Fantasy Counterpart Culture - Robert Jordan

First of all, I'll link to TV Tropes for an explanation of Fantasy Counterpart Culture.

Long story short, Fantasy Counterpart Culture is what you get when an author takes a real-life nation and makes a fantasy culture very similar. Classic examples follow:

J.R. Tolkien based the Shire on rural England, and gave the hobbits the attitudes and beliefs of rural Englishmen so that his target readers can better relate to them.

David Eddings, in the Belgariad, based Sendars on Englishmen from the High Middle Ages (by then, Englishmen were a mongrel combination of Celtic, Saxon, Scottish, Danish and Norman). He also based Mimbrate Arends on Norman French, Ulgos on Jews, Chereks on Vikings, Algars on Cossacks, and the Angaraks on Mongols and other East Asian peoples.

Avatar the Last Airbender had four distinct nations, plus several noteworthy subcultures. The Air Nomads are Tibetan/Chinese, the Water Tribes are Inuit, the Earth Kingdom is Qing Dynasty China, and the Fire Nation is Tang Dynasty China mixed with Imperial Japan. Kyoshi Island is based on isolationist Japan, the Sun Warriors are Incas, and the Foggy Swamp Tribe is based on natives of South America and the Mississippi river delta.

My favorite example, though, is Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time. For the most part, I like it because it defies the traditional practice of making exact duplicates of individual cultures by mixing and matching bits and pieces of different cultures.

Here's a quote straight from TV Tropes:

# Robert Jordan's The Wheel Of Time does this a lot. Cairhien is a mix of France and Japan; Amadicia is modeled after Puritan America; the Seanchan have even more similarities to Japan than the Cairhienin do; Illian is a lot like Venice but its people have Greek-sounding names; Andor is similar to England and parts of the U.S.; the Aiel bear Indian and Native American similarities; Tairens have much in common with Spaniards... and the list goes on.

* Wheel Of Time is actually pretty good at this. While they have definite elements taken from different cultures they are very rarely actual Fantasy Counterpart Cultures. The Seanchan are as much Ottoman Empire as they are Japan, and with all sorts of other bits thrown in.
o Word Of God decided to muddle it even more, when Robert Jordan said that the Seanchan have a Texan accent, the Illianers a dutch accent, the Aiel a Slavic accent, among others.
o Furthermore, since the world of the Wheel Of Time is meant, in-universe, to be the distant future of our own world, it makes perfect sense that the cultures therein would retain traits recognizable to the reader.
o The Wheel Of Time is set more than 3,000 years in the future, probably even more than 6,000; the Age of Legends must have lasted thousands of years itself for people to forget the meanings of war and swords. Any similarities to modern cultures should be very thin indeed; how many people today fit the national stereotypes of Mesopotamians?
o All of us?

I laughed a ton at the last part. Oh, and now whenever I read a book from Wheel of Time, I have to try really hard to imagine the Seanchan speaking with a Texan accent. HILARIOUS!

Ernst & Young

So it begins: the long process of starting my career in accounting.

Last night was the first night of a month-long event called Meet the Firms. Two nights a week, up to thirty students from the accounting department at Chapman University get to meet with professionals from each of the accounting firms in the Los Angeles area. Among these firms are PriceWaterHouse Coopers, Grant Thornton, Moss Adams, Deloitte, Squar Milner and KPMG.

The firm that we meet last night was Ernst & Young. I got to speak with four professionals from the firm, including three who graduated from Chapman University. I have their business cards, and I remember who's who, so I'm in good shape to start developing relationships. Their website is www.ey.com.

E&Y seems like a nice firm for a budding accountant. They offer winter and summer internships for juniors, and full-time jobs for seniors. The application process is very competitive. According to one Chapman graduate who now works at PriceWaterHouse Coopers, 500 people competed for positions at his company and only 20 got them.

I'm looking forward to meeting all the other firms these next three weeks.

Worst History Movies

I decided to do a lighthearted post on history and film today.

For reference, here's The Medieval Sourcebook: Medieval History in the Movies page and the Ancient History Sourcebook: Ancient History in the Movies page to read and enjoy. I'm going to be borrowing liberally from their website in this post, so I figured I should link them now rather than later.

Now, to get straight to the point, there are tons of movies made each year based in history. For as long as both film and history have existed, there have been films taking place in history. And I'm not just talking about recent well-documented history like the Civil War or the World Wars either. I'm talking about classical Greece, ancient Rome, and the Middle Ages. There's less information available about those time periods, but there's still enough to create a reliable portrayal of an ancient or medieval place and time in film. Still, some films fail anyways. Usually out of choice, and sometimes out of ignorance.

