I wonder how much strategic thought goes into deciding how much diversity to push. If they keep it low in the first season and focus on making it a quality show more people will be hooked, instead of going HAM and making Geralt black for instance. Considering that it has been renewed for two more seasons will the diversity go up now that people are going to watch it? Netflix does have a knack at ruining shows with follow up seasons so maybe.

Also I should not the Fringilla being black totally ruined the dynamics of the mages standing up against Nilfgaard. Does nobody think the most prominent enemy mage, who turned against you, being racially different doesn’t provoke some antithesis? This isn’t like a fellow co-ethnic changing loyalties because of a different perspective but instead a racial outsider siding against your in-group.

Disclaimer: only read one book. Never played the game, but the story to me seemed pozzed. Not 2020 pozzed, but pretty pozzed for Poland 1990s.

In fact, I was amazed that something like it could be written in such a homogeneous society. I felt like Andrzej Sapkowski was showing some strange influence. Either America, or communist propaganda, or that Poland never quite got over having had a large Jewish population. I wonder if he was a party member.

This brings up a good question: what is strategically better, to allow or even encourage pozzed IPs to be made into super-pozzed film and TV? (so people are revolted and turn to un-pozzed stuff, even old books and movies) Or to fight all misappropriation of European lore on principle?

Or to fight all misappropriation of European lore on principle?

On paper, this is the best option. In practice, it doesn’t work because “minorities” can appropriate majority culture to “assimilate”.

“Look bigot, they are assimilating, so why aren’t you getting with the times?”

So the better path is a tougher one, that of encoraging our people to stop consuming the culture of outsiders. If one simply cancels their PayTV, they aren’t risking social opprobrium. We don’t need to listen to K-Pop and rap; nor watch Hollywood or the NFL.

Weak dialogue, with many cringe moments. But what really killed of all immersion was the gratuitous blacking.

I agree there was a lot of weak dialogue and cringe. Although the blackwashing wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It’s certainly not in the same league as Black Achilles.

2/3 main characters are white (Cavill and Freya Allen). Anya Chalotra is half white and half Indian.

the diversification imperative doesn’t extend to Asians.

I saw some in the Blaviken peasant mob. I thought it was weird a backwater village had a racial rainbow.

Poland seems to be the most ripe of any of the V4 countries – if not all of the former Soviet bloc – for going into multiculturalism mode.

Is that from people coming back from the UK?

Fringilla being black totally ruined the dynamics of the mages standing up against Nilfgaard

It’s worse than that. In the lore, there’s a plot point that she’s supposed to look like Yennefer. To the extent that Geralt even calls her that name, when they have sex. I wonder if they are going to depict Geralt’s and Fringilla’s fling in coming seasons.

Started watching The Expanse with wife. Show has so much blackwashing first season it was hard to watch. But you get used it and stop caring. Character Naomi Nagata is black. And ofcourse she gets a love arc with a white guy. To top it off they make her look more black with every season. Now I did not read the books and it takes place in the future but we can all tell what’s going on. Same shit with top brass for earth military during the meetings being 40% black. Mars colonists who were supposedly the best of earth is heavily black by proportion. Main Martian protagonist is a marine sargent Roberta Draper. Sounds a lot like it should have been Robert. And they make her so whiny in the first two seasons.

Pretty funny that all Geralt’s love interests (that I know about) are non-White.

I looked up the books and the characters are true to books. But not completely the blacks are mixes in the books. My point about noble black generals stands.

There are many online interviews with Sapkowski in both Polish and English. He
seems to have a lot of fans in Russia. Under the YouTube interviews in Polish they
keep asking in Russian for either translations or summaries in English. Sapkowski
also said that it was the Russian publishers who would usually be the first to
express interest in publishing his works in translation. However, he feels that the
translations into Czech were the most faithful to the original. In terms of literary
quality he is actually most proud of his Hussite Trilogy.

Sapkowski has an interesting background. He is descended from nobility. In fact,
his sense of humor and his demeanor in general remind me of one of the most
famous characters in Polish literature, namely Zagloba in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s
Trilogy, dealing with the Swedish invasion (The Deluge) in 1655. His grandfather
fought in the tsarist army in Manchuria and Crimea. Sapkowski, born in 1948
in Lodz, majored in economics and international trade, and unlike with Tolkien
or George R.R. Martin (he’s friends with the latter) questions of money and trade
figure prominently in his stories.

