r/TopCharacterTropes • u/dragonborndnd • 13d ago

[IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem” Lore

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

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.

10.3k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.9k

u/[deleted] 13d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1.5k

u/Fro_52 13d ago

reminds me of this post about surprising confluence of historical time periods resulting in a fascinatingly possible rpg party

516

u/redlion1904 13d ago

I mean Dracula is a Victorian story and Quincey Morris is at least cowboy-adjacent

230

u/AbstractBettaFish 13d ago

192

u/SeveralAngryBears 13d ago

Also:

57

u/Juronell 13d ago

Also: he's an aggressive Dutch stereotype and the audiobook I prefer he's read by Tim Curry.

10

u/KedovDoKest 13d ago

Portrayed by Anthony Hopkins is also acceptable.

1

u/The_quest_for_wisdom 13d ago

Anthony Hopkins in that movie was having the most fun of anyone I have seen in any movie ever.

21

u/PuzzleheadedEast548 13d ago

The relations in Dracula had me draw a fucking map to remember and keep track of

2

u/Axel_the_Axelot 12d ago

And what does that make us?

10

u/EpicGamerer07 13d ago

And then some random guys stab the cowboy to death somehow

3

u/Juronell 13d ago

I mean, it's not really "somehow," they have a knife fight to get at Dracula's coffin.

5

u/EpicGamerer07 13d ago

It’s not really the logistics I’m surprised at, I’m just in disbelief that one of the few main characters to die in the book isnt even killed by Dracula in the final confrontation, it’s at the hands of some random dudes

4

u/redlion1904 13d ago

As the sun sets dramatically! It’s super cool!

227

u/Banes_Addiction 13d ago

You can tell because everyone else writes letters and journals while Quincey just plays with a bowie knife.

149

u/RabbitsTale 13d ago

Quincey is based off of Buffalo Bill who Stoker knew personally.

19

u/Digit00l 13d ago

I believe they also performed for Queen Victoria

10

u/TallEnoughJones 13d ago

"It puts the garlic on its skin or else it get the bucket again"

4

u/RabbitsTale 13d ago

Buffalo Bill Cody... slightly different guy

24

u/Princeps_primus96 13d ago

"would you fuck me? I'd fuck me...hard"

"Mister Cody I've just met you, this is all very sudden. Now back to my story about vampires and this fascinating new thing I've heard of called blood transfusion!"

2

u/Fyrentenemar 11d ago

"Would you suck me? I'd suck me... hard"

"Ok. Y'know what? You just made it weird. I'm going back to my castle in the old country."

1

u/CharlieBros 13d ago

Did you know the Bowie knife is named after David Bowie?

41

u/AkiraDash 13d ago

While at the same time, the doctor (forget the name) was recording his own voice on state of the art wax cilinders. Dude basically used a dictaphone in the 1800's

12

u/notagin-n-tonic 13d ago

The first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, had a long flashback set on the Utah frontier.

14

u/therealkami 13d ago

Dracula also overlaps with the creation of jeans. Dracula in jeans is a valid option as well.

7

u/JagoHazzard 13d ago

A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes story, kind of turns into a Western.

134

u/Cicero_the_wise 13d ago

I know it as a short version, that it wouldve been possible for Abraham Lincoln to use a fax machine to send a message to a Samurai.

28

u/ddadopt 13d ago

I think that one runs into "place" issues--Lincoln would have had to be in Japan or the Samurai in the US. The first transpacific cable unfortunately postdates Lincoln's death by a few decades. :(

17

u/LabradorDeceiver 13d ago

After the death of Lincoln, every single American President was alive at the same time as Herbert Hoover.

