Long Life and No History

[MrNybble]

I tend to notice an age trend in most fantasy. Humans and other creatures get absurdly long life spans. Some in the millions of years. There are sentient beings around for this long and yet the history of the world is missing lots of details. The forgotten times shouldn't be so if there was people around during that time the are still around.

What do others think about this?

 

[Devor]

Yeah, the lack of history is a real issue, I feel, in a lot of stories. On the flipside there's the tendency of histories to be boring, which makes it a difficult subject to work with. Finally, we end up with histories that are kind of simplistic. The sheer number of events in the history of any one real world region get wiped away into simple terms.

I've tried different takes on it in different settings. In Smughitter, though, I've landed on what I think is the most realistic take on fantasy setting history. The main kingdom has been through "Six Forging Wars," events which have had a long-term serious impact on the country's borders and cultural identity. There were other wars, skirmishes, little things, but they history has proven them to be less important. There's a worldbuilding dump early on which kind of breezes through these forging wars, but each one will eventually have some background significance in understanding the setting over the course of the series.

 

[Insolent Lad]

I've worked around this problem by making some of the most ancient beings no longer able to remember their youth. Even a god's brain can hold only so much memory--indeed, almost none of them remember their origin.

 

[Yora]

I think the real question is why would you put ancient beings into a story if their memories from the ancient past are not relevant to the story?

 

[TheKillerBs]

You could also make it so the lost "history" is older than the ancients, and thus events from millennia ago are considered relatively recent and the "real" history begins much earlier.

I think the real question is why would you put ancient beings into a story if their memories from the ancient past are not relevant to the story?

Because ancient beings are awesome.

 

[elemtilas]

I think the real question is why would you put ancient beings into a story if their memories from the ancient past are not relevant to the story?

Maybe the characters don't know that? They only know that, according to their own legends and lore, there are these Really Ancient Dudes who are renown for their ancient wisdom. They're just going to have to sort things out the hard way.

 

[KJF]

You mention it's a trend you've seen; where have you seen this? Besides Tolkien.

I see a being with such a long life (and memory) similar to a magic weapon or power. It's outside the norm and people don't really believe such a thing exists no matter how many stories they've heard. No one they know has ever met such a person (or seen the weapon). So whatever the beings might remember isn't going to be distributed as knowledge to the population unless someone has the means and desire to actively do so.

 

[ThinkerX]

I tend to notice an age trend in most fantasy. Humans and other creatures get absurdly long life spans. Some in the millions of years. There are sentient beings around for this long and yet the history of the world is missing lots of details. The forgotten times shouldn't be so if there was people around during that time the are still around.

What do others think about this?

My 'Empire' series gets into this. The four primary POV characters are all human. However, one of them (Tia) shares a karmic link with the long-lived 'bad-guys' - a pair of body hopping demons that have been active on the world for thousands of years. Tia dreams of past incarnations involving these demons, with each dream being both a story and a bit of history (major to minor) in it's own right. Tia doesn't get to experience all of the demons past 'interventions,' mostly just those that involved her previous incarnations. Some of these episodes are in the histories - or at least legends: a nomad invasion of a cruel nation, life in a pirate city ruled by a depraved cult Others are more obscure: long ago court intrigue in a distant city-state, an episode spent as the hostess of a tea house next to a wizards cave, an expedition to a frozen island with ancient secrets. Events not included in her dreams, but part of history and legend include the downfall of two ancient empires - the events are known, but the demons role in them is murky and often not grasped by scholars current and ancient. And, of course, there are many, many historical events (the vast majority) in which the demonic duo played no role whatsoever.