Historically/scientifically incorrect reference in a story

Kilolo

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anyone who read lots of novel/manga or any other media definitely had stumbled upon this at some point, like when author specify something based from out world but turns out to be false.

how far would you tolerate this kind of incorrect reference? assuming you don't know if the author either just lazy to looking for reference, or just totally made the whole thing up.

is reversing gender fine? changing personality? to what extent do you think that an incorrect reference should be intolerable.
 
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T.K._Paradox

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t is called creative freedom when people adopt things like mythology into their stories Zeus in mythology was one of the worst beings possibly imaginable with him being a rapist, mass murder, and adulterer; but oftentimes in media, he is portrayed as stoic, wise, kindhearted (at least for a god). Ironically Hades who is often portrayed as bargain-basement Satan embodies these traits more than Zeus does.

I believe that authors should have this creative freedom to every extent, it allows them to grow as writers and if they choose not to stick close to the source material that is okay.
 

bananapink

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It's probably the fault of other references romanticizing character and using incorrect reference hence making rookie authors like us commit the most common mistake of copying it. doing your own research is the best way ;)

I read a manwha where the FL referenced the chemise dress of Marie Antoinette and used for a grand ball something. I'm rusty with my history but I'm pretty sure Marie got a severe backlash with that dress as it was considered inappropriate. Muslin fabric is meant to be a garment for inner wear/underwear no matter how fancily designed it was.
 

Jemini

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like when a story referencing Zeus from Greek mythology as someone wise while in fact he's just a skirt chaser, or when a story referencing that tomatoes are grew on huge tree like an apple while in actually it belong to a nightshade family (which is actually contain poison).

And here referencing Zeus as "just a skirt chaser" makes you guilty of the exact error you yourself are complaining about.

I really wouldn't go talking smack about Greek gods until you've really researched Greek mythology and gained quite a bit more understanding about it. Whenever you research mythology, reading about the mythos is really not enough. You need to research the contemporary culture and the history of the people who worshiped those gods as well.

In ancient Greece, they had a very different view of gods compared to the way the Catholicized western world views gods now. The Greeks never viewed their gods as perfect beings. They viewed their gods as reflections of the ways human nobility behave.

To sum it up, having some pretty significant failings in the form of debaucherously behavior does not preclude Zeus from being called wise. He would have to actually have something in his lore that actually demonstrates him taking an action that is massively short-sighted... like selling the daughter of the nature goddess to Hadies and thus having her sulk and condemn the world to eternal winter.
 

EternalSunset0

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I don't mind it at all. I mean, one of my favorite Isekai is Nobuna and half of it's barely historically accurate. It did get me to read up on the Sengoku Era and do a lot of studying tho.

I also love pseudoscience BS wherein you have paragraphs of pretend intelligence to explain things with powers, physics, magic, etc. Part of the reason why I like Mahouka and the like for LNs.
 

Kilolo

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And here referencing Zeus as "just a skirt chaser" makes you guilty of the exact error you yourself are complaining about.

I really wouldn't go talking smack about Greek gods until you've really researched Greek mythology and gained quite a bit more understanding about it. Whenever you research mythology, reading about the mythos is really not enough. You need to research the contemporary culture and the history of the people who worshiped those gods as well.

In ancient Greece, they had a very different view of gods compared to the way the Catholicized western world views gods now. The Greeks never viewed their gods as perfect beings. They viewed their gods as reflections of the ways human nobility behave.

To sum it up, having some pretty significant failings in the form of debaucherously behavior does not preclude Zeus from being called wise. He would have to actually have something in his lore that actually demonstrates him taking an action that is massively short-sighted... like selling the daughter of the nature goddess to Hadies and thus having her sulk and condemn the world to eternal winter.
so i had to make a perfect and depth research just to create a simple casual example huh.

you must be really fun at parties, if you ever invited to one.
 

K5Rakitan

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I can tolerate anything that does not harm people. See my public service announcement in my signature about a historical inaccuracy that harms people.
 

HokuouTenrou

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Not sure about my own limits, but I usually avoid any works which depicts historical Norsemen with horned-helmets like plague; especially when the defense is pretty much "muh entertainment." (fictional pastiches like Nords from TES or Norsca from Warhammer miiiiiiiight get a pass. Emphasis on might)
Or Pagan/non-Abrahamic gods are good while their opponents (Jotunn etc) are bad (this one probably got influenced by Abrahamic views).
Even I found it harder to enjoy ninjas "but wearing kabuki kuroko-inspired outfit" works (doesn't help that Japanese themselves are into it. Where's my shinobi with folded/tatami armors?)

