The Politics of Fantasy Maps
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- Опубликовано: 15 дек 2020
- What do maps of fictional places reveal about politics and geography? This video essay explores questions about the creation of space, the subjectivity of maps, and the role of maps in modern media and worldbuilding.
An update:
Wow, when we made this we imagined only about 100 people would ever see it. This was completed years ago as a school project, which had a separate bibliography that has long since gone missing. Looking back on this, the attributions in the video itself were a bit messy and not exactly up to Academic standards on their own.
Correction: All of the quotes attributed to John Wyatt Greenlee are from “In the Beginning was the Word: How Medieval Text Became Fantasy Maps", which was Co-Authored with Anna Fore Waymack, whose name we accidentally failed to include. Our apologies, Anna!
You can read the whole talk here: historiacartarum.org/how-medi...
Other works referenced:
Place in Research: Theory, Methodology, and Methods
By Eve Tuck, Marcia McKenzie
Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914: Third Edition by Robert Gildea.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria E. Anzaldúa
Some Assumptions about Fantasy
A speech by Ursula K. Le Guin
Presented at the Children’s Literature Breakfast
BookExpo America, Chicago, IL
4 June 2004
Music Used:
"Infados" by Kevin MacLeod
incompetech.com/music/royalty...
"Thoughtful" by Lee Rosevere
leerosevere.bandcamp.com/trac...
"Debunking", "Casey like Beat", and "Fear the Edge" by Yuzzy
bit.ly/2nUbGqD
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A massive miss opportunity I often find with fantasy worlds is they normally only have 1 map. Why not multiple, say one nation or empire could create 1 map n another nation could create another contradicting map. This would be a really cool way to show internal division and disputed territory amount other things.
World maps in novels and RPGs are typically there to help the reader/player find his way around the narrative background.
The type of contradictory maps you describe would be more useful as handouts for a specific adventure.
Of course, if the conflict between the two empires forms the core of the narrative, then disagreeing maps would be a great way to indicate the basics of this conflict.
In this case, you wouldn't be mapping the world at all. Instead you are mapping the disagreement.
I've been making multiple with my current campaign because the monster factions are so important.
Megan Whalen Turner's Thief series actually does this, having two conflicting maps from different sources in the last couple books.
I kinda use this concept in one of the worlds I use for my RPG campaings. There's the "human map", where human plot their realms very precisely, with the occasional settlement of other races (like the default fantasy map). And then there are the maps for other races, like elves or giants, with borders completely different from the human map, with different sizes and importances given to different things.
It's up to the players to piece together some informations to decifer, for example, using an elvish map where and old civilization is relation to their human map.
@@gabrielpmo great idea, stealing it.
You can use those biases, such as assuming certain places are empty, as an interesting worldbuilding tool as well. For instance, in a TTRPG campaign, you can convey the political and sociological bisases of a certain place (In this case the source of the map the players hold) by having the players find out a region or a culture is strikingly different from what they were shown previously.
That's exactly what I thought of as well!
By immersing the reader / the player / the viewer in only the perspective of a single culture or a system, it can make the reveal of its bias an incredible story-telling opportunity! To, in one move, both make them gain a newfound curiosity for the world, since they now expect that information may come from an unreliable narrator, and make them ask those same questions of their own reality and perspective!
I really wish I could actually apply all this potential in a real project as opposed to gushing about world-building from a detached space though. It's pretty overwhelming, to juggle this much introspection and the power of, basically, a God.
@@thosebloodybadgers8499 I really like these ideas, but one thing to note is that the beauty of these storytelling strategies is that players may be likely to trust the first source of information they are given, and once the curtains are pulled back, they may not fall for it twice. Be careful when planning out the story so that you can take advantage of the drama these reveals create and the potential they have to change the nature of the game itself. The next challenge, I think, is to find ways to be able to use this element more than once, because while you've got your players questioning everything they're being told already, there's nothing quite like being able to twist the plot more than once, whether it's in the same game or not.
