WHY

[james_davis_nicoll]

DO PEOPLE INSIST ON ADDING DETAILS TO ROLEPLAYING SETTINGS THAT UNDERMINE THE ESSENTIAL REALISM OF PEOPLE FIGHTING DRAGONS BY THINKING HARSH THOUGHTS SO ENERGETICALLY LITERAL FIRE SHOOTS OUT OF THE CHARACTERS' FINGERTIPS?

Comments

[kgbooklog]

I've seen more than one fantasy novel where the provided map had E and W swapped on the compass rose. None of them ever mentioned this detail in the text.

[keith_morrison]

It comes from the probably geographically-clueless belief some people have that they're going to show an otherwise Earthlike planet but the sun rises in the west! See, dramatically different worldbuilding!

They usually assume that "north" is the prime cardinal direction and the others are defined off it, when in truth "north" is simply the direction of the pole to your left when looking toward the rising sun (over most of the planet's surface area, anyway).

[scott_sanford]

Doesn't this come up in an Oz book? Granted that this is not in the top hundred bizarre things in the land of Oz, so it could easily be forgotten.