 Excuse me. Have you watched The Sword in the Stone? Do you think people have caps leaves? No. One day all of this will be yours and he's like, what the curtains? I have a problem with that. Hey guys, it's Leanna and I'm here today to talk about Half Sick of Shadows by Lauren Sebastian. Laura? Laura Sebastian. So this is going to be a long video and this is my second time recording it because I was trying to record it over yonder like on a table so I could look at my laptop because I have extensive notes on why this book is garbage. Why this book is historically garbage, i.e. like she didn't give a shit about the time that this is supposed to be taking place. So hopefully second time through is, I think I did okay in terms of like the talking bit but I was completely out of focus. So we're doing it again. Yay. I think I can just like keep my laptop. You're on my lap, right? That's fine. Y'all are good with that. You can't even, you can't even see it. Oh yeah, before I had the book showing nicely on the table next to me, there you can kind of see it. So yeah, quick, I guess, story time. Half Sick of Shadows. I hated it. I don't think I said anywhere on social media why I hate it. Like I just said like I hate this and then I was complaining throughout to my friend Hilary from Book Born. So she's very, she doesn't need to watch this video. If you're watching this video Hilary, you already know all these things. You don't, you don't have to watch this. I think I complained to my patrons as well a little bit about the wild inaccuracies that I was finding as I was finding them. So Long Story Short, Half Sick of Shadows is an Arthurian story. It is a retelling, reimagining of the Arthur legend, but from the perspective of and reimagining the role of the Lady of Shalat. Nowhere has the author indicated either like in a statement, which like I also would have a bone to pick with because like it should be in the book. But nowhere has it been indicated by the author in the book, on the book, adjacently to the book that she has decided to take the Arthur story and set it in Bridgerton Times. But that is nevertheless what she has done in this book. I have a problem with that. I also just think it's a bad book. So this isn't a situation where I think that oh this is like it's such a good book. Like she just did such a good job with characters and story and it's just it's just too bad that she like fucked up everything historically. No, I think it's also garbage. Like as like the characters are garbage, the story is garbage. It's garbage. But also there was just no attempt made, like absolutely no effort to make anything even remotely, even kind of sort of historically accurate. And like I'm pretty sure this lady, this lady being Laura Sebastian, has never even gone to like Medieval Times dinner and theater because that is more accurate in like vibes and tone than this book is. The only other like preemptive like asterisk I want to give is that the Arthur myth, unlike and I was just talking to people about this when I was complaining about this book, the Arthur myth stands out to me as different from other like folklore, legend, fairy tale things. And yes, you can retell the Arthur myth and a lot of people have and you can set it in a different place and time. But you have to actively do things to take it out of its place and time unlike Beauty and the Beast or Hansel and Gretel or whatever where there is a story that exists outside of place and outside of time. It is not in any way bound to a certain place or time. That's not what the story is about. It's a story about people. It's a cautionary tale. It's the the events and the plot like yeah, there's like a prince vaguely, but like it's more just like the idea of like a privileged person being cursed and like there's no greater symbol of privilege than being a prince really like in fairy tales. So it's just shorthand for like rich privileged guy. It's not any specific rich privileged guy. It's just like the concept of a rich privileged guy unlike the story of Arthur. The story of Arthur is a myth that is like the birth of a nation, that nation specifically being England. And so because that is like it is an origin story, then if you're going to take it out of being an origin story, then you have to actively do things to make it not that anymore because that is what it is. So unless you have explicitly said that you are taking it out of the place and time it's supposed to be taking place, then the assumption is it's taking place in that time and place because the story of Arthur is the story of how post-Rome England came together to be England because of Arthur and Merlin the Knights of the Round Table. So like if you're setting this in Bridgerton times, you're going to need to explain to us why England is not England and needs to be unified and we need to have Knights of the Round Table. Like how did we get to having all of this etiquette and lace and duels without ever having gone through the birth of the nation that is Arthur? You know like it just no longer makes sense. You have to make it make sense and you can do that. You can retell the myth of Arthur, but you have to actively explain how this is going to make sense now, how you've taken Arthur out of that time and still made it Arthur. Without further ado, here are all the reasons why this was garbage. Actually those are not all the reasons, these are just the historical inaccuracies. The other reasons that it's garbage are that the characters are wooden and cardboard cutouts of like modern-day people who have like very shallow feelings, no