A setting with low literacy rates is one where a large portion of the population is unable to read or write. This was the default assumption for most places in most of human history, but in modern works, it's almost always a deliberate choice. Some works may go into more detail about it, such as by showing how people use verse and oral traditions to pass on information, or by showing signs using pictographs instead of text. It can also be used as a plot point when some characters can read and others can't, or when a character being unexpectedly literate reveals something about their backstory.
This has been Truth in Television at times, but not always to the extent popularly believed. Literacy rates historically correlate to the price and availability of writing materials and the complexity of the writing system: Roman literacy rates, for example, were relatively high, since Rome controlled the Egyptian papyrus trade and the Latin alphabet is quite simple. European literacy rates plummeted following the collapse of the Western Empire, however, as the lack of papyrus forced a switch to more expensive materials such as parchment. By contrast, true paper was originally invented in China (originally made from mulberry bark pulp); however, the logographic nature of written Chinese made learning to read and write an expensive and time-consuming process that most commoners simply couldn't afford.
Note also that literacy is not either-or: even if a commoner couldn't read the Vulgate or the Confucian classics, they might still have been able to write well enough to keep accounts in the vernacular or even just to sign their name. In a Low Literacy Setting, such a person might even be considered highly educated, at least among people of their own or lower socioeconomic class.
Compare Never Learned to Read, when an individual character is illiterate, particularly in a setting where that's not typical. Can overlap with World of Dumbass. This is a common assumption for Medieval Morons living in The Dung Ages.
No Real Life Examples, Please! While real-world literacy rates have varied across time and location, this page is about the use of this trope in fiction. Some Historical Fiction and Period Pieces might be set in times when literacy was realistically uncommon — for the purposes of this page, this trope is only really applicable if the low literacy rate is specifically mentioned, and is relevant to the plot.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dr. STONE: Nobody in the village Senku discovers has any knowledge of the Japanese reading or writing system, instead passing on knowledge through oral tradition and practical demonstration. Part of his attempts to set up a scientific civilization involves creating a school to teach literacy at, but the most that the majority of people in Ishigami Village can manage are pictograms. Suika manages to read fluent Japanese by the end of the manga, but she's clearly the odd one out among the villagers.
- Ishura: Literacy rates in this world are low and even among the nobility there are many who can't read, though many noble families have developed their own written language taught mostly amongst each other. This gives the literate a big advantage in life, especially for Psianop who became a Shura through reading martial art texts from Beyond (no one else in the area was literate enough to do the same). Even for those who can read, most can only read the simplified script of the Order. In fact locals have great difficulty learning how to read compared to Visitors, (people dumped from Earth) so it's largely the most educated such as the scholars at Nagan who can read Visitor writing.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: Literacy in the Martian colonies is not very high; the majority of Tekkadan, being comprised of child soldiers and orphans, cannot read or write. Kudelia decides to fix this and teaches the crew to read during their space voyages.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: Underworld shops are mostly identified with pictorial signs, plus Ami has to specify literate people when describing a population of Surfacers, but the concept of schoolbooks isn't unknown either.
- A Thing of Vikings: The story takes place around 1040 onwards, and illiteracy is the norm, not just among commoners but also among aristocrats, and explicitly stated in both epigraphs and discussed among several characters. Even royals admit in their own thoughts to be slow at reading. This illiteracy poses problems for the Hooligans when they try to build up their annexed territories and is a key reason why Jewish immigrants are in high demand for them since unlike their Christian counterparts during the era, Jews placed a lot more emphasis on education and are universally literate.
Films — Animation
- Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Milo Thatch is a linguist who manages to translate an ancient journal written in Atlantean. He is part of an expedition that reaches the hidden city of Atlantis, who, to their great surprise, is still inhabited. Princess Kida, however, explains to Milo that even though they have been kept alive for centuries, their culture has eroded over time to the point that no one, not even a royal like her, knows how to read their own written language. At the end, Milo stays behind to help the Atlanteans rebuild their civilization, including, presumably, teaching them how to read.
- The Breadwinner: Most Afghans seen in the film are illiterate (this is Truth in Television, as even to this day, Afghanistan has the highest illiteracy rate in the world). Parvana and her father are not, however, and they use this advantage to make ends meet by offering to read to illiterate passersby.
