Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad

Hallo!

On Thu, 23 Oct 2003 07:33:46 -0400,
Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...> wrote:

> --- Jörg Rhiemeier skrzypszy:
>
> > And that on a question which I thought had been settled years ago.
> > I now regret having picked it up again publicly on the list, thus
> > exposing the matter to people who see things differently.
>
> No need! Quite a lot of things have changed in IB over the last year, and I
> found it interesting to learn some more about IB's earlier history.
>
> >You asked me to name a pair of things that clash in Ill Bethisad,
> >and I can name one, right in the heart of it, which has been
> >a sore point for me from the very beginnings of my involvement
> >with the project.  It is Andrew's representation of Kemr as
> >a thoroughly modern, democratic western European country
> >vs. Padraic's representation of Dunein (allegedly a part of Kemr)
> >as a quasi-feudal poor country essentially stuck in the ways of
> >the 19th century.
>
> FWIW, I have always seen Kemr as a modern, democratic etc. state. But
> honestly, I don't see the contradiction with Padraic's old-fashioned
> Dunein. It's nothing uncommon for a modern, industrialised state to have
> some poor, less developed backwater. Somebody mentioned the USA, you might
> also think of Italy, for example.
Perhaps I interpret too much into it all, but Padraic's Dunein is a
bit too far backward for a rural backwater of a modern democratic
country for my taste.  Padraic manages to create the impression that
Dunein is essentially stuck in the 19th century, that lynch justice is
the order of the day and that civil rights don't exist there.  When
reading his description of Dunein, I get the impression that it is
almost as barbaric as Afghanistan.  This is certainly wrong, and it
casts a bad light on Kemr and Ill Bethisad as a whole.  I bailed out
because I didn't want the Elves to appear in that bad light
(and I found it too tiresome to deal with Padraic's sophistry).

BTW: Andrew is worried about this, too, as he told me in private
mail.  Apparently he considers intervening.

> >And no, I never interpreted IB as an attempt towards an utopia where
> >the sun always shines and everyone is happy all the time.
> >Of course, any realistic alternative history has its dark side.  But
> >my perception of IB was (and still is) that it is a less advanced,
> >right-wing-dominated place, though things are of course not as simple
> >as that.
>
> Less advanced, perhaps a little. The technological level corresponds more
> or less with our early eighties, and like *here*, things are moving pretty
> fast *there*.
I can live with a bit less tech.  This means that there is no Internet
yet, and no cellphones.  But overall something we would recognize as
"modern".

> Right-wing-dominated? I wouldn't say so. The fact that many old
> institutions survive in IB doesn't make it more right-wing. On the
> contrary, I think our world is more right-wing-dominated than IB!
I think this shows that the "left-right" scheme is an
oversimplification.  Ill Bethisad seems to be more conservative in
some respects, and more progressive in others.  It is neither better
nor worse than our world, just *different*.  I was too fixed on
Padraic's Dunein and drew my conclusions from there, which was
evidently a mistake.

> >You also asked about the Dragon & Star project.  (Sorry, Padraic,
> >for interpreting your question as a humiliating comment.)  This has
> >not progressed much beyond the basic premise, which is the existence
> >of Kemr as envisioned by Andrew, and of the Elves as a part of Kemr.
>
> Anything known about the world outside Kemr?
Only that Detmold, a small German city, has a university that doesn't
exist *here*, and that there is an Elvish nation, provisionally
called Macaronesia, occupying the Canary, Madeira and Azores islands.
Their language is different from the Elvish spoken in eastern Kemr,
but closely related.  Otherwise, assume that the world is the same as
*here*, with a few minor differences.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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