Help With Some Worldbuilding

WaitingCynicism

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Hello everyone! Apologies if this post could be considered too political/religious/controversial.

I will be playing a historical fantasy game of Burning Wheel (a tabletop rpg) and novelizing it for camp Nanowrimo this year. The setting will be a mix of Ivanhoe, the Arthurian myths, and Game of Thrones all set just after the Second Crusade.

However, I feel like I have run into some problems. I feel like when I "run" the game, I'd want to run it in such a way that LGBT+ people are accepted, can get married, etc. Yet I know that the actual Middle Ages was anything but LGBT+ friendly. Is there a way I can balance both historical accuracy and the fictional aspects of medieval ages being so incredibly homophobic?

I was thinking I'd like it to be set in the real world but with some fictional elements rather than a fictional setting itself, if that makes sense? Kind of a mix of alt-history and fantasy.
 

Roxxsmom

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It depends on how historical you want your setting to be. Is it a secondary world, like in Game of Thrones? Then you can have whatever social rules you'd like as long as they are internally consistent and make sense within the context of your created culture.

If basing it on the mythical or fairy tale version of the past, you have a lot of latitude too.

If you want to base it more strictly on a real time and place in history, you have less latitude, of course. If this is what you want, you should do some research and try to find out how people who would consider themselves to be LGBTQ today coped in a time and place that was very restrictive. For instance, in Medieval Europe, I believe, attitudes did vary by time and place. People were pretty hung up on the notion of sex needing to involve penises, though, so there was far more attention paid to male "sodomy" than to sexual behaviors between women. Also, taboos were often focused on particular sexual acts rather than on feelings of love or attachment to those of one's own gender, per se.

Also, there were times and places in real-life history that were more accepting or relaxed about gender identity and sexual/romantic orientation than others. Maybe one or another of those settings would work for your story setting.
 

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There were queer people in the Middle Ages; they just didn't advertise it.

That said, it's historical fantasy; you, like many other writers of fantasy, can go build your world as you want. Lots of writers—Elizabeth Bear, Elizabeth Moon, Diane Duane, Elizabeth Lynn, Ellen Kushner, Scott Lynch, and many other, have all sorts of QUITLBAG folk in their works.
 

WaitingCynicism

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Roxxsmom, I was thinking mostly historically accurate but more egalitarian than the actual Middle Ages? Sort of like "Yeah, sure, it's a sin or whatever, but there are more important things to deal with so if two dudes want to be together as a couple whatever"
 

Kjbartolotta

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Roxxsmom, I was thinking mostly historically accurate but more egalitarian than the actual Middle Ages? Sort of like "Yeah, sure, it's a sin or whatever, but there are more important things to deal with so if two dudes want to be together as a couple whatever"
I'm not sure you even need to go this far, there's probably some good evidence out there that not everyone would view it as sinful in the first place. I think this is a bit more how we view the Middle Ages through our modern lens as a Dark and Ignorant Time than how it actually way (but then you'd have to ask the expert). So, are you saying this is an alternate history version of Europe, something like the old Ars Magica setting that hews pretty close to IRL history with only a few changes? Provided the setting is well-researched, I think this is something you could handwave rather easily.
 

frimble3

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What, you mean all that stuff about the noble knight and his faithful squire; or the two brave companions off to fight for the king; or the girl who disguises herself as a boy; or the queen and her favourite lady, aren't meant to suggest alternate sexualities?:e2smack:

Besides, if you've got Ivanhoe, the Arthurian myths, and Game of Thrones all set just after the Second Crusade, you're not going for strict historical accuracy, anyway.
Go for the 'good parts' version.
 

benbenberi

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Keep in mind that in the Real Middle Ages the categories of "heterosexual" and "homosexual" as we understand them DID NOT EXIST. Sexuality was regarded primarily through the lens of specific actions, not as an overarching "sexual orientation." The very terminology "homo/heterosexual" was only invented in the late 19c. So transposing modern ideas about sexual identity into a medieval context is always going to be problematical. Since you're not going for a strictly historical world, you're free to play with this aspect of it as much as any other!

If you want to research the topic more thoroughly, a place to start might be the work of John Boswell and responses & criticisms of it. (His ideas were extremely controversial, and some -- but not all -- have been thoroughly debunked in the 25 years since he died.)
 

frimble3

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Richard the Lionheart of England and Philip II of France, as well: link. Played so poignantly by Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton in The Lion in Winter.

:e2coffee:
Richard the Lion-heart and Blondel the musician? No-one devotes his time to riding around castles, singing a particular song, to find his captured king out of just 'loyalty'.
 

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I want to point out that Medieval Queer Studies is a bona fide academic research field with all sort of scholarly historical research, and note that there were people who seem to have aligned themselves in an attraction patter that today we'd identify as gay, and those we'd call bisexual, and those we'd call lesbian, as well as more than a few transgender folk, though all of these terms and concepts were not used then.

Sex was perhaps best thought of as a banquet, but a banquet that the Christian church thought existed entirely for the purpose of creating children (ot the opinion of all religions) and that there were some foods best avoided, completely, and some foods that were OK if they resulted in a children, and really, if you wanted to go to Christian heaven, your chances were better if you skipped the banquet completely and prayed instead.

But there are indications ranging from primary sources that include love letters, love poetry, confessional manuals, and law suits, etc. that in the Medieval era love was love, too.

But in fiction that is Fantasy or alternate history, you don't have to repeat our history.