Robin Hood
MoviesMy sweetheart and I finally got around to watching the new version of "Robin Hood" last night. It was a fairly enjoyable movie. The one thing that spoiled if for me, though, was the intrusive insertion of actual history. The Robin Hood tales, as everyone knows, are set at the time of Prince John. King Richard is mentioned from time to time as an afterthought--away on the crusades. Still, the rest of the characters and events barely reference actual people and events from that time period. This movie version of the tales was practically dripping with historical references, some of which--like the inclusion of the real William Marshall--were very surprising choices. I don't think this necessarily had to be a bad thing--I'm all for history lessons wrapped up in the gauze of interesting and fun fiction, but is it really too much to ask that if you are going to include historical events and people that you use them consistently?
Allow me to digress. Some years ago, when I was working for the Medieval Unit of the Family History Library, I put together a couple of booklets for my husband's family that had charts and biographical data on the famous people the family was descended from. Being descended from a colonial governor meant that a little ways back, they are descended from peerage, and even further back, from a handful of kings and queeens. Edward II of England and his wife were two of those. Fast forward a few months later and we got a call from the siblings-in-law. They were very excited to tell us that the family was descended from William Wallace. They had apparently gotten this information from seeing the movie, "Braveheart." I hadn't seen the movie, so it took a while for them to describe the critical scenes such that I could understand why they would think they were descended from William Wallace. The end of the discussion went something like this:
Them: So you see, we are descended from William Wallace.
Me: Er... No, you aren't. He didn't have any surviving descendants.
Them: Well, not officially, but he had a child by an affair with Edward II's queen.
Me: No, he didn't.
Them: Well, maybe not according to the history books, but it could have happened.
Me: No, actually--it really couldn't have happened. Isabella was a five year old girl living with her parents in France at the time when William Wallace was executed.
Them: oh....
Oh, and did I mention the best part? The child depicted as being William Wallace's at the end of the movie would have had to have been none other than the future Edward III, King of England--not some younger sibling--the actual ancestor of the British Monarchy. So, apparently, the British Monarchy is descended from a Scottish rebel and not William the Conqueror, as we have hitherto supposed. Good grief. All this because the writers and producers of a popular movie decided that they needed a little romantic action to spice things up. You know... because the actual story itself isn't interesting enough.
So... going back to "Robin Hood," the historical deviations did not have such far reaching consequences as in "Braveheart," but they were still distracting. It almost seemed like, aside from actually making up some stuff that didn't really happen, bits of history and people were cherry-picked and dropped in, scattered in random bits here and there. Many of the events and supposed precursors to events were played completely out of order. It was totally distracting. (Never mind that the father of the fictional Robin Hood did not write the original Magna Carta. That a commoner would have done something like that, given that nearly all were illiterate and ignorant of the laws of the land is just laughable. It's a nice thought, though.)
And frankly, even though most viewers of the movie were arguably ignorant enough of the details of British history not to have noticed what I did, adding fictional history bits out of order did nothing to enhance the original Robin Hood tales. Those tales, I would argue, are interesting enough on their own that they didn't need enhancement.
Applying this to writing, it is important to keep the details of your setting consistent. One advantage of creating a SF/Fantasy world is that you don't have to spend oodles of time researching history to write the story. On the other hand, you must spend oodles of time keeping track of the world you created so that everything from the monetary system to the way magic works is consistent throughout the entire book. Otherwise, your readers will be having "huh" moments all over the place. If your setting is historical, you similarly have a duty to use it correctly. I'm all for creative license, but some things are just ridiculous--from cultural anomalies and historical events being played out of order to the odd sight of a 110 lb. woman wielding a broadsword successfully in battle. Do your homework, and your readers (and movie viewers) will thank you.
What setting issues have you noticed in movies or books lately?