OK, I ranted too much, but yeah.
 

Jemini

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so i had to make a perfect and depth research just to create a simple casual example huh.

you must be really fun at parties, if you ever invited to one.
Well, you were literally talking about people giving inaccurate examples of history or mythology, and you gave an inaccurate example of mythology right in your example piece. I don't think it should be any surprise that someone might point this out. You were basically asking for that one.
 

Cipiteca396

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On the one hand, it's always 'fun' to point out someone's mistakes. On the other hand, it's their world, so they might have done it intentionally.

If it's intentional, I'll do my best to ignore it if it's not horrible. If it's a mistake I might point it out... But I'll probably still just ignore it as long as it's not horrible. So I guess my tolerance is kinda high...

Oh, if it's a historical fiction/fanfiction, it's unacceptable. That's NOT their world, after all. Might be fine in an alternate reality, IF they can give a reasonable justification.
 

atgongumerki

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just don't claim it is like that in our world and you are golden.
but if you want your isekai-mc to be from here, and he spouts stuff like that .... I don't tolerate any of that
 

Viator

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Honestly, for the most part it doesn't bother me over-much. I recognize that a lot we consider "fact" today has a good possibility of being woefully inaccurate. particularly when it comes to history. We do the best we can with what we have, but there is a lot of guess work and theorizing, with limited evidence left behind. If history teaches me anything, it's that people are generally ignorant, and that doesn't exclude myself or anyone in the present day.

I don't mean it like an insult, but we just know so fantastically little about our own corner of the universe when you take everything into consideration. That doesn't mean certain things don't annoy me when I come across them, but I usually brush it off. Sometimes if given the opportunity I will offer my own perspective; but I am aware I have my own types of bias. Just like everyone else does.

*We construct our reality out of our own illusions of the day. While what seems real may not actually be, does it really matter if we treat it as such? Only when we know better. And that, if we ever do. To be human is a comedy of errors.
 
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Kilolo

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i'll just delete the example because people just bitching about it.

sorry for not being Mr. Perfect
 

Jemini

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It's probably the fault of other references romanticizing character and using incorrect reference hence making rookie authors like us commit the most common mistake of copying it. doing your own research is the best way ;)

I read a manwha where the FL referenced the chemise dress of Marie Antoinette and used for a grand ball something. I'm rusty with my history but I'm pretty sure Marie got a severe backlash with that dress as it was considered inappropriate. Muslin fabric is meant to be a garment for inner wear/underwear no matter how fancily designed it was.

Oh yes, this sounds about right. All I would have to say to prove this theory is "Bahamut."

Now, what's the first picture that jumped into your mind when I said Bahamut? If you pictured a dragon, congratulations, your mind has been thoroughly tainted by Dungeons and Dragons twisting the original lore.

Bahamut is from Hindu lore, and he is literally described as a fish. You could go a little interpretive with it and, based off the fact that the ancient world tended to be far less specific with it's language, you might also be able to justify imagining Bahamut as a turtle.

If you REALLY want to give him a majestic image, the most beefed-up you can possibly get him while also remaining within the lore would be a sea serpent. That, however, would require you diving very deep and going beyond the mythology into the underlying folk-lore of the region. (It is entirely valid while researching mythology to go into the folk lore, but things often get fuzzy and imprecise when you do that. However, the influence of folk-lore on mythology is very well known, and accepted as an entirely valid route to go with when interpreting mythological lore.)
 
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ArcadiaBlade

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Hell, I wouldn't even deny that when writing fanfiction of all things when most people had corrected the facts of it, I still mistakenly made some errors on some parts and decided that I had enough writing fanfictions(even though I was a bit good at it while having the momentum to continue writing) because I didn't know that hinata and neji were actually cousins and the sharingan doesn't work like that...

Thats it, screw fanfictions and Imma stick to just writing plain originals. I even did over research the source materials that I even knew parts that weren't even on the main show. But its wasted because I got corrected on some errors when I was so invested in my work. Do you have any idea how devastated I was when I was working and researching on how sharingan works and someone commented on the sibling on hyuga thing and I even working on not making mistakes on my source materials?

By the time I was trying to work it out and trying to fix the errors, someone pointed the sharingun thing I was working on and suddenly losing motivation on writing all-together and basically just ended my novel at one point. Having too devastated to work on the sequel.
 