@@jerrykwan150In literature, Sarah J Maas does this beautifully in A Court of Thrones and Roses. Everything the main character knows about Prythian turns out to be wrong several times over, and each new reveal changes the plot completely.
it might be too pop or cliche, but i feel like Attack on Titan does reflect this
True
My favourite fantasy world I've made was explicitly built as "A Merchant's Guide to X." The author was a well-travelled merchant giving advice to others of his class and was based firmly in his own experience. It's highly opinionated, favours urban centres and great states, and is at times chauvinistic, all because these were the express interests of the author. There were even multiple editions over decades - in the D&D campaign I ran with this world, the players had an old version but stumbled into a civil war in what looked on the map like a large, perfectly stable empire. All-in-all, it provided the players a good opportunity to question their own Guide as they found it to so often flatten the reality on the ground.
This sounds so cool! Would you be willing to share more about your world? The merchant guides, the empires, etc? I'm trying to make something similar on my own world
Tolkien’s aproach is pretty tolerant to these themes i believe. Not only because majority of civilization infrastructure is not adressed in any king (villages, less important towns, castles, etc.) but also the way he adressess the landscape. The states are not called by its inhabitants (there’s no edaina, or noldor empire) but by the land itself usually. Even concrete states like gondor or rohan have no clear border, making they ambiguous (mordor is an exeption as its border is literally outlined by mountain range
You need to remember that the map of Middle-earth wasn't intended to show readers where a kingdoms boundaries are, or to be used as a geographical tool to determine exact locations or accurately measure distances or even drawn to a truly accurate scale. It was a map drawn by an amateur that kind of filled it in as he traveled from the Shire to Gondor. And as he arrived somewhere, or was told of somewhere, he added the name to the map. He didn't know where the borders were, he just knew that eventually that were no longer in Rohan, but had entered Gondor.
That map is just so we (as the reader) can kind of have something visual that we can see the Fellowship's progress. Now had the Red Book of Westmarch been an official record, commissioned by a king, and not a memoir or recollection or diary of the Hobbits' adventure (and written as such by Tolkien), the map would probably have been drawn with more concrete borders, and more cities of note, with roads and major routes of travel marked, without exaggerated and out of scale terrain symbology, and at an accurate scale with measurable distances. Because an official record would be concerned less with following some traveler, and more concerned with giving accurate information
@@bufordhighwater9872 good arguement, didn’t consider this.
Tolkiens story was not about tolerance, but go ahead and pretend that the 80 year old work of a devout catholic fits into your weird political cannon.
It doesn't, you just need him for recruitment purposes.
@shoopoop21 sorry that your brain-worms have liquefied your brain to such an extent that anytime you see the word "tolerance" you assume they must mean "diversity" or compare it to modern identity politics. but that isn't what is meant by "tolerance"
@@shoopoop21 from your complete misunderstanding of the comment I actually presume you haven't even watched the video, or didn't understand it either. they said "tolerant to these themes" ie the themes of how older maps are more vague, symbolic, less focused on technical accuracy, less focused on defining hard political borders
I think it would be interesting to have, rather than a single “canonical map of the world”, to have two or three or four different maps, made from different perspectives. One can compare which cities and towns are labeled on each, what names they use (or a direct translation of those names if the story has fictional languages), and what features are drawn incorrectly, or not drawn.
This is why I like turning random shapes and fractals into maps. The randomness eliminates my own biases as much as possible and forces me to mold my ideas to the geography and extrapolate instead of trying to impose what 'should' be there.
This sounds like a cool way to create a world's unique history & lore. Like the randomness of the geography caused different people to live certain ways, be proficient at different things, create eras of prosperity because what was once a small fishing town became an important sea trade route once *insert empire* extended it's boundaries. I like it
Glad to see I'm not the only one who fantasises with this haha. One thing I often find myself doing is looking at the bread crumbs on the table while I'm eating, and imagining they are the islands of an archipelago in the table sea. It amuses me to try to group them together in countries and political entities and imagining how each one of those islands would look like, its climate, its people, its infrastructure... just based on its location and size within the archipelago.