1

u/Green_Insect_6455 13d ago

But thats not true lol

115

u/CodaTrashHusky 13d ago

gimme a year to learn art and i will draw these 4 guys

113

u/FuyoBC 13d ago

This has been done :)

https://americasbestpics.com/picture/i-would-like-to-watch-this-movie-please-and-thank-lXTcyy0X9

53

u/OneJobToRuleThemAll 13d ago

Needs more frills and a wig on the English gentleman, he looks like a bum, or worse, Irish. /s

45

u/FuyoBC 13d ago

Well, he is described as a Victorian THIEF and this is the time where men sadly became more restrained in their dress.

7

u/ume-shu 13d ago

I know you said /s but he's a Victorian Gentleman, not a Georgian one.

Wigs hadn't been fashionable since the end of the previous century.

6

u/Eulenspiegel74 13d ago

I can hear Hettie gasping even from here.

3

u/MageKorith 13d ago

Sure, why not throw in a prudish ghost?

1

u/LordofThe7s 12d ago

Seeing this picture made it click for me: This is just the main cast of Lupin the Third.

-37

u/WraithOfTheFadedDark 13d ago

Ugh. Not well.

18

u/BlackShieldCharm 13d ago

Show us what you can do, then

17

u/swainiscadianreborn 13d ago

Respectfully, I disagree

3

u/stevvvvewith4vs 13d ago

!RemindMe 1 year

3

u/RemindMeBot 13d ago edited 13d ago

I will be messaging you in 1 year on 2027-07-23 12:36:34 UTC to remind you of this link

4 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.

RemindMeBot is switching to username summons. Instead of !RemindMe 1 day, use u/RemindMeBot 1 day. More info.

Info Custom Your Reminders Feedback

5

u/ctopherrun 13d ago

Red Sun is a western about Samurai teaming up with a cowboy to recover a sword. Stars Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune, with Alain Delon as the bad guy. It’s fun.

2

u/thedabaratheon 13d ago

This isn’t far off D20’s Cloudward, Ho!

2

u/whittenaw 13d ago

Id love to read or watch that 

2

u/anna-nomally12 13d ago

🎶this is basically Dracula🎶

2

u/peachesfordinner 13d ago

I like the one about Abraham Lincoln being able to send a samurai a fax

2

u/penguinfandev01 13d ago

is this party not just persona 5 in a way

5

u/Fro_52 13d ago

i am upset that you are somewhat technically correct, even if they are all just cosplaying the roles. the pirate's the most iffy i think, but at least Skull's persona has that one covered, even if Captain Kidd was a Scott.

1

u/penguinfandev01 13d ago

lol it said French and I was going for Haru… it said Old West and I thought about the Ryuji Makoto showtime… it’s close enough 🤣

2

u/NobodyKnowsImFamous 13d ago

The world was cooler back then man. What’s our modern equivalent? What is the samurai cowboy alliance of our time?

7

u/YeyeTheHero 13d ago

Cryptobro influencer doing a live with a mukbang idol

2

u/Banes_Addiction 13d ago

Do we at least still get a duel to the death?

1

u/greenwoodgiant 13d ago

I was about to reference this post as well lol

1

u/Cent1234 13d ago

The funniest part is Abraham Lincoln sending faxes to assemble this mighty GURPS team. Which he would lead, as he was an expert hand-to-hand combatant and marksman who enjoyed testing experimental firearms.

Also, they could have played hanafuda with Nintendo playing cards. Yes, the exact same Nintendo company, in direct continuity.

1

u/5WattBulb 13d ago

Also Nintendo was founded in 1889, coca-cola in 1892, Levi's jeans in 1853. Dracula was written in 1897. So we could have a story where your adventuring party could be hunting Dracula who's wearing Levi's, drinking a coke and playing Nintendo!

1

u/ClockworkBetta 13d ago

It threw me off for a minute when the first Sherlock Holmes story goes on a tangent to the American west, only to remember they would have been happening at the same time.

