Tamal Kundu
Amazon Prime Video’s ‘Carnivale Row’ is a fantasy action drama series that tells the story of a world where human wars have brought destruction to the lands of the faes, forcing them to leave their home and immigrate to the human cities, where they face discrimination, hate, and persecution. In the show, multiple storylines are woven in an intricate pattern to tell an elaborate, larger-than-life, and convincing story. If you are wondering about the setting of the show, here is what you need to know.
Carnival Row is Set in A Diverse Fantasy World
‘Carnival Row’ is set in a world where humans and mythical creatures co-exist, as do magic and science. As far as the people of the Republic of the Burgue know, there are four continents in the world: Mesogea, Tirnanoc, Ignota, and Obscura. Mesogea is the home of humanity. The Centaurs are one of the few non-human races found on this continent. Timanoc is the home of fae kind (derogatory term: Critch). The faeries (derogatory terms: pix, locusts, and tink) have multiple kingdoms across the continent, with Anoun being one of the most prominent ones.
During the war between Burgue and the Pact, the soldiers of the latter defeated the combined forces of The Burgue and Anoun. The fauns (derogatory term: puck) live in countries ldathach and Urisko, located north of the Gulf of Anoun. Meanwhile, the kobolds reside in The Isles of Knock on the southern edge of the Tirnanese Sea.
Ignota is a relatively unknown continent, though even less is known about Obscura. The fauns have a country named Puyan in Ignota, situated west of the Gulf. Besides them, naga, raksha, and mouros also call Ignota home. As humans know nothing about Obscura, it is generally omitted from the maps. Tirnanoc and Ignota are located adjacent to each other and on the opposite side of the Great Main ocean from Mesogea. The narrative in the first season is primarily set in The Burgue, except for episode 3, which takes place in Tirnanoc seven years before the current events. In season 2, we are taken to territories controlled by the Pact.
Established about 1,200 years earlier by a nomadic tribe called the Beorn, The Republic of The Burgue is a major nation located on the northern shores of Mesogea. The city of The Burgue is located by the Beorn River. Although culturally, the Burgue has been heavily inspired by late-Victorian London, the show creators drew from various sources while creating the appearance of the city.
As filming was primarily done in Prague, Czech Republic, a city that doesn’t have that many examples of Victorian architecture, Production Designer François Séguin wanted to give the fictional city a look of its own. “I decided to go a little bit in between. A kind of Roman London, if you can imagine that. The Roman buildings are falling apart.” he told Architectural Digest. “At the beginning it was a little fight for everyone to forget that we’re not in London, we’re not doing Frankenstein—that’s something different.”
In episode 3, we are taken to a snowy fae kingdom in the mountains of Tirnanoc where the romance between the two central characters, Rycroft “Philo” Philostrate (Orlando Bloom) and Vignette Stonemoss (Cara Delevingne), takes shape seven years before the current events. In season 2, we get the first glimpse of the Pact, an alliance between nations Quivira and Cibola. It now faces a civil war with the old traditional and aristocratic government on one side and a radical socialist rebel group called New Dawn, made up of both human and non-human participants, on the other.
Read More: Carnival Row Season 2 Episodes 1 and 2 Recap and Ending, Explained
