[Meta #3]: Real World Countries as Equated with FE Nations and the Nature of Fantasy

[writerawakened]

(please excuse the overly long and probably pretentious title; also, excuse this entire post its daily derpery)

Comments

[mark_asphodel]

Simply by the fact that several FE worlds are astonishingly peaceful (between the 800-year peace in Magvel and the only "occasional clash between nations" in Elibe mentioned in FE6, I think I can safely say that trying to pin down analogues to any Earth society, given how different the two universes' political climates are, is very slippery (though admittedly fun :P)

I'm inclined to think of that as the same sort of hand-waving as some of the other Heroic Founding Legends in FE games... that turn out to be either whitewash or hogwash. As Gunlord says, if they're so peaceful, why are entire societies based around supplying mercenaries? Why do we see the level of military development that we see? Etc.

But, in the end, you're right. While some of the FE nations and cultures may be trying to evoke particular societies, trying to understand Tellius Crimeans through extensive research on the real-world Crimea won't get us very far. And trying to understand FE religion by focusing everything through the lens of, say, the Catholic Church won't help much either.