PS Yes I'm a map geek I know
The map of Roshar is modelled off the Julia set
@@antoniodelaugger9236 Even a map-generator has bias. Or does it sometimes generate maps with heat information, or elevation levels? Or is it, as is typical, just naming which nation state "owns" land
Your biases are what makes your map relevant in the first place. Every fantasy is a reflection of our perspective of the real world and thats what makes them so interesting.
Political Maps of my campaign setting is looking more and more like Holy Roman Empire internal borders. I like to think of those borders more as "Spheres of Control" usually around settlements, helps creating realistic systems as well, forces me to think about it.
One thing I also like creating is culture, lifestyle, sprachbund, and de jure maps to give the world some dynamism I can play around with
If you think HRE borders were sphere of controls you fundamentally misunderstand how it worked.
Holy cow. This video and channel is criminally underrated. The quality of this is unreal. You are doing great, and can't wait to see what you do next.
Thank you so much for your support! Our interests are somewhat broad so the topics will vary, but we're excited to make more.
ikr
Bro hea like uploaded 1 video too early to decide whether it's underrated or not
Not finished the video yet, but this comment has got me to subscribe.
Literally only 2 videos
This was delightful to come across--a student sent it to John Wyatt Greenlee, who shared it with me. That said, would it be possible to update the credits where you've quoted us? Every sentence of our piece was thoroughly co-authored. (Funny coincidence, JW and I both think that your voiceover for quotes sounds weirdly like my actual voice!) -Anna Waymack
Hi Anna, we're very sorry for the incorrect attribution! RUclips sadly got rid of their corrections feature, so we don't have a good way to fix the video itself, but there is now a correction in the description. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and that's a funny coincidence that we sound alike! Again, sincere apologies, that was sloppy on our part.
This makes me think of Zemuria, the fictional continent of the Trails video game series, and how the locations of countries contributes to the overall plot. Especially Crossbell, the city-state stuck in between two superpowers.
Bit like Novigrad in TW3 then. What you do influences whether or not it falls to Redania, Nilfgaard, or remains a free city.
@@Jenna_Talia You mean "falls to Redania, Nilfgaard" right?
@@msid7748 oh yeah oops
Drops two great videos leaves refuses to elaborate
>be me
>finds new video essayist with high-quality and insightful content
>wants to see more
>clicks on channel
>channel has two videos, both over a year old
>feelsbadman
Well, I suppose I'll subscribe on the off chance new content is eventually released.
The last RPG campaign I ran accidentally ended up a mapping experiment. I drew some coastlines, decided to mark languages (just some fuzzy, overlapping blobs to give a rough idea where each one was spoken), then ran out of time.
I ended up pretty happy with just the language map. It wasn't precise about borders, but it said a lot more about nomads and settlers; who lived or traded with whom; and how far the big imperial powers' might actually reached (versus where they drew their borders).
This is a great exploration of maps in general, not just in the context of fantasy.
I like the idea of a mapmaker slowly discovering the world through his journeys. The first book starting with a blank map and a single city.
Using the thoughts of this video for a minecraft world I yet have to build is truly amazing.
Having already mapped out my place which now needs to be put into a living map rather then a static one is something I want to achieve
what's interesting is the very man who made the trope of modern fantasy maps; JRR Tolkien, was also the first to break that very trope, as he stated that dwarves oriented their maps with east were north otherwise would be.
That was common in Medieval English maps, that he most certainly was intimately aware of.