deep characterization and the way that it is told in like three tenses past, present, and future because the Lady of Shalottes is an Oracle so we get to hear about how she met Arthur in Guinevere as a kid in flashbacks which I don't give any shits about. The present where stuff's happening I guess and the future which he's having visions of. So it just keeps cycling through those tenses in a way that is it removes all tension, all suspense and it's not intriguing and it is terrible. But it is also as these 36 points will show you wildly inaccurate to the time. I am no expert but as I was going I was just writing down in my little notepad all the things that I was like I definitely know that wasn't there. I'm pretty sure that wasn't. I'm not sure I don't think so though so like I just wrote them all down, did some googling. I think I had like 40 things initially. It's now down to 36 because a couple I was wrong about and a couple were like I was kind of right about but it's kind of like it's not such a cut and dry thing so I was like eh I have 36 things like I don't need this one too. Let's do this. So to be clear the Legend of Arthur takes place post Rome in Britain. This is the fifth and sixth centuries specifically. Item number one is breakfast with eggs. Breakfast as a concept as a meal did not exist until centuries and centuries later. Just people had one meal of the day. Basically if you were poor and a farmer or something like that and you were going to be doing some heavy lifting some heavy manual labor early in the day you might want to eat something before you're going to go do that. But if you were eating something that was like eating something first thing in the day and not waiting for the big midday meal that was like indicative of you being poor like you needing to go and work and needing some calories but it wasn't like a meal and it certainly wasn't a meal that everybody was having. So breakfast at all but then a breakfast with eggs which is what they are specifically having. Eggs for breakfast didn't really become a thing until the 20th century. People did have like egg sandwiches post civil war but it wasn't like specifically a breakfast food like it would be kind of what we would look at now today as like a breakfast sandwich but it's just because they had eggs in it but they weren't eating it for breakfast. So yeah breakfast with eggs no not a thing. Number two is dessert wasn't a thing dessert wasn't really a thing until the 17th century and we'll get into some other like dessert related things later on but like just as a concept like as the idea of finishing your meal and now having a sweet thing that is called dessert just it wasn't a thing just wasn't. Number three is crystal so and I don't mean like crystals like quartz or things like that I mean lead crystal like glass crystal like waterford crystal like the champagne flutes that your parents use on their anniversary. Crystal like that was not around until George Ravenscroft invented it in 1675 so not the fifth and sixth centuries. Number four is ankles and modesty so like that specific joke that you've definitely heard about like it's a historical time and like oh my god her ankle is showing how titillating so that is already overblown by that joke like yes like modesty conventions were like a bit a bit much and a bit over the top in the Victorian era but it wasn't like as extra as like that joke makes it seem of course it is a joke but this specific convention of like hiding your ankles and like having little stools so that like your skirts when they lift up when you sit down don't reveal your ankles like this is a very Victorian thing. Medieval times everyone was dressed pretty modestly the Catholic church was in full swing like people were not dressing like sensuously or in revealing clothes I mean it was also cold as fuck so people just like they weren't walking around in tank stops and shorts obviously but like this this like her ankles are showing thing was like it's not a medieval thing it's it's absolutely not. Number five is utopia there's a moment where they're talking I think I forget now the exact context for when utopia comes up but I think it was to do with like we need Arthur in order to create a utopia or it's talking about why someone else in charge would prevent the development of a utopia or whatever but so utopia as we like if you're just referring to like the concept of utopia we have that concept because of the book called utopia that was written by Sir Thomas Moore and Sir Thomas Moore wrote utopia in 1516 so you would have neither the book to reference nor the concept that is derived from the book to reference in the 15th century. Number six is lemon cakes which they are having on Avalon now there's a few things here that are like they are specifically happening on Avalon and a couple of them you could say like I guess you could give it a pass like Avalon is a magical place so maybe on Avalon they have these things if the rest of it was like super historically accurate and only on Avalon we were saying these things I'd be like okay then Avalon is a magical place but everywhere is equally historically inaccurate so I'm not giving Avalon a pass and saying it's special because it's Avalon if you want to give it that pass then be my guest so I'm arming you with that information if you want to be like well I'll I'll take everything else but not the Avalon stuff because it's Avalon so anyway they're having lemon cakes on Avalon um lemon was introduced into Spain and North Africa sometime between the year 1200 so that's not even Britain lemon