How 'historical' should historical writing be?
Was just over on the anti-Shurtugal LJ community and there was this fascinating bit about how inheritance worked on one Greek island. Basically the oldest son and daughter got everything while the rest of the kids were told, "Get used to being dirt-poor field hands." The oldest children apparently treated them about as well as you would expect, which lead to some wondering about how many of them 'fell off a cliff' or the like.
It made me wonder (and comment): what's better, historical fiction that takes a 'warts and all' approach to displaying the past without judgement within the story, or trying to shoehorn 20th century upper-middle-class American values in where they don't belong and indeed wouldn't even work?
Those who've read my fiction know I take a let the chips fall where they may approach. One setting is done in a 'furry' pre-Columbian Aztec Mexico, with predators ruling prey species and using them for food in very unapologetic fashion. There are criticism of this within the setting, but it's done as something that would make sense to them (framed through Quetzalcoatl worship and its historic antipathy to human sacrifice).
Then there's the Ardashir stories, where Ardashir is part and parcel of racial caste system that puts wolves like him on top (and in return has very high standards and expectations of them) with everything running down to humans at the (theoretical) bottom. It mostly born out of my disgust at the endless array of 'evil hy00mans tyrannizing noble furries' stories I've seen, as well as a desire to look at the sort of caste system that actually existed in old Persia and India. It's not a perfect example, though -- humans and other 'lesser' creatures have been adopted into the high noble clans over the centuries, leading to a more racially mixed aristocracy.
Both settings tend to be very violent (much like their real-world inspirations, at least at the times I'm choosing) and the people in them are rather blase about things that would repulse us, like mass slavery and divinely-sanctioned autocracies. I could have people reacting to this like modern Americans... but it wouldn't feel right to me. It'd feel downright dishonest, really.
So to get back to the original question: what's better, the 'real' past or the one in which 'enlightened' and 'modern' ideas are freely tossed about when they shouldn't even exist in this world?
It made me wonder (and comment): what's better, historical fiction that takes a 'warts and all' approach to displaying the past without judgement within the story, or trying to shoehorn 20th century upper-middle-class American values in where they don't belong and indeed wouldn't even work?
Those who've read my fiction know I take a let the chips fall where they may approach. One setting is done in a 'furry' pre-Columbian Aztec Mexico, with predators ruling prey species and using them for food in very unapologetic fashion. There are criticism of this within the setting, but it's done as something that would make sense to them (framed through Quetzalcoatl worship and its historic antipathy to human sacrifice).
Then there's the Ardashir stories, where Ardashir is part and parcel of racial caste system that puts wolves like him on top (and in return has very high standards and expectations of them) with everything running down to humans at the (theoretical) bottom. It mostly born out of my disgust at the endless array of 'evil hy00mans tyrannizing noble furries' stories I've seen, as well as a desire to look at the sort of caste system that actually existed in old Persia and India. It's not a perfect example, though -- humans and other 'lesser' creatures have been adopted into the high noble clans over the centuries, leading to a more racially mixed aristocracy.
Both settings tend to be very violent (much like their real-world inspirations, at least at the times I'm choosing) and the people in them are rather blase about things that would repulse us, like mass slavery and divinely-sanctioned autocracies. I could have people reacting to this like modern Americans... but it wouldn't feel right to me. It'd feel downright dishonest, really.
So to get back to the original question: what's better, the 'real' past or the one in which 'enlightened' and 'modern' ideas are freely tossed about when they shouldn't even exist in this world?