- The Sword in the Stone: In Disney's interpretation of the tale of King Arthur's origins, the young lad, mockingly nicknamed Wart, doesn't know how to read or write. It is only under the tutelage of the Wizard Merlin and his talking owl companion Archimedes that he begins to learn the basics of both. This is Justified since the setting takes place in medieval Britain where literacy was not widely used. Further, despite being taken in by Sir Ector, he never bothered to have him learn such skills, as he holds them in low regard, instead having him act as the castle's main worker.
Films — Live-Action
- The Book of Eli: The film takes place in a Post-Apocalyptic future where literacy is rare: religious books in particular were almost all burned after World War Whatever, having been blamed for causing it. The central conflict of the film revolves around one of the last copies of The Bible, which Eli is carrying west on a Mission from God and reads from every night. With the twist that it's a Braille copy, so even main villain Carnegie, who wants to use it to improve his control over his town, can't actually read it once he gets it.
- The 1966 adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 has print media in it as set dressing, but it is seemingly all in the form of textless comic books; given that literature is illegal, it's implied the vast majority of the population, outside of those who illegally own books and, ironically, the firemen who burn them, are illiterate.
- In the Newsies film when our heroes distribute their unofficial newspaper they ask if each child they meet can read before giving them a copy. It's 1899 so universal elementary education isn't really a thing yet and many children work in factories where literacy isn't required.
- Stargate: To prevent an uprising by the inhabitants of the planet Abydos like the one that drove him off of Earth, the System Lord Ra outlawed reading and writing, though some kept it up in secret. After his defeat, Dr. Daniel Jackson stayed behind to teach the population about their heritage, including reading and writing.
Literature
- 7th Time Loop: The poor in Galkhein are often illiterate, which includes most of the candidates for Rishe's maid corps. Rishe tasks one of the candidates, who came from a wealthy merchant family that fell on hard times, with teaching the maids to read instead of working as a maid.
- In Always Coming Home, the Dayao people hold literacy akin to the act of Creation, so it is restricted to nobility. Any commoner attempting to read or write is punished severely.
- Animal Farm: The majority of the animals struggle with literacy or lack the ability altogether, with the pigs being some of the very few who can read fluently. Napoleon later takes advantage of this to start altering the Seven Commandments in his favor, with no one able to prove they were ever different.
- The Apothecary Diaries: Commoners in Li are usually illiterate, but protagonist Maomao is an exception, being the adoptive daughter of a doctor who formerly worked at the imperial palace. After being kidnapped and sold to the palace as an Indentured Servant, she conceals the fact she can read and write from her captors, because that would mean her kidnappers would get paid more for her. However, she's discovered after she leaves notes for two of the emperor's concubines warning them that a face-whitening makeup they're using is lethally toxic, and harem manager Jinshi transfers her to the role of Concubine Gyokuyou's Lady-In-Waiting and poison-taster. In a later story arc, Maomao and Jinshi collaborate to improve the servants' literacy rates, buoyed by the popularity of a few recently published novels in the court: the few who could read started reading them aloud to their friends, driving interest in the hobby. This helps the servants find better jobs after their indentures are up.
- The Arts of Dark and Light: A Downplayed Trope with literacy in the world of Selenoth fairly widespread, although still more limited than in the real-life present day. Books are also still somewhat rare and expensive, at least as far as the lower classes are concerned; Farm Boy Speer's peasant family is noted as unusual for owning seven volumes.
- Ascendance of a Bookworm: The story has a realistic level of literacy and Myne is reincarnated as one of the large majority of poor and illiterate people in the population. Add in that books are created one at a time by trained craftsmen, plus both paper and ink being expensive, makes books rare and expensive. One book costs roughly what Myne's father would earn in 40 to 50 years. That said, the series does effectively demonstrate the "not either/or" condition: her mother, a seamstress, doesn't know her letters but does know numbers well enough to read prices at the market, her father, a city guard captain, can at least write his own name, and she gets one of her father's subordinates (who used to be a merchant) to teach her to read and write with a slate and chalk.
- Axtara: Elnacier is a frontier kingdom with a generally underprivileged and illiterate populace. King Adrick passed an edict that every household must have at least one family member who can read, but outside of the royal family, the royal servants and guards, and Axtara the banker, the literacy rate is implied to still be rather low. This notably comes up in Magic and Mischief when Axtara interacts with an illiterate client who can only sign his name on a form with an X rather than a proper signature.
