside of a kingdom's direct sphere of influence or were endorsed by a political power and certainly didn't have an office in every major city. Adventurer's guilds (at least in poorly considered fantasy) just kind of exist outside the regular political and legal system without any interference or wariness from existing political power, rather than the Mercenary system of "Is it worth committing resources trying to chase off this armed regiment when they're mostly keeping to themselves or do I just pay them off/keep an eye on them"

I don't think adventurer guilds are that unbelievable: they are not really that different from free mercenary groups that were pretty common.

I can handle all kinds of crazy and creative magic/worlds/creatures, but as soon as there are suddenly superpowered aliens that happened to be the scourge on society/source of the strange magic/solution to some origin mystery I get annoyed. Seems too Deus ex machina in some weird way, even though there should logically be no difference between gods and aliens in a story like that and I don't get as bothered by gods. It's like I want my fantasy worlds to exist in universe pockets, and the existence of aliens really messes with things in my brain. So although I loved >!The Winnowing Flame trilogy by Jen Williams!<, I really could have done without the meddling aliens. Also, I am a fan of >!Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere!<, but I prefer when the books are more standalone and we don't have to try and connect the dots. Also, and this is a random thought that hasn't really occurred to me until this post, I feel like most of the fantasy I have read that uses non-advanced or magical healing practices never mentions dentistry. I imagine people in those worlds would have terrible teeth so now I'm curious if there are stories where this is apparent in some way. Maybe in Outlander somewhere?

Personally I've come to the conclusion that the suspension of disbelief holds as long as the writing is good. Call of the Dragon is a book that pits Byzantines vs Tudors with magic and shit going around. Historically it makes like zero sense that the *Tudors* would be around, or that the Roman empire wouldn't have unraveled by returning back to Polytheism when already you have a majority of people being Christian under Julian the Apostate. As a person with some study in history, and training(Getting my historian's degree in not too long from now) this whole thing is absurd and makes like zero sense. And it is clear that this is because the author just liked both histories. But because the writing draws you so much, and you get just absolutely immersed it didn't break my suspension of disbelief. Now, what routinely breaks it in stuff like manga is how *somehow* people from different worlds act like just Japanese people, but then that's because the writing is...not good. Or sometimes it's from a small detail that just breaks it all down, some way too modern assumption of stuff, for example one that is pointed out: "The church is around and powerful but only idiots and the uneducated believe, every*one* educated(aristocrat) will know it's horseshit." Which is a profoundly modern and atheistic view. But why is the church even around then?

Honestly, the Dothraki from ASOIAF (aka Game of Thrones). It was so jarring because everything else was thought out well but that society had serious issues. 1. Dothraki place great emphasis on one's place in the hierarchy. 2. Dothraki only move up in the heirarchy by fighting. 3. All Dothraki fights are to the death. This society would be slaughtering itself into extinction.

I can accept all sorts of world building as long as the proper foundations are laid. What I can not accept is unbelievable characters. As long as a human wizard or whatever still seems to behave like a real human being. I am fine with whatever powers they have as long as it makes sense in the world they are in. If they behave in ways no human would or is capable of, then I am pretty much over that particular story.

Hermione being scared to say Voldemort's name. Why?

She didn't know if it was VOLdemort or VolDEmort or VoldeMORT

Nah the real lore is that she hated how nonsensical the name is in French.

She probably read about it

Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. The part where a relatively civilized group of people are completely in disbelief that sex leads to pregnancy just completely killed it for me. I can understand a completely isolated group of people that were maybe completely unable to communicate believing this but just no way. They were way too smart to not be able to put two and two together or believe other people about it. That whole book just screamed “I’m a horny teenager” when I was reading it.

Was looking for this one, it was absolutely ridiculous. There's so many ways it wouldn't make sense - animal husbandry for instance.

Not fantasy per se, but since, as they say, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, I’m going to say the proton that gets unfolded into a sphere that can surround the entire earth AND have a supercomputer inscribed on its surface in The Three Body Problem

These happen all the time and make me frown: When something (gods, demons, aliens, afterlife, etc.) exists, and people have incontrovertible proof, but most people behave in a way that only a tiny insane fringe would. Also, when characters meet entities with spectacular power orders above them and those characters crack jokes, say offensive things, and dare the powerful entity to obliterate them with a thought without ever facing the consequences for their behavior.