How do I break out of those weird tropes but still write something with gnomes and shit? What does it look like when wizards control the means of production?
How do I break out of those weird tropes but still write something with gnomes and shit? What does it look like when wizards control the means of production?
Exactly. I do enjoy stories that follow lords and princes, but I hate hate hate the current trend of showing "good lords" by making the peasants dumb. The new lord shows up and uses his fancy knowledge to increase production 100%, yes this wealthy noble definitely knows more about land production than the people living on it.
I like noble characters since they're the ones who have armies in medieval-like fantasy, but the story should not go out of its way to justify feudalism. If your character is a lord and wants to be a good person, they should either have cognitive dissonance or want to reject the notion of lordship.