From: tbarnes@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (thomas wrentmore barnes)
Subject: Re: History vs. dreams
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 17:51:13 GMT

>
>The fantasy-based people can cheerfully ignore the history-based ones.  Even
>if the history-based people come up and say "but they didn't do that," you
>can blow it off with ease _inside your context_.  But any attempt at feeling 
>like you are in a really medieval setting is totally and utterly destroyed by 
>one person wearing funny ears walking up to you, even if s/he doesn't call 
>attention to them, and insisting loudly on being recognized as an elf, but
>especially if/when s/he does.  (I didn't make this example up; it happened.)  
>
If you are in a really medieval setting and someone came up to you and
insisted loudly on being recognized as an elf you have several options:

a) assume that the person is a mummer or player of some sort. In this
case you can ask him "Are you in a play?" or ask him some other sort of
question which allows you to establish that he is not really an elf, but
rather a player or jester.

b) assume he is crazy. In this case you cross yourself, (or whatever),
utter a prayer and leave post-haste, before the madman hurts you. If
he's a real elf, the prayer might repel him. If you are feeling
confrontational you could call for the watch or your retainers to deal
with the madman. Or you could raise the hue and cry. 

c) assume he's possessed. In this case cross yourself, utter a prayer
and leave post-haste, crying all the while for a priest and raising the
hue and cry. Or, if you are feeling confrontational you could kill him
or attempt to exorcize the demon that's possessing him.

d) assume that he's a real faerie. Depending on when and where your
persona lived and how much education they had, appropriate reactions
could range from worship, to healthy fear, to cold iron and a prayer
against minions of Satan.

e) assume that a crazed beggar with deformed ears. Appropriate reactions
range from knocking him out of the way with the flat of your sword for
his presumption to giving him alms and a prayer for his eventual release
from his deformity and madness.

f) assume he is a warlock of some sort. Cross yourself, utter a prayer,
raise the hue and cry and watch the ensuing canon trial and public
execution. Lots o' fun.

There's a personality challenged git in my part of the world who
inflicts himself on events in a full D&D style wizards robe, complete
with gold lame stars, moons and comets and the pointy hat. If he does it
much more, I'm going to make a Dominican inquisitor costume and bone up
on canon law, heh, heh, heh. ;-} Of course, that would violate corpora
wouldn't it. Or, I could call him out as a charlatan and ask him to cast
a spell or cast a correct horoscope.

   My point is that a real medieval person faced with the same event
that a modern person in medieval clothes who is trying to act medievally
faces is (was?) going to act differently than the modern trying to act
medieval. Or to put it bluntly "Authenticity nitpicking isn't period".

Have fun,

   Lothar \|/
           o

kj
>Cariadoc can put a yellow cord around his encampment, and ask people to 
>behave a certain way when they come to visit, but he can do nothing about 
>the folks less than 50 feet away who sing "Kill the Wabbit" at the top of 
>their (drunken) voices through his bardic circles (actual example from 
>Pennsic XX).
>
>It may just be who I know.  I don't personally know anyone who has left the
>SCA because the authenticity level was too high.  I have known people (and,
>sadly, keep collecting cases of others) who have been driven out because they
>were interested in the middle ages, and didn't want the Tolkein Society of
>America without Tolkein, or live-action D&D.  
>
>Yes, the dreamers were here first.  And perhaps they will be here last, and
>alone; but I think the SCA would be a worse place for it.  I like historical-
>reality-based events, because I find the real history richer, more interesting, 
>and more worth my time and respect than most of the fantasies.  Also, it gives
>a common basis, at least to some extent.  One person's fantasy is another's
>hallucination; in any case, personal fantasies aren't shared, and unless they
>are, it is impossible to maintain a level of consistency that lets one feel
>as if one were anywhere (never mind where) other than 20th C home.  I know what 
>medievals would do with modern technology and valus: I live with that every 
>day.  What do we think the real world _is_?  What could be more mundane than 
>recreating _only_ that, in funny costumes?
>
>No, I don't want to shut other people out.  But I would like to see our rules
>of engagement move more toward a "noisy hours/quiet hours" model, in which
>times and places are set apart for each, and each, within its designated time
>and place, has full rights of setting its own rules.  Anyone who wants to
>play only historic-reality-based games can come for those hours; people who
>want to play fantasy-based games can come for those hours; and I would hope
>that we can all share a lot of that time.
>
>It seems to me that something like that would be a more genuinely tolerant
>model than we have now.
>
>In Service to the Society,
>
>-- Angharad/Terry