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Where's the American Fantasy RPG?
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<blockquote data-quote="Marandahir" data-source="post: 8073755" data-attributes="member: 6803643"><p>I love the Oz books, but they're also a product of their time - there's more than a little racism and other antiquated ideas in these books.</p><p></p><p>I love your connection between the party in <em>The Wonderful Wizard of Oz</em> with the party in <em>The Journey to the West</em>. I had never considered that connection, and I somewhat doubt Baum had knowledge of the Chinese epic, but the flow of gathering party members who are at first sources of conflict is undeniable. One of the big debates in fairy tale, folklore, mythology, and religious studies is whether mirroring stories from opposite sides of the world draw from a deep archetypal element of human psychology that is universal to our species and bubble up to the surface as independent subcreations, or whether these stories can theoretically be traced back to a common origin with the first humans emerging out of Africa (or any other specific point in human history, that then spread by cultural diffusion). </p><p></p><p>An example of the latter theory would be of the Chaoskampf myth (Sumerian/Akkadian Marduk vs Tiamat, Greek Zeus vs Typhaon & Echidna, Thor vs Jörmungandr, Mittani-Aryan Verethragna vs Azhi Dahāka<strong>, </strong>RigVedic Indra vs Vitra, etc) entering India with the Indo-Aryans, syncretising with local Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, and Tibeto-Burman traditions to become a core tale within Hinduism, then through Buddhist diffusion made its way all the way to Japan and became a part of the Izumo Cycle of the oldest Japanese mythological text, the <em>Kojiki</em>, with Susanooh triumphing over the Yamata-no-Orochi dragon and establishing Izumo's early prominence in Japanese mythology. This theory is pushed by those who argue that Shinto traditions do not exist independently of Buddhism due to lack of records earlier than its arrival (Buddhism arrived around 538 CE; the earliest surviving Japanese text, the <em>Kojiki, </em>dates to 620 CE).</p><p></p><p>The former theory would say that Susanooh's triumph over the Orochi dragon was an independent local Japanese Shinto creation that persisted in the cultural consciousness beyond the arrival of Buddhism, and that any similarities are due to similar archetypal themes shared by and told in stories from some or all of humanity. </p><p></p><p>What does this mean to the modern day? I'd argue everyone should go out there and read Neil Gaiman's <em>American Gods</em>.</p><p></p><p>We're still myth making, we're still recording history and transforming historical figures into fantastical and superheroic ones. We build monuments and temples to presidents and war leaders and kings and conquerors, and in the process drive a sense of worship toward them. I'm not immune to this; a few years ago I personally made a something akin to a prayer to the statue of Abraham Lincoln in what I can only refer to a a temple complex in the US capital of Washington D.C. for guidance, wisdom, strength, and perseverance in these troubled times. I regret doing so; I believe he was a great man, but I fear we can get taken up by the mightiness of these monuments and begin to deify them. There's certainly a debate in the US right now over whether certain monuments, if not all monuments, should be torn down. </p><p></p><p>At the same time, we have New Gods, as Jack Kirby put it, in the form of superheroes, fantasy heroes, and mythic recreations of past pantheons pulled into the modern era. James Bond, Star Wars, the MCU, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, among other major pulp franchises, have transformed the world of fantasy fiction and roleplaying games. </p><p></p><p>I'd argue that while Baum is a very important stage of American fantasy literature, we should not ignore the new developments of American Superhero fiction and American YA Fiction in their influences upon the modern fantasy stage. Video Games, too, have made a major influence here, and while Japan remains a huge source of RPG tropes, Zelda, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy, built upon the American Dungeons & Dragons and two American video game attempts at translating it to the computer - Wizardry and Ultima. And now we have Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls and it's expansive mythology, and Dark Souls, and Warcraft (itself influenced by Warhammer Fantasy), and the wheel keeps clocking. </p><p></p><p>American culture is rooted in Fantasy. Gygax and Arneson's D&D is as much a story based on Western film tropes as it is on medieval fantasy. Most D&D fantasy continental maps are either populated coastal region giving way to fuzzy-detailed wilderness to the interior, or a map of a single mass continent. While the former draws on Middle-earth (east coast) and Narnia (west coast), American-influenced fantasy often tells stories beginning from East or West coast and works its way toward the interior of the North American continent. And the single massive continent is like cutting out the USA from North America and making it its own continent (not that hard to imagine for many Midwesterners who live south of the Great Lakes, a series of inland seas that almost feel like a north coast to the country, nor for many Gulf Coast Americans who live north of a sea of their own). Similarly, the Great Lakes of the USA and Canada border are just as much an inspiration for fantasy inland seas like the Realms' Sea of Stars and Moonsea as the series of Mediterranean, Black, Persian, Aral, and Red Seas are. </p><p></p><p>I'd argue that while Tolkien's works still stand as foundation stones for which all Fantasy much build upon (whether by incorporating his tropes or purposely subverting or averting them), he doesn't stand alone.