History DeliberateValuesDissonance / Literature

* Value dissonance is a central theme of the ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series. Vastly different values between the "uptimers" (people from 2000 America) and the "downtimers" (people from 1632 Europe) cause no end of confusion, hilarity, and conflict between people from the two time periods.
** A beautiful example shows up in ''The Kremlin Games'', when a 21st century American and a 17th century Russian noble discuss the abolition of slavery. The American is shocked to hear that the high nobles (whom the American had just assumed would fall under AristocratsAreEvil), who can afford to pay wages, are generally neutral or slightly opposed to slavery. The big supporters of the institution are LandPoor petty nobility and land-holding yeomen, whose only assets are farmland and the labor needed to get crops harvested. At the same time the runaway slave-girl Anya remarks that she had never even considered that slavery as an institution could be immoral before the Americans pointed out that all humans are descendants of Adam and Eve. Before then, she had never had a bad opinion of the system, only of her place in it, and even dreamed of owning slaves of her own.

** Another stellar example would be the confusion the downtimers have with the uptimers referring to an early altercation as "The Battle of the Crapper" because the uptimers find it shocking and significant that camp followers would have to hide little girls in an excrement and spider filled hole in order to save them from brutal gang rape, while the downtimers are used to such atrocities occurring as a matter of course.

* ''Literature/ThreeWorldsCollide'': This is done with future social mores aren't at all like present ones, much like present ones would be almost incomprehensible to those of several hundred years in the past. A particular example is future humans' views on (legalized) rape, which are so divorced from modern mores that the latter are incomprehensible to the protagonists even after being explained.

* ''Literature/LettersBackToAncientChina'' has Kao-tai, a time-travelling mandarin from 1000 years ago, who doesn't understand why he shouldn't have an affair with two women at the same time, as long as he can satisfy them both. Also, when he compliments one of them on her breasts, she is miffed. And he misses [[EatTheDog cooked dog]]. And so on.

* ''The Saga of the Bordenlands'': In this trilogy by the Argentine writer Liliana Bodoc, the Husihuilkes are a noble and warrior people, but they execute implacably the traitors and liars, and Dulkancellin, one of the most heroic characters, almost murdered an innocent for believing him a liar. On the other side are [[MayIncaTec the Lords of the Sun]], who practice human sacrifice and slavery, which is seen with disgust by the other peoples of the Fertile Lands.

** The human civilization of Alera came from a Roman legion that fell through an opening in time and space and landed in this alternative world. After a thousand years of fighting, they came together in one solid society and that has lasted for another thousand years. In all that time, old Roman ideals and practices stayed in favor. So slavery and women being a second-class unless they prove themselves by pretending to be men and serve in the army are common. The nobility will fight for perceived slights against their honor and dignity. These views, as well as seeing the other races of the world as subhuman, tend to make relationships with the other races tricky and bloody.
** The Marat, neolithic elf-like people, who form a deep bond with an animal creature, are savage barbarian fighters. They will eat the dead of their enemies, believing it will give them their enemy's strength by consuming it. They worship the One, believing in some all powerful, all-encompassing entity and will make challenges in the One's name. Such challenges can even stop a war between one tribe and some Alerans if another tribe intercedes on the Aleran's side. Those watching the fight also regularly make bets on the outcome.
** The Cane, 7ft-9ft tall wolf-persons, have a strict honor base society. They don't believe in being friends and allies with other races [[spoiler:or with each other. They have many words for the term "enemy". ''Garada'' is considered an enemy who one respects and will treat with respect but never forgetting this person is an enemy who will seek some advantage over the person. Even parents and children call each other ''Garada'']].
** The brutal Icemen of the north bring two leaders to a negotiation, one who looks for peace and one who looks for war. These hulking beasts [[spoiler:are also powerful empaths and regularly communicate by simple emotional will. One Aleran saw the Peace Leader give an emotional slap to the War Leader when the War Leader acted foolishly. The first Alerans who met them centuries ago were likely using internal fire magic to keep them warm, not anticipating the fear and intimidation the magic can bring about is sensed by the Icemen, who get agitated, which unnerves the Alerans even more, and it all escalated to a centuries-long war stemming from poor communications.]]

