Welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday, now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.
This week's topic is "Bookish Worlds You'd Want to Live In/Never Want to Live In". Well this is super easy and it is safe to say I would never want to live in any of the eras I love to read about. Sure, castles are neat and I'd love to have met Eleanor of Aquitaine, but I also would rather not be murdered by Vikings or subjected to Roman rule.
Ancient World
Pros: Witnessing how Stonehenge was built, what its purpose was
Cons: Literally everything else about life in ancient times
Verdict: Pass...but I had to think about it a minute
Roman Britain
Pros: Boudicca, Bath, St. Patrick
Cons: Romans barging in and taking what is not theirs
Verdict: Hard pass. Sorry Boudicca.
Anglo-Saxon England
Pros: Alfred the Great and his support of education, unification of England under Athelstan, guys with cool nicknames like Edmund Ironside, Battle of Stamford Bridge, the last great Viking warrior Harald Hardrada
Cons: Blood Eagle (if you don't know, consider yourself lucky), Danelaw and the Vikings harassing everyone and carrying off captives, Edward the Confessor having no children, Norman Invasion, Battle of Hastings, dying before age 35
Verdict: Alfred is my fave king and I would love to have the chance to tell King Harold to WAIT FOR REINFORCEMENTS AND DON'T MARCH STRAIGHT TO HASTINGS FROM STAMFORD, but again, have to pass.
Medieval England
Pros: Eleanor of Aquitaine, William the Marshal, Chaucer, Magna Carta, knights and jousting, castles
Cons: Henry II, John, mercenaries raping and murdering everyone and decimating villages when they did not get paid, the Black Death, dying before age 45, Hundred Years' War that actually lasted 116 years
Verdict: I can't help it. I have to meet her. YES!
Renaissance England
Pros: witnessing the rebirth of arts and literature, chatting it up with Martin Luther, seeing the castles/palaces that no longer exist (Woodstock, Nonsuch, etc)
Cons: Henry VIII murdering everyone
Verdict: Pass
Is there a pro or a con I am missing for any era that you think is important? Leave a comment and let me know!
Leave a link to your TTT so I can take a look at what worlds you would or would not want to inhabit.
Happy Reading!
Sarah
I love topics like this. Would love to see Stonehenge being built, it would ALMOST be worth it to put up with the other stuff- but no. Same w/ the pyramids (or some of the other ancient wonders of the world). Easter Island statues? Dinosaurs, for that matter?
ReplyDeleteImagine the changes we could make if we had a time machine! that could be good or bad though lol. And an actual jousting tournament- I could get behind that.
I can't believe I totally left out Easter Island. DUH. I considered the pyramids and such also, and it would be cool to know how they did it, but ugh, so hot. I hate when it is too hot. And as much as I love dinosaurs, I don't even think I would want to visit, because I would not want to be a snack for a T. Rex
DeleteGreat post! I would love to have seen Stonehenge coming into formation - AND to know what its purpose was!
ReplyDeleteHere's my T10T if you want to check it out!
Right?? Like with the pyramids, we have all these theories and ideas for how things likely worked, but we just don't know for sure. And to know how it began and evolved would be so cool, but that alone was a few thousand years so we'd def have to time-hop in our time machines.
DeleteVisiting England circa 1500s would NOT be a fun trip. After all, that was an age of a king beheading people when they looked at him the wrong way. Or so it seemed like!
ReplyDeleteYep, Henry VIII was fond of doing so. It happened more often later in his reign.
DeleteExcellent post. I'd definitely be intrigued by the Stone Age, but I'm not sure I could be put with it!
ReplyDeleteI just have to know how they did it, and got the top stoned up onto the standing ones. Kind of like the pyramids, where we have some pretty good ideas for how it happened, but won't ever know for sure.
DeleteA great twist and a similar verdict I got to when I was thinking about possibilities, which is why I changed my topic this week.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that while there are a couple of historical figures I love to meet, and events I would love to vitness but the dangers are higher than that. Great list!
Here is my TTT: https://fantasyraiders.wordpress.com/2018/05/29/top-ten-tuesday-my-favorite-world-builders/#more-8428
Yeah, pretty much ever era you were guaranteed to die young. Except my girl Eleanor, who made it to 80 even after giving birth to ten children. There are so many questions I want to ask her about her life, I could not pass up a chance to do that - especially since I am writing a book about her, and I named my daughter after her.
DeleteMost of these historical eras would have a lot of down sides!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I tried to be pretty selective and only list the very worst - otherwise the lists would have gone on for ages!
DeleteI always think I want to live in Medieval or Renaissance times and then think better of it!
ReplyDeleteHere is our Top Ten Tuesday. Thank you!
Yeah, being an outside observer is a much better option I think - far less likely to die of the Plague!
DeleteMuch as I love the idea of seeing how other people used to live, the idea of being treated as a second class citizen and potentially dying at 35? Yeah I'd rather live now!
ReplyDeleteMy TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/29/top-ten-tuesday-161/
Same here but there are questions I need to ask Eleanor of Aquitaine about her life and I don't know that I could say no to that possibility.
DeleteI really love how you tackled this prompt. I struggled a bit myself this week. I'm with you on the historical fiction - neat to read about, hard pass on visiting. Corsets, plagues, general pillaging and death. No thanks!
ReplyDeleteDani @ The Restricted Section
I was really struggling with this at first. I do not read fiction at all. All of the eras I listed are ones I read about in non-fiction. But then it occurred to me that it still works, because they are certainly worlds very different from our own, despite existing in the same spaces we know today.
DeleteLIVING in the past is definitely NOT a good idea. The best time (despite the news) is now.
ReplyDeleteHowever VISITING the past - That's much more do-able (with the requisite Time Machine naturally). Plus you can load up on antibiotics and such or body armour as required. Then there's the fun possibilities of messing with the timeline. Imagine being on a hillside near Hastings one misty morning in 1066 with a .50 Cal sniper rifle with the Duke of Normandy in your cross hairs. Or being able to present Boudica with 5-6 cases of AK-47's just before what would've been her final battle with the Romans..... SO many possibilities!!!
Have you read Timeline by Michael Crichton? Messing with time is a terrible idea! BUT, there are too many things I need to know from Eleanor of Aquitaine. I don't know that I could ever pass up the chance if presented with the option to do so. You know, when the time machine thing happens.
DeleteBoudicca with an AK-47 is an amazing image.