But what I think had the biggest influence on his writing was the fact that for more
than 20 years he worked for a govt agency specializing in the export/import business,
which meant that 4-5 times a year he would be on the road not just in Europe and
the Soviet Union but also in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and perhaps the U.S. He was
always interested in fantasy and sci-fi, and being fluent in many languages, he would
bring a ton of books back to Poland after each trip. As a result he was not only
extremely well traveled (similar to Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski in this regard) but
was also completely up to date on the fantasy and sci-fi canon, and was of course
well acquainted with Stanislaw Lem, Poland’s sci-fi master, known in the U.S.
mostly for Solaris.

Sapkowski made a number of interesting statements. Some of them appear in his
interviews on Youtube, many in a 350-page book-length interview conducted by
the literature professor Stanislaw BereÅ› (who also conducted a book-length
interview with Lem):

1. He is apparently an atheist. Unlike Lem, he believes that due to science
and technology the world is becoming more cruel, not less;

2. He said that in any situation involving the conflict between the stronger
and the weaker, he is always on the side of the underdog. This is pretty much
the typical Polish attitude, symbolized by the phrase, “For your freedom and ours.�
For example, Gens. Kosciuszko and Pulaski fighting in the American Revolutionary
War, General Bem fighting for Hungary’s freedom in the 19th century, 250 000
Polish soldiers making their way to W.Europe in the fall of 1939 who later helped
to save Holland from starvation, partisans fighting against the communists in
the forests and mountains of Poland as late as 1963, etc.

3. He believes that women are stronger and more complex than men, and it would
be best for humanity if women made most of the important decisions. Again this
is congruent with Poland’s culture which I would not call matriarchal, but because
of the Romantic traditions (worship of women, kissing of women’s hands, etc) is
more balanced between patriarchy and matriarchy. Androgynous-looking actors
can have splendid careers in Poland, e.g., look up Bartosz Bielenia in his latest film
Corpus Christi.

The world of Witcher is not “Dark Ages” or “Medieval”. It is in the Renaissance/Early Modern period, time of ocean exploration, rapid expansion and beginning of scientific revolution: https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/7p2clb/does_the_witcher_world_seem_like_one_of_the_verge/

The presence of black people here is easily explained. IRL, Iberian countries in the Age of Discovery were pretty diverse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Portugal#Age_of_Discovery

I expected you would find more objectionable that Empire od Nilfgaard, the big bad boogeyman of the setting, is clearly modeled on Russia.

https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Nilfgaardian_Empire

Nilfgaard did nothing wrong!

This brings up a good question: what is strategically better, to allow or even encourage pozzed IPs to be made into super-pozzed film and TV? (so people are revolted and turn to un-pozzed stuff, even old books and movies) Or to fight all misappropriation of European lore on principle?

In practice, it doesn’t matter if we approve or not, as we aren’t in any position to influence the decisions on what gets made, nor likely to be anytime soon. The trash will be made anyway. What we control is how we react to it.

The best course, then, is vigorous criticism. Always point out the faults of the media in question. Not stridently, of course, casually and politely (and equally of course, how exactly it should be done depends on whom we’re talking to). Ideally, work it into a bigger criticism of bad writing, bad dialogue and whatever (which Hollywood, Netflix and friends will invariably provide plenty of to snipe at in their woke rubbish). This can be done with successful things (as Witcher seems to be), but it’s even better when it can be used on truly cringeworthy offerings (for a recent example, see the Charlie’s Angels reboot, or the pile of fail that is the Star Wars sequels).

As far as is possible, “diversity” and “empowerment” should be associated with failure and trash. Depending on your audience, there’s no need to explicitly bash the diversity itself, either, drawing attention to it can be a good first step when that is not opportune. (“It’s so sad, how strong female leads like [Protagonist] get saddled with such bad writing, like [This Line] or [That Scene]…”) That gently sets up an association, that can then be reinforced. Things like that.

And of course, recommend older, saner media as a substitute whenever it can be done naturally. Again, not necessarily with any overt agenda, just make it “Well, yeah, that’s kind of cool, but I like [Older Film] better, you seen it?” Since it’s usually easy to find older works that are objectively far better (as art, not just politically) than the lazy wokeness, this is also a fruitful path.

In a word, propaganda striking from below should try to be subtle. Don’t crash into the wokeness head-on when talking with normies, attack it from the fringes. Subvert it, like Hollywood did with our values before they went all-in with it. Suggest our viewpoints carefully and by implication. If we can trigger some crazy liberal into screeching when we say entirely normal things, then so much the better. For example: if a woketard is present, it might be better not to bash Witcher for being woke, but instead to move the subject to Lord of the Rings. Then have the woketard rant about it being fascist and white supremacist, and you the normal movie fan look normal to the normies, while the woketard is the weirdo. A nice reversal from the usual, no?