was introduced to Spain and North Africa like centuries later and it is only in 1494 that lemons were being cultivated and shipped to England so I don't think they're having lemon cakes even if it is on Avalon. Number seven is a vanity table by which I mean like the piece of furniture that is like the table on which you have makeup and perfume and whatnot and this this specific vanity table has a gilded mirror so vanity table that let's unpack all of that vanity tables like we're not invented we're not a thing until the late 17th century so this piece of furniture just wouldn't exist like wouldn't have that but the gilded mirror all of like let's say her dad was like real crafty and invented the vanity table as a one off but it didn't really take off so she's the one and only person at the vanity table because dad made her one okay fine but the gilded mirror that is on her vanity table they didn't have the ability to produce like single sheets of glass until the late 18th century so there were mirrors like a reflective thing like the way mirrors are made I believe with a piece of glass and then it's usually lead I think I think there's a I think they also did it with onyx but it's like lead or onyx or whatever to darken the back and like that's how you get a mirror so they did have mirrors this are like in this time period but they would have been very very small and very very rare you would not have a large gilded mirror attached to your vanity it simply would not be possible number eight is corsets so they didn't have corsets of any kind corsets were not invented until the 1500s and even then the corsets that were around in the 1500s were not the kind of corsets that are being described in this the corsets being described in this book are what you think of as like the the tight laced corsets from like I believe the victorian era so corsets at all didn't exist yet and certainly not the kind being described in this book number nine is changing into nightgowns while on the road so nightgowns as a concept like as a separate article of clothing that you change into we're based on night shirts and chemises from the 16th century so this is not even the fifth and sixth centuries like night shirts and chemises of the 16th century which is still not a nightgown we're what later inspired nightgowns and night shirts and chemises were just undergarments so the thing like that nightgowns are based on that comes after the time period we're in isn't even a nightgown it's just underwear that it's just like a big shirt or big kind of like a loose fitting dress that you wear as an undergarment it's not a separate thing you change into but okay let's say that you do have nightgowns to change into in your fancy bedroom in the castle but they're on the road they're traveling like on horseback and they're stopping to camp for the night and they're unlacing their corsets helping each other unlace their corsets that they wouldn't have and then changing into nightgowns to wear while they camp by the fire on the road just like even if nightgowns existed which they did not you wouldn't change into a nightgown on while you're like on the road like this you'd like I wouldn't do it now let alone back then it's just just no no to all of that all right where are we at um number 10 is writing letters between camelot and avalan now this is one that I was like slightly wrong on but also still correct so like I thought that letter writing wasn't really a thing at all at this time period and it was more common than I thought it is not very common not very common at all but it did occur more than I thought it did so letter writing existed that said letters would have to be sent by courier there was no you know postal service and it certainly wouldn't have been like cheap convenient easier comment so you could write a letter seal it with wax send it by courier and the recipient would have to pay said courier in order to receive that letter and I believe at this time period they would not have been using like cotton parchment they would have been using um beach bark to write on so like it's not like they go into like what they're writing on but like the idea of like a regular old letter that you just like casually write to somebody like no but specifically let's say they are writing letters and sending them be a courier the fact that so morgana shows up at camelot which is where Elaine the lady of shallot is and is miserable and morgana convinces her to come back with her to avalan and when elaine and morgana returned avalan they meet up with guinevere um and guinevere says she already knows all about elaine because morgana wrote about more elaine in her letters so the letters that guinevere received on avalan from morgana while she was in camelot told her all about elaine avalan this mystical place where arthur has been living in secret and where everyone has been waiting for the return of arthur who's supposed to come back and claim his crown but is he real is he even alive this mystical land of the fey was receiving letters from camelot just real cash i don't think so like letters themselves were not common enough for me to like buy that people are just like writing letters but specifically from camelot to avalan um i don't think so number 11 is toast with jam um so having stale bread or bread that is like become toasted i.e bread that has had heat applied to it and it is now crispier like certainly existed but it was predominantly used to sop up like ale or wine it wasn't like you slice bread and then you toast it and then you serve it for breakfast and put jam on it like