- The Beatryce Prophecy: Aside from the king, his counselors, and the tutors and scholars who study the prophecies, only those in service to God can read... and then only the men. The book takes place in a land where it is illegal to teach girls to read or write.
- Brother Cadfael: Set in 12th century England, the level of literacy varies: all the monks and nobility can read, as can most of the richer merchants, and there is repeated mention of church priests teaching young children to read. On the other hand, women are rarely able to read; even the sheriff's wife is illiterate.
- A Brother's Price: Although there are newspapers and bookstores around, a point is made that illiteracy among lower-class people is common since mothers make more money if their daughters work alongside them than if they're off in schools. Men are almost never taught to read. Cullen Moorland admits that his cousin tried to teach him, but he claims she was a poor teacher, and anyway, it's not like his wives, once he's married, will let him read. The Whistlers, seriously thinking about courting him, feel differently.
- A large theme in Captive of the Orcs. Very few Orcs can read. Even high-ranking Orcs are usually illiterate. On the other hand, the Luminean Exiles have near-universal literacy.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: Not only is the peasantry illiterate, many nobles are as well, and are shocked that Hank considers literacy more important than, say, knowing one's pedigree fifteen generations back.
- Discworld: Downplayed. Most people on the Disc can read and write a little (with some exceptions), but few can do it well. Many characters struggle with big words, and their spelling often slips into Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe. Only a few well-read characters like Lord Vetinari and William de Worde write in what we'd call proper English.
- In the world of Goblin Slayer, literacy is far from a sure thing, as shown at the start of the series when Priestess first signs up to be an adventurer, and the first thing she's asked is whether she can read and write. This doesn't come up much in the main story, as all of the main characters are literate. In Year Zero, however, it's shown that many characters that are significant in the present day, such as Heavy Warrior and Spearman, did not know how to read and write when they first started out, and had to find various sources to learn those skills from after recognizing just how indispensable they are.
- Gor: Illiteracy is quite common on Gor. Literacy typically follows by caste lines, and many low caste Goreans are illiterate. Some Warrior Caste men are also illiterate, or pretend to be.
- Heralds of Valdemar:
- Defied in much of the setting: Valdemar has had state-sponsored education at the level of basic literacy and arithmetic since King Randale, with the program becoming much more popular during Queen Selenay's reign when she amended it so that lower-class children going to school get a free meal every day they attend until they graduate. A lot of other cultures also appear to value literacy.
- It appears Shin'a'in often can't read, as nomads who can only carry so much with them, but the Shaman of Tale'sedrin taught Tarma so that she could deal more evenly with outlanders.
- His Dark Materials: Most of the Street Urchins caught by Mrs Coulter are illiterate, so she has to offer them to write letters for their remaining relatives.
- How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: One of the roadblocks Souma hits when it comes to recruiting competent people to help implement his reforms is the fact that only half the population can read, and only three-tenths can write.
- Inheritance Cycle:. Eragon is initially illiterate because, although Uncle Garrow was literate, as a farmer in a small village in the middle of nowhere he never really had any use for the skill and so didn't bother to teach it to his son and nephew. Eragon spends part of one chapter about halfway through the first book learning to read. Another chapter in the second book notes that Roran can read numbers but not letters.
- Judge Dee: Many poor characters in the books are stated to be literate in terms of how many characters of the Chinese writing system they can recognize and write down.
- Nineteen Eighty-Four: According to the Party, about 60% of adult proles are illiterate. Of course, the Party also claims that before the Revolution (around the real-life 1940s) this number was as high as 85%, so these statistics are dubious at best.
- Null-ABC by H. Beam Piper is set in a Zeerust future America where most of the population is Illiterate, capitalized, and proud of not knowing how to read or write. They manage to get by, flying helicopters and otherwise operating machinery, via sound recordings and picture illustrations. Much of the story takes place in an Illiterate High School, with the usual high school courses being taught, modified to account for the student body being Illiterate. People who can read and write form a separate caste of Literates, and have a monopoly on those jobs absolutely requiring the ability to read and write.
