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Post by a'Lan Mandragoran on Jul 21, 2009 12:26:13 GMT -5
I've been noticing, lately, more and more references to Norse religion. Guild Wars Eye of the North is full of these, as are Aion (in beta), World of Warcraft, and even in some popular culture. There was a recent photo of Harrison Ford wearing a Mjöllnir (Thor's hammer) pendant. A few musicians also have Nordic themes in their songs of late. Halo is full if Norse links and then the game Too Human is outright based on the Norse appocalypse, Ragnarok. People at school are talking about it more as well. It's not exactly prevalent, but it is there in many ways.
Another thing I've noticed is that this summer is quite a bit cooler than normal. Ragnarok is basically the opposit of the Christian appocalypse. Instead of a great burning, Ragnarok is a great freeze...
This, as the subject suggests, is something I've been noticing a lot recently, say within the past few months and it is something to think about, at least to me.
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Post by Xavrael on Jul 21, 2009 14:56:34 GMT -5
I've sort of noticed this too though I don't think it's anything that may portend to anything that is gonna happen... Ragnarok that is.
Norse Mythology is pretty gristly though. Would be funny to see Odin wandering around with a bunch of angry ravens pecking at people heh.
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Post by a'Lan Mandragoran on Jul 21, 2009 16:37:49 GMT -5
It'd be funny if they only went after the stupid people and polititions of the world... Obama getting his eyes pecked out would be awsome.
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Post by KG on Jul 22, 2009 10:34:05 GMT -5
I am not sure what it means, but movie production, and probably games too have trends. In order to look at trends though we have to look at movies, because they have been around a lot longer.
When a movie or game is successful, the other producers look at it and try to figure out what made it successful, and they try to make more like it. You have cheep knock offs almost immediately, cheaper B and C grade attempts to copy the key elements under a similar title. Then as soon as possible reputable companies start making really good movies and games that copy the key elements.
I've seen trends towards appocolyptical movies with the antiChrist being born... that was a trend about 15 or 20 years ago, then about 10 or 15 years ago there were natural desaster movies mostly about asteroids hitting the earth but there were variations. Zombie movies have been popular for a LONG time like maybe thirty years, but that popularity has increased more and more as time has passed. Before that Vampires were more popular for a long time, and really before the sixties and Remero the modern concept of zombie didn't even exist. Zombies did not occur outside the tradition of VooDoo even in Movies. Before Zombies were vampires, and before that there were monsters, such as frankenstine the wearwolf and the mummy. Ghosts had a huge upsurgence during the seventies, but seem to have lost a lot of following in modern times, until the advent of EVPs and suddenly you have a huge rise in really scarry ghosts.
As far as different cultures, egypt was a favorite in the days of black and white movies... and in the whole culture of those times. Egypt was a very major topic from the victorian era heyday of archeology, on to the fourties. IT was a long time ago, but that was one of the strongest ancient culture trends the world has ever seen.
In general ancient culture trends are spawned by a recently aquired wealth of information on the topic, or some recent discovery or quasi science around those cultures. Maybe there has been new information found on the Norse, or a recent interest on the internet which has spawned speculation on it.
At any rate it might mean something. It could mean some archeologist has discovered new information, or that there has been a recent rise in interest, or it could be that this trend is spured by subconscious motivations in producers of games, which is fueling interest in the Norse culture. I guess one question is, are people more interested in Norse culture because of the games, or are the game developers creating games based on research on what people are interested in?
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