this was not a thing that was going on at all like people in minigubal times like they had again one big meal of the day on and at that time period they would have used bread as a plate like as a trencher and put meat on it and then you eat the bread as well maybe yeah you wouldn't have had toast with jam just just straight up no on that similarly number 12 is pastries and here again you might think you could use the avalan asterisk of like she's having pastries on avalan so i guess on avalan maybe the fairies can do this however uh-uh because when elaine encounters these pastries she does find them impressive she does the the avalan pastries these are some bombast pastries like this is the fanciest ass shit that she's ever had in her life but that said she is comparing it to the hundreds and i quote hundreds of pastries that she's had before in her life like it's literally in the text she's like i mean i've had hundreds of pastries but like none of them have ever been like this and i was like you've had hundreds of pastries excuse me they didn't have sugar for one in midi in medieval times in like those in six centuries i mean they did in the 11th century they did start to have sugar but it was pretty rare still um they had like honey and fruit so they had sweet food but they didn't have sugar which is a big part of pastry they did make like pastry like crusts that were like basically like a lot of lard um into like a short crust that would have been eaten by circles it wasn't like a fancy sweet food if not until the mid 16th century that you get actual pastry recipes so these hundreds of pastries that elaine has had that are not newly as good as the avalanche pastries i don't know where she's getting them from number 13 is etiquette specifically surrounding cutlery um so there's like a scene where like she's like eating uh like with a fork and knife and the fei think that's like awful weird and like how she thinks it's kind of uncivilized that the fei don't eat with a fork and knife and they think she's kind of weird that she does if anything the fei should be the ones eating with a fork and knife because guess what forks weren't invented until like the tutor times so the dining was basically b y o knife and then you would like cut and spear your food with your knife and just eat it straight off the knife like again have you never been to medieval times dinner in theater it is eat with your hands situation and spoons were like a super special thing that you only maybe possibly rarely needed it was predominantly b y o knife forks didn't exist so if anything she should have shown up to avalanche been like a tingle hopper um but no instead she's like eating like a proper lady with her fork and knife and she knows all the etiquette rules because she had etiquette lessons and the fei are the savage ones because they eat with their hands unlike the rest of medieval europe which would have been doing the same number 14 is curtsying and here again like you might think you could give this a pass and i would have given it a pass if it was just like just a general like moment where like people are demonstrating respect and so like oh they're bowing and curtsying and whatever um but there's like kind of a lot of attention paid to this where like it's it's specific to like the men bowing and then the women one of whom is pregnant and therefore finding the motion of curtsying difficult is being described and uh hate to break it to you but curtsying as like a separate and distinct act from bowing i.e a sex like a sex differentiation between like these greetings these signs of respect a difference didn't develop until the 17th century until then curtsying and bowing were basically the same motion there wasn't a distinction so certainly in the 15th century they would not have had bowing distinct from curtsying number 15 is a crystal chandelier over dancers so we've already established that crystal not a thing a crystal chandelier over dancers okay so let's unpack that a bit crystal already not a fit the first like possible precursor that is like maybe possibly kind of like a chandelier that we have a record of is a Byzantine polycandalon from the sixth century sixth century yes but this is Byzantine not this is not in Britain and it's not like a proper chandelier it's like kind of chandelier ish so we're like maybe the first proto chandelier uh candles would have been in use in the sixth century but they weren't like the kind that we have starting in the 19th century where like they don't drip a whole lot and like they just like kind of burn and don't need maintenance these would have needed their wicks trimmed like throughout they would have drifted everywhere they were super smoky and they were hell of expensive like it was a mega flex to have candles out they would hide them during the day so having to recap a crystal chandelier crystal doesn't exist chandeliers don't really exist with candles over dancers candles which would be dripping everywhere and filling the room with smoke and it would need to be pulled down every like few minutes to trim that wick um no similarly in this same scene where the crystal chandelier is hovering over these dancers we have a string quartet accompanying said dancers well string quartets or didn't come into existence until the Austrian composer Joseph Hayden wrote music for a string quartet in the 1750s therefore establishing the genre so yeah that's a big fat no on that um there is references to dueling and this one is like i kind of want to give it a pass on like it's not as egregious i didn't think there was any