Ye Goode Olde Days: Difference between revisions

So said LP Hartley at the start of his novel ''The Go-Between''. Any prospective time travellers should also add the following: "make sure you get your shots before you go -- and ''don't drink the water''. Also, pack your own toilet paper!" The fact is that while we like to think that the past was just like the modern day but with funny hats and folk music, many of the things we take for granted just weren't common -- orcommon—or even available -- backavailable—back then.

[['''Ye Goode Olde Days]]''' comes into play when a historical or quasi-historical work makes things much nicer than they would really have been. Usually it stems from only partly Doing The Research: they might get the big stuff right -- authenticright—authentic plate armour, the right kind of architecture, all that -- butthat—but the details of life in the past can be lost. So the farm village has nicely kept gravel paths, and everyone in the medieval village lives in a lovely half-timbered house with two bedrooms and a stone fireplace. The Renaissance maiden never gets mudstains on the train of her beautiful gowns, the Roman Senator has magnificent pearly white teeth, there's no infant mortality unless the plot requires it, no one ever needs to empty a chamberpot, and horses never take a dump in the street. It falls somewhere [[Your Mileage May Vary|between subtle nostalgia and outright hilarity]] when dealing with ages closer to modernity, like the [[Roaring Twenties]] being an age of wild parties and shiny classic cars for ''everyone'' and not just the upper classes, poverty, unemployment and pollution from coal-burning industry and railroads aside, or the [[Soviet Russia Ukraine and So On|Stalinist Soviet Union]] being a nice place where people happily work, [[Vodka Drunkenski|drink]], have fun and never have to worry.

Something to keep in mind is that neither [[The Dung Ages]] nor [['''Ye Goode Olde Days]]''' is "more" accurate than the other. The reality is that while hygiene was not good by modern standards, and living conditions were not what we'd call "comfortable" (what with the lack of air conditioning, flush toilets, and weekly garbage pick-up); neither did most people walk around barefoot, caked in filth, eating rotten food and living in tumble-down huts made of sticks. Many supposedly modern conveniences are thousands of years old: the Romans had central heating, for instance.

Because it is an [[Acceptable Break From Reality]] in entertainment-- theentertainment—the average viewer prefers looking at good-looking people when they aren't watching a documentary, and most actors and directors aren't quite willing to subject themselves to a completely realistic version of history -- pleasehistory—please don't add examples that are just "[Character] had clean hair/white teeth/clear skin/shaved legs/etc."

* [[Keira Knightley]]'s Guinevere in ''[[King Arthur]]'' was immaculately manicured despite the fact that the audience is told that she had had her fingers broken while in captivity -- duringcaptivity—during a closeup on her perfect nails.

* Played straight in ''[[Bill and Ted|Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure]]''; our heroes travel to -- andto—and pick up hitchhikers -- fromhitchhikers—from ancient Greece, ancient Mongolia, and medieval Europe (among other eras), yet any and all unpleasant hygienic issues are ignored.

** Some [[Truth in Television]], surprisingly -- noblewomensurprisingly—noblewomen were indeed taught the basics of combat and siege defense, in the case the enemy attacked when their husbands weren't around. Passive princesses were the ideal of a later age.

* [[The Pyrates]] is set firmly in a [[Ye Goode Olde Days]] version of [[The Cavalier Years]]. [[George Macdonald Fraser|The Author]] lampshades this immediately following the idyllic introduction, saying that historians would no doubt point out the complete lack of sanitation, hygiene, or social services. He concludes that the historical characters, "happy conscienceless rabble that they were," likely wouldn't care, and urges the reader not to, either.

* Several years ago a British reality programme tried to get people to live as an Iron Age tribe. Virtually the first thing they did was to elect a woman leader. There are at least two things wrong with that sentence.<ref>Try "elect" and "woman leader". Yes, Boudicca was a female ruler, but she inherited her husband's power. And the Romans weren't happy about it.</ref>.

* ''[[Candorville]]'' averts this in the bluntest way possible--thepossible—the first instance of time travel in the strip is to the pre-Civil War American South, and the main character is black.