Discussion FantasyCounterpartCulture / Literature

Seems like this subpage has enough content and inbounds to stand on its own. Please delete/move the Literature folder on the main page.

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This is a massive case of Thread Mode, with rampant Wiki Schizophrenia and abuse of bullet points.

Before it can be re-added to the page, somebody needs to straighten it out, make sure each culture is mentioned only once with a non-self-contradicting description, prune the wordcruft, indent everything properly, and fix the bit where it wanders off to talk about the Elenium halfway through the examples for the Belgariad.

• In David Eddings's The Belgariad, the Sendars are rural Englishmen - the mongrel country (as by late medieval standards Celtic/Saxon/Scotti/Danish/Norman England was), the Arends are Norman French, the Tolnedrans are Imperial Romans, the Chereks are Vikings, the Algars are Cossacks, the tunnel-dwelling Ulgos are Ambiguously Jewish, maybe (though their god UL is apparently based on the pre-Muslim Turkish creator-god Ulgen, whose mythos is also where Eddings got the whole "saying 'be not' ends your own existence" schtick), the Nyissans are vaguely Egyptian or perhaps Indian, and the Angaraks are the "Hunnish-Mongolian-Muslim-Visigoths Barbarian Tribes out to convert the world by sword". Since Eddings tends to recycle his cultures whenever he creates a new world, most of the countries in his universes likely have such parallels— the Elenium series has very familiar western kingdoms and eastern empire, if anything even more like The Theme Park Version of certain Earth cultures. The inhabitants of the main continent in the Dreamers series are obvious stand-ins for various Native American tribes.
  • Also, Drasnians are north Italians who live by gambit and counter-gambit (for a time in history, most Genoese merchants were also employed by the city's intelligence service); the Algars are "sea-of-grass" nomads, something in between Apaches or Mongols; Rivans are perhaps English whose character has been harshened by a couple centuries of never leaving Iceland. Nyissa's whole existence is centered around the Nile its jungle-iffic river. Angaraks are more complex than mere "take by the sword" barbarians: Murgos are an exaggeration (?) of the most militaristic periods of Japan; Malloreans are the innumerable people in the east - Chinese; Thulls are Slavs, forever exploited; Nadraks are Arabs who live in... Finland? And yeah, Ulgos are the Jews.
  • The Nadraks are definitely Russian. They don't seem truly Asian like many of their fellow Angaraks, yet they don't fit into the West either. They seem to bridge the gap between the two sides, much as Russia was portrayed as prior to the Revolution. They have a culture that is focused on gold hunting and fur trading and is heavily influenced by alcohol. They live in a mostly unexplored, heavily forested wilderness with little civilization outside of the cities, like Siberia. The Morindim that live out there are similar to the pagans of medieval Russia. They're also hinted to be perpetually in a clandestine espionage war with the Drasnians and the rest of the West. Furthermore, the Murgos seem more based on Western medieval stereotypes of Turks rather than Japanese.
  • Considering that Word of God states that the Ulgos are based off the Jews in the Rivan Codex, I'd say that the Ulgos are Unambiguously Jewish.
  • More precisely, the Arends are split into three subgroups: the Mimbrates (think Norman English), the Asturians (think Robin Hood styled Saxons) and the Wacites (think Celts).
  • My interpretation was that the Arends were German: their geography is defined by massive central forests, their local barons tend toward total autonomy because for their entire history they were divided in civil wars.
  • The Melcene Empire in Mallorea has a few parallels to Persia as well as China, and appropriately they have invented both gunpowder and elephant cavalry.
  • According to Word of God, Eddings deliberately avoided this when creating the Nyissans, beyond some superficial Ancient Egyptian aesthetics, to create a culture that would seem totally alien to the reader as well as the main characters.
  • These various cultures fall within four major ethnic groups: Alorns (Chereks, Drasnians, Algras and Rivans), who are a parallel to Scandinavians; southerners (Arends, Tolnedrans, Marags and Nyissans), who seem to roughly comprise Western Europe; Angaraks (Murgos, Thulls, Nadraks, Malloreans) who are Asian; and "the Unchosen" (everyone else), who, based on their shared ethnic heritage but wildly different cultures and historical status as outcasts, and their widespread presence over the world appear to be rough parallels to the Israelites or Slavic peoples.
  • David Eddings' next work, the The Elenium and the following The Tamuli, had the same kind of counterparts in slightly different measures. Most of the characters are Elenes, who are based after different ethnicities and periods of Europe: the Elenians are probably English with their queen, the Thalesians with their cold climate and horned helmets are Scandinavians, the Arcians with their feudalism, castle-building and extreme piety are your generic medieval Europeans, the Peloi are martial nomads like the Huns and similar barbarians, etc. The Elenes are united under a central Church which is clearly based on Catholicism.

From here it gets insulting, however, with large dollops of Unfortunate Implications: the Styrics are equivalent in many ways to the Jews, being without a homeland, largely mystic, and deeply mistrusted by their neighbors. They are also regarded universally as simple and unsophisticated, even by their own leaders. Similarly the Rendors, desert-dwellers, are an obvious take on Arabs, and their religious separatist movement known as the "Eshandist Heresy", a clear parallel to Islam, is viewed with utter condemnation by all of the main characters. Moreover, the Rendors are repeatedly cited as stupid and credulous, and their religious leaders as selfish and senile madmen.

• It should be noted that much of the stereotypes of the Styrics in the western lands that the Elenium takes place in are purposefully propagated by the Styrics themselves. When the characters visit the Tamul Empire, they find that the Styrics have a homeland, a capital city, and a vibrant culture.

Edited by PaulA