kind of dueling whatsoever um and i'm correct that there isn't the kind of dueling that she is describing the kind of dueling she was describing and making reference to when they're like a duel for her honor or whatever i'll see you at dawn like between two gentlemen yeah that was nothing there was judicial dueling i.e. kind of like trial by combat but that is not what is going on in the book so dueling if you mean trial by combat yes but dueling what she's talking about no number 18 is satin slippers so in this same ball situation with the chandelier and the string quartet we have a little six-year-old girl who's wearing satin slippers so silk which is what satin is made from was available in europe in the sixth century it was but it was so gd expensive that only like royalty and the richest of the rich could afford even a little bit it was like it was more it was worth more than gold and so like just making some slippers for a six-year-old out of silk not satin out of silk would have been like but why like would do you dip your six-year-olds feet in gold again her slippers are not silk they're satin and satin which is made from silk only came to england in the late 13th century so it straight up didn't exist so we're going to go with silk like that's just like why why are her shoes made of this but satin didn't exist not in england this same child who is like privileged af apparently morgan offers to make hot cocoa for her because she's like a little stressed again like i did this author never see ever after there was no chocolate in england in the fifth and sixth centuries chocolate was brought to england by the spanish in in the 17th century so hot cocoa for this child who was rocking satin slippers i mean like jesus christ next step number 20 is writing and literacy being commonplace this is again one where like it was but kind of more than kind of less than i thought so i thought it wouldn't be common at all and i'm correct about that um it was i guess a teeny tiny bit more common than i thought it would be but it was extremely rare still um literacy in britain was pretty widespread during rome and rule but arthur is post-rome he's like that's kind of the whole point of arthur uh so post-rome literacy became extremely rare and was limited to pretty much just the church so when uh this same little girl who has satin slippers and is getting hot cocoa uh olane asks her does she know her letters and uh i mean if anyone's gonna know their letters i think it's the kid with the cocoa in the satin so i guess fair play number 21 is lace curtains so lace was first developed in europe in the 16th century so it certainly wasn't being used for curtains in the fifth and sixth centuries but again like have you ever watched a movie that takes place in like medieval-ish times like lace curtains aren't really the vibe like i wouldn't i it wouldn't come up if i was writing something that's like meant to be medieval vibes it wouldn't occur to me to have lace curtains like have you seen monday pythons the holy grail uh or monday python and the holy grail do you know that scene where like the prince wants to sing all the time and his dad is like one day all of this will be yours and he's like what the curtains like the curtains in question are like a shitty piece of cloth not lace not lace number 22 is a clock striking specifically 8 a.m um so the first mechanical clocks were invented in europe are on the start of the 14th century and were the standard timekeeping device until the pendulum clock was invented in 1656 but in the fifth and sixth centuries no clock would have been striking 8 a.m. number 23 is dukes so there's a conversation about the type of eligible marriage that a lane should be making and you know should be better finding yourself in duke and wouldn't that be swell um but dukes dukedoms were introduced in england in 1337 so there ain't no duke for her to marry sorry number 24 is framed portraits in camelot so she references like remembering seeing like the royal family like all the portraits in camelot of the royal family which they know you're thinking of the renaissance most early medieval portraits those that existed at all which again would not would not be common would have been donor portraits and i am not an expert on art history so my limited understanding of art history goes like this that donor portraits are basically like a rich person could commission a piece of art and that piece of art would be religious in nature it would be some seen from the bible most likely some something religious so like the virgin mary and jesus and like their followers and it would be something like that and then the donor the person who's commissioned this the person who's paying for this gets to like kind of also be in it so it's not just a picture of them it's a like a religious picture but they're like also in it so they're just like hey what's up i'm here with jesus um is kind of what a donor portrait is you wouldn't have had like family portraits with like gilded frames lining the halls of camelot no just simply no number 25 is a brass chandelier and you wouldn't have had a brass chandelier until the 11th century so just know on that as well if you were thought you were safe because it wasn't crystal nope number 26 is lunch as a meal which again lunch wasn't a meal you didn't have breakfast lunch and dinner these folks in this book are having breakfast lunch and dinner you had one big meal of the day lunch wasn't even a word that they had number 27 is a kraken lagoon so there is reference made to a kraken lagoon on avalan the kraken comes