Uses and abuses of mythology

[seluecus]

I’ve been thinking and talking recently with ploratrix about the use (and misuse) of mythology in geek culture and popular media, so I thought I’d post something about it and ask for feedback from the community

Comments

[lynstraine]

You referenced it, but I really enjoyed American Gods.

The troll and tauren societies in WoW ape a lot of concepts from various mythologies, also, but I tend to find those usages problematic, though that's mostly because I find the vision of those cultures problematic as a whole. The most recent event with the trolls involved appeasing the loa of death, Bwonsamdi--pretty clearly evokes Baron Samedi in both name and function. Even though Bwonsamdi was appropriately powerful (since he was actually the one that finished things, moreso than Vol'jin or any of the player characters), I tend to feel kind of concerned about trolls and tauren in particular, since they're very obviously extrapolations of stereotypes--and since the trolls are frequently depicted as bloodthirsty, cannibalistic savages with a pantheon of gods that are also uniformly bloodthirsty and savage (excepting the 'reformed' player character trolls, whose tribe has banned cannibalism).

[seluecus]

While admittedly speaking as someone who actually never played WoW (but has played the original Warcraft I, II and III games), from what I've seen of them I've always had some problems with the real-world referentiality of the trolls and taurens. There are so many much more creative and less offensive ways to handle these things.

[lynstraine]

Yeah, they really are just stereotypes taken out to their most extreme conclusions, especially in the case of the trolls. It becomes even more uncomfortable when you play largely on roleplay servers (which I did for the past few months, though probably won't be doing much of anymore) and you see folks not doing much to enrich the source material.

[siadea]

I am right there with you! I have, like, half a portion of an article written about it, even. It bothers me a lot, too, and I spent a while fretting about it and thinking about what to do, because once you see it, it can't be unseen. I sort of decided to take the bull (ahem) by the horns directly. ...So I wound up making a lot of characters that undermine them in various ways as best I can! (Do not mess with the Dalaran researcher, for example. She has studied on Zandalar, and does not think much of Alliance scholarship.)

[lynstraine]

Lols, my only troll character with any kind of substance (as in, a name and a personality etc) is a bookish ice mage guy. I've only written one thing about him and I don't roleplay him much for the reasons I just described; I play so many blood elves because blood elves closely appropriate who I actually am--white, neurotic and spoiled!

Also, when writing trolls, I never know what to do about the accent. I read a recent piece by Nisi Shawl that suggested that it was good to be cognizant of differing dialects and to employ them, and I think she referred to the Caribbean specifically, but ... the dialect is so inconsistently applied that using it as a player character also feels appropriating and wrong a lot of the time.

[siadea]

*hi-fives* My Dal researcher is also an ice mage! (PVP spec. Fear her.) ...I'm a little afraid about what my choice of toons says about me, in that case! *lol* My undead are sort of crazy, as undead tend to be...

Yeah, I've been trying to find films made in or documentaries about something featuring the Caribbean, in order to get a better handle on the accent (and fix the hideous mess I'm currently producing) - apparently nobody in fictional movies gets Caribbean accents right, from what I've read.

I'm from an area with a strong accent too (Southern!), and while of course it's not the same thing, I think it helps a little with figuring out how and when to use an accent at all. Not all my trolls have one - my priest deliberately keeps hers (and argues theology in it), but my mage doesn't have one unless she wants to. I haven't played my Frostmane enough to tell, but I think she's got one because she doesn't have the formalish education the other two have had.