Last week on Twitter, everyone was discussing what the 1990s smelled like, and it made me think about how smells define a setting. My thoughts wandered to fictional worlds, and I wondered what my favorite fictional settings would smell like. Below are my theories regarding what aromas would dominate the air of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Our Flag Means Death, and Area 88, based on my Twitter thread.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power contains many settings, but I’d like to focus on the two villainous headquarters: the Fright Zone and the Velvet Glove. The Fright Zone, the sprawling city/citadel housing the Etherian Horde, is a site of heavy industry with no visible vegetation.
It’s encased in stone formations, which might block wind from blowing into the city, making the air stagnant.
The slight haze hanging over the Fright Zone in this image suggests pollution and stagnant air.
I imagine the Fright Zone would smell like heavy machinery, oil, exhaust, industrial pollution, and concrete. The air feels warm, dense and slightly humid in one’s nostrils.
Visually and thematically, the Velvet Glove is the complete opposite of the Fright Zone. Horde Prime’s ship, the Velvet Glove, is impossibly clean and sterile. The air would be constantly scrubbed and recirculated, seeing as it’s a spacefaring vessel. The air inside is cool, dry, and smells disconcertingly like nothing. Like the minds of his clone soldiers, like the worlds he reduced to ash, Horde Prime’s residence is blank and sterile, with no smells to contaminate its “purity”.
Our Flag Means Death
I haven’t watched the series yet, but I’ve read about it and enjoyed several YouTube clips. The early 1700s mariner world of OFMD would smell rank intense and earthy.
The Revenge is populated by stinky bois pirates who have few opportunities to bathe or change their outfits (with the exception of Stede), and are sweating due to warm daytime temperatures and physical labor. I imagine the Revenge would smell like ocean funk, fine wood, hemp rope, oranges, unwashed clothes, and unwashed bodies.
Carl the seagull smells like a bird. Find a nearby bird and sniff it. That’s what Carl smells like.
Even upper crust spaces are dominated by strong aromas. The aristocrat dinner would smell like makeup, hair oil, heavy perfume, sweat (this is the era before deodorant, after all), heavy fabrics, and seafood, specifically prawns. For me, the dinner party would be an olfactory nightmare.
Area 88
Area 88 takes place at a desert air force base in the fictional North African kingdom of Asran. The open air spaces of the titular base would smell like heavy machinery, jet fuel, and jet exhaust. The heat of the North African desert would magnify these odors.
Smells become even more intense inside Area 88's buildings. The interior spaces of the base would stink of CIGARETTE SMOKE. Since the story takes place in the late 70s & early 80s, multiple characters smoke indoors and outdoors. When I watched the first OVA, I was startled by how smoke-filled the briefing room was.
Then, we have the pilots and base staff themselves: men who wear heavy clothing in a hot climate, live in a cloud of cigarette smoke while indoors, and work with machinery and weapons. Some come from countries where deodorant use was uncommon in the late 70s. Some of the fighter pilot mystique fades when we realize that the pilots can’t smell very good under those circumstances. Even if we charitably assume that all the pilots shower on a daily basis, they would still smell like sweat, cigarette smoke, machinery, and chemicals.
Oh, and hair gel. That pompadour ain’t standing up by itself.
In conclusion, these three fictional worlds probably smell weird.
We can enhance our appreciation of fictional worlds by imagining their unspoken details, including olfactory details. When writing fiction, we can add new sensory dimensions to our setting by describing its smells. When exploring or creating new worlds, don’t forget the scents in the air!