from the 12th century not the 15th century and it comes from norway so this is neither the time nor the place for a kraken number 28 is tea in camelot where again like if this was on avalan i suppose you could say well the fey have tea because they magic but this is in camelot um and tea only came to britain in the 1650s a thousand years later number 29 is jasmine um and this is present by implication not on page by which i mean um when we're going to use this magic a lane describes it as smelling like jasmine and oranges and in order for her to recognize that the scent of this magic is reminiscent of jasmine and oranges she has to know what jasmine and oranges smell like so she has to have encountered jasmine in order to know this so there's no point in the book where she's like actually has jasmine flowers but they're present by implication because you can't know what jasmine smells like unless you've encountered jasmine but jasmine the flower wasn't brought to europe until the 17th century so maybe the magic does smell like jasmine but to elaine it should have just been like wow that's like a really nice smelling magic i don't want to smell like i never smelled anything like that before it smells real good but you wouldn't know that it smells like jasmine number 30 is blown glass a ball of blown glass now this is just like the jasmine where it's present by implication not on page so at no point are they like observing glass blowers but elaine makes an analogy and i forget exactly when or why and it wasn't a very good analogy at all it wasn't like oh too bad that i didn't have blown glass because this is just like such a great analogy it was it was terrible but in order to make that analogy you have to know what glass blown glass looks like which in europe in the dark ages like they didn't have shit basically and they certainly didn't have glass glass making like just and we're not talking about blown glass we're not talking about that art just glass they didn't really have glass making of any kind it was like only in the 12th century that the catholic church started to like to like ramp up and have glass made and was mainly used for stained glass for stained glass windows for their like big gothic churches blown glass was a thing that they were only doing in venice in the 13th century and it was like this big protected secret because only they knew how to do it and like the powers that be made the glass blowers all move to this like tiny remote island to protect the secret of glass blowing which again was going on in venice in the 13th century so there's just like no effing way that elaine had seen glass blowers in the 6th century in england number 31 is smoke and mirrors the expression and this one has layers this one's a doozy so as we've already discussed mirrors not a thing like teeny tiny mirrors like kind of sort of maybe possibly rare but a big sheet of glass to make a big old mirror not even a thing so we don't have mirrors so even if like just like you came up with this yourself smoke and mirrors and you're referencing something else that's entirely based on your own time you don't have mirrors so that's one now smoke and mirrors the like the technique that illusionists used was invented in the 18th century you know the the technique of using smoke and mirrors to make it look like a person is standing there or whatever so that concept not the expression the concept came around in the 18th century but the expression smoke and mirrors which is what is being used in this book came into use in 1975 so to recap this book which uses the phrase smoke and mirrors in a world where mirrors are not possible the technique that uses smoke and mirrors has not been invented and the expression smoke and mirrors that references this technique which requires the use of mirrors is in 1975 so yeah no it's a big bad no on that number 32 uh is like a a line that I wrote down because it had some some stuff in it it was he knows the rules as deeply as I know which fork to use for dessert so to recap no forks no dessert so no part of this works number 33 is orchestra crescendo in the great hall similarly to the string quartet the first semblance of a modern orchestra came in the early 17th century when the italian opera composer Claudio Monteverdi formally assigned specific instruments to perform his music needless to say there were no orchestras crescendoing or otherwise in the fifth and sixth centuries number 34 is a white lace wedding dress as already mentioned lace not a thing at this time and the idea the like convention of wearing white in a wedding as like a wedding dress that only really became a thing in the 19th century number 35 is riding sidesaddle this one slight asterisks I suppose the type of sidesaddle writing this is similar to the corset but the type of sidesaddle writing that she's describing is referencing the most modern kind of sidesaddle which was definitely not around now slight riding sidesaddle i.e. facing sideways on a horse the first record we have of that is in 1382 when princess Anna Bohemia rode sidesaddle across Europe on her way to marry king Richard the second riding sidesaddle was seen as a way to protect her virginity soon it was considered vulgar for any woman to ride a stride so the earliest we have is the 1382 the 14th century of a woman riding sideways on a horse the invention of a sidesaddle to accommodate all ladies doing this was only developed in the late 14th century so having these ladies complain about the fact that oh why do we have to ride sidesaddle it's just who like girls are so oppressed in the fifth