- Only Villains Do That: Subverted; Fflyr Delmathys, despite having a rich-poor divide wider than the Grand Canyon, boasts an impressive literacy rate among the poor, to the point that it's easier to find a book lying around than any scrap of food. Flaethwyn tries to use this as evidence of the country generously educating the lowborn, but Aster dryly notes that the poor educate themselves. There's such a strong tradition of literacy and appreciation of literature that it would cost far too much to try to stop this practice, so even the most evil nobles haven't bothered. This may have to do with all of Dount once being a bustling Dungeon Town and one of the richest countries in the world before the previous Hero screwed it over as petty revenge.
- Outbreak Company: The commoners are described to be mostly illiterate, using images on signs to identify a shop. Since the trade between Japan and Eldant requires written texts, a school is built in order to improve literacy (but in the Japanese language).
- The Pillars of the Earth: Fully literate people are fairly few and far between outside of the clergy, but skilled tradesmen like Tom Builder and his son Alfred can read a few words like their own names and can also read numbers.
- Safehold: Officially, the Church of God Awaiting is supposed to provide five years free education to every child. In practice, this fell by the wayside over the centuries. By the time the novels get under way, literacy levels pretty much depend on where you're from. It's implied that Charis has a generally high literacy level, but commoners in other realms are more likely to be illiterate or semi-literate. It's specifically noted in one novel that the (commoner-dominated) Royal Chisholmian Army had a great deal of practice in teaching officer candidates how to read. You're just as likely to find literate females as males, possibly due to the Proscriptions requiring many jobs to be muscle-powered; the average female child couldn't contribute as much muscle power to the family profession as her brother, making it less profitable for her family to pull her out of Church school and put her to work.
- Shades of Grey: The Collective has been subjected to several "De-Factings" or leapbacks over the course of its existence; while citizens can read, the problem comes in finding anything to read, aside from The Rules or a few plays that have been exempted from the leapbacks, as the vast majority of literature has been destroyed.
- The Sharing Knife: A Zig-Zagging Trope. Lakewalkers seem universally literate, but Farmers are hit and miss. In the first book, Fawn sees a sign using both words and pictograms for the illiterate. Later she's seen to know how to read and write but lacks practice in both since she doesn't have access to many books and doesn't have anyone to write letters to.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: In the novels reading and writing is beyond most except for the nobility and Maesters, and books are still a highly-treasured commodity that's costly to produce. Nonetheless, the only illiterate point of view character is the humbly-born Davos Seaworth, who quickly learns how once it becomes necessary. Even Daenerys, whose only education comes from her brother (who himself had no formal education past the age of seven), is able to read and write in multiple languages.
- The Stormlight Archive: Most of the human societies in Roshar adhere to the Vorin faith, which strictly restricts literacy to the female sex, meaning that at any time, over half of the world population is illiterate. Men are allowed to use a logographic "glyph" system of writing, but its complexity is severely limited. The reveal that certain male organizations have started stringing together glyphs into a crude language is considered just a couple steps removed from heresy. Meanwhile, many of the more dangerous male villains just flat-out learned to read because they weren't going to let a little heresy get in their way. Dalinar eventually publicly begins learning to read at the same time as he's accepting women into the army, as part of a two-sided effort to break down gender barriers.
- Swastika Night: In the 27th century, most people in the victorious Greater German Reich cannot read. Women aren't allowed to learn things anyway, and men only learn to read and write in case they need it for their jobs — like Alfred, who is an aviation engineer and needs to read technical manuals. Not that there would be many readables around anyway — with the exception of technical manuals and the Hitler Bible, every book is banned.
- Sword of Truth: The civilized countries appear to be literate. In the fifth book, Richard visits a country where an oppressed majority isn't allowed to learn to read and tries to explain to them the advantages of literacy, which presumably they'll have after siding with him.
- Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms: Beauty and the Werewolf: Proper spelling isn't a feature of servants writing, but some can as said in Chapter 6:
"How many of you can write?"
"Five. Sapphire, Thyme, Verte, two more."
Probably just as well. That was already a higher rate of literacy than among the Beauchampses’ household, of whom only Housekeeper and Cook were able to read and write with any fluency. - Tales of the Fox: Gerin and most of the supporting protagonists can read because they're nobles who have received good education. Most other characters, like many of Gerin's vassals, are completely illiterate and Gerin is considered by some of them to be crazy because he's trying to teach some of the peasants in his territory to read and write. This isn't surprising given that the setting is a fantasy version of the Bronze Age.
- The Time Machine: The Time Traveller discovers that the Eloi, the effete, childlike descendants of mankind 800 millennia in the future, have lost even the concept of literacy: Weena is baffled when he tries to describe merely reading books to her.
