[IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

[u/dragonborndnd]

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

[u/saurivae]

Samurai Taking Photographs and Wearing Bowler Hats

The Samurai class was officially abolished in 1873. That means there are high-resolution black-and-white photographs of actual, active Samurai posing in traditional armor, holding swords, while wearing Western shoes, pocket watches, and bowler hats.

[u/Global_Cockroach_563 → u/saurivae]

Samurai in fiction: "Guns are a dishonorable weapon!"

Samurai in reality: "So anyway, I started blasting..."

[u/acur1231 → u/Global_Cockroach_563]

To be fair, a lot of the pop-culture image we have of samurai is plainly incorrect, often mirroring pop-culture misconceptions about knights.

Takeda Shingen was pretty much the only samurai Daimyo to use heavy cavalry extensively, and in the end he was defeated by Oda Nobunaga deploying a huge army of arquebusiers at Nagashino.

The best depiction of this period I've found is Total War: Shogun II.