I've been clicking through a webcomic called Tamuran on and off these past months. Fairly standard sword and sorcery routine, not terrible but not really inspired enough to inspire a full archive binge. There's some wood elves and magic gypsies and a vaguely medievalish kingdom of indeterminate technological level. At least the shapeshifting empaths stand out a bit, and I am partial to a bit of shapeshifting myself.
One scene on page 197 struck me as exemplifying one way in which we take poor worldbuilding for granted. The elf starts a phrase with "my people believe" and honestly, that's just not how different tribes talk to each other. Does noone remember professors telling you to stop saying "in my opinion" because yes, obviously, if you're the one talking then yours is the opinion? No one presents the dogma inculcated from birth as a "belief" unless speaking to authority and therefore forced into a defensive, apologetic (fine, call it diplomatic) posture, or making some other socially manipulative play on the target's sympathies. The forced facetious equanimity of modern discourse is a product of disinterested higher authorities throwing different tribes together while mandating coexistence. Those talking about "my people" in such a society are really just hiding behind two authorities at once: the people in question and the overarching social structure. You might as well write all your characters padding their statements with "sources claim" or "they said on the telly..."
Honest beliefs are taken for granted.
And, y'know, we didn't use to be so gosh-dingledangled insecure that we need even our fictional characters with fictional beliefs to constantly pad their dialogue with trigger warnings to each oher. Conan: what is best in life?
"My people say it might be to crush your enemies and perhaps if it's not too much of a bother to see them driven before you and unless it hurts anyone's pwecious fee-fees, to hear da lamentations of der womyn."
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