- Tortall Universe:
- In Song of the Lioness, new pages — the ten-year-old sons of nobility starting their training to become knights — are tested to see if they're literate. Not all of them are to start.
- In The Immortals, mention is made of Queen Thayet's sweeping reforms including setting up schools for commoners and making Tortall's literacy rate rise dramatically. Young people aiming to join the paramilitary Queen's Riders must know how to read and write, with lessons for those who can't but want to join.
- Tortall: A Spy's Guide has a pamphlet set many years into Thayet's queenship and mentions that her reforms have majorly raised the literacy rates across the country. Among the noble class, ninety five percent are literate. Among the merchant class, ninety eight, with a note that this is comparable to the literacy of merchants in neighboring Tyra. Among other commoners: forty five.
- In the Beka Cooper books, Beka's mother was an herbalist living in the slums of Corus. She recorded her thoughts very articulately in her journal, but the sample of this journal displays entirely phonetic spelling — it seems that past the absolute basics, she was self-taught. Beka, as a police officer who has to write reports, has excellent spelling except when drunk.
- Uprooted: The protagonist's rural home region is mentioned to have an unusually high literacy rate compared to the rest of the setting, a fantasy counterpart of medieval Poland, due to the local Benevolent Mage Ruler's patronage of traveling book merchants.
- Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf!: Despite the other world being an RPG Mechanics 'Verse where everyone has their own status screens, only mages and nobles tend to be able to read. This means that the other 70% of the population has to rely on someone who is literate to read their stats and skills for them.
- The Wheel of Time: Downplayed. Despite at first glance looking like a standard Medieval European Fantasy, literacy is fairly high throughout the world, and books are among the most popular commodities. Word of God explains that the printing press was one of the few technologies to survive the cataclysm that closed out the Time of Myths, so that the written word never completely lost the power it held at the height of a technological civilization. That said, enough people are illiterate anyway that shopkeepers take care to put a picture of what they sell on their signs.
- The Witcher: The Time of Contempt mentions that most commoners can't read. In one of the short stories, the wise woman of a village keeps a book that describes witchers and recites passages from the book when negotiating monster slaying. Geralt is surprised that a common woman can read, and even more confused when the old woman cheerfully informs him that no, she had not mastered the art of reading. It turns out she learnt it by rote memorization from the previous wise woman, who was able to recite the book in its entirety. As she's already passing the contents to a young girl (who presumably can't read, either), it's implied that generations of wise women have all been unable to read, and all learnt the book from their respective mentors, for who knows how long.
- The Work and the Glory: Derek and Peter Ingalls grew up in working-class England, where illiteracy was widespread. 12-year-old Peter, however, benefited from the Factory Act of 1833, requiring his employer to provide some amount of schooling for children aged 9 to 13, and he tries to pass on what he learns to 17-year-old Derek; being able to read a single line of text earns Derek a much better job.
Live-Action TV
- Alan Bennett's Talking Heads: Mentioned in "A Lady of Letters". When Irene is in trouble with the police for interfering in people's lives by writing letters about them, a social worker tells her that she would be useful in India; you can earn a living writing letters there, because "they're all illiterate".
- Kaamelott: Very few people (mostly the nobility and ecclesiastics) can read due to Medieval Morons being in full effect, even among those of whom it's expected (Karadoc and Perceval protesting that they can't read in response to something is a Running Gag).
Mythology & Religion
- Islam: The first revelation that Allah gave to The Prophet Muhammad was "read!" (Iqra), because Muhammad, like most other Arabs at the time, was illiterate. Muhammad responded as such, so the Angel Gabriel recited the verse again and made him literate. This revelation is still a part of The Qur'an today (specifically, the opening verse of the 96th surah, Al-Alaq).
Tabletop Games
- Ars Magica is set in a fantasy version of medieval Europe. Literacy requires some training in artes liberales, an academic ability that most people aren't eligible for. Magi and many of their Companions have a significant advantage in their access to this training.
- Burning Wheel: few lifepaths grant reading skill, and obstacles are quite high and difficult, especially for entire books — and it's even more difficult to read quietly! Not only that, Read and Write are separate skills: a copyist or a scribe could easily know how to write stuff without actually knowing what the letters themselves mean.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- In early editions, the optional non-weapon proficiency system makes characters illiterate by default unless they invest one of their limited proficiencies in the ability to read and write, making it an unpopular option for Player Characters.
