Palacký University in Olomouc Philosophical

Structuring the World

But what are the structures that help create a believable secondary world? Wolf works with eight of them, out of which three are the basic elements needed for a world to exist – a space in which things can exist, a span of time in which events can occur and the characters to live in the world. The next five structures are physical and philosophical systems, which build upon each other and comprise the world itself. Nature comes first with the flora and fauna of the world and sometimes even different laws of physics, then culture built by the inhabitants of the world and determined by the nature. With culture we inevitably must deal with the language – a way how people of the culture can express themselves and about what. Then we can speak about the mythology, about how the culture understands, explains, and remembers its world and lastly there is a philosophy – the ideas and ideologies of the world’s inhabitants and the ones the author tries to express through his work. ⁴⁸ These structures can be found in different worlds in varying degrees, with some of them not necessarily be always present. They can be clearly stated and described through maps, timelines or even within the story, but the author can sometimes deliberately withhold some of these information and let his reader guess some of the world’s infrastructure on his own.

⁴⁶ Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds, 23.
⁴⁷ Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds, 24.
For the purpose of this thesis I will focus on the three basic elements of the secondary worlds – the space, the span of time and the characters to analyze, with occasional mentions of some of the other aspects if needed.

1. The space

Both Tolkien and Martin are very thoroughgoing concerning the most important part of building a new world, the creation of a place for his characters to live in. Both of them also said their worlds are placed on Earth, with Tolkien meaning a false history preceding our times⁴⁹ and Martin meaning alternative, “not our”, Earth⁵⁰. The factual information in this chapter comes from The Silmarillion for 4.3.1.1 and The World of Ice and Fire for 4.3.1.2, if not stated otherwise.

1.