Here are the ones that I have watched and have a strong opinion of:

Braveheart.

This is an easy one. Almost everything about the film was wrong. The Battle of Stirling Bridge took place on an actual bridge, not on a field. In fact, the bridge would have been more entertaining anyways, so the only explanation for why Mel Gibson fought on a field instead is likely due to budget problems.

The supposed right of a Lord to sleep with his subordinate's wife is also totally fake. The portrayal of William Wallace's life is wrong, and his image in the film is that of a barbarian wearing a kilt (which wasn't worn by the Scots until 300 years later). William Wallace, in real life, would have looked like this:

William Wallace was a knight in full armor on horseback. The Scottish have a proud history of Knighthood dating back to as long as the English had Knights themselves. The movie Braveheart pretty much ignored all that. None of the Scots in the 13th century wore kilts or face paint either.

Don't get me wrong; there were some entertaining moments. But the lack of effort to achieve any historical accuracy is too distracting. They might as well have changed the names and turned it into a fantasy fiction movie like Lord of the Rings.

Gladiator.

I loved this movie for entertainment purposes, and I'm glad it was made simply because it inspired more filmmakers to make their own historical epics. Troy, Alexander, King Arthur, Kingdom of Heaven and Lord of the Rings are all in one form or another a response to the Gladiator movie. Gladiator inspired a generation of kids to learn more about ancient history, and it keeps hope alive for all history buffs that their knowledge might actually be appreciated. Unfortunately, the movie itself is another epic failure in terms of historical accuracy.

First, Marcus Aurelius did not die after a final battle with the Germanic tribes. The last major battle of the sort occurred a year before his death (by the way, he died of chicken pox). The use of catapults and ballistas during that battle is also wrong, since such cumbersome weapons were only used in sieges. They had to be built on-site in most cases, which could take a long time. Such time was best found in long sieges of enemy fortifications. The battle at the start of Gladiator obviously does not qualify.


Emperor Commodus, the big bad of the movie, reigned for 13 years in real life, so either the movie encompasses a 13 year period or it was shortened for entertainment purposes. The arena fighting sequences are not as accurate as those in Ben Hur (Ben Hur is probably the best example of real arena fighting in film, believe it or not). Oddly enough, the bit about Commodus fighting in the arena against gladiators is actually true. The Emperor won over 600 gladiatorial fights before dying in his bath tub. However, in real life Commodus had a very strong physique (in the movie he is depicted as small, weak and whiny), and likely won many fights fair and square. Also, the movie depicts him as a single man, but in reality he was already married when he became Emperor at the age of 18.

The idea that any of the imperial family members or senators at that time wanted to restore the old Republic is absolutely false. The Republican concept was as dead to the Romans then as the concept of monarchy and nobility is dead to modern Americans. We might be fascinated by the idea, but we won't suddenly decide to make Obama our king. Still, for all of its faults, Gladiator was an important and popular movie.

300.

To be fair, the movie 300 isn't based on the actual Battle of Thermopylae, but is instead based on a comic book published in 1998. The comic book describes itself as a fictional retelling, so any historical inaccuracies in the movie are excused by the comic book's own liberal tendencies. It is, in the words of its author, a "theatrical portrayal" of the battle.


Now that I've gotten the disclaimer out of the way, here's why 300 is historically inaccurate. The Persian soldiers, and Emperor Xerxes, obviously did not look anything like what was depicted in the movie. The Immortals (a real Persian military order) were not Ninjas. They rode on horseback as often as not, and did not use Japanese-style swords. The beasts, such as the Rhino and Elephants, were also over-dramatized for entertainment purposes.

But even the depiction of the Spartan warriors is incorrect. In real life, Spartans went into battle with bronze armor. They weren't bare-chested. Also, Sparta was one of the most openly-homosexual societies in the world at that time. According to some sources, homosexual relations were made mandatory for all Spartan soldiers to promote bonding between comrades and introduce young men to free society. So, when one Spartan makes a negative comment about "boy-lovers," he's basically criticizing every real Spartan warrior that fought at Thermopylae.