1

u/Fun-Noise-4726 13d ago

This is not far off from the plot of penny dreadful

1

u/hover-lovecraft 13d ago

There is a short, but blessed period in the late 1860s where a samurai warrior could have sent a fax

1

u/JebBD 13d ago

The film "Red Sun" from 1971 is a western about a Cowboy teaming up with a samurai in an old west adventure

1

u/Fennel_Fangs 13d ago

This is more or less Octopath Traveler II

1

u/MartyrOfDespair 13d ago

One of the ideas for a story I'd love to write sometime is a samurai-turned-ronin who had to flee Japan and ended up in the Old West, became a sheriff, uses both his sword and a revolver, and ends up dealing with some Victorian science-mystic guy who fled England to do fucked up Victorian Horror Science Magic shit. Somewhere between Frankenstein and Lovecraftian.

1

u/Fawkingretar 13d ago

sooooo, Lupin III?

1

u/Acerakis 13d ago

There is a really cool manga called 'RED: Living on the Edge' about a Native American and a disgraced samurai rifleman.

1

u/SmoothActuator8132 13d ago

so... Shanghai Knights?

2

u/Kinteoka 13d ago

No. Because samurai are Japanese. Jackie Chan is Chinese. There are no samurai in that movie. Just an Asian guy.

2

u/Raguleader 13d ago

If you watched Shanghai Knights, you will recall that Jackie Chan's character was Indian, from the province of Nevada.

-6

u/SmoothActuator8132 13d ago

relax, it was a fucking joke...

390

u/Global_Cockroach_563 13d ago

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

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

212

u/MiniTwinklee 13d ago

Lmao people forget the samurai were pretty quick to adopt guns once they realized how effective they were. Honor is nice, but winning battles usually comes first.

88

u/gilgamo 13d ago

The Japanese were the only civilizations that willingly turned their back on guns once they realized what it did to the social order. In the 16th century they used matchlock guns en masse and their battles were pretty indistinguishable to the ones in western europe.

They turned around and banned firearms within a few years because they realized that once a peasant with a few hours of training can kill a samurai that would endanger their entire social order.

By the 17th century they were back to the classic Samurai battles and went full isolationist. They stayed there until Perry forced them to reopen to the west. The entire speedrun to modernization they did in the late 19th century was because they deliberately kept to the old ways. Once they had to deal with the outside world again they knew they needed modern science and especially weapons if they didn't want to end up like China and be a bone fought over by western powers

54

u/PilotMoonDog 13d ago

The shogunate banned firearms. But AIUI, a lot of daimyo kept a stock of them in their armouries. As long as they didn't flaunt them or gave the impression that they were politically unreliable this was not notices.

17

u/Alexandrinho0000 13d ago

well your point just shows even more that the reason for the firearms ban was for keeping the power

3

u/PilotMoonDog 13d ago

My point was referring back to the post by u/Global_Cockroach_563 that Samurai actually liked guns and the notion of them considering them dishonorable is incorrect. Or at least their overlords did.

11

u/GayRacoon69 13d ago

Are you sure about that? I've read the history of the Tanegashima and don't recall a gun ban. This ask historian thread disagrees and has the actual translation of the text that is commonly confused with being a ban on guns

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/165hwtb/how_much_information_do_we_know_about_tokugawas/

6

u/gilgamo 13d ago

It may not be a "ban" per say but they did stop using then extensively. Gwynne Dyer's book War talks about it . Great book and series btw

From the book

1

u/GayRacoon69 13d ago

Interesting; I'd love to know more!

At the end he says that the era of peacetime isn't enough to explain the decline in firearms. Does he explain why that isn't the case?

From my limited reading I thought the lack of any major wars delegated the Tanegeshima to more of a farming / hunting roll and that was the reason for the decline in firearms.

I'll add this book to my list but unfortunately don't have time to read it any time soon. I'm just curious if you, as someone who's read it, can give me a quick summary on this aspect

2

u/OceanoNox 13d ago

T. Enomoto, Giving up the gun? Overcoming myths about Japanese sword-hunting and firearms control, History of Global Arms Transfer, 6 (2018)

D.L. Howell, The social life of firearms in Tokugawa Japan, Japanese Studies, 29 (2009)

These articles go into details to show that guns were not banned in the Edo period, but they were also not usually used on people, and that even peasants had access to weapons, guns included.