@@d4n4nable Likely so however it still is not familiar with us modern people and so in a sense it still breaks the trope
That was common in Breton maps as well, that's why we still call the eastern part "High Brittany" and the western part "Low Brittany"
That actually used to be normal for maps all through Europe for parts of history- that’s why Asia was known as “the orient”, because you would “orient” the map to have east be up
Mappa Mundi is an interesting counter-example to modern (humanist) cartography, but I think it would also be interesting to fantasy maps draw inspiration from the Aztec Codex Xolotl, which show the landscape in terms of stories and journeys rather than as a poltical structure. Especially in medieval fantasy, this kind of map would be really interesting for centering the worldbuildng around how the land is used rather than where things are.
Very cool video. As a world builder, I personally think that world maps enter their final stage when different characters can point the same place and give it different names.
I can't get enough video essays into my brain
I just discovered this video and I gotta say, it's brilliant. The editing is very high-end and the content... Chef's kiss!
The ending segment reminds me of what happened with the Louville ω hill near the Chang'e 5 landing point on the moon.
New worlds, same old problems... great video!
I gotta thank you for making this video because it opened a whole new perspective on map making altogether. I had been having a problem with a current world I've been attempting to build and never once thought of choosing a specific perspective to create it from, beyond "I need, the storyteller, need a map!" Great work.
Yeah Im gonna make a map for my fairytale story/novel and there's no way I'ma include every single detail of the world , plus doing that would leave little imagination for the reader making the world a bit stale.
Can't wait to see what you come up with next!
Oh my goodness! This video is absolutely incredible, from the writing, editing, and visuals are just... Outstanding!
Also, the voices work so well
Great video! Definitely brought some oversights of my own within my worldbuilding to light. Thank you!
This was genuinely inspiring, as a writer myself, I'll definitely be taking notes for my own work, maps and stories that reflect our own world I find fascinating, it's nice to see some that loves good maps too, just a simple map will not suffice
This is incredible! I'm definitely going to keep this in mind from now on. It's also a good reminder for real life. Keep in mind the wills of others, how wants and needs take away those of others.
this is one of my favorite videos of all time on this platform. Incredible.
In the Web Novel Delve, there is a map of the world that the main character takes to scribbling on with abandon because he hates it do mich for being so inaccurate. It has fairly accurate coasts and little else going for it but as a reader it’s fun to see this bap with all the scribbles and notes and also the knowledge that it is only a rough approximation of the world. It still helps to orient the reader, but it is also fun and open to the unknown at the same time and I love it for that
The quality of this video is so good! You deserve 100k + views on this interesting subject!
This is the kind of thoughtful content we need more of. A++
Really cool video, well build and well documented. Keep it going.
You did a great job with this. Definitely going to do my part in sharing it with other worldbuilders where I can!
It'd be interesting to see a book with maps from various perspectives of the different factions in the world.
Excellent exploration of the subject of maps, of fantasy, and of the concept of boundaries. Great bit of philosophic consideration!
This is insanely good content for a channel of this size.
I was intrigued, then I left hungry for more. keep it up.
Great video. I'm your 20th subscriber and your content is so well made and interesting, I have no doubt I'll follow your ascension to the olympus of video essayists.
In a couple of years, I will be saying "I was here from the start".
OMG! This is so underrated! Great job, keep up the good work!
Thanks. This gave me an idea. The next time I DM a Fantasy D&D Campaign, I'll never give my players one objective world map.
Instead I'll have them gain access to a number of maps specific to a certain culture or time period and have differ from each other.
-Places appear on one map, while they are missing from another one.
-One map has exact borders of nations, another has different border for the same nations or no borders at all.
-Places are named differently on different maps, all carrying different connotations.
This, I think, will make for interesting exploration of the world, especially if the main goal of the campaign or a certain arc is to find an exact place.
This video was actually an incredible find. I hope more and more people come to learn about this as well :)
I have never known that I needed a video like this until I saw it. Well done.
this is an awesome video which touches many important subject and gives a lot of food for thought. thank you!
