Some diffrences between Normie’s world and Earth
I’ve been thinking about the implications of Normie of not knowing what cheese or tomatoes are and they're insane (in a fun world building way)!
Normie’s world isn’t just ‘basically Medieval Earth but with magic and monsters.’ The plant life and animals are vastly different from our world. The lack of tomatoes could make it medieval Europe because Europe only got tomatoes in the 1500’s. However, we’ve been making cheese for well over 7000 years!
We were eating cheese before we could properly digest it because we liked it so much. As a species, there’s a good chance that humans developed lactose tolerance because of how much we love cheese. This means that, while Normie enjoyed his slice of pizza, he’s probably going to have an unpleasant time on the toilet later.
Other than breast milk, does Normie’s world not have milk either? Normie knows what a troll is but has he ever seen cows, goats or sheep? If not, what domesticated animals do they have instead? If there aren’t any sheep, does another animal produce something similar to wool?
I headcanon, that after a few near misses, Normie will have put his foot down and banned anyone other than Muffles and himself from foraging.
Think about it, the first and most important rule of foraging is; never eat anything unless you’re sure it’s safe. If Normie didn’t know what cheese or tomatoes are, what chance do the others have of recognising safe food from Normie’s world?
Is that an apple? Apples are safe to eat, right? Wrong! It’s a gwenwyn* and it’s deadly poisonous! What about that purple banana looking thing? Purple isn’t normal a food colour, better not risk it. It’s a blasus** and it’s a rare delicacy. One blasus will give you all the nutrients you need and fill you up for a whole day.
Anyway, at some point, one of the others will definitely have gone to eat something only for Normie to freak out and knock it out of their hands because, “What are you doing!? Do you want to die a slow and painful death?”
What about Doc collecting things that he thinks are healing herbs? Has Normie ever had to explain that, “No, they aren’t medicinal. All they’d do is paralyze your patients and give them horrifying hallucinations.”
*Gwenwyn is the Welsh word for poison because I’m bad at inventing words and I like Welsh
** Blasus is the Welsh word for tasty