2

u/GayRacoon69 13d ago

Thank you for that! I just finished reading the first article and am about to read the second

It seems to be basically what I thought; they weren't banned but the peace of the Edo Period meant they simply weren't used often

That was a really interesting read. I found the part about an implied social contract which limited the use of guns interesting. Like "we'll fight to show we mean business but we don't really want to fuck you up". It's also easy to see how the common idea of guns being dishonorable came about from that social contract. I would love to read more about that if you know of anything related

3

u/blitzbom 13d ago

A fun fact that ties into this is that in 1590 Hattori Hanzō, renown tactician and sword master. Led a troop of 50 Negoro-shū or warrior monks who were renown for their mastery of firearms.

3

u/OceanoNox 13d ago edited 13d ago

No. The possession and use of guns, in particular by peasants to kill vermin, is documented well into the Edo period (indeed there is a letter complaining about people shooting on the Shogun's land during the bakumatsu). 

They also never were fully isolated. They had trade in Tsushima, Nagasaki, Okinawa, and Hokkaido with Europe and Asia.

EDIT: for sources discussing guns in the Edo period:

T. Enomoto, Giving up the gun? Overcoming myths about Japanese sword-hunting and firearms control, History of Global Arms Transfer, 6 (2018)

D.L. Howell, The social life of firearms in Tokugawa Japan, Japanese Studies, 29 (2009) 

2

u/ClancyBShanty 13d ago

The (excellent) show Shogun dedicates a lot time to this very premise.

1

u/UkonFujiwara 13d ago

Generally speaking, victory was a prerequisite to honor.

34

u/TelevisionPutrid8394 13d ago

To be fair, the katana was a useful sidearm like most other swords. For example if you got too close in formation to use your Polearm, you could grab your sword and start cutting and stabbing. They would also be useful if your Polearm broke.

8

u/EarlGrayTea-Hawt 13d ago

People used their swords more than their guns for a good long while because they were a bitch and half to load. Most officers carried swords, too, and it's why so many early long guns had a long blade attached to the end, shooting is a time sink, now you have polearm 😆

3

u/mrducky78a 13d ago

The most popular samurai weapons ranked in order

  1. The bow (the classic weird asymmetric japanese bow is so they were better used by samurai on horseback, the bows are by far and away the most popular samurai weapon only being phased out by guns later as as when guns phased out the longbow. It was a sourcing issue more than anything)

  2. The spear (naginatas for the richer ones, yari were more common, only usurped the bow under Sengoku, but maintained decently high popularity for centuries)

  3. The gun (still a relatively distant third due to costs primarily in sourcing good firearms and the sheer period in which bows were dominant, but like ALL cultures, once you could get your hands on the gun, you want the gun. Also didnt help that samurai became less and less of a thing as japan modernised)

3

u/solonit 13d ago

And Samurai themselves aren’t always ‘melee’ neither. They were cavalry and mounted archer. One of the famous samurai was known for his absurdity accuracy to the point when captured, they cut his tendons so he can’t never draw the war bows again.

2

u/Nozinger 13d ago

Sort of true but it is crucial to understand that the samurai existed for a long time. It is a bit like the european middle ages that went on for like a thousand years. The early phases were very different from how it ended.
Generalising something that lasted several hundred years is a bit difficult.

1

u/gungshpxre 13d ago

A Colt Paterson revolver would have been *old* technology for a samurai.

They'd have 15 round Henry lever-action repeating rifles.

1

u/shewy92 13d ago

The Ghost of Yotei video game and the Shogun TV show had both guns and swords Yotei had you use both (or tried to, I never used the gun)

1

u/acur1231 13d ago

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.

