I live in Canada but so much media I consume is from the United States that I tend to assume stories take place there by default until told otherwise. Once, I read a book set in England (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime) and I assumed it was set in the United States until the main character went to London. But the other day, I watched the new Frankenstein movie and it dawned on me that I didn’t know where Frankenstein takes place but, because it’s based on an older book, I assumed somewhere in Europe.
I assume everything is set in a fantasy world unless explicitly told otherwise (eg history or science history where the focus is on accuracy with the understanding that some information needed filling in), because 99.999% of the time this is correct even if it’s supposed to be modeled after a real place or based on real events.
That depends on the genre. Fantasy books are usually set in fantasy worlds but realistic fiction is usually set in the real world. Sitcoms like The Neighborhood or Abbott Elementary aren’t based on real history but are clearly supposed to be set in the real world.
It can be set in the real world, but it’s a fictionalized version of the real world. It isn’t striving to be accurate, so it isn’t accurate.
To me, it doesn’t depend on the genre. If it’s not claiming to be historically or contemporaneously accurate, it’s set in a fantasy world, because aspects of it will not match reality, and that’s what’s important to me in relation to the question you asked.
I disagree. I think a lot of works of fiction, such as the examples I gave, use made up characters but the story is supposed to be accurate to the real world and is supposed to represent things that can plausibly happen
That’s fine, I don’t need you to agree with how I view place settings in works of fiction :)
But I think if you look closely enough, you’ll find there are incongruities just as a natural consequence of having this stuff translated into a format that can be shared like books and movies/tv. At a certain point you’ll have to suspend disbelief for some reason, even if it’s just to believe that all these people can afford to live where they are with the jobs they have (like friends; I haven’t seen either of your examples so I can’t comment on them). That’s the realm of fantasy worlds for me, and that example is entirely a byproduct of needing space to film. It doesn’t mean there’s magic and unicorns, but it’s like a reflection of reality in a warped mirror; close but wrong. Maybe like a parallel universe, but still not our own.
Maybe that stuff doesn’t matter to you as far as where stores are set, and that’s totally fine, but it matters to me to keep real and not real separate.
That is fair. Even stories that are meant to be realistic usually stretch believability at some point. The show Who’s The Boss expected us to believe that Angela unknowingly was married to two men at the same time. Also, most television series and movies take a long time to produce and by the time they’re released, the world may change in significant ways. At the start of the pandemic, for instance, shows were being released that didn’t address the pandemic because they didn’t know it would happen. Some shows chose to continue ignoring the pandemic.
Vancouver
That what watching Stargate SG-1 multiple times has done to me.
They all have their own universes.
If it’s anime/manga, absolutely either Japan, Europe or Hawaii. If it’s a cartoon and I know what country it originates from, that country. Otherwise I’ll assume it’s some fictional place that could be anywhere if it isn’t specified.
Yeah, I also assume anime takes place in Japan and I think every anime I’ve seen was either set in Japan or a nonexistent fantasy world.
I’m primarily a fantasy reader. I never assume anything related to time or place, lol.
I assumed it was set in the United States until the main character went to London.
I’d assume that London was a city on the Thames bridged by Blackfriars Bridge in the UK.
But you never know, because it might be that London was a city on the Thames bridged by Blackfriars Bridge in Canada.
Good question. Really depends on what it is, I think. I just watched the movie Melancholia which is pretty ambiguous about its setting. I was wavering between US and UK based on the accents, but I think in the back of my head I kinda assumed vaguely East Coast -ish.
As a kid, in the UK, back in the '70s, I was watching Roots and was wondering why they were so keen to get to Scotland. I eventually realised that this was set in the US, of course, and the north there was different.
So I suppose that was my default then but, these days, I typically find myself trying to work out exactly when and where a thing is set, if it isn’t obvious, automatically - before I actually settle into the plot or anything.
If they speak english, I assume it’s in Vancouver
Truthfully, I don’t think about it much unless the media bothers to bring it up. If it’s not a particularly strong element of the narrative, I’m not concerned about it.
Frankenstein (the book) is all over the place. Haven’t seen the new movie yet so I don’t know what settings they use there.
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/frankenstein/setting/
A lot of it depends on context. You’re not really told where the city in the Matrix is located, but based on the skyscrapers and freeways in part 2 it feels really LA-ish. Filmed in Sydney. But of course “The Matrix” has no physical location so it doesn’t matter.
