A few more examples suggest that the Six Duchies and Bingtown exist in different epochs.
In Bingtown, people drink coffee and (actual, non-herbal) tea from china cups (I wonder what the regions of origin of these products are in ROTE), which roughly corresponds to the seventeenth century. In the Six Duchies, by contrast, they only have herbal tea, and it takes Beloved to introduce coffee to Fitz.
Beliefs, fears, and superstitions about magic are also quite different. Bingtown does not seem to have an elaborate system of magical beliefs. Their magical objects from the Rain Wilds are closer to technology (of the ancient Elderlings) than to magic. Liveships are, of course, magical, but there is something rational in people’s attitude toward them. They do not persecute others out of fear of magic, which again feels more characteristic of the eighteenth century.
At the same time, the Six Duchies have elaborate beliefs surrounding the Skill and the Wit, and their persecution of the Witted feels distinctly premodern (or very early modern). I do not want to go deeply into a discussion of magic systems—it is a separate topic. All I want to suggest is that the perception of magic in these two places seems to belong to different historical epochs.
