Panel Discussion: Worldbuilding, Part 1.

[David Flin]

A gathering of experts discuss worldbuilding.

The experts: @Thande @Tom Colton @AndyC @Dom @M_Kresal .

Comment here.

 

[Charles EP M.]

it’s in how Pratchett makes the city of Ankh-Morpork live and breathe (with some gagging at the smell) as a setting.

This was one of the great strengths of his fantasy work: everything feels lived in, and that it's been lived in for a while, and real-ish people are living there. He could then randomly go "so golems have existed all along" and we shrug and go "yeah that does seem like a thing that fits with how Anhk-Morpork works"

 

[Warthog]

One of the things I love about Pratchett's worldbuilding is how visual it is: I can still see the forests and hot springs of Bonk, the desert of Klatch and so on.

 

[RyanF]

"Central Gondor" sounds like a cobbled together constituency in the Middle-Earth Parliament.

Rohan, where he decided their language shared roots with that of the Hobbits and made the words and names deliberately Anglo-Saxon or Old English.

It's an interesting decision this. Rohan specifically, I mean, one can see where a connection would exist linguistically between humans and hobbits, but specifically Rohan.

James Bond, who isn’t even in the first two scenes of his own movie (and he wouldn’t get this honour until Goldfinger)

What are you talking about? There he is right at the start of From Russia With Love, stalking and just about to dispatch this blonde fellow. Wait, oh no! Can't believe they'd so unceremoniously kill him off like that, it's insulting to long-term fans. Turned the sequel off in disgust.

There’s a serial called Mawdryn Undead that brings back the character of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart who, as head of the UNIT organisation, had been a major part of the show starting in the late sixties but stopped appearing in the mid-seventies, who got popped in because they couldn’t get the actor who played another character back to reprise their part. It was a seemingly innocuous decision, except that it blatantly contradicted when the earlier serials that the character had appeared in were meant to be taking place! The result is a debate that’s ongoing to this day among fans that have even popped up in throwaway references in the continuation of the series that’s been on air since 2005.

Still need to do that AH where it's the UNIT years a decade ahead of their broadcast but keeping everything else the same, including a UK space program, PM 'Jeremy' in the 80s, and Charles III on the throne by 1999.

 

[Tom Colton]

What are you talking about? There he is right at the start of From Russia With Love, stalking and just about to dispatch this blonde fellow. Wait, oh no! Can't believe they'd so unceremoniously kill him off like that, it's insulting to long-term fans. Turned the sequel off in disgust.

A one-year-old long-term fandom?

(This joke only works if you ignore the novels, like [insert target of your punchline here])

 

[RyanF]

A one-year-old long-term fandom?

You may not like them, but they've been here since the beginning!

 

[Charles EP M.]

PM 'Jeremy' in the 80s

"I won't confirm or deny if I tried to have a former lover shot but as Gabbo would say, I'm a bad widdle boy "

 

[RyanF]

"I won't confirm or deny if I tried to have a former lover shot but as Gabbo would say, I'm a bad widdle boy "

Who's going to care about one dead dog when the Underground is infested with yeti?

 

[Charles EP M.]

Who's going to care about one dead dog when the Underground is infested with yeti?

Lot of very surprising political deaths in London due to "yeti" back in 1975.

 

[RyanF]

Lot of very surprising political deaths in London due to "yeti" back in 1975.

Who Killed Kennedy? but instead of the actions of the Autons being blamed on the IRA it's vice versa.