** On the other hand, the native people of the alternate earth, nicknamed "monkey-cats", have equally different morals. Their society is clan-based and their biggest political entities are city-states, but they also have complete gender equlity beyond what even the modern west possesses, most of them dislike violence, but those who do fight wage wars not for territory but for fun and honor.

** Racism is mostly replaced with FantasticRacism (dwarfs and trolls), but some old-fashioned sexism is on display, despite female heroes being common. ''Literature/EqualRites'' features the Disc's first female wizard (as opposed to witch) getting looked down upon by other wizards, who believe a female wizard is impossible. Curiously, Granny Weatherwax shares this belief, saying that "if men were witches they'd be wizards", because there are inherent psychological differences between the genders. Esk ends up proving this false, as she can effectively be both.
** Dwarfs typically don't advertise their genders (females are also bearded), and when one starts to do so it is treated as scandalous. Carrot, himself raised by dwarfs, also finds it a little disturbing, despite being a true NiceGuy. He also assumes that Angua was hired purely because she is a woman (she wasn't. It's because she's [[spoiler:a werewolf]]).
** Speaking of Dwarfs, many humans express outrage at the Dwarf custom of buying oneself from one's parents before getting married. To Dwarfs, this is a sensible way of letting a couple start a life together unencumbered by the past, and makes it possible for the couple's families to give the bride and groom lavish gifts without anyone's honor being insulted. To humans it is an unacceptable way of involving money in something which should be a purely emotional affair. (Of course, human wedding customs ''also'' often involve money, but it's not ''calculated'', which makes it better somehow, and doesn't ''always'' lead to a huge row.)
** On the other hand, ''Literature/{{Snuff}}'' features a rather extreme case of DeliberateValuesDissonance ''within'' the series. Does [[EatsBabies eating babies]] make a race AlwaysChaoticEvil? Maybe not if you see it from their point of view.

** In ''Literature/TurnCoat'', Harry sees some old journals [=McCoy=], his 200-year-old mentor, keeps in his study. [=McCoy=] mentions the ones preceding his are [=McCoy=]'s mentor's journals. When he speaks of his now dead mentor [=McCoy=] calls the wizard his "master". He notes there was a time when that word wasn't as narrow meaning as it is now with that inherent negativity. It used to encompass things like teacher and mentor.

* ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'': Captain Leroy objects to Simmerson's insistence on having one of his soldiers flogged. Not because he is opposed to corporeal punishment, or because he thinks the man is innocent, but because he is the scion of Virginian plantation owners and in his world flogging is how you punish enslaved black people. Treating a free white man the same way is undignified and degrading to both parties, as far as he is concerned. This is quite jarring, since until then Leroy has been generally presented as a ReasonableAuthorityFigure who has gone out of his way to help the protagonist.

** Having children out of wedlock is treated differently by the various ethnic groups. The Northmen, the Wildlings and the Dornish think nothing of it and even claim that women should be lucky to give birth to a nobleman's child, whether they wanted to or not. The Andals consider bastardry to be a sin and illegitimates are treated as ethically compromised (''Evil'') and should be enslaved or killed.

