History Main / Uberwald

* Creator/MarvelComics:
** Doctor Doom's Latveria fits this trope pretty well, especially in some of the earliest comic books. Doom's SupervillainLair is a creepy castle, although it is full of futuristic tech. Latveria was developed slightly after [[spoiler:Reed decides to invade]] although still very Überwald-ish. Everyone speaks a funny accent, there are plenty of gypsies and it seems as if most of the population are still living in thatched cottages. Of course, the place looks old-fashioned and quaint because that's the way Doom likes it, and the reason Latveria is full of UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} is that Doom, being one himself, is much more sympathetic to them than other nations in the region.
** Nearby Transia, home of the ComicBook/ScarletWitch, ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}}, [[EvilutionaryBiologist the High Evolutionary]] and the evil {{Elder God|s}} Chthon, is sometimes portrayed this way as well.
** Marvel also has a Transylvania of its own, which is sometimes portrayed an independent nation and, unsurprisingly, an Überwald.
** Winzeldorf, Nightcrawler's hometown in the ''ComicBook/XMen'' comics, is consistently depicted like this, complete with gypsy sorceresses and [[TorchesAndPitchforks torch-and-pitchfork]] wielding mobs, despite being explicitly stated to be in present-day Bavaria.

* The Changeling Kingdom in ''ComicBook/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicIDW'', from what we've seen so far. [[GhostCity Don't expect to find any locals, though.]]

* Dracula's domain in of Resurréction in ''ComicBook/RequiemChevalierVampire'' is like this and it's ruled by vampires. It helps that Resurréction is meant to be UsefulNotes/{{Houston}}.

** The ''Compleat Disworld Atlas'' and its very detailed map of the Disc provides more interesting information. The lands on the fringes of Far Überwald and overlapping into it - such as Mouldavia - have a definitely Russian vibe going on. There is a [[UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} River Fistula]] with rich flat farmland on both sides. The Forest of Skund has hints of a Discworld UsefulNotes/{{Romania}}. The border region of Escrow has feudal overlords with a suspiciously Hungarian name...
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'''s Durmstrang has shades of this, even though it's much further up north than the classic depiction (possibly due to a case of ArtisticLicenseGeography). Unlike Hogwarts and Beaubatons, which are explicitly British and French, Durmstrang takes students from all over Europe, the headmaster is a vaguely Slavic man who used to be involved with a British terrorist cult, the resident star athlete is Bulgarian and the infamous wizard they expelled a long time ago was German.

* Shana Abé's ''Literature/DrakonSeries'' depicts the Carpathain mountains of Transylvania as the ancestral home of [[OurDragonsAreDifferent drakons]] rather than vampires. This might be because the name "Dracula" is based on Romanian world "Dracul" which means "dragon" and was derived from Prince Vlad II of Wallachia's membership in the Order of the Dragon.

** Albania is depicted the same way, for some reason Voldemort likes to haunt the forests there when he's disembodied.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', Baron Ünderbheit is the EvilOverlord of Ünderland, a perfect example of this. Ünderland is eternally cast in shadow and its people are destitute and miserable. The assumption that it is located in eastern Europe is {{Subverted}}: somehow, it borders Michigan.

* The world in the first ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' is a pretty straight Überwald. Less so in the following games.

** In Pratchett's conception, Überwald is mainly Bavaria, Switzerland and Austria with a Discworld gloss, although he has introduced Far Überwald, where a language suspiciously like Russian is spoken; other locally born characters, such as vampire iconographer Otto Chriek, appear to have a possibly-Czech, possibly Polish, "Slavonic" identity to them. [[note]]In extremes of emotion, Otto's swearing is represented in a cod-Slavonic language made up of nonsense syllables which to an English-speaking reader has a Czech/Slovak/Polish look to them; "Russian" characters in the Discworld have identifiably Russian vocabulary given in Cyrillic characters.[[/note]] Überwald maps to a sort of Eastern Europe which would fit the pre-1945 political and ethnic reality on this planet: principally Germany, with widely mixed and scattered language groups owing to centuries of ethnic mixing. The double-headed bat emblem of the old Dark Empire is deliberately based on the Imperial Eagle of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on our world.