What a great work, incredible video thank you man
What a great video, it's a pity you haven't made more!
This is such an amazing channel !!
Excellent video! You communicate the issues here very well!
Holy shit, I have to say I got chills when I watch the video. Thanks! Its been so long since I got such a nice inspiration to write and such a great insight. Thank you so much!!
This is incredibly knowledgeable and thought provoking. I hope you consider making more videos one day!
I went to check out your channel expecting to see tens or hundreds of thousands of subscribers (because of the quality), and was incredibly surprised to see under 1k. Needless to say I've done my part to correct that. Can't wait for more!
Well, he does only have two year old videos
I’ve got a dnd group that I’ve slapped into an era of a story intended to publish a version some day. My idea of maid might possibly be influenced by the fact I play EU4 in my spare time since I have multiple maps of the same thing with different labels making different things. Simplest is the Landmass Map Mode where it just has names of continents and other landmasses. I was aware that nationstates as I’m used to them wouldn’t be functional, so instead I have the Hegemony Map Mode, where it shows what polity has the most influence/de facto control over certain areas. Then we have the Region Map Mode where I labeled thing that I’ve said are about equivalent to saying Asia Minor/Anatolia, The Levant, the Ruhr River valley and such - though the sizes are a bit skewed and some I could very easily update, and intend to eventually do so , so there’s that. And all these maps, I’ve implicitly and explicitly told the players, are a tad bit wrong because of in world messiness - particularly certain areas of the map that aren’t accurate to the actual state of the world - not just politically but geographically. So far it hasn’t but me in the but yet, though I do constantly find I want to make and even more detailed map which may or may not be fully accurate.
this was great. it puts voice to something I noticed about some of my own maps.
in one of my maps I only recently added nation states, it had only been devided into regions loosely based on environment and some similarities in culture.
even so I found that there where regions that I could not divide into nation States as the nature of the people and culture and just did not allow for it.
I sometimes wonder if dividing it into nation states was a mistake, just because it makes it easier for others to understand.
im finding a simmular issue with something im actually writing a story for, where I know there are nations who have identities, but at the same time that dose not always seem to fit for the story.
I think your ‘mistake’ has a lot in common with how real world modern states have formed. To your second issue, I think showing the boundaries of and contradictions to the National identities you’ve developed for your story will give your world a greater sense of verisimilitude.
Interesting there is a map of Skyrim from the Elder Scrolls in the video (from 8:36). In the context of this game world this particular map is very much in the Imperial/Cyrodilic cartographic style (the Tamrielic Empire being like a fantasy version of the Roman Empire). The Nords’ own views of their lands would be more “fluidic”. And the view of the region from the indigenous Reachmen would be yet again different from both.
One of the positive points about the fantasy world of the Elder Scrolls is its recognition of the complexities beyond simplistic black-and-white binaries. For instance at the start of the game in Morrowind the player is presented with a quite standard picture of the “holy cities” of the Tribunal against the evil forces of the Red Mountain. But as one progresses in the story one realises that the real picture is a lot more complex than this. There are also nomadic Ashlander tribes that function outside the “civilised norms” of either the Empire or the Tribunal, but they are not simply romanticised into some kind of “noble savage” either, but are people with complex and more realistic motives and tendencies.
I love when worldbuilding tells me more about our own world! Thanks for the great video :))
It would be great to get a closer look at your map, looks cool
Great video. I really enjoyed the section on nation states.
This is...an amazingly thoughtful video.
This is the best video on this topic I've ever seen.
I am now your 50th subscriber, keep it up, your intent is great
Bravo! An excellent, thought provoking video!
A wonderful video. Very insightful, very useful
This was a really helpful and interesting video, thank you!