** Jedi see absolutely nothing wrong with their recruiters showing up and all but demanding parents hand over their Force-sensitive children, then cutting them off from all family ties after that. The one parent who ''did'' raise an objection (the Baby Lundi case) was blown off and treated as tabloid fodder. Their infant recruitment and isolation from most sectors of society may explain, partly, why few were sympathetic enough to help them after [[ThePurge Order 66]].
** [[ProudWarriorRace Mandalorians]] don't want to fight for the strongest side, they want to test their strength ''against it,'' and the Mandos typically think the [[WorthyOpponent Jedi and Republic are the best there is]], so they'll often be siding with the Sith. This is a StealthInsult to the Sith and Empire, who either don't know or don't care that the Mandos consider them unworthy of fighting. The other factor in why Mandalorians and Jedi do not typically get along? Mandalorians are ''fanatically'' [[FamilyValuesVillain family-oriented]], to the point where marrying and raising children in the culture is a sacred tenet (the second worst thing you could call a Mando translates to "unfit parent"). Separating a child from their parents and culture (like the Jedi do with their infant recruits) is more horrifying to them than killing the kid outright.
** Even after Palpatine's defeat and the repeal of the worst Imperial speciesist laws by the New Republic, Human High Culture has still been internalized by many of the galaxy's humans (including even former members of the Rebel Alliance, who were primarily appalled at how Palpatine abused ''human'' rights), who are disgusted at having to live amongst and work with non-human sentients. (One otherwise liberal-minded member of an [[Literature/XWingSeries X-wing squadron]] is very touchy about his speciesism, and justifies not bunking with an alien squadmate by simply saying "He smells.") Of course, this being a huge galaxy (twice the diameter of our own Milky Way), there are plenty of exceptions and nuances. Han Solo, for one (among many others), uses anti-Hutt slurs even as he considers Wookiees to be his equals (though of course, considering his personal history and what happened to him with Jabba, he might believe he has NWordPrivileges and/or that Hutts are [[AssholeVictim Asshole Victims]]). Then of course there are the Yevethans, who not only view all non-Yevethans (including humans) as inferior, but have a very brutal caste system among their own kind and see nothing wrong with a ranking individual picking a Yevethan commoner out of a crowd, slitting his throat, and drinking his blood; even more dissonant is the expectation that the commoners see these "blood-killings" as an ''honor''.

** Laurence is for the time a bleeding heart progressive in many ways (chief of which is being a staunch abolitionist from childhood in the late 18th century, and not even of the "send them back to Africa, they'll be happier there and we won't have to live with them" sort), but sexuality seemed to be his limit. Aside from his dismay at the liberal sexual mores of the Corps (which he adapts to enough that he's quite willing to carry on a semi-casual relationship with a female officer), it's made clearest when [[spoiler:Granby]] confesses that he's "an invert" (i.e. gay). Laurence has a hard time reconciling the man he know with what he "knows" "those deviants" are and realizes that, were he still the man he were at the start of the series and were they in the Navy, he'd have had [[spoiler:Granby]] flogged and imprisoned for such a thing, without a second thought. (Even here he is somewhat progressive -- in the Navy, as long as he didn't ''know'', it having not been confessed to him or him not witnessing it personally, he'd have cheerfully denied even the most well-sourced accusation. It's the knowing that would made it his duty. In addition, it's not him being in the Navy that would have made him do it -- it's that his experiences since becoming an aviator have changed his feelings on the topic of duty.)

*** While it does eventually strain their friendship past the breaking point, his former first officer in the Navy Tom Riley is not opposed to slavery at all. They made do in the past by avoiding the topic and it's not a problem until Laurence invites a freedman and his family onto a ship Riley commands as his guests.

*** In-universe, China is shown to mostly have female aviators, because daughters were less desirable than sons so sending a daughter into the dragon corp was considered an easy way to fulfil a family's military service requirement.
** In ''Tongues of Serpents'', Laurence believes that Emily should be given a chaperone (eventually hiring one for her in ''Crucible of Gold'') and carefully monitors her contact with boys and men in the meantime. Other aviators laugh this idea off as ridiculous. In their eyes the worst that can happen is Emily (who is, after all, the daughter of the Admiral of the Air, whose punishment for anyone who got handsy in unwelcome fashion with her daughter might ''start'' with hanging and get worse from there) getting pregnant -- which would be expected of her anyway in order to produce a next captain for Excidium.
** All the major powers use ChildSoldiers, albeit usually not in a direct combat role. On dragons, they serve as messengers and lookouts, and they serve the same purpose on sea vessels like they did historically. Despite this, they die like flies in the musket and cannonball crossfire. Laurence shows little more remorse for a child dying under his command than an adult -- he's more unsettled that the ChildSoldiers in the Corps (as young as seven; in the case in question it's a boy of ten) are even younger than those in the Navy (no younger than twelve).
** In ''Blood of Tyrants'' Laurence is imprisoned by a Japanese daimyo who is simultaneously [[HonorBeforeReason honor bound to take good care of him and to have him put to death for trespassing on Japanese soil]]. The Lord tries to meet both these requirements by offering Laurence the opportunity to commit sepuku, an honorable death normally reserved for Samurai. Of course, Laurence doesn't care at all for this honor, and as a devout Christian finds suicide a far worse death than being murdered by his captors.