Also, while it is tempting to speak of the story of just 300 Spartans holding off a million Persian soldiers, the reality of the battle is less thrilling. In fact, there were 300 Spartans PLUS hundreds of other non-Spartan Greeks at the battle. Furthermore, the Persian forces were likely no more than 250,000 (the million number was a form of propaganda widely circulated at the time). The part about the Spartans being betrayed to their doom is more or less true, though. In the end the Spartans were surrounded and killed to the last man.

The Last Samurai.

This movie was well-received in Japan, as it put the spotlight on a part of history that their own people have very little memory of. Samurais are as mysterious and fascinating to the majority of Japanese as they are to the rest of the world. So, many fans of the movie appreciate the attention given to them through this movie. It wasn't totally inaccurate either. Some parts of this movie were actually true, such as the Japanese seeking the help of Western military experts to modernize the Japanese army. However, I still have some criticisms for it.

The idea that a white, alcoholic Civil War veteran played by Tom Cruise was the last Samurai of Japan is absurd, but hardly the only inaccuracy in the film. Ken Watanabi's character, in real life, was obsessed with the idea of starting a war with Korea, and that was his primary motivation for rebelling against the Meiji government. He was not as concerned about restoring old Samurai traditions as the movie depicted him to be. Besides, Samurai first started using guns several centuries earlier, when the Portuguese traders arrived. So, it's not like the Samurai were strangers to gunpowder weapons. Oda Nobunaga is famous for uniting Japan in the 16th century using guns. Also, when the Japanese turned to western military experts for help modernizing their army, they relied on French experts instead of American ones. And in the end, when Ken Watanabi's character is killed in battle by an imported Gatling Gun? Totally false. In real life, he committed ritual suicide.

Still, it was an entertaining movie. And if you are willing to forgive or ignore the historical inaccuracies, the story is very compelling and the action is very exciting.

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In fact, now that I think on it, I've mostly been talking about relatively good movies that just lack historical accuracy. Maybe I should talk about a historical movie that is just plain terrible.

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King Arthur.

It had its moments, but for the most part King Arthur was terrible. The historical inaccuracy was overwhelming. The worst part is that the producers of the film claim it is a historically accurate portrayal. They are the only ones to do that. Braveheart, Gladiator, 300 and the Last Samurai all admit to being fictional depictions. King Arthur is the only movie (besides Alexander, perhaps) to claim itself to be true. Let's kill that claim now, while I'm on the topic.

King Arthur is based on the Sarmatian hypothesis, which stipulates that the Arthurian legend is based on an older story about Sarmatian heavy cavalry stationed in Britain in the 2nd and 3rd centuries by the Romans. This hypthoesis has some strong arguments for it, but it is only one of many possible origins for the Arthurian legend. None are known to be fact.

In the movie, Arthur and his Sarmatian troops head north of Hadrian's Wall to rescue a Roman family. Such a mission was unlikely, since the wall represented Rome's northern-most boundary. Everything north belonged to the Picts, and the Picts would not have allowed a Roman family to live there. In the movie, the Picts are called "Woads," although there is no evidence of them being called as such.

Also, the movie has the Saxons invading Britain north of Hadrian's wall. But by the date given at the start of the movie (467 AD) the Saxons had already invaded Britain well south of Hadrian's Wall, and the Romans had abandoned the island over 50 years earlier. Furthermore, the movie shows the Saxon leader killing another Saxon for having sex with a native Briton. But genetic evidence proves that Saxons intermingled with many native peoples at that time, forming the Anglo-Saxon genetic makeup of modern Englishmen.

The movie also depicts the Saxons using crossbows, probably because there's a tendency in films to associate crossbows with evil and regular bows (or longbows) with good guys (or girls). Unfortunately, the opposite was more likely to be the case in real life. Saxons used bows, and the Romans were the only people at that time and place who had crossbows in their arsenal. Also, the Romans in the movie are depicted wearing Legionnaire uniforms. This might sound acceptable, until you learn that the Romans stopped issuing Legionnaire uniforms to their soldiers over a century earlier. In the 5th century, Roman soldiers wore whatever they could afford, a far cry from their glory days.

The movie also depicts the Pope as having real political power in the Western Roman Empire. The reality is that the Pope didn't have such power until centuries after the Roman Empire had fallen. In fact, one might argue that the Empire had to fall for the Pope and the Catholic Church to emerge as a true political body.

I could go on. There are a lot more historical inaccuracies to talk about. And there are many movies I want to talk about, such as Alexander or Prince of Persia. But I'm getting tired. So, I'll leave you with this. I hope you were able to endure it all, and that you enjoyed at least some of it. Until my next post...

