Worldbuilding

hipshot

This is a bit of an experimental post. I've always wanted to do random posts that are a bit like a mix between a twitter and some other social media. At the end of the day why not just use my website for some jokes from time to time. The (tentative) name that came to mind for a post like this is hipshot. Because it's an imprecise, off-the-cuff format without any regard for whether it hits or not. This pre-amble is now longer than the actual content.

I recently saw a meme that referenced the difference between Western and "Eastern" worldbuilding philosophies. The meme basically implied that there is a culture of going into meticulous detail about a world to make it "realistic" to a fault. On the other hand, Chinese fantasy novels will use otherworldly claims about their fantasy universes without a care for realism.

Completely unrelated I recently became enamoured in the world of Japanese erotic games and couldn't help but admire the world map from Rance Quest. I particularly like that JAPAN (notably not 日本) is just floating to the right of this landmass carried on two titans.

...and then, as if by fate, I saw this YouTube video show up in my recommendations. I guess it's true.

Edited: ...after posting
Just posting this has put a bunch of questions in my head. Maybe externalising thoughts is useful for this process.
What's the purpose of worldbuilding? Is it for realism? If it is, what makes a realistic world more engaging than an unrealistic one? Is the drive for comprehensive worlds born from DnD and digital world simulations where everything is fair game and anything (within physical reality) is achievable? Is there actually an "East vs West" difference here or is it just sampling bias? The original meme was referring to Chinese novels but Three Body Problem is based in some kind of believable conception of the Universe. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are very successful but their worlds feel more whimsical than real (and that's without even touching the mess of contradictions in the former's world).