And you do makes some good points about recreational sports, especially with regard to the Olympics.

I had actually thought about the Olympic events — and for that matter, the Roman chariot races and the jousting events of the Middle Ages — some time after I’d written the review. And you are right: there is a precedent for such things to exist in a fantasy setting. Thus, Emelie and Mattias are fine with putting such a scenario in “What Birds Know.”

However, it was still a jarring scene. The obstacle course looked too much like what modern high schoolers would be placed in, rather than something from which pre-Industrial era “What Birds Know” is set in.

I guess here’s the point that I tried to come across but didn’t do so in the review: if the world of “What Birds Know” feels a lot like a modern day society, why not go ahead and set it in the modern day? I don’t think it would have lost much and may have been more effective in conveying the uneasiness with the past world that the three girls eventually encounter.

And you do make a valid point about how most fantasy stories seem to be hampered by the monarchial setting. For that, I blame Tolkien, whose influences — both good and bad — have been mimicked in fantasy novels since. I think one fantasy writer once said that when he was young, all he wanted to do was write Tolkien, and when he was older, he only wanted to write anything that wasn’t Tolkien. But still, no matter when, Tolkien was still the focal point.

Well, if I don’t misunderstand the use of “recreational sports” here, you are wrong.

In fact, apparently at the first Olympics the only event was a foot-race.

In any case, the Olympic Games were popular enough for challengers AND spectators to come from all over Greece.

Then there’s the Roman Circuses and The Mesoamerican Ballgames, just off the top of my head.

Spectator sports have been around for a long damn time, and it’s perfectly reasonable that a young child in a pre-industrial society would aspire to become an athlete, and spend her free time training for it.

A great number of things we associate with modern times are actually quite old, old enough to plausibly appear in your typical pre-industrial fantasy setting.

A while ago, I was looking for webcomics review sites, and I came across this one, which contains the sentence,

“In fact, it’s difficult to pinpoint the state of technology. There’s no motorized travel, but one character wears eyeglasses…”

This makes no sense, as eyeglasses were invented no later then the 14th century.

Admittedly, modern looking eyeglasses with ear-pieces were invented much later, but still before the invention of motorized travel.

And really, ear pieces are an elegant and simple solution that could plausibly have been invented at any time.

Actually, this is something I’ve been thinking about lately; it sometimes seems to me that fantasy has become constrained by a limited view of what features a pre-industrial society could have.

I’ve been thinking especially in terms of the widespread use of Monarchical societies. How many good kings are there in fantasy? How many stories are there about the good guy trying to reclaim his “rightful” place as king?

There’s no reason to have your good guy fantasy kingdom governed by a hereditary monarchy; Various systems of election and non-hereditary rulership have existed all over the world, all throughout history.

but it seems like it doesn’t occur to people, because we think of democracy as modern and monarchy as pre-modern.

Wow, I do go on.

I really like these Webcomic Overlooks; it’s the only webcomics review series I’ve come across that isn’t unbearably pretentious.