Witcher 3 - Saving Slavic Folklore

HiddenX

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Hyper explains how games like the Witcher are saving Slavic folklore:

How video games like The Witcher are saving Slavic folklore

Video games like Thea: The Awakening and The Witcher 3 are using Slavic folktales to tell new and compelling stories

Folktales from the Slavic countries (primarily Central and Eastern Europe) form one of the richest and most diverse mythologies in the world. Traditional Western European fairy tales may have become watered down and sanitised over countless retellings and interpretations, but Slavic mythology still retains its bite.
If you caught the recent TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods, you'll have some idea of how sharp this bite can be. The show, like the novel it's based on, prominently features the Slavic god of darkness, Czernobog, who lives with the Zorya sisters (representing the evening star, the morning star and the midnight star). The character is violent, funny and morally ambiguous; a long way from Disney's Sleeping Beauty.

But such appearances of Slavic folklore in popular media are rare. Unlike the Western fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, which have become subsumed into our consciousness through animation and film, you're unlikely to see Slavic spirits and monsters in a cartoon musical. The lack of written source material means there's also a distinct possibility we could lose this rich and diverse mythology.

But this rich folklore is finding a suitable home in the nascent medium of video games, an interactive artform that chimes with the ambiguous shades of Slavic storytelling.

[...]
Thanks Farflame!

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Videogames like The Witcher 3 are saving gaming, not folklore.

If you caught the recent TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods
Although I promiseld never to watch anything that incorporates "american" in the title with only aim to make sales although is an utter trash, because of Gaiman I did give that one a shot. One episode was enough to make me barf.
 
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Bad example. Witcher (books and games) are mixing folklore from all over Europe. I like that style but it's an Irish stew rather than a clear broth. Thea: The Awakening would have been a better example to pick.
 
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ok Hidden, so now I'll just have to read it now haven't I? :)
 
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I'm just surprised they didn't make a reference in the article to the famous Western folklore and tales as being another form of "white supremacy". (I knew this was the direction they were headed though, and using a buzzword like "toxic masculinity" is a pretty big tip-off) That is the latest trend among sjws in their endless deconstructions, that anything western-based is somehow connected to that (and therefore, bad). But I guess then they would have had to deal with the same type critique of the Slavic folklore too, because probably the same argument could be made about that in their wacko philosophy, lol. :p
 
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I'm just surprised they didn't make a reference in the article to the famous Western folklore and tales as being another form of "white supremacy".
It's not an article on Polygon. ;)

But honestly a game where you play a sterile skirtchasing mutant who's best friend is a dwarf… IMO any SJW zealot should restrain from commenting it.
 
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oh, Irish stew, no contest. But I said that I liked that style didn't I?
 
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Videogames like The Witcher 3 are saving gaming, not folklore.

Sounds to me as if you've never read the Beowulf and the like ... I bet no-one from the mass public even knows how much of Beowulf is in The Hobbit and in LOTR ...

I don't know about slavic folklore, but Baba Yaga appears every now and then ...
 
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Yep, the recent Tomb Raider game had a DLC for Baba Yaga that was pretty good.
 
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