The implausible real world

[nancylebov]

In a discussion of Zenna Henderson's People stories, a reader mentions that the psychic powers were believable, but not the silver dimes. The production of silver dimes ended in 1964.

I thought the poppy field in the Wizard of Oz that put Dorothy to sleep was bad art-- it didn't fit with the other sorts of fantasy in the book or movie. As it happens, opium poppies produce low-lying fumes that make the fields too dangerous for children.

Anything else you can think of in fantasy which you didn't believe but which turned out to be true?

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The alienness of the little real-world details in Stephen King's novels set in the real-world US was far stronger to me than the alienness of the monsters or supernatural forces.

Also, not fantasy per se, but it may be relevant to note that in rereading Kim Stanley Robinson's Icehenge I find the Cold War continuing centuries into the future easy to accept but the lack of a Kuiper Belt breaks my brain.

[siderea]

The Albigensian Crusade. And I was like, "Oh, puh-lease. You have got to be kidding me," too. Imagine my appall, when I found out years later, a few years after joining the SCA that it was real.

On the flip side, that subsequently made Tigana all that much more realistic. :/

Kamagura Orange Road

[https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmUTs4EjNltnFL92UB5T07pm_kXHrjm_CE (from livejournal.com)]

I've been a fan of japanese animation because the fantasy elements are so familiar, but the every-day elements are so alien. "My Neighbor Totoro" where the girls balance, and walk, on their knees with their lower legs bent up behind them so they won't have to take their shoes off indoors.

"Kamagura Orange Road" (OVA) where the girls compete to catch goldfish at a carnival using nets of soluble paper.

"throwies"

[https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmUTs4EjNltnFL92UB5T07pm_kXHrjm_CE (from livejournal.com)]

They may not be silver dimes, but they look like them: http://www.instructables.com/id/LED-Throwies/ are essentially a small "coin" battery with an LED wrapped around it for light, and a magnet to get it to stick where you want it. http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/throw Science fiction in Zenna Henderson's day. An everyday toy today.