Rating fantasy worlds

[alexxkay]

My friend Eidan passed along this meme/game on Facebook:
"You find yourself in front of seven identical doors. A voice from above tells you: "These seven doors lead to seven places: Narnia, Neverland, Wonderland, Hogwarts, Camelot, Middle Earth, and Westeros." Which door do you go through? Why that door? What happens?"

As Eidan points out, exactly where and when you end up makes a big difference, as well as your social status.

I'll start by rating each choice on the following qualities on a scale of 0 to 10:
* Tech level. I *like* living in the 21st century, and even going back to the 20th would be a big hardship for me at this point. OTOH, magic can often make for a higher *effective* tech level.
* Awesomeness potential. What wonders am I likely to experience?
* Horror potential. How likely am I to experience something awful? How awful do things get?
* Governance and civil liberties. How likely am I to be able to do what I want?
* Chance of returning. If it doesn't work out, can I come home?

I'll also add (and score) a few other possibilities in the comments.

Comments

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Middle Earth
* Tech level: varies a *lot*, but averages about Renaissance. 4.
* Awesomeness: There's much cool stuff to see, but separated by *lots* of geography. 4.
* Horror: Death, torture, war, and PTSD are all part of the setting. 2.
* Governance: Varies, but generally enlightened monarchy. Call it a 4.
* Chance of returning: None documented. 0.

Total: 14 points

[carneggy.livejournal.com]

This is another one where I'd strongly disagree with tech level - _averages_ the Renaissance? I can't think of a single aspect of their tech that matches anything but the earliest end of that, and I wouldn't think anything meets the latter half of that - and certainly not 'half the setting is past that'.

Medieval, definitely. I think that there's an argument that the best places in the setting might start approaching beyond that - the hobbit dwellings are probably decorated in a renaissance level style, but that's about the high point of what we see - and that's got to be significantly pulled down by not just Mordor but even places like Rohan are below that (nice castle, but the people live in steppe huts.)

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Saruman seems to be doing his best to get an Industrial Revolution underway, in both Isengard, and later, The Shire.

Rivendell and Lothlorien, while not necessarily big on mechanical engineering, have a lot of high art and creature comforts that I would equate with a pretty high TL.

[corwyn-ap.livejournal.com]

War is a lot less common on Middle earth than modern day US.

There is a lot less geography there than here, but travel is slow. Truth really is that you see more things per minute walking than you do flying.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

The state of "my government is in a state of war with another government" is less common in Middle Earth. The odds of any random person dying as a result of warfare seem to me to be much higher.

If I want to walk through beautiful scenery, I have plenty of that available in 2013 United States. Scenery doesn't rate more than a blip on my personal scale of Awesome.

[corwyn-ap.livejournal.com]

Between the war of five armies and the war of the Ring, there was 60ish years of reasonable peace. Can you name a similar 60 year time period in US history? Or alternatively, name every war US has been involved in since 1950.

The difference would appear to be population, it is not clear what the population of ME is, from the books. We meet so few people, but the population must be far greater than we see to maintain the lifestyle we see. So when we see a few thousand people killed in a war in ME we think it is a lot. While a hundred thousand in Iraq is barely worth noting.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Your points are valid. But, on the other hand, it's been 40 years since we had a draft. Though we have an army that is large in absolute terms, the percentage of our population that makes it up is miniscule. The percentage of able-bodied males in Gondor and Rohan that ended up fighting seemed very close to 100. And from what little we see, it's not clear that Isengard or Mordor contain anything that could be called a civilian.

[corwyn-ap.livejournal.com]

Tolkien does point out that Mordor does have large fields (presumably orced with farmers) in order to feed all those armies. In a protracted war, you would need those farmers to be full time (i.e. not conscripts). Tech level gives 95% of the population engaged in farming.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I cede the specific point, but stand behind my scoring. If the only way to escape exposure to war is by being part of the 95% of the populace engaged in farming, that isn't significantly less horrific to me.