I have to say, this was a great video, very thoughtful and well-thought-out. In my own world-building, I've wanted to move away from standards that have apparently been set in place by a genre or tradition. I haven't finished (I don't think it ever ends), in part because something comes along--like this video--that causes me to consider something else that hadn't occurred to me or that I was unaware of. Some of the things you mention have occurred to me, and I've been mulling over a number of ideas concerning my world. I think one has to draw a line somewhere, perhaps, however, or else one's world may become a salad of things intended to "flip the script," but that end up making a mess of things. Perhaps some form of convention is necessary.
Very thought-provoking work! :-)
Such a great video, I wish more people took this to heart
I am legitimately impressed as to the quality. Phenomenal job dude. Made me think of some important stuff for my projects
most interesting. and most excellent in pointing out dis/possession.
I think the reason Dynastic nomenclature is used is because it makes a lot of sense in a world where one of the most important political questions is "which powerful family claims ultimate authority over this place?"
Very late to this video but wanted to say it's fantastic! Subscribed!
Dear god. The script of this video is incredible. Mind blown.
Great content. As a fantasy world builder myself I find it very thought provoking to consider maps as inherently segmenting between the civilized and the savage. That being said... I'm left with a bit of pause on how to rectify this.
This is a great video! and very underrated channel!
The opening sequence to this video gave me my villain origin flashbacks to APHUG in high school.
What a fantastic video! Thank you!
Only 200 subs for something with such good quality? Im subbing
Very helpful documentary on an aid to fantasy map making.
"Dynasties aren't an important way of thinking about states anymore".
The Kims of North Korea and the House of Saud would like a word.
Absolute banger of a video.
I don't care about ethnicity as an individual, and my maps tend to reflect that. There are states, but nations often neglected. I don't think we should care about ethnicity as humans, but we do, and orcs are truly different from humans. Sometimes my worldbuilding in general neglects that more than I should. Not to say I completely ignore it - I have a Mindflare stat block, and I'm not going to shove it into the middle of a forrest.
Criminally underrated channel. A true hidden gem. Have my like and sub. Hope you get bigger. Keep it up! =D
Thank you for such a great video! Even while aware of the bias of maps, having such a neatly presented essay is highly valuable to help all those notions click into place.
Incredible essay!
Very cool video. Love geopolitical fantasy
Nice video dude! good job
Needed this.
Very nice and insightful, though, what would be a good example of a fantasy map for you?
Yes, I've been focusing more on peoples and claimed areas rather than pure accurate geography in an AD&D game I am running. Sure, there are land maps, but they are out of date, so one cannot be sure of the settlers or monstrous factions that inhabit areas. To say nothing of strongholds, hidden bases, and access points to the deep below.
We should also remember the functionality of the maps those people create.
Nation states want political boundaries.
Merchants may want roads between cities, the wealth, production and demand of those cities, and the distance and dificulty of the roads between them.
Nomads may want the migration patterns of the animals they hunt and herd, as well as weather patterns.
Absolutely loved this video. Immediate subscribe
Great video!
Man's spent 15 minutes telling writers to add the cultural map mode
/J great video!
I’m proud to be one of your first 100 subscribers lmao quality stuff!
Really nice video i enjoyed watching it a lot!
I found that fascinating thank you ❤🏴
A printed map with scribblings keeping track of indigenous tribes and their legends kind of looks neat. Well to me. Also marking anomalies.
Unfortunately, not many stories do that.
I remember that part in children of hurin where mîm says that his home was called sharbhund before elves came and changed all the names.
8:35 You showed the map of Skyrim as an example of a "static" or "simple" "nation-state" map without any depth. But the lore of the Elder Scrolls implied the area has a rich and diverse history with multiple groups of people moving in and out of the area such as the falmer, the dwemer, the reachmen, the nords, and the dunmer.
Suddenly imagining a map where the vast majority of peoples are migratory. How do you map the movement of these people and the effect they have on their environments? What does the map look like in places where paths of migration intersect? And that's just one idea for an alternatively themed map.
This was fantastic!
Interesting analysis, now I'm wondering about different maps agendas