Or alternatively, instead of all this strategizing, one can simply opt out, of course. Guerrilla warring like this can be surprisingly effective, especially when amplified through things like social media, but it can also be very wearying to anyone who doesn’t have the proper natural aptitude for it. Simply ignoring it with a noncommittal grunt when the guys at work are discussing the woke series of the day is probably better for most people’s own peace of mind than trying to deploy counter-strategies, even if it makes no active, positive contribution to the societal climate as a whole.

We, too, are resources, each in our own way, and we shouldn’t burn ourselves out on this sort of long struggle if we can be used more effectively elsewhere. Then again, some are precisely in their right element fighting the good fight in pop-culture fandom. Everyone must decide for himself where he fits best.

The world of Witcher is not “Dark Ages� or “Medieval�. It is in the Renaissance/Early Modern period

No, it’s not a Renaissance. In “the Witcher” the world is a farce in which different epochs are mixed (for example, in this world there are grotesque “green” activists who advocate that animals are excluded from Gladiator fights). In fact, the Witcher is (mostly) a satire on the modern world.

I expected you would find more objectionable that Empire od Nilfgaard, the big bad boogeyman of the setting, is clearly modeled on Russia.

There’s no such thing in the book. Niflgard is a southern Empire, there is nothing specifically Russian in its structure. At one point in the book, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is parodied, but there Niflgard plays the role of Germany. The expulsion of the niflgard peasant colonists is clearly written off from the expulsion of the German population of Eastern Europe in 1945

According to at least one timeline I saw, Geralt of Rivia was born in 1168, and
most of the novels take place when he is in his early 80s, i.e., around 1250
(presumably, the witchers age very slowly) when St. Thomas Aquinas was
a young man, and there is no more medieval figure than Thomas Aquinas.
So the novels are set during the High Middle Ages, long before the Bubonic
Plague (1348-50) that traditionally separates the Middle Ages from the
Renaissance, and far from the Age of Discovery.

BTW, there is a very pretty and talented Russian youtuber called Alina Gingertail (real name Alina Permina) that makes some very cool covers of Witcher songs (among other game songs):

So the novels are set during the High Middle Ages

This is not the middle ages at all. As one example, the characters in the book discuss genetics in purely modern terms.

At the same time, there are many references in the book that the world of the Witcher is the result of the collapse of some high-tech civilization.

I know nothing about the genre of fantasy fiction and do not understand what needs it actually addresses besides a simple escapism but there is no doubt that simple and rather primitive products of pop culture like the Witcher or Star Wars are the most effective conveyors of cultural change and indoctrination because they get you when you are young and when you are open and with guards down while you are busy gulping the plot. It takes many years for people to learn to stop being immersed in the medium so they can start asking how this is being accomplished w/o being sucked into it. For anybody who has children I would recommend to enlist them early in life (late teens) to take some courses in movie making and script writing to gain distance and resist the seduction of the total immersion. Movie and theater directors and writers are the most detached sons of bitches apart from some secret police operatives that our society has produced. I think that some post modern literature does a very good job of deconstructing literature, i.e., deconstructing itself. I recommend White Noise by DeLillo. Iirc (I read it many years ago) it has many good insights on how all this works.

Right – I meant purely chronologically, as I clearly implied by giving a lot of dates.
Culturally, it obviously adopts a melange of paradigms

Alina Gingertail, the Russian singer, is singing the Witcher songs in beautiful
(if slightly accented) Polish. Bravo!

Funny fact: Andrzej Sapkowski and George R. R. Martin were born
3 months apart, in June and September 1948, respectively.

she’s amazing, she sings covers in Russian, English, German, Japanese and now Polish

No exaggeration, but The Witcher

is the gayest shit on Netflix right now. FIFY.

Its back-story might be interesting, and maybe the producers fucked it up compared to the books… all barely relevant because the result is unwatchable (and I have watched every episode of Van Helsing, for fuck’s sake).

I tried to watch it – and honestly, I have extremely low standards – but I didn’t make it through the bit in the first episode where Superman-Wraith[1] walks through a door into a garden full of nubile chicks in the nuddy.

[1] ‘Wraith’ in the Stargate: Universe sense: white hair, slightly vampire-ish vibe. Like the Castithan in ‘Defiance‘. I watched ALL of BOTH those series. Worse still: I watched both series of Star Trek: Discovery (through gritted teeth at the fucking retarded Warp-level Wokeness of it all).