* Most of the ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games take place in an Überwald setting. Some travel further afield (''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaBloodlines Bloodlines]]'' treks all over Europe, ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow Aria of Sorrow]]'' takes place in modern Japan and/or the moon), but it's where the series' roots are.

* [[Music/GhostBand Ghost]] is fond of this trope. The video for [[SignatureSong Square Hammer]] revolves around the band attending the premier of a [[ShowWithinAShow film]] shot on location in the real Translyvania with [[FaceOfTheBand Papa Emeritus]] taking the place of Dracula/Orlok.

** ''Battle for Azeroth'' brought the witch infested woods of the non-mountainous parts of Drustvar, on the continent-isle of Kul Tiras, specially if one gets closer to Waycrest Manor.
** ''Shadowlands'' adds Revendreth, the purgatory of the Shadowlands, a vampiric realm of looming keeps and gothic villains, with a fog-filled forest. Technically it is supposed to be DarkIsNotevil as the Venthyr are meant to be helping these souls redeem themselves, however its ruler, Sire Denathrius has darker motives.

* Morytania in ''VideoGame/RuneScape'', complete with all kinds of classic horror tropes: a werewolf village, swamps full of killer ghasts and leeches, haunted woods filled with vampires and claw-shaped trees that scratch at you, a literal ghost town, a Vampyre metropolis where human slaves are herded like cattle, and multiple large, foreboding, gothic-style castles. And undead chickens.

* ''Webcomic/GrimTrigger'' World of Duel could certainly count as this. The opening screen also plays ''Deșteaptă-te, române'', if it weren't obvious already.

** The ''Compleat Disworld Atlas'' and its very detailed map of the Disc provides more interesting information. The lands on the fringes of Far Überwald and overlapping into it have a definitely Russian vibe going on. There is a [[UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} River Fistula]] with rich flat farmland on both sides. The Forest of Skund has hints of a Discworld UsefulNotes/{{Romania}}. The border region of Escrow has feudal overlords with a suspiciously Hungarian name...

[[/folder]]

Überwald is [[TropeNamers named after]] the region in Sir Terry Pratchett’s Literature/{{Discworld}} novels. It is also an antiquated German name for Transylvania, see the Roundworld folder below.

* The Überwald region (a collection of a lot of geo-political entities, in fact) of Literature/{{Discworld}} is a parody of this trope, while simultaneously being a lot more true to the original than most examples. The name is a BilingualBonus; see the Roundworld folder. The uncommon grammatical form would suggest Sir Terry did not come up with it independently but knew of the historical name. It could alternatively, and possibly more true to some of its inhabitants' [[PuttingOnTheReich lifestyles]], allude to Nietzsche's "Übermensch" and mean something like "superior forest".

[[folder:Roundworld]]
* “Überwald” is an antiquated and rarely used German name for Transylvania attested since the 14[[superscript:th]] century, for instance in Ottokar aus der Gaal's ''Steirische Reimchronik'' in the spelling “über walt”. Both the Latin “(ul)trans sylvania” and the German “Überwald” literally mean “beyond the forest”. The common etymology supposes a Hungarian origin from “Erdő-elve”, which means the same thing and would also be the origin of “Erdély”, and arguably “Ardeal”, the modern Hungarian and Romanian names for Transylvania respectively.
* Contrary to a common misconception, “Überwald” does not literally mean “over the forest”, even though “over” is one possible meaning of “über”. [[https://www.dwds.de/wb/über “Über”]] has nearly fifty possible meanings in German, “beyond” being another one. For want of an umlaut, “ueber” is the correct spelling in German, while “uber” is common as a loan word in English.
* The common German name besides “Transsilvanien” is “Siebenbürgen”. “Sieben” means “seven” while “Burg”, meaning “fortified castle” in modern German, is here used in the older meaning of “fortified town” that is also at the root of English “borough” and French “bourgeois”. It refers to the seven most important towns founded by German colonists. Since medieval times, Transylvania has been home to [[UsefulNotes/{{Romania}} Romanian]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Hungary}} Hungarian]] (Székely) and [[UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} German]] (Siebenbürgen Saxon) speaking populations and therefore most towns and places have names in all three languages.
* There is an unrelated location called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Überwald Überwald]] in the Odenwald region in Germany. Nearby is one of several German castles called Frankenstein, which popular culture connects to the eponymous novel. Mary Shelley demonstrably came within ten miles on September 2nd 1814. However, the connection wasn’t made until 1950, and to this day no other substantial evidence has come to light. Also, unlike the film adaptations, there is no castle in the novel.