and sixth centuries while they're wearing corsets is just um nope and last is her dad saying that he'll have tea brought to his study as we have established tea not a thing yet wouldn't be having tea brought to any part of your home but a study like a room called a study is based on a renaissance room called a cabinet or a closet and we are in the middle ages so the room that a study is later inspired by has not yet been invented but dear old dad in the fifth and sixth century britain is having tea brought to his study so that does it for my list um i did see a review from someone else this is not something i noticed so i didn't feel right calling it out myself um but capped sleeves were mentioned and i mean i am not surprised that capped sleeves were not a thing in medieval europe knowing what i know about what they wore in medieval europe um what females were wearing i.e. like big old pieces of cloth held together by brooches with some like sashes and stuff like yeah i mean i would never write a medieval scene where someone has capped sleeves because like again have you ever seen medieval times have you ever like have you watched the sword in the stone do you think people have capped sleeves no um yeah but so this book is is terrible the characters are wooden and flat and cardboard-ish the dialogue is atrociously modern elaine the lady of shallot her she is nicknamed l el so morgana will like loop arms with her as they're walking down the hall and sipping wine from their crystal goblets and like talking about just like you know boys will be boys and it's just but for why again you oopsie doopsy you can take the arthur story and fuck with it you can take just a character from the arthur myth and fuck with it place it in different time change around their roles whatever but you have to be actively choosing to do that like for fuck's sake when i'm writing myself i am not writing historical fiction and i'm not writing anything that's inspired by a myth that takes place in a real historical place or time however i have chosen to set my story in a world that i want to be reminiscent of a very specific time and place so i research that specific time and place and then when they come up with something that i think i want to have uh that's this character has or they have access to or they're able to drink or whatever um i'll look up that time and place that i want this to be evoking and if i learn that they did not have that in that time and place then i have to decide well this isn't i'm not writing historical fiction i can decide do i want them to actually have this thing which that time and place didn't actually have and if i decide yes then i have to come up with how that would work though because probably there was a reason they didn't have that in that time and place so is that different in my world like if the reason could be like the flower jasmine the reason that you didn't have that in britain was because it's not naturally occurring there you would have had to wait until like we expansion and trade and travel expanded to a point where you could bring jasmine flowers to britain where they are not naturally occurring so if i was writing my story and i was like i really want to have flowers that are jasmine flowers am i deciding then that in my fantasy world do they have jasmine naturally occurring here even though i want this place to be like kind of like greenland where there's not native jasmine you have to make that choice and you can make that choice so if there were mirrors in camala like you could write a story like that and then you just have to come up with how and why were they and what did merlin make a mirror and is everyone just like wowed by it because like mirrors aren't generally a thing like you could do that and if only the fey had like fancy foods and if elaine was like shocked by them because she's never tasted sugar before but the fey have sugar like i'd be like that's kind of silly but like okay they're fey like the fey can have sugar that's that makes sense that's fine you can you can fuck with it you could set it in the 1800s if you wanted to you would just have to explain why england isn't england and we need to unify under the banner of king arthur i made knights of a round table you can do that you just have to come up with how and why and this book had no interest in doing even a minimal amount of googling because that's how i learned all this stuff like honestly this has been very educational so like thank you i guess because a lot of things most of the things that were that i was calling out were just stuff that as i was reading i was like i don't think so i'll look it up later that doesn't sound right i'll look that up later and now i've learned a hell heck of a lot about when things started where they came from and who invented them so that's cool but if i had been writing an orther story i would just expect that a bit of googling is going to need to be part of my process but apparently not if you're laura sebastian you just say fuck it and write whatever you feel like needless to say i do not recommend don't waste your time or do it's your life i'm not gonna tell you how to live it let me know in the comments down below whatever you want to let me know about arthurian retellings about this book in particular about whatever i've talked about in this video this really long video that i filmed twice now uh yeah let me know all the things i post videos on saturdays other random times as well but i think saturdays so like and subscribe join my patreon if you feel so inclined and i'll see you when i see you