there are times when I need to think about mechanisms that may exist in the background of the comic, but are not focused on heavily.
I admit that prisons and legal systems are not a topic that I know a ton about, especially in regards to cultures or times of which I have limited understanding. for most cases like these, I tend to just gloss over them in the story. work to your strengths. and the anthology nature of the stories mean I can flit between different tales without having to commit too much to areas outside of my ‘expertise’. That said, it’s still a fun thought exercise to play with relatively unknown topics (for me) to see if I can figure out how things would work. I try to look at history to see what people actually did, and I try to use common sense. How successful will I be? I guess we’ll see!
though i doubt prisons in motherland are anywhere close to the industry that they are in many places in real life, i also doubt they are rare. probably still rarer, because in most places in the gulf they would just make prisoners into slaves or execute them instead. that way they would either be free labor or permanently out of your hair, a much more pragmatic solution. an exception would be political prisoners, who you could use for leverage or ransom (in the case of a powerful individual, a hefty sum). of course i’m sure the law isn’t going to be just executing any joe schmoe who commits a petty misdemeanor but I doubt prisoners in this world have a lot of rights. if you owe someone, they are gonna try to get their payment – likely often seizure of property or person (indentured servitude, which has been very common throughout history). if by necessity the debt necessitates prison, so be it. or so I would assume.
I’ve heard things about ancient roman prisons like they more or less only existed to hold people for trial. I’ve heard that some of the prisons were in absolute darkness and many who were kept there indefinitely went blind. is any of this true? It is hard to say, no one alive today was there. it is difficult to trust scholarly analysis at face value because humans make mistakes and often manufacture facts from theories. human nature doesn’t change however, and there are constants that I think can be gleaned from any subject.
like anything, I’ll have to learn more about it. or just see how well I can skirt around the issue in the comic 😉