** The plane of Innistrad is home to vampires, werewolves, demons, zombies, ghosts, geists, and all sorts of nasty things; while the human government dominate the pastoral province of Gavony, the deep forests of Kessig are dominated by werwolves and denizens of the wilderness, the mountains of Stensia are ruled by vampires and seaside Nephalia is the realm of {{Mad Scientist}}s and the unquiet dead. And smack-dab in the midst of this monster mash are the huddled masses of humanity, fighting an endless war against the darkness.
** The earlier ''[[http://magiccards.info/query?q=%2B%2Be%3Adk%2Fen&v=card&s=issue The Dark]]'' expansion was another attempt to embody this trope.
** The ''[[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=198083 Homelands]]'' expansion was also an Überwald-flavored set.

** Nearby Transia, home of the Comicbook/ScarletWitch, Comicbook/{{Quicksilver}}, [[EvilutionaryBiologist the High Evolutionary]] and the evil {{Elder God|s}} Chthon, is sometimes portrayed this way as well.

* Modern supernatural MMORPG ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' has Transylvania as one of its three main quest zones. Its 'attractions' include communist gnomes, vampires who want to take over, an alcoholic Forest God, and left-over Soviet research projects. Main/{{Dracula}} as well, of course [[spoiler:(though in a subversion of the usual trope, here he's an immortal vampire ''hunter'')]].

* In ''Videogame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'' Geralt goes to Velen, a war torn region which has this trope in spades. Botched mad science experiments, [[TheFairFolk Godlings]], creepy forests, [[HotWitch an attractive village witch]], a [[WitchDoctor Pellar]], superstitious peasants, a [[SwampsAreEvil cursed swamp]] ruled by [[TheWeirdSisters The Ladies of The Wood]], you name it. There isn't a Dracula expy, but there is a [[RedBaron Bloody Baron]]. The whole Witcher universe could be considered one giant Uberwald, but none embody so fully as Velen.

* ''Videogame/ResidentEvilVillage'' takes place in a Romanian village ruled by a mysterious figure known as Miranda and her four "Lords", a group of villains [[MonsterMash themed after stock horror monsters]]. By the time that Ethan has come by, the village has been overrun by a mutation that has turned most of the locals into [[WolfMan wolf-like creatures]].

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In ''WebComic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'', in the story "Punch Dracula", Dr. [=McNinja=] has to go to Transylvania to hunt Dracula. Transylvania does all the Überwald clichés for a couple of comics until [[spoiler:Dracula blasts the Doctor with a giant laser and teleports him to the Moon where he really lives.]]

* Where Dr. Wily films his movie in the ''WesternAnimation/MegaMan'' episode "Night of the Living Monster Bots."

* ''Literature/HarryPotter'''s Durmstrang seems to be located on one of these. The school's name is Germanic, the Headmaster is vaguely Slavic, the local superstar is a definite Bulgarian. And they won't tell you anything about the whereabouts, aside from the fact that it's very cold outside and spacious with mountains and forests. Compare with Beauxbatons and Hogwarts, which are simply French and British, respectively.

Compare with DontGoInTheWoods, TheLostWoods, WildWilderness, and other TropesOfNature locations. Will often be the setting of TheOldCountry.

* ''Film/{{Severance}}'' is a not-too-serious slasher flick about a bunch of British corporate drones on a trip in Hungary who come across bloodthirsty psychopathic former soldiers.

* Music/{{Ghost}} is fond of this trope. The video for [[SignatureSong Square Hammer]] revolves around the band attending the premier of a [[ShowWithinAShow film]] shot on location in the real Translyvania with [[FaceOfTheBand Papa Emeritus]] taking the place of Dracula/Orlok.

* ''WesternAnimation/CountDuckula'' is a FunnyAnimal Überwald parody.