See how bad “Witcher” is?

I gave up watching halfway through the first episode, the blackwashing is overwhelming and disgusting.

I have to mention that the types that make videos raging against SJWs ruining movies such as Star Wars or Ghostbusters like this tv show, which makes this especially worrying, this hardcore anti white propaganda is now being embraced by some as edgy anti SJW work?!?

All the Polish and Ukrainian cucks who still refuse to believe that Warsaw and Kiev will be majority non white by 2050 should take note of this article. Both societies have clearly embraced the anti white cargo cult in very zealous fashion, blackwashing their demographics will now be an absolute imperative to look both cool and to please their foreign masters.

The Warhorse Studios example is interesting. The link to the chief developers comments on blacking can be found here:

Are people on other continents and of other cultures so incompetent that they need me to produce their culture?

The other day, I wanted to show my daughter the old Anne of Green Gables TV serial, from 1985. While looking for it, I came across “Anne with an E”, a Netflix version. In later seasons, it seems, a major heroine is a black washerwoman. Unlike medieval bohemia, it seems that there were in fact some black folks in late 19th century PEI, but never very many (slavery was abolished in PEI in 1825, in the British Empire in 1833).

Of course, we watched the original Anne of Green Gables, which is true to the book.

According to at least one timeline I saw, Geralt of Rivia was born in 1168, and
most of the novels take place when he is in his early 80s, i.e., around 1250

Events of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings happen in the year 3019 of the Third Age – is Middle Earth supposed to be uber futuristic Star Trek world?

(presumably, the witchers age very slowly) when St. Thomas Aquinas was
a young man, and there is no more medieval figure than Thomas Aquinas.

Counting years from fixed date is very modern practice anyway – in traditional society, years were counted according to regnal years of the sovereigns.

No, it’s not a Renaissance. In “the Witcher� the world is a farce in which different epochs are mixed (for example, in this world there are grotesque “green� activists who advocate that animals are excluded from Gladiator fights). In fact, the Witcher is (mostly) a satire on the modern world.

IRL, animal right activism is ancient, much older than Middle Ages. Of course, not in the Western culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_release

No matter how “diverse” you think Spain was, the idea that West Africans living as a peasant in a remote village that is supposed to be a renaissance setting is utterly laughable. At best you had blacks being seen at court as a novelty (and definitely not as nobility as the BBC blackwashes it), but to think that the current demographics of London are what renaissance Europe was is retarded.

As far as I know Nilfgard is based on the Holy Roman Empire.

Show has so much blackwashing first season it was hard to watch. But you get used it and stop caring. Character Naomi Nagata is black. And ofcourse she gets a love arc with a white guy.

In this case, a bit whitewashing too. Holden’s first love interest from the Canterbury crew was named Ade Tokunbo and was of Nigerian descent. In the show, the character does not look a Nigerian at all.

The most obvious new presence in Warsaw in the last 5 years, other than the
Ukrainians who totally blend in, are thousands of Jewish tourists and pilgrims.
Otherwise, virtually no blacks and the Gypsies (who, unlike in Budapest, were
never numerous) seemed to have completely vanished in the last 10 years. Interestingly,
the 12-year-old singer Wiktoria (“Viki�) Gabor who is all the rage in Poland right
now, having won the Junior Eurovision two months ago, is partly of Roma origin.
The Brits describe Viki Gabor as pan-European, as another Dua Lipa, because she
was born in Germany, lived in Britain (and so speaks English with no accent), and
now lives in Poland. Warsaw gives the impression of being very cosmopolitan – you
hear English everywhere.

I’ve seen it claimed many times that Poles have no real issue with the multiculti agenda, and as far as Slavs go they are by far the most liberal on race issues. Perhaps it’s something to do with their Catholic universalism?

They are arguably culturally conservative and opposed to Islamisation, but Poles see these as cultural/religious issues not race issues. Modern Polish nationalism is basically civic nationalism, they don’t do ethnic nationalism really.

Re: Jewish tourists in Warsaw

Most of the Jewish tourists and pilgrims are of Israeli origin, with some from the U.S.
According to surveys, they come to do shopping and because they miss Polish food.
But I think many hope to recapture the musical memories of the 1930s Warsaw that
no longer exists. On YouTube check out “Old Polish Tango in Polish and Hebrew –
Graj skrzypku, graj� sung by Olga Mieleszczuk. In the comments you can find Hasidic
Jews saying how much they miss Poland. There are hundreds such videos on YouTube.
Nostalgia is a powerful force.

