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Talking of Unseen Academicals...
Jun. 2nd, 2011 01:20 pmThe most common criticism I've seen of the book is that it breaks people's suspension of disbelief that foot-the-ball's been a huge spectator sport in Ankh-Morpork all the time, but has never been mentioned before.
Um, yeah. That was my reaction to the Cracker episode "To Be A Somebody". Suddenly there was this thing called Premier League Football, full of teams with names like "Liverpool FC" and "Manchester United", which was supposed to be a big deal, but had never been mentioned in the Crackerverse before. Sloppy worldbuilding, I call it.
The difference, of course, is that Cracker's set in the real world, and we therefore assume all the elements of the real world are there, waiting to be used. Discworld is a fantasy world, where we can't assume anything exists until we're told about it. But it's a mistake to slip from that to assuming it doesn't.
Um, yeah. That was my reaction to the Cracker episode "To Be A Somebody". Suddenly there was this thing called Premier League Football, full of teams with names like "Liverpool FC" and "Manchester United", which was supposed to be a big deal, but had never been mentioned in the Crackerverse before. Sloppy worldbuilding, I call it.
The difference, of course, is that Cracker's set in the real world, and we therefore assume all the elements of the real world are there, waiting to be used. Discworld is a fantasy world, where we can't assume anything exists until we're told about it. But it's a mistake to slip from that to assuming it doesn't.
