Tag: Unforgiving North

Description:

This motif refers to descriptions of a fictional northern land, country, or region which is assigned characteristics of the real world North, as well as historical associations of "Northness." This motif does two main things: first, it draws upon the tradition in modern fantasy literature to model the geography of fictional worlds upon the real world, such that generalizations about the directions are carried over into a fictional, fantasy world (i.e., north is "our" north, and it is colder, with alpine terrain and coniferous forests, often with more snow than other places, and with geographic features associated with Scandinavia such as fjords). Second, it creates (or maintains) a channel for rhetoric and ideas associated with the real-world North to be imported into the fantasy world. The most prominent and persistent of these ideas is the 19th-20th century Romantic formulation of environmental determinism, a theory from Classical philosophy that was used to justify colonial imperialism and racial hierarchization. Environmental determinism had its most infamous formulation in 20th century Germanic nationalism, a core facet of the "blood and soil" ideology coined by Walter Darré. "Blood and soil" illustrates the key problems of environmental determinism in its claim that race (blood) and environment or climate (soil) were inextricably connected; that a people's environment influenced their development on a biological level, and the differences between "races" were biologically and naturally placed into a hierarchy which justified atrocities like slavery, colonization, and genocide. This idea was applied negatively to people that the Nazi's disdained, but also positively to themselves and to their idealized "Aryan" völk ("people, folk"). This included their northern neighbors, the Nordic nations, whose mythologies and folklore had been appropriated by German Romantic Nationalists since the mid-19th century. Nation building in this period called for the glorification and study of a nation's past in order to create a strong national culture in the present, and the close connections between German and Nordic languages (all are considered Germanic languages on the Indo-European language tree) supplied a convenient excuse to incorporate Old Norse myths and sagas into a broader "Germanic" past to the benefit of modern German national culture and völk. This process is the origin of the unshakeable obsession with Vikings and Norse mythology of white supremacists, white nationalists, neo-nazis, and other right-wing extremist ideologies. This is important for fantasy videogames that channel our real-world North in the northern regions and inhabitants of their fantasy worlds because this idea of environmental determinism is perceivable in the cultures that inhabit these northern regions. Not only are these fictional peoples usually Scandinavian-coded to a greater or lesser degree, they also have distinctive features that are homogenous and uniformly present that the game's lore attributes to their environment. As in the real world conception of Vikings, video game Viking-types are often considered to be hardened by their harsh environment, the cold and brutal climate bestowing them with a brutish simplicity that is nevertheless respectably honest and authentic. There is also a "purity," usually with a racial connotation, that is given as a parallel to the pure, wild, and unspoiled nature of their homeland. Their northern isolation and this sense of honest, honorable, and simple character of the people also predispose them to be fiercely individual and freedom-loving, and restlessly adventurous. These characteristics are easily found in many popular sources about Vikings and in fantasy worlds with Viking-parallels, beyond only videogames. The name of this motif is taken from the most recent example of it I have found in a game, which is the character creation menu in Elden Ring, the latest FromSoftware game. One of the selectable base templates is called "Northerner" (LINK), which displays a visual present model of the player-character to appear tall, muscular, fair-skinned and blonde, with a side-shave haircut reminiscent of the History Channel's Vikings series (LINK?). Its description reads: "A face found among the hardy people of the unforgiving north. Some say they're descended from giants." Even here, a racial aspect is given alongside a combination of hardy people with their unforgiving landscape.

Tag Category: Motif

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