Master of Ragnarok and the Blessing of History

More than once recently, I’ve heard the term “medieval” thrown around with respect to anime like The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar. In point of fact, there’s little medieval about it at all. Today I introduce you to… NegativePrimes’ trick for easily distinguishing time periods! Ta-da!

It’s not nice to pick on other bloggers. Ack! Who are you??

I’m Prickly Pear Johnson! I embody the spirit of all those you have just offended! Prickly Pear Jo— Wait a minute, you’re a figment of my imagination, just like on Cactus Matt’s blog! You—You’re a fictitious substitute for Matt himself, aren’t you?

I am, and I’m here to defend him and put you in your place for trying to call him out, even if anonymously! But—But he wasn’t the only one! That’s why I wasn’t going to do this as a response to him specifically!

Boy, you really blew that one. I blew it?! None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t shown up! And if you’re a product of my imagination, then you’re not really Matt to begin with. I defy you to prove otherwise!

I adored the opening sex scene of the most recent The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar episode. There!That proves it! Even Matt wasn’t that impressed it it. You’re not him—you’re just a caricature!

Now you’re insulting imaginary bloggers as well as real ones. I’m not insulting anybody—Look, can we just get to the history stuff?

No one wants to read about history. I… I have no answer to that.

But we’ll humor you anyway, so what’s this neato trick you’ve got? Easy! Just remember the major breaks in history and what defined them!

Uh uh uh… Hey, get ahold of yourself! You ok?

Woah, sorry! For a moment it sounded like we were in school! I have no idea what gave you that impression.

So how exactly do we do that, then? I thought you’d never ask! Just look at the major outline of history. Worry about the details later. Here’s a place to start:

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Stone Age—Before 3000 BCE. People used stone tools.

Bronze Age—3000-1000 BCE. People discover smelting, which gives stronger tools. Also, they invent this tiny little thing of no importance called “writing”. Let that sink in for a moment. There wouldn’t be bloggers today without this moment in history.

Iron Age—1000-500 BCE. People start using steel on a widespread basis.

Birth of History—Around 500 BCE, people start keeping actual historical records (as opposed to imaginative stories, religious narratives, legal documents, and the like).

From here on, we divide history into 500-year chunks.

Birth of the Common Era—Around 1 CE, Jesus is born, and the Roman Republic becomes the Roman Empire.

Early Middle Ages—Around 500 CE, the Roman Empire collapses and the so-called Dark Ages begin.

High Middle Ages—Around 1,000 CE, Europe has hauled its sorry @$$ out of chaos and is enjoying an unprecedented age of learning, creativity, and invention. The human race kicks back and develops gunpowder, the printing press, mechanical clocks, universities, clothing buttons, coffee houses, and other things without which modern life would be unimaginable.*

The medievals also invented a neat little device called the stirrup. In Master of Ragnarok, the various clans are still in the Bronze Age: Steel is not yet widespread. Yuto kickstarts the Wolf Clan’s development into the next age by giving them steel. That’s a jump of about 1,000 years, give or take. Then he gives them the stirrup—an invention from the freakin’ Middle Ages! That’s a leap of an additional 2,000 years! No wonder the other clans were freaked out! In fact, the show probably downplays how shocking it would have been.

Modern Period—Around 1,500 CE, the Protestant Reformation fractures a religiously-unified West into a gazillion religious groups. This allows national political power to become more influential than religious political power: a real game-changer. Also, Columbus bumps into America and the race is on to colonize it.

Post-Modern Period—Around 2,000 CE. This period is hard to describe without getting into Intellectual History; and since I really didn’t talk about that in the previous time periods, I’m not going to dig into it here. That would be best saved for another post. Technologically, the digital revolution really transforms things, allowing for crucial evolution that ultimately results in the Curiously Dead Cat blog.

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There! All of human history in nine bullet points! … What, no snide remarks? I haven’t heard anything from you in a long time.

snore… Oh come on!

 

• A more comprehensive list of critical medieval inventions and discoveries comes from one of my favorite Sci-Fi authors, Mike Flynn:

In no particular order: watermills, windmills, camshafts, toothed wheels, transmission shafts, mechanical clocks, pendant clocks, eye glasses, four-wheeled wagons, wheeled moldboard plows with shares and coulters, three-field crop rotation, blast furnaces, laws of magnetism, steam blowers, treadles, stirrups, armored cavalry, the elliptical arch, the fraction and arithmetic of fractions, the plus sign, preservation of antiquity, “Gresham’s” law, the mean speed theorem, “Newton’s” first law, distilled liquor, use of letters to indicate quantities in al jabr, discovery of the Canary Islands, the Vivaldi expedition, cranks, overhead springs, latitudo et longitudo, coiled springs, laws of war and non-combatants, modal logic, capital letters and punctuation marks, hydraulic hammers, definition of uniform motion, of uniformly accelerated motion, of instantaneous motion, explanation of the rainbow, counterpoint and harmony, screw-jacks, screw-presses, horse collars, gunpowder and pots de fer, that there may be a vacuum, that there may be other Worlds, that the earth may turn in a diurnal motion, that to overthrow a tyrant is the right of the multitude, the two-masted cog, infinitesimals, open and closed sets, verge-and-foliot escapements, magnetic compasses, portolan charts, the true keel, natural law, human rights, international law, universities, corporations, freedom of inquiry, separation of church and state, “Smith’s” law of marketplaces, fossilization, geological erosion and uplift, anaerobic salting of fatty fish (“pickled herring”), double entry bookkeeping, and… the printing press.