TotallyHuman

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I don't really care what people write in their fiction. If it's bad I will just either suggest improvements (in my opinion) or stop reading. But, ultimately, it's up to the author to write what they want.
 

SuperHeiyan

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Eh, I separate it into 3 things, historical inaccuracy, scientific inaccuracy and gender-bender.

I have rather large tolerance to historical inaccuracy and tend to consider it "what if scenario" and straight up "alt history". The only times when I have an issue is when authors becomes apologist to IRL historical events NOT how they are in that alternative timeline but how they are in our. So if it's about WWII then stuff like making Nazi SS troops were good guys, claiming that Japanese army behaved honorable during their occupation of Chinese territories or claiming that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a good decision that saved millions of lives. I repeat, it all can be truth in the story with different circumstances and I will not care about this but it wasn't truth in real world and shouldn't be claimed as one. Because I see it as a grave disrespect to the victims and their descendants. Changing personality is also lands here if somebody even have historically recorded personality instead of just tradition in the other media.

For scientific inaccuracy while I understand that suspension of disbelief is important but the amount I can handle is different and depends on genre. Basically the more the setting differs from the real world the more I can handle, if difference in physical processes is explained by some mineral, radiation, magic, quantum physics breakthrought etc. that wasn't in our world then all is the better. But if no such things in effect and author goes in deep explanation about metallurgy, agriculture, human biology, computer science and binary logic in particular or any other field that is familiar for me where he is wrong then I can close my eyes on one error or two, but should there be more and they are going to be systematic or just very important for the story then my opinion of the story drops very quickly until I drop the story itself. Unexplained differences are easier to accept than wrongly explained ones.

Gender-bender is absolutely not my thing. I consider it as an either strange perverse diviation which is disrespectfull for the historical figures (Nobunaga Oda isn't waifu material! Cao Cao wasn't lesbian loli! ) or rewriting history to push agenda of either feminists or LGTBQ+. Now I can tolerate it if only one character changed their gender, considering it "what if" scenario but I can't even play hentai games where it is systematic. And mind you, overwise I can play very weird hentai games.
 

KiraMinoru

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Your average reader does not care about whether something is historically accurate because often times, history is a boring subject to them. They’re just there to enjoy something new or fresh. If you change up a few events or details that makes it more interesting, rather than simply knowing the result beforehand because it’s historically accurate, and by doing so a new story is created, they may even appreciate your efforts to spice things up.

Besides that, you think history is completely accurate to begin with? History is very often altered to fit whatever narrative the ”winner” who comes out on top desires. History is very shake and unreliable. Unless you were there and personally experienced it in the flesh, it’s best to take things with a grain of salt. It’s very likely that the history you think you know has already gone through many iterations of edits over time until the original recollection of events is completely lost in a mess, sometimes to such extremes that they become the exact opposite of what they once were.

This might be a hot take, but screw historical accuracy, I couldn’t give a flying shit if the original history was something boring as hell. If I wanted to learn history I’d read a thick ass history book. I came to a web/light novel to be entertained, not fall asleep in a history lecture.

As for scientifically incorrect. Don’t care. If it’s another world, what do I give a shit about it? It could be right there even if it’s some brain dead shit if it was our world. Different laws for different worlds. If it’s set in our world, then yeah, sure, at least try a bit. It doesn’t need to be perfect as what is currently considered perfectly accurate from a scientific perspective may be completely incorrect in the future as new information in a scientific field is uncovered through advancements in technology.
 
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SternenklarenRitter

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I don't really read historic fiction, since I figure if they have to base their work on real events an author is just bad at world building. Scientific inaccuracies make me cringe, (No, cobalt is not poisonous. It is a minor allergen that gives a rash to maybe 5% of humans when in prolonged contact with skin. Cobalt ores do usually contain arsenic but it can't be absorbed through the skin, so it is only a hazard when smelting (so long as you don't go around swallowing cobaltite rocks). Also that ore vein you found containing 90% iron is a darned meteorite. There are no minerals containing more than 78% iron. Meteoric alloys are at least as valuable as steel so don't extract and sell just the iron!) But such frustrations never ruin the whole story. As far as how gods are depicted, I am fine with even extremely loose interpretations. It's not like historic accounts of what kind of gods Apollo or Odin were from 200BCE weren't based on reinterpreted traditions from hundreds of years even earlier after all.
 
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