Fantasy with Friends: Anachronisms

Monday, Monday, Monday… so, as usual, I’ve got a Fantasy with Friends post for you! All the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is on anachronisms in fantasy: Do anachronisms in fantasy bother you? Should fantasy be “similiar” to the time period it’s based on, either in terms of language used or things like invention, fashion, customs, etc.? I think the question implies an assumption that all fantasy is necessarily copying a historical period and should do so in its entirety, rather than coming up with an aesthetic and historical background of its own, which is interesting! I don’t see fantasy that way: obviously, historical fantasy needs to believably fit into the period it’s set in to work, but otherwise, I don’t see why a fantasy story needs to be copying a given time period with all of its assumptions. If it’s making its own thing, why should things be the same as in our world’s past? When it comes to something like language, unless…