Slavs don’t seem to think that racially in my opinion. Slavs seem to catagorise themselves most strongly based on religion, Catholic and Orthodox being the two biggest divides.

In fact even Slavs of the same religion often strongly dislike each other, such as Ukrainians and Russians. There seems to be no real notion of pan-Slavism, Slavs identify almost solely with their own country and see other Slavic countries as total foreigners, even Slavs of the same religion. Even highly similar people like Czechs and Slovaks see each other as foreigners and completely different, which sums up the point really.

However, he feels that the translations into Czech were the most faithful to the original.

Translating from Polish to Czech is much easier than translating Polish to English or even Polish to Russian. I speak Polish and can understand about 70% of spoken Czech, and can easily read Czech newspapers. It is sort of like translating Spanish into Portuguese.

There are like 100000 ways to have brown people in a medieval setting correctly and they keep fucking it up even on such basic things

3. He believes that women are stronger and more complex than men, and it would be best for humanity if women made most of the important decisions. Again this is congruent with Poland’s culture which I would not call matriarchal, but because of the Romantic traditions (worship of women, kissing of women’s hands, etc) is more balanced between patriarchy and matriarchy.

Well that settles it. Poland is doomed.

No, we don’t see each other as completely different. There’s a power dynamic involved.

The two types are “reeeee they’re the same as us how DARE they have their own identity” and the others are “reeee we’re not them” and do the dumbest shit possible to larp as some sort of special nation. Type 1 are the only real Slavic nations, the others are just small change and completely useless

“The Witcher (Wiedźmin) is a ”

a masterful crafted masturbation fantasy which was made playable by polish game developer CDPR.

A very good hint, that this is the only legit description of the Witcher, is on the the books.
A praising review by Playboy.

Good to see you again. Your comments on Central Europe and Poland were very good.

In the case of The Expanse it is actually the author’s fault and not the TV adaption. Their humanity of the future is very much a multiracial hodgepodge. Earth is supposed to have almost 30b people at the time the story takes place and naturally a lot of those are Indians and Africans. Roberta Draper is also just as female in the books as in the TV show.

The Expanse was written as quite a pozzed universe but it is well-constructed and has interesting storylines, which immediately sets it above 95% of other Sci-Fi. I still enjoy it, regardless. Though I have a weakness for passably good science fiction.

Geralt’s ‘love’ interests number in the hundreds and consist of anything that is female and moves.

Yes, obviously it is a multifaceted thing but in general their weakness seems to the Catholic universalism. Much like it used to be in Ireland, my country, standard Polish nationalism has been intrinsically linked to Catholicism rather than the Polish ethnic identity. This is an extremely dangerous situation for any country, not least because religion is in decline and with it will go nationalism. And of course that kind of religious nationalism allows for Africans to ‘become Polish’ if they simply embrace th religion and culture.

Poland will be the first to embrace Human Rights & Democracy^TM, but luckily for them it is so late in the liberal era that they can build real opposition, like Konfederacja, while still being 95% Polish.

This is, I think, is an accurate description of Slavs living in their home countries, and maybe of Slavs living abroad in rather large ethnic enclaves. However, my experience of Slavs living in North America and Britain is that they have a natural affinity for each other and mostly get along, including Russians and Poles– with the exception of Ukrainian Galicians, who refuse to play nicely with others.

In the book “Witcher”, the main character is killed by skinheads during the pogrom (he protected oppressed minorities), and the main heroine (Ciri) has a detailed same-sex relationship. The other main female character (like all the other heroines of the book – without exception) is a nymphomaniac. For this reason, if desired, it is easy to make an ultra-left propaganda film from this book.

It would be interesting to see AK reply to your observations with his insights, as he appears to be one of those who got hooked on just this type of escapism in his early youth. I don’t quite understand what you mean by indicating that “It takes many years for people to learn to stop being immersed in the medium so they can start asking how this is being accomplished w/o being sucked into it.” Many years of therapy, or just what exactly?

Haven’t read the books but watched the series, and although I really wanted to like it – the sets and costumes are great – it’s fairly cringey. A lot of the dialogue is bad, the centering of women and blacks as the people really pulling most of the strings is ham-fisted, etc. The injection of blacks in this and other European historical/fantasy works is just sort of sad – it’s basically a backhanded acknowledgement that there isn’t really any actual sub-Saharan history or myths that anyone would find interesting or worth turning into entertainment. That’s gotta sting.

