lhs3020b replied to your post “you know your theory about Thedas being post-apocalyptic is just...”
Oh no, I see the Crap!Anons have returned. Sigh :( [For what it's worth, *I* like your theory re:Thedas!]
Aw, thank you! (And I don’t know where they come from. It’s been a while since I got a message like that.)
It’s also kind of funny because I do take worldbuilding seriously.... but in the context of the series itself. And usually, as a thought experiment (or as I said, sandcastles in my own sandbox; I’m never saying “this is the objective truth” about my headcanons, ever).
I mean, do I think that Bioware intended that everyone in Mass Effect drinks their drinks in weird tube things because turians don’t have lips? No, of course not. I think they did that because it was easier to animate with all the various species models. (I don’t judge for that; I work in software, and you have to make concessions if you ever want the product be released, and I’d rather they spent their time on character models and gameplay than on making everyone drink out of realistic-looking glasses.) But given that they all drink out of weird drink tubes, it was purely fun to go “and why might that be?” and then make up an explanation that the standard drinking vessel became a tube when turians became a Council species because turians don’t have lips and can’t drink out of ‘normal’ glasses.
Do I think that Bioware had some grand master plan as to why the society in Dragon Age simultaneously has the medievaloid stuff we saw in Origins and the frankly Early Modern stuff (widespread printed books, evidences of fairly heavy industry, etc.) we saw in 2 and Inquisition? No. But it was fun to come up with an explanation that sort of worked. I enjoyed it. People seemed to like it. Is it perfect? Of course not. But it was fun.
And part of it, too, is that not every series is looking for the same type of realism. I mean, plenty of people have written tl;dr lengths of stuff about how Star Wars is scientifically inaccurate, and/or tried to explain why things make sound in space in the Star Wars universe. I do not bother, because in the context of Star Wars, it seems to be radically beside the point. Star Wars isn’t even fantasy in space, because fantasy often at least tries to explain how its magic system works and so forth. Star Wars is folklore in space. It is knights and princesses and dragons and evil sorcerers. And just like how Cinderella doesn’t stop to explain how the fairy godmother can do what she can do, Star Wars doesn’t stop to explain how the Force works. It operates on folklore logic. (Rogue One is a bit of an outlier, since it operates on war-story logic rather than folklore logic, but still.) When I headcanon for Star Wars, I do it on the level of character and culture... because that makes sense for a world that operates on folklore logic, and writing up all the ways that Star Wars is scientifically implausible would be a waste of time.
And the same thing for Bioware properties. Dragon Age operates on a Dungeons and Dragons, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink, rule-of-cool logic, and rather than critique or fight that, I embrace it. Mass Effect operates on a Star Trek, technobabble, tapdancing-over-the-math logic, and I embrace that too.
But mostly, I think, at the end of the day, it’s simply... I don’t care to engage with my fandoms on a primarily critical level. Could I poke a jillion holes in the worldbuilding for Dragon Age or Mass Effect? Sure. Easily. But I don’t want to. I want to go “okay, let’s pretend that’s true: what then?” I want to spin out ridiculous fantasies, make something new. That’s what I find fun.
And at the end of the day, for me, the whole point of this is having fun. Sandcastles.