Spiritual Laws

What is Christianity? Even as early as the founding of the first churches at Antioch and Jerusalem, this was a difficult question. The two decades after Christ's death on the cross, when all Christian teachings were oral, saw much debate between Christ's disciples and followers. Some of Christ's disciples went to Egypt and Ethiopia, others to Sumeria and Armenia, and some (such as Paul) went to Greece and Rome. The teachings varied from disciple to disciple, place to place, and of course from time to time. Christianity in the 4th century (Council of Nicaea) was a different beast than it was in the 1st century. But right now I want to look at early Christianity, when the witnesses of Christ's miracles were still alive.

20 years after the death of Christ, various individuals saw the necessity of putting Christ's teachings in writing. Peter, Paul, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are the most well-known, though many others also contributed to the writings of early Christianity. The Gospel according to Mark is the first canonical gospel ever written (although it is placed second in the bible). Matthew and Luke chose to expand on Mark's gospel in different ways, to better help specific subgroups of Christians. Matthew wrote for Hebrews and Luke wrote for Greek-speaking Gentiles. John wrote independently, drawing from his own experiences with Jesus and focusing a lot on God's love for us. These four books are further supplemented by the Acts of the Apostles and the Letters of Saint Paul to form the New Testament.

Fast forward to the present. Christianity has many denominations, but there are still some common elements that unite all Christians. One modern Christian mentions these unifying principles as seven truths, that we can choose to believe in or not believe in. These seven truths exist regardless of our individual beliefs:

1. There is one God, eternally existent in three persons.
2. God created everything in this universe, including all the physical laws.
3. God gave humans free will, to choose Him over sin.
4. Humans rebelled, and sin was introduced.
5. All mankind is inherently sinful.
6. The penalty for sin is eternal separation from God.
7. God is not willing that any of us should have to pay that penalty, so he came to earth, assumed the form of man (in the person of Jesus Christ), and paid the penalty for us; The gift of salvation is free to all, but the choice to accept it is up to each person.

The seven truths above may or may not be an accurate summary of the basic beliefs of Christians around the world, but I think it is pretty darn close. And the basic concept behind them is that they are true whether we believe in them or not, whether we like them or not. As for myself, I'm more familiar with the four laws than I am with the seven truths.

When I was a baby Christian, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the New Testament, so I relied on a booklet titled the Four Spiritual Laws to summarize the foundation of my faith. It's basically a short, cutesy way of looking at the Gospel message. Over one and a half billion copies of the little booklets have been published so far (that I know of).

The Four Spiritual Laws are written as follows:

1. God LOVES you and offers a wonderful PLAN for your life.

"God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life" - John 3:16.
"I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly" - John 10:10.

2. Man is SINFUL and SEPARATED from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" - Romans 3:23.
"The wages of sin is death" - Romans 6:23.

3. Jesus Christ is God's ONLY provision for man's sin. Through Him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life.

"God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" - Romans 5:8.
"Christ died for our sins...He was buried...He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures...He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred..." - 1 Corinthians 15:3-6.
"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me'" - John 14:6.

4. We must individually RECEIVE Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.

"As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name" - John 1:12.
"By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast" - Ephesians 2:8,9.

Receiving Christ involves turning to God from self (repentance) and trusting Christ to come into our lives to forgive our sins and to make us what He wants us to be. Just to agree intellectually that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross for our sins is not enough. Nor is it enough to have an emotional experience. We receive Jesus Christ by faith, as an act of the will.

These two circles represent two kinds of lives:












Finally, we end with a prayer...
"Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be."

Triceratops is the next Brontosaurus

History Revised, courtesy of Rooster Teeth Comics. Story by Griffon Ramsey and Art by Luke McKay.

Indeed, I still remember seeing Brontosaurus in dinosaur books when I was a child. Turned out that it was just an Apatosaurus with the wrong head. Now scientists are saying that Triceratops and Torosaurus were actually the same species. A Triceratops was basically a juvenile Torosaurus. So, we can say sayonara to yet another popular dinosaur. Thanks for nothing, scientists.

Here are a couple articles about the Triceratops debacle:
Triceratops May Not Have Existed.
Has Triceratops Really Been Torosaurus All These Years?

Edit: I thought Triceratops, being the juvenile, would be replaced by Torosaurus in science. I was all ready to give Cera from the Land Before Time a sweet goodbye. But apparently scientists are killing off Torosaurus and relabeling all related fossils as Triceratops instead. The reason, as far as I can tell, is that the name Triceratops was coined three years before Torosaurus. Since Triceratops was discovered first, its name stays.