In a semi-related note, we started watching Killing Eve recently. Although it also blatantly places women as the protagonists (spy, spy’s boss, assassin), it is entertaining and humorous so far.

Poland is most ripe for multiculturalism because it’s the 6th biggest country in the EU, thus it’s capable of creating a significant economic market that can attract hundreds of thousands of consumers and wageslaves.

Poland has been developing surprisingly well, it’s the only country next to China and Australia to have sustained economic growth for 30 years, it has also significantly fought off corruption and it has corruption levels lower than Italy.

This is the tragedy of this – if you have a country of decent wealth and organization, and size, then you will inevitably attract immigration. But it’s the fault of industrial capitalism ultimately and it’s ideology of economic growth. And also of low fertility rates. Anyway, I don’t have high hopes for Europe.

The trash will be made anyway.

Yes, I think this is part of the problem. People recognize that the vast majority of this stuff is trash, so it is hard to take a principled stand on it, with possible social repercussions. It might be different if it was something of artistic merit, or contained some hero of nationalist folklore, where there was ownership stakes.

In the end, the shear volume of it deadens all attempts at outrage.

One of the problems with these mulicult fantasies, is how they mix up different groups.

One can say, “Nigerians didn’t have castles”, but then if you get an Arab or an Indian, then you have to say something like “Well, they might have had something like a castle.”

Still, I suppose it would be an improvement to take the Africans out.

I saw some in the Blaviken peasant mob. I thought it was weird a backwater village had a racial rainbow.

The funny thing is that by inserting diversity into situations like this, what they are really saying without realizing it is that people won’t mix, even if they are together for hundreds of years.

I would tend to agree with you. This point of view only serves to underscore the flimsiness and archaism of those who still persistently cling to non-existent forms of Russian Triunism.

Fantasy literature is related to religion. It is about other worlds. It is about mystery and magic.

If you have a religious impulse, you will enjoy fantasy.

Fantasy literature is related to religion. It is about other worlds. It is about mystery and magic.
If you have a religious impulse, you will enjoy fantasy.

I doubt very much. Christianity (and Islam) strongly disapprove of this genre for its pagan spirit

Nilfgaard is pretty straight to trope Roman Empire, with elements of HRE. I don’t think there’s any Russia equivalent in Witcher universe.

It is a fantasy universe, so the lack of a 1:1 relationship is not surprising.

Nilfgaard is led by an Emperor. And, the highly orderly military does strike a chord with Roman doctrine. Nilfgaard=Rome is a fair call based only on the TV show, Season 1.

From the books, Nilfgaard had definite similarities to the Cold War USSR. If the TV show gives more on the day-to-day lives of Nilfgaard’s citizens that comparison may receive more light. It is more backstory than anything else, so given the limited number of TV minutes available it may be omitted.

TV show adaptations inevitably skip a great deal of material from the underlying books.
____

Based on playing the games, reading the books, and watching the show — The casting choice that seems highly questionable at this point is Triss.
..
She will be much more important in future seasons.

PEACE 😇

Because it’s a rival to organized official religion.

UTU seems to indicate that fantasy literature and its related gameplay is somehow dangerous for ones psyche? He goes on in what admittedly seems a discombobulated rant including “movie directors” and “secret police operatives” with the ultimate end being the “deconstruction of literature”. It all seems a bit hazy and too much like a grand conspiracy theory to me (but I’ll wait to hear his clarification)? 🙂

In my “early youth”, I used to read a lot of comic books and science fiction literature. Then as things progressed, I did spend a fair amount of time playing video games, my preference being the car racing and golf games. I seem to have worked my way out of both phases, and now seem to waste too much time on blogging activities (no therapy needed for the first two phases). 🙂

Do you still play chess? Do you have a rating or ever held one?

The recent wave of European nationalism/identitarianism in general seems to regard Catholic identity as being synonymous with “the West”, they are very fond of slogans like “Deus vult” which is heavily Catholic. I think the strong influence of Catholicism in the latest wave of European nationalism is why it has shifted away from traditional ethnic nationalism to being based on anti-Muslim/counter-Jihad rhetoric.

In fact I wonder if the recent promotion of Catholic-based nationalism across Europe is a deliberate plot by the elites to erode the concept of ethnic nationalism and make nationalism solely culture/religion based, so therefore anyone prepared to assimilate to “Western culture” becomes an “acceptable immigrant”.

Not always. C.S Lewis and Tolkien were both Chrstians who employed the fantasy genre to promote Christian ideals. I’m pretty