I read “Shant Soghomonian” and I immediately thought “oh, Armenian, ‘son of Solomon’, that’s neat”
Rule of thumb: pretty much everything about the Caucasus looks or sounds like it’s straight out of some sort of high fantasy conworld, which honestly makes me wonder to what extent the aesthetics of high fantasy may have literally been inspired by the Caucasus.
We literally inspired the term Caucasian because white people were too racist to admit we all came from Africa. Mix that with that eras orientalism and I think you’re actually on to something with regards to high fantasy. I mean just look at some of our traditional clothing
Yeah, like, circus side shows in Amerika in the PT Barnum era had “Circassian princesses”: they’d just grab any random pretty girl off the street and give her a curly afro — possibly inspired by papakhi but this is questionable — and they’d dress her up in some sort of titillating and obviously 200,000% inaccurate “”“traditional outfit”“”, often complete with a nice cross necklace to remind viewers that [gibberish name] is really a good Christian woman… Even though Circassians are in fact Muslims.
So yeah, the Caucasus definitely has a historical place in the popular imagination of as being “simultaneously foreign and familiar”. In that sense I guess you could say that “Circassian beauties” and their likes were just yesteryear’s big tiddy anime GF.
I dunno, I’ve had this thought a few times, about how the Caucasus may have inspired fantasy aesthetics. For instance when I first discovered Circassian musicians like Aslan Tlebzu and Aslan Kulov, I thought, “What, like the Narnia lion?” — naturally, it turns out that “aslan” is just Turkish for “lion”, hence both the Narnia character as well as the Circassian forename. And another time when I had this thought was when I first saw the film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind — because those are very clearly supposed to be gazyri on the titular character’s chest, and I remember there was also one scene in that film with buildings that reminded me a bit of those famous Vainakh towers.
Like my mom always points out that in the Caucasus that interest in traditional culture seems to skew a lot younger and seems to be a lot more widespread compared to in Norway. In fact I got an accordion not too long ago, and when I got it, the thought of playing local folk music like its previous owner did was frankly secondary to the thought of learning some Circassian folk music. Because obviously these Norwegian waltzes with their quaint lyrics, to younger folks like me cannot hold a candle to some raw, concentrated Adyghe swag.
I can’t name much for the caucases sadly, being very ignorant on the subject, but I was told that whenever Gygax needed a name for something in one of his settings he just took a random Turkish or Armenian word.
I’m much more confident about the middle east thing, but that’s not what we were talking about.
This comment reminds me of that one chud youtube channel i saw where this beardy chechen guy was like “us chechens are hairy, live in mountains, love blacksmithing and fighting orcs (russians), so we’re basically dwarves”
I read “Shant Soghomonian” and I immediately thought “oh, Armenian, ‘son of Solomon’, that’s neat”
Rule of thumb: pretty much everything about the Caucasus looks or sounds like it’s straight out of some sort of high fantasy conworld, which honestly makes me wonder to what extent the aesthetics of high fantasy may have literally been inspired by the Caucasus.
We literally inspired the term Caucasian because white people were too racist to admit we all came from Africa. Mix that with that eras orientalism and I think you’re actually on to something with regards to high fantasy. I mean just look at some of our traditional clothing
Yeah, like, circus side shows in Amerika in the PT Barnum era had “Circassian princesses”: they’d just grab any random pretty girl off the street and give her a curly afro — possibly inspired by papakhi but this is questionable — and they’d dress her up in some sort of titillating and obviously 200,000% inaccurate “”“traditional outfit”“”, often complete with a nice cross necklace to remind viewers that [gibberish name] is really a good Christian woman… Even though Circassians are in fact Muslims.
So yeah, the Caucasus definitely has a historical place in the popular imagination of
as being “simultaneously foreign and familiar”. In that sense I guess you could say that “Circassian beauties” and their likes were just yesteryear’s big tiddy anime GF.
I dunno, I’ve had this thought a few times, about how the Caucasus may have inspired fantasy aesthetics. For instance when I first discovered Circassian musicians like Aslan Tlebzu and Aslan Kulov, I thought, “What, like the Narnia lion?” — naturally, it turns out that “aslan” is just Turkish for “lion”, hence both the Narnia character as well as the Circassian forename. And another time when I had this thought was when I first saw the film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind — because those are very clearly supposed to be gazyri on the titular character’s chest, and I remember there was also one scene in that film with buildings that reminded me a bit of those famous Vainakh towers.
look if these people didn’t want to be copied endlessly then they should stop looking so fucking cool
Caucasians literally have heavily choreographed pretend sword fights with actual swords, at some point you just gotta say that they know how badass their traditional culture is and they’re just kinda rubbing it in on everyone else.
Like my mom always points out that in the Caucasus that interest in traditional culture seems to skew a lot younger and seems to be a lot more widespread compared to in Norway. In fact I got an accordion not too long ago, and when I got it, the thought of playing local folk music like its previous owner did was frankly secondary to the thought of learning some Circassian folk music. Because obviously these Norwegian waltzes with their quaint lyrics, to younger folks like me cannot hold a candle to some raw, concentrated Adyghe swag.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_of_Pomegranates
Juno Reactor God is God
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
A ton of D&D and therefore fantasy stuff is from the middle east and the caucasus. Same with cosmic horror via lovecraft.
Can you name any specific examples? I’m curious.
I can’t name much for the caucases sadly, being very ignorant on the subject, but I was told that whenever Gygax needed a name for something in one of his settings he just took a random Turkish or Armenian word. I’m much more confident about the middle east thing, but that’s not what we were talking about.
This comment reminds me of that one chud youtube channel i saw where this beardy chechen guy was like “us chechens are hairy, live in mountains, love blacksmithing and fighting orcs (russians), so we’re basically dwarves”