When we play some foreign magic theme games, we can often find that the background, content and even career system of these games are basically much the same. Just in terms of occupation, such as melee warriors, sneak attack assassins, long-range archers, group injury, magic output of wizards, warlocks, medical priests, etc., is almost the same; not to mention the racial settings – humans, dwarves, orcs, elves, undead … Not to mention the racial settings – human, dwarf, orc, elf, undead … all almost a “copy” of the original.
However, everything has its origin. Likewise, the worldview of these similar works also has an interesting background, that is, Norse mythology.
Nine worlds and four divine systems
Geographically, the world can be divided into five major mythological systems: Ancient Greek mythology, Ancient Indian mythology, Ancient Egyptian mythology, Ancient Chinese mythology, and the Norse mythology we will talk about (in addition to these mythological systems, there is a unique mythological system created by the American novelist Howard Philip Lovecraft –(Cthulhu mythology).
Norse mythology divides the universe into nine worlds and separates them into three “classes”: the upper class: Jalfheim, the land of the elves, Asa, the land of the gods, and Mosbyheim, the land of fire; the middle class: Atrium, the land of humans, Jotunheim, the land of giants, and Warner. The middle strata are: Atrium, the land of men, Jotunheim, the land of giants, and Warnerheim, the home of the Warner gods; the lower strata are: Severinfheim, the land of gnomes, Hela’s land of the dead, and Niflheim, the world of ice and snow.
One of the nine different worlds is a huge tree of life – no, it should be called the “Ash Tree”, the origin and carrier of everything in the universe.
In these different worlds, there are four divine beings: giants, gods, elves, and dwarves. In mythology, giants are the first species of beings born since the beginning of time (yes, Norse mythology is also developed from the chaos of the universe), and their ancestor is called Ymir. Later, this “palm-sized” universe was born another race – the gods, whose ancestors called Bree, there is a mountain can not be two tigers, the giant Ymir and the gods Bree will fight for land…. … and then the giant Ymir was killed, the descendants of the gods began the transformation of his body – the giant’s flesh into the earth, blood into the sea, bones into mountains, hair is made into trees and vegetation … …
The maggots from the decaying corpse of the giant were shaped into human form by the gods and made into two other gods – elves and gnomes.
The difference between elves and gnomes is that the maggots growing out of the light side of the giant’s corpse are elves, while the backlit side of the corpse becomes dark elves – that is, the gnomes in Norse mythology.
Twilight of the Gods: the epic of pathos in the cycle of life and death.
Norse mythology, which originated in Scandinavia, is more pathos than the myths of other regions. Its main body is also deeply concerned with the entanglement of life and death repeatedly – throughout the Norse mythology can be said to be a history of the struggle between the gods and giants.
There are living beings, the struggle will be endless, from the opening of the earth “land battle” to the gods, monsters gathered in a world war – the twilight of the gods, the world generated by the chaos of the universe with this battle began to destroy everything, including all the gods, including All species, as well as the tree of life, the Ash, will be destroyed.
But destruction is not the same as extinction. After the end of the twilight of the gods, the Fraxinus will be reborn and everything will start again from scratch, step by step.
Based on the basic idea that the later system will be more perfect, the Norse mythology is the latest among the five major mythological systems, which determines, to a certain extent, its influence on today’s magical literature, games, movies and films.
Kraken, the sea monster in Pirates of the Caribbean 2, is a Norwegian sea monster from Norse mythology, and Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings
John Ronald Riel Tolkien (pseudonym: J.R.R. Tolkien) is a writer we may not be familiar with, but if we mention his legendary work, The Lord of the Rings series, I’m afraid no one knows him. The Lord of the Rings series is unknown to everyone. The influence of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy has spread to all cultural groups around the world.
“The elves of the world cast the Three Rings, the dwarves of the earth obtained the Seven Rings, the mortals of Shuding held the Nine Rings …… The Dark Lord sat with the Supreme Ring.” This is the opening poem of “The Lord of the Rings”, see here, do you suddenly have a kind of Norse mythology in the upper elves, middle humans, the lower dwarf three worlds of the sense of sight?
In fact, Tolkien has left the world with far more valuable possessions than the charm of a few movies. As a founding work of the epic fantasy genre, the original Lord of the Rings borrowed from Norse mythology and incorporated his own talent – for example, in Norse mythology, elves are just a pocket group, but in Tolkien’s writing, they become a highly intelligent group with the power of nature, agility, and magic. The Lord of the Rings is very significant.
The significance of The Lord of the Rings is very much in the following aspects: it creates a core realm of Middle-earth, which resembles the template of Earth, and contains many races of beings such as humans, elves, hobbits, undead, orcs, and tree beards ……; it pioneers the concept of many modern magical elements; it sets up a very complete system of spells and language system; and set up a Norse mythology extinction theory as the core of the concept of the confrontation between good and evil …… Linlin, these elements have had a huge impact on later fantasy novels, film and television, games.
Dungeons & Dragons
Influenced by “The Lord of the Rings”, countless people threw themselves into this field of fantasy creation, and a whole bunch of valuable works appeared one after another. This includes those western magic-themed RPGs of all kinds that we play.
Speaking of which, it is impossible to bypass such a game – “Dungeons and Dragons”. The first released in 1974, this board game, once released, quickly became popular. The essence of Dungeons & Dragons is, of course, the content, the worldview, and the highly distinctive mathematical rules – the “Dungeons & Dragons rules” or “D&D rules “The D&D Rules.
Here we just talk about the background setting of Dungeons & Dragons. Several of the campaigns, such as Feren, Eberron and Greyhawk, are based on the real world of medieval Europe, fully borrowed from the worldview setting of The Lord of the Rings, and mixed with various religious stories and other regional myths and legends, thus creating a magical world containing western dragons, wizards, swordsmen, demons, and elements of the struggle between good and evil. The world of magic contains elements of western dragons, wizards, swordsmen, demons, and the struggle between good and evil.
The Halfling in Dungeons & Dragons is a Hobbit from The Lord of the Rings World of Warcraft / Warcraft
This need not say more, I can often hear a roommate suddenly surprised to say: “The Lord of the Rings” Gandalf, is not the “Warcraft” in the archmage Antoninus Das it? And that dwarf Jinli, and the King of the Hill is really a brother!”
The content and worldview of the “Warcraft” series of games does have a large part from the “Lord of the Rings”, and even Blizzard traced its roots to Norse mythology to find direct inspiration. Of course, “Warcraft” is also interspersed with a large number of Greek mythology, Celtic mythology and even Eastern mythological colors, which can not be compared to the former.