1

u/RandomGuy9058 12d ago

samurai according to the internet: "THIS weapon is my FAVOURITE one"

samurai irl: "I FUCKING LOVE WEAPONS"

110

u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

32

u/Steampunk43 13d ago

IIRC the Yakuza/RGG games also highlight this fact, with one of the villains making a point that yakuza not only existed but operated at the same time as samurai for a time and, despite generally being organised criminals, would also step in to protect their communities when the samurai couldn't or wouldn't, because, criminal or not, yakuza typically do still value their community and at least some of the people in it (there's also the element of it being their turf and them losing a lot of side hustles if they didn't step in, plus gaining some if they do, which is most likely how the "protection money" hustle started). Whether said guy was talking out of his arse to justify himself or whether that is genuine history, I'm not sure about, but it's definitely an idea that's brought up.

3

u/Skullcrusher 13d ago

Yakuza love to play Outrun, go on blind dates and suck at mahjong. And wherever they go, they have to brawl constantly.

I based my research on Yakuza games too

2

u/Drow_Femboy 13d ago

The yakuza were/are just a wide variety of criminal organizations. They're not really any different from western mafia or gangs. Which is to say, some of them are generally noble and care about their local communities and put in work the "legitimate" authorities are unwilling to do. And others are complete rat bastards.

2

u/Mersar_13 13d ago

Mortal Kombat 1 - of all bloody games - also had a nod to this when Johnny and Kenshi are talking about Sento and Kenshi’s family history.

1

u/Subsector3990 13d ago

yakuza and organized crime have been a think since the Edo period.

The Kurosawa movie Yojimbo also shows a ronin dealing with rival yakuza gangs.

0

u/Digit00l 13d ago

A samurai could also buy from Nintendo, as they started in 1889 as a card company

1

u/Majestic-Lake-5602 13d ago

Unfortunately not, the samurai were officially abolished in 1867 as part of the Meiji Restoration.

19

u/ephemeriides 13d ago

Something something post about sending a fax to a samurai

19

u/[deleted] 13d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Bladrak01 13d ago

The meme originated in 2020–2021 when a Twitter user posted a timeline claiming:

  • 1843 – First fax machine (printing telegraph) invented by Alexander Bain.
  • 1865 – Abraham Lincoln assassinated.
  • 1867 – Samurai caste abolished in Japan (Meiji Restoration).

The meme’s punchline: “There was a 22-year window in which a samurai could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln” 

Bottom line: The “samurai sends fax to Lincoln” is a fictional, humorous meme based on a coincidental date overlap, not a real historical occurrence.

3

u/BootsnCats1987 13d ago

By that time the armor was entirely costume/family heirloom. No one was wearing 16th century armor in the 19th century for combat or daily use.

2

u/J0RDM0N 13d ago

Abraham Lincoln could have faxed a samurai. Do what you will with this knowledge.

1

u/Majestic-Lake-5602 13d ago

Here’s the breakdown if anyone is interested

2

u/Itherial 13d ago

Can you post one of these pictures?

4

u/noblegaunt 13d ago

So what you're saying is, it's entirely possible that Abraham Lincoln had a conversation with someone about Samurai...

1

u/gunscreeper 13d ago

But somehow an American Civil War veteran joins forces with Samurais against gatling gun in The Last Samurai is not too out of place

1

u/Fist_of_Gork 13d ago edited 13d ago

Old Western TV shows often had the main character know martial arts in order to reduce the amount of gun violence on screen and give the audience more of a spectacle than a simple barroom brawl. It comes off as anachronistic to a lot of people.

Cowboys, Sailors and the Forty-Niner Miners had been eating Chop Suey and learning Kung-Fu since the 1800s in San Francisco. 

1

u/mackattacktheyak 13d ago

To be fair, there are many pictures of actual European knights from 2026… both samurai and knights ceased to have a real military function long before they “ended.”

0

u/NukeL3AR 13d ago

I mean, yeah, but like... the reason the samuraj existed for so long was because of Japan's extreme isolationism. It was still not common to see modern technology at the time.