Why does anybody read fantasy when real history is ten times more interesting and sometimes even true?
>>23817728Because make believe is fun
>>23817780Is that why Christianity is so popular?
>>23817728because good fantasy is like real history but while removing all the fluff and boring stuff
>>23817728"Sometimes"?
>>23817728I just love Space Operas, i don't know why but i love space shit
>>23817728Within the Fantasy genre, well known for its funmaxxing and coolmaxxing, authors can do whatever they want to make reality more palatable, be it simplifying or spicing up the content. It naturally attracts more readers that way. One isn't better than the other because they compliment each other. My Confession by Samuel Chamberlain would have remained a very obscure piece of history if Cormac McCarthy had never written Blood Meridian.
>>23817728Why do I have to pick one? I read history AND fantasy.
>>23817728historical fiction trumps both
Last time I read a history book there aren't man with huge armor and huge sword fighting some evil God called Odium and his minions.
>>23817728I like magic and stuff
>>23817783No, that's why Atheism is popular.
>>23817794Historically, most history books are very unreliable. Pretty much any Greek history is wildly inaccurate and full of rumors. Lots of stuff gets invented or blown out of proportion to make people look bad that the historian hated. Think about the state of mainstream media. Look at how liberal outlets purposefully misrepresent conservatives and vice versa. Now that's exactly what historians are like. Historians have an agenda and a thesis they want to establish. So they cherry-pick anecdotes and sometimes make shit up to back up their agenda.
>>23817841Read Harold Lamb
>>23817880I agree. Hitler was a stand-up guy.
>>23817728>sometimes trueLmao history btfo
>>23817728Real history has an acquired taste. Fantasy with a lot of worldbuilding is like training wheels.
>>23817728I read both. Most modern history is fantasy though. Imagine believing jews have ever ben anything but demon worshipers hell bent on enslaving the world.>>23817783Christians don't give a shit about anything before 0BC and their infallible book is the only real history to them.
>>23817728>and sometimes even trueI love that you said this.
Because you're a frogposter
>>23817895Not him, but I have read some of Lamb's cossack's stories, and they were pretty good. Are his histories as good as his pulp?
>>23817900Damn, I didn't realize OP was dogwhistling to chuds when he said that. I thought he was dabbing on people like Tacitus and Livy.
>>23817728Because fantasy is about adventures, and history is about (mainly political) facts.
>>23817900>NO, NOT THAT ONE
>>23817841That's because you haven't read Arrian's Anabasis
>>23817728real history is all fake and good fantasy is all true
>>23817728Fantasy readers are typically losers with no life to speak of. This is why books about real things and real lives have no meaning for them. They simply can't relate.All they have are wishes and daydreams, which explains the appeal of fantasy to them. They immerse themselves in whimsy to escape the futility of their own existence.
>>23817728Real history often produces better narratives, but there's enough consistency in the plot and themes that it becomes predictable once you understand the factors involved. Further, if your favorite groups lost or disappeared without much being written about them, there's often not much to care about.
>>23817728The distinction between fiction and non-ficiton is fake.
How do we know history isnt just fiction? Anyways the most fun history to read is chinese because its bugs killing each other in the most creative ways possible.
>>23818895Name history books with greater prose than Gene Wolfe
>>23817728modern fantasy and its obsession with worldbuilding is the product of know-it-all nerds who grew up watching John Green and shit, think they understand how the world works, human nature, etc and want to show it to everyone else even though again, all their sources of info come from youtubers, wikipedia, nerd darlings like Neil Degrasse Tyson or whomever, reddit, etc. Slap on a "magic system" that is about as inspired as the tyical shounen anime power system and there you go. Regurgitated nerd slop.
>>23817728You and me both, anon
>>23821415>Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire>Churchill's Life of Marlborough>Caesar's Gallic War and Civil War>The King's War by CV Wedgwood>Seven Pillars of Wisdom by TE Lawrence>Any translation by Aubrey de SelincourtYou fantasyfags need to broaden your horizons.
>>23821474I read some of those books, not even close.
>>23821518Clearly you didn't read them attentively enough.
>>23817728>real history is ten times more interestingIt's not.
>>23821535bug
>>23821540I accept your concession.
>>23817728fantasy fans are subhumans, even comic book geeks and femcels who write harry potter fanfiction are more sophisticated(this does not include people who like mythology)
>>23817833This.
>>23817965>Christians don't give a shit about anything before 0BC and their infallible book is the only real history to them.Cope.
>>23817974If by that you mean that frogposters know that most history is full of biases, inaccuracies, and outright lies, I hope you're right.
>>23817728Because fiction subtly effects the "philosopher's stone", the noumenon that you perceive. This turns all books into ADR.
>>23817728I hate to say it because I do like a good adventure yarn but the intellectual barrier to reading history is just too high for the general plotfag. History can tell a story and there are plenty interesting ones, but that’s often rather incidental rather than the focus, and getting there in history books requires pages and pages of context. Not just narrative buildup but discussions of obscure politics, economics, statistics, etc as well as the never ending discussion of sources and what likely is and isn’t true from them. Personally I find all that detail fascinating, but the fact is that not everyone is built that way and in fact real life has no obligation to fit the conventionally accepted tropes of storytelling that people expect, but that has the extra pleasure when reading actual history to see things spiral off into totally unpredictable directions Iike the King of France being spooked in some woods by some random homeless guy and having a complete and total mental breakdown
>>23817900Well you wouldn't be able to fit nearly as many in if they were all sitting down
History books don't have a personal perspective in the moment.
>23822971Translation:>waaah I wanna gatekeep something but I’m too far up my own ass for anybody to care about the things I like
>>23817728Fantasy is based on reality.
>>23817728I have pregnant gnome fetish, thats why
>>23823331Damn, now I do too