Bye bye, Torosaurus. We didn't know you well enough to realize all your babies were actually Triceratops. Ya, we didn't pay much attention to you. Sorry 'bout that.

The Alphabet

I know I posted less than 7 hours ago, and it's weird to post again, but I just felt like sharing. It reminds me of the time when I was posting on forums instead of blogs, and instead of one topic every other week, I would make a dozen threads in a day and check on them over the next month to read and reply. Ah, the good old days.

Anywho, I wanted to share the origin of the alphabet. Wikipedia also has a nice article on the history of the alphabet. To be honest, I can't verify any of that, since archaeology was never my strength (I prefer written history instead). You would think some ancient writers would write about the history of writing, but no... archaeologists have to do the hard work to get answers.

Which reminds me of the subject of historiography, the study of history. Or more accurately, the study of how people record and study history. The first historiographer that I know of was Herodotus of ancient Greece. Herodotus wrote "the histories," the oldest surviving history book. I believe Herodotus was one of the first Greeks to conclude that the Caspian Sea is a lake, and not a true sea at all. He also believed it was possible to sail directly between India and Greece, simply by going around Lybia. As it turns out, he was mostly correct, except that the African continent is much larger than he ever imagined.

He made a number of big claims in the histories that took a long time to verify. He described a Scythian city near modern-day Ukraine that was a hundred times larger than Troy (it wasn't until the 1970s that someone was able to prove he was telling the truth). He mentions giant ants in India (he was probably referring to marmots). He also boldly claimed that Etruscans (who lived in Italy at the time) were descended from Turkish nomads. Most ancient Romans scoffed at this claim, but DNA evidence has proven Herodotus to be correct.

Of course, some things are still believed to be false. Herodotus mentioned Phoenixes living in Egypt, which has never been proven. However, given how many of his other amazing claims turned out to be true, it may turn out that at some later date an archaeologist will uncover phoenix fossils in Egypt.

Here's a recreation of a map Herodotus made of the world as he knew it:

The Wheel of Time

The Wheel of Time is an epic fantasy series by Robert Jordan, currently consisting of eleven books in the original series (Plus the twelfth written by Brandon Sanderson), and a prequel (New Spring). Jordan died in the middle of writing the twelfth, A Memory of Light, which he had promised would wrap up the series once and for all, even if the publisher had to invent a new book format. His wife and editor selected Brandon Sanderson to complete the series based on notes left behind by Jordan.

Sanderson has decided to write three books to complete the series, and so far he has done an excellent job of resolving various plot threads in his first book, the Gathering Storm. The next two, Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light, may actually provide a good ending to the series. It is unfortunate that Jordan was unable to complete the series himself, but at least we know with Sanderson that it will end. I'm looking forward to reading more.

That said, I wanted to talk a little bit about the backstory of Wheel of Time. The Wheel of Time series is a rare gem exploring technological regression and redevelopment. Thousands of years before the time of the first book, during the Age of Legends, humanity had the Aes Sedai (magic) equivalents for airplanes, elevators, trains, cars, artificial fibers, air conditioning, and various other goodies that we modern Earthlings have in bunches. Then, in an effort to find a power source to fuel their increasing technology, the Aes Sedai scientists discovered a limitless power source underground. They bore a hole into it to tap the energy, but discovered that the energy had a will of its own (this is the Dark One, the big bad for the entire series). Released from its underground prison, the Dark One sowed chaos in the world, and the Age of Legends was lost.

I am very curious to learn more about that world, because it sounds incredible. We also get strong hints that Aes Sedai from the Age of Legends were not as adept as modern Aes Sedai at all the magic that modern Aes Sedai perform. Instead, the Aes Sedai from the Age of Legends (including the Dark One's chosen servants) relied on technology. Many of the Chosen, reputed to be the strongest Aes Sedai in the world, have proven that they aren't all that strong individually at all. Much of their power is borrowed from the Dark One or based on knowledge and experience. Several modern Aes Sedai are still able to beat them despite that.

Furthermore, modern Aes Sedai are rediscovering many of the tricks lost during the Age of Legends. And Rand's academies of science have produced interesting items such as telescopes, the combustion engine (trains, cars), and electricity. For all we know, after Rand breaks the world, we will have another Age of Legends. It makes me really curious about what the original Age of Legends was like, and what the world will be like afterwards.