- Starting in 3rd Edition, most characters are assumed to be literate, but Barbarians have illiteracy as a unique Negative Ability until 5th Edition, which eliminated the option to play an illiterate character.
- Literacy within the world itself tends to depend on the setting, ranging from extremely high in cosmopolitan settings like Forgotten Realms and Planescape to low in Dragonlance to nearly nonexistent in the post-apocalyptic Desert Punk Dark Sun.
- Ironclaw: Literacy is a skill in 1st edition and a 10 EXP Gift in 2nd. A few careers include literacy, but mostly mages and some nobles.
- Pathfinder: In the core Lost Omens setting, goblins are generally illiterate, as they superstitiously believe that written words will steal them from one's head. This possibly stems from how Asmodeus used contracts to bind the goblins' forebears into service.
- RuneQuest: In general, most characters are illiterate given that its setting is a bronze-age world. Usually priests of deities of knowledge and sorcerers are the only ones capable of reading and writing. There are at times however where a few merchants, nobles, and heroes can read and write and the PC literacy rate can be assumed to be high given their heroic/adventurer status, but that is not always the case and it varies greatly.
- Warhammer Fantasy Battle: As a general rule, most Old Worlder humans cannot read — literacy is common among nobles, wizards, priests, and scholars, and numbers at least are common for merchants, but the majority of the commoners making up the Empire or Bretonnia or Kislev's population cannot read or write. In Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, being able to read and write is a skill independent of learning spoken languages, and only a relative handful of career paths (usually related to academia or nobility) allow new characters to be literate right out the starting gate. By contrast, literacy is much more widespread among the Elves and the Dwarfs — although not necessarily in human scripts.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- Literacy rates vary wildly in the Imperium of Man, but the majority of commoners generally cannot read or write. This goes double for Death Worlders such as the natives of many Space Marine recruiting worlds, who typically have much bigger survival problems than literacy: for example, the natives of the Space Wolves' homeworld Fenris have no written language and instead keep records by oral tradition. This carries over to the Wolves of Fenris themselves, who still prefer oral retellings even though they are taught to read and write in Gothic during the initiation process.
- Used in the RPGs to reinforce the "Dark Ages of Space" aesthetic. Though the PC literacy rate varies by specific gameline, with roughly half of a Merchant Prince's retinue in Rogue Trader being literate, while a normal Imperial Guard squad in Only War might be completely illiterate except maybe the sergeant. At the other end, an Inquisitorial retinue in Dark Heresy and especially a Kill-Team of veteran Space Marines in Deathwatch are generally assumed to be fully literate.
Video Games
- Cris Tales: When talking to Armando a second time after getting the Time Crystal power back, he mentions his previous work as a supervisor because of his rare literacy:
Yes, I was one of the few who knew how to read.
- Dragon Age: In the games, even though far more people know how to read than you'd expect given the setting, there are some exceptions.
- Casteless Dwarves (the lowest rung of the Dwarven social structure) never receive a formal education. If you play as one in Dragon Age: Origins, your older sister is a High-Class Call Girl and she was taught how to read as part of her courtesan training. It's implied that she passed these lessons on to her sibling since a Dwarf Commoner Warden is as literate as any other player character. Origins' expansion, Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, features a casteless party member, Sigrun, who is also illiterate, and learning how to read is a minor running plot with her.
- In Dragon Age II, it's revealed that Tevinter slaves are illiterate. Fugitive slave Fenris is a party member, and if you give him a book as a gift, he'll reveal that he Never Learned to Read. You can offer to teach him, and he'll accept.
- Dwarf Fortress:
- In Adventure Mode, reading is a skill that the player has to invest skill points into. If the player decides not to invest any points into reading, then that means they could never read nor gain any skill in reading.
- Zigzagged in Fortress Mode, dwarves never arrive to the fortress with any skill in reading. Despite that, they could still read books and presumably written records. Not only that, players could build libraries which lets dwarves read and increase their reading skill.
- Fallout 4: Discussed — Deacon claims that most people in the Commonwealth cannot successfully spell the word "Railroad". That said, it's likely Deacon is either exaggerating, playing on the Sole Survivor's expectations of the Wasteland, or just lying (Deacon is a habitual liar). In practice, it seems clear that most residents of the Wasteland are literate, since written messages are everywhere (even in Raider camps) and members of many factions even have formal education.
- Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy XIV: Traditionally, the people of Tural kept history and folklore alive through oral storytelling in their native language. While there is a Turali written language and a Common Tongue, both borrow from the Eorzean alphabet because of how comparatively new the country is. This means that many Turali people cannot read or write. Pameka, a scrivener in the Wachumeqimeqi market, makes a living by writing letters and other documents for those who cannot.
- Final Fantasy XVI: Reading and writing is a rare skill on the continent of Valisthea. Save for the nobility and the wealthy, very few know how to read, write, or even own a book. Most of the main characters are exempt from this as in their youth they had something akin to basic education. It's even stated that messages that have been lost during delivery, such as military orders, have little impact due to the mass illiteracy in Valisthea.
- Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes: Ashe mentions in his and Shez's Supports that it's unusual that the latter, a mercenary of presumedly low birth, can read, as it's mostly the nobility and richer commoners who bother teaching their children literacy since most people in Fodlan can get by just fine without it. Ashe, originally a commoner himself, states that he only learned how to read and write after being adopted by Lord Lonato.
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance: The game has at least three examples that show widespread (and historically accurate) illiteracy.
- The Player Character Henry starts off as illiterate and must first do a Sidequest at the start of the game by seeking out a scribe who will teach him how to read at a basic level.
- The bailiff of Uzhitz is also illiterate, and when he threatens the Nun Too Holy local priest with denouncing him to his superiors, the priest laughs and points out that the bailiff needs someone literate to write the letter to the bishop, and the priest is the only literate person in Uzhitz.
- Sir Hanush of Leipa is also illiterate in spite of being a noble. Hanush is a Boisterous Bruiser who prefers a more hands-on mode of governance, but when his illiteracy is pointed out he becomes a bit defensive.
- Pentiment: A Zig-Zagged Trope that becomes a major plot point, as the medieval era gives way to the Renaissance, with many Tassing denizens learning to read thanks to the proliferation of written works with the rise of the printing press. Increased literacy become very important in Act II, in which they are able to read and comprehend the contents of the Twelve Articles — a list of demands for human rights and civil liberties, considered the first in continental Europe since the Roman Empire — with enough supporters to read them out to those who remain illiterate, such as Otto.
- The Several Journeys of Reemus: The trailer for the prequel The Ballads of Reemus: When the Bed Bites states that in the Kingdom of Fredricus, 97% of the population is illiterate, which means the only way to be remembered as a hero is through song. Reemus, Liam, and most important characters in the games are literate, so this is something of an Informed Flaw.
- Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader: The Player Character and their Player Party and senior flagship officers are literate, but your lower-deck crew of Space People generally aren't. The Iconoclast solution to the main storyline of the Freight Line area in the Void Shadows DLC is, among other things, to order universal education of the crew, including reading and writing, which nets a nice buff for space combat.
- Yes, Your Grace: In the first two acts, the Lords whose standing army Eryk is borrowing can be summoned by messenger pigeon. The third act shows that this trope is in play, as the army is made of peasants, and representatives of villages need to be contacted in person by Eryk's agents because they can't read.
Webcomics
- Subverted in Nixvir; despite the fact that the setting draws upon earlier time periods - or perhaps because of it - most of the population of the World Oak can read, and education is very highly valued. Those that are unable to read (such as Pullen the Wyrd) or are uninterested in such intellectual pursuits are scorned and looked down upon.
- Out-of-Placers: House Ivenmoth has a "public education initiative" for their guardsmen, where they learn to read using arrest reports
.
Web Videos
- Shadiversity: Discussed in this video where literacy in the Middle Ages is arbitrary depending on occupation and social status, meaning that one can be illiterate but can be knowledgeable in their craft and that one can be literate but also uneducated. He then dives deeper in another video that some peasants are literate in the case of vernacular language.
Western Animation
- Disenchantment: A Zig-Zagging Trope as it is both implied that the citizens of Dreamland are literate and illiterate. On the former, it is shown that the townspeople can not only read the various signs around town but also create them by either painting them or carving them out of wood, which would suggest at least universal basic literacy. On the latter, the Royal Court of Dreamland has positions such as Scribe and Herald, which would not normally exist with a population that could read and write.
