Medieval Fantasy in Popular Culture

When we talk about fantasy, we usually talk about knights, dragons, princesses, fire-swords, wizards and witches, and the like. But when we talk about Game of Thrones we usually don't talk about those things. At least not in the way that we would talk about them concerning almost any other fantasy story. Now, Game of Thrones certainly has dragons, knights, princesses, fire-swords, witches and the like, but they are nothing like the kind we see in most other fantasy. Excepts dragons. Dragons are always just badass. And fire-swords. But the point is that one of the things Game of Thrones has always done so well is underplay its own genre with shocking realism. And that becomes even more apparent when we compare Game of Thrones  and The   Lord of the Rings . LotR has pure-white heroes and pure-dark villains. It sets good and evil far apart with no in-between. For example, there is no point in LotR where Aragorn or Frodo question whether they are really fighting for the right side. Non

In the letter to his friend, J.R.R. Tolkien discussed much of the processes he used and the thoughts he put into creating The Silmarillion. Within this discussion, he mentioned the fall of man and how allegory, especially concerning that fall, was necessary in a creation story. While he regarded the fall to be that of the elves and did not feel that the fall of man came into the story at all, the rings which became central in the chronologically later books can be a physical representation of the Fall as well as of sins.             The ring, as we have discussed in class, can be representative of various things including power, colonialism, and greed. When looking more generally at the rings, they come to represent what is bad. This is in large part due to the fact that Sauron was the one who tempted everyone into making and wearing the too powerful rings. Nine of these rings went to man, seven to the dwarves, three to the elves, and the most powerful, of course, went to Sauro

A Netflix-licensed series, Nanatsu no Taizai (The Seven Deadly Sins) is a medieval fantasy anime that began airing back in 2014, with the second season to be released to western viewers sometime this year (any day now, Netflix). The show follows the adventures of Princess Elizabeth and Meliodas, captain of a legendary order of the Holy Knights known as "The Seven Deadly Sins", as they seek to find the missing Sins and more or less save the land from its corrupt military and some demons, more or less stemming from the gist of every Hero's Journey plot ever. And it has to be the least Japanese anime I've seen in my life, in case you couldn't tell from that synopsis. Even King Arthur makes an appearance. Without a doubt, Nanatsu no Taizai is an example of just how embedded whiteness and western culture are into the medieval fantasy genre: a Japanese television program with a medieval fantasy setting has an all white main cast and a europe-like white k

Risk is a board game that allows its players to control certain parts of the world and fight other players via game pieces for control of different regions. This is a fun strategy game that I myself have played several times. Something that I never took into consideration, though was the Euro-centricity throughout the entire game. It is known or can be assumed that the game is inspired by some of the themes in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The most direct relation that is important is the constant fighting for ownership and control over the land and people in different regions, with the goal to take over the world. The map for the game is just a regular map of the world but dividing the continents sans Antarctica into 42 regions. We can already begin to see the game placing a focus on European areas with the number of armies each continent gets. South America get two and Africa gets three, while North America and Europe both get 5. Asia tops it off at 7, but that is be

Throughout history, in every civilization, gemstones have been highly prized and sought after. The Bible makes numerous references to jewels and precious stones and their roles. In Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, jewels are holy in much the same way they were in Middle Ages. Tolkien’s mythology is very similar to the Christian mythology with gemstones and numerous comparisons can be seen. First, gemstones are made of some special substance. Another comparison is that the jewel is mostly a shell and it is rooted in the realm of God, and in the bible, it is seen to be indirectly rooted in God himself. This origin in paradise gives rise to the conception that jewels not only contain holy beauty and vitality, but wisdom as well. This is why jewels are seen as having holy status. The first of many precious stones in the Bible is mentioned in the book of Genesis. It is referenced in relation to the creation of man and the Garden of Eden. In the Bible, jewels are said to be m