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marandahir, post: 8073755, member: 6803643"] I love the Oz books, but they're also a product of their time - there's more than a little racism and other antiquated ideas in these books. I love your connection between the party in [I]The Wonderful Wizard of Oz[/I] with the party in [I]The Journey to the West[/I]. I had never considered that connection, and I somewhat doubt Baum had knowledge of the Chinese epic, but the flow of gathering party members who are at first sources of conflict is undeniable. One of the big debates in fairy tale, folklore, mythology, and religious studies is whether mirroring stories from opposite sides of the world draw from a deep archetypal element of human psychology that is universal to our species and bubble up to the surface as independent subcreations, or whether these stories can theoretically be traced back to a common origin with the first humans emerging out of Africa (or any other specific point in human history, that then spread by cultural diffusion). An example of the latter theory would be of the Chaoskampf myth (Sumerian/Akkadian Marduk vs Tiamat, Greek Zeus vs Typhaon & Echidna, Thor vs Jörmungandr, Mittani-Aryan Verethragna vs Azhi Dahāka[B], [/B]RigVedic Indra vs Vitra, etc) entering India with the Indo-Aryans, syncretising with local Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, and Tibeto-Burman traditions to become a core tale within Hinduism, then through Buddhist diffusion made its way all the way to Japan and became a part of the Izumo Cycle of the oldest Japanese mythological text, the [I]Kojiki[/I], with Susanooh triumphing over the Yamata-no-Orochi dragon and establishing Izumo's early prominence in Japanese mythology. This theory is pushed by those who argue that Shinto traditions do not exist independently of Buddhism due to lack of records earlier than its arrival (Buddhism arrived around 538 CE; the earliest surviving Japanese text, the [I]Kojiki, [/I]dates to 620 CE). The former theory would say that Susanooh's triumph over the Orochi dragon was an independent local Japanese Shinto creation that persisted in the cultural consciousness beyond the arrival of Buddhism, and that any similarities are due to similar archetypal themes shared by and told in stories from some or all of humanity. What does this mean to the modern day? I'd argue everyone should go out there and read Neil Gaiman's [I]American Gods[/I]. We're still myth making, we're still recording history and transforming historical figures into fantastical and superheroic ones. We build monuments and temples to presidents and war leaders and kings and conquerors, and in the process drive a sense of worship toward them. I'm not immune to this; a few years ago I personally made a something akin to a prayer to the statue of Abraham Lincoln in what I can only refer to a a temple complex in the US capital of Washington D.C. for guidance, wisdom, strength, and perseverance in these troubled times. I regret doing so; I believe he was a great man, but I fear we can get taken up by the mightiness of these monuments and begin to deify them. There's certainly a debate in the US right now over whether certain monuments, if not all monuments, should be torn down. At the same time, we have New Gods, as Jack Kirby put it, in the form of superheroes, fantasy heroes, and mythic recreations of past pantheons pulled into the modern era. James Bond, Star Wars, the MCU, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, among other major pulp franchises, have transformed the world of fantasy fiction and roleplaying games. I'd argue that while Baum is a very important stage of American fantasy literature, we should not ignore the new developments of American Superhero fiction and American YA Fiction in their influences upon the modern fantasy stage. Video Games, too, have made a major influence here, and while Japan remains a huge source of RPG tropes, Zelda, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy, built upon the American Dungeons & Dragons and two American video game attempts at translating it to the computer - Wizardry and Ultima. And now we have Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls and it's expansive mythology, and Dark Souls, and Warcraft (itself influenced by Warhammer Fantasy), and the wheel keeps clocking. American culture is rooted in Fantasy. Gygax and Arneson's D&D is as much a story based on Western film tropes as it is on medieval fantasy. Most D&D fantasy continental maps are either populated coastal region giving way to fuzzy-detailed wilderness to the interior, or a map of a single mass continent. While the former draws on Middle-earth (east coast) and Narnia (west coast), American-influenced fantasy often tells stories beginning from East or West coast and works its way toward the interior of the North American continent. And the single massive continent is like cutting out the USA from North America and making it its own continent (not that hard to imagine for many Midwesterners who live south of the Great Lakes, a series of inland seas that almost feel like a north coast to the country, nor for many Gulf Coast Americans who live north of a sea of their own). Similarly, the Great Lakes of the USA and Canada border are just as much an inspiration for fantasy inland seas like the Realms' Sea of Stars and Moonsea as the series of Mediterranean, Black, Persian, Aral, and Red Seas are. I'd argue that while Tolkien's works still stand as foundation stones for which all Fantasy much build upon (whether by incorporating his tropes or purposely subverting or averting them), he doesn't stand alone. [/QUOTE]
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