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Isekais will justify having the protagonist own slaves because "it's realistic" yet never have the protagonist, who is from a modern first-world country, get dysentery from untreated medieval water. (hexbear.net)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/chat@hexbear.net
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[–] 17 points 3 months ago (6 children)

people make a big hay out of untreated water being so dangerous to time-travelers or tourists but like, they're not at much more risk than the people who live there. even surface water can be a good bet with low enough population density and flow but if there's wells? heaps of folks draw their water directly from wells without treatment today, earth is an awfully good filter.

if something really bad is in the water the natives are being killed and then your story is just an epidemic/plague story (which are cool btw, but obviously authors don't want to do those for all historical/fantasy fiction)

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  • [–] [S] 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    When I went to Vietnam, I got traveler's diarrhea from eating foods that locals ate without issue. There's a reason it's called traveler's diarrhea. It turns out that when you go to a place with bacteria that your body isn't used to, you react worse than people who've had a lifetime to acclimate to them.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Well yeah, but the isekaiee here is gonna have that problem regardless of what they eat, drink or where they live. I believe euergetes' point is less "the water is safe for you to drink with no ill effects" and more "the water is no more risky than anything else you'll find"

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    locals can be used to something that won't kill or impede you much if you're used to it and breastfed from someone who was used to it that will ruin the regularity of someone who does not have compatible gut fauna.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    i mean generally these stories last longer than a brief trip so adaption to it should happen and not be present for most the story. we are working with a fairly unserious grain but i think details like slavery existing are more important than if main character has the shits the first 2 weeks

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 3 months ago*

    It only tends to be important in that it enables the reader stand-in to own people as property consequence-free, which is what I was getting at with the dysentery example: "realism" has nothing to do with it. It's about wish fulfillment for the sort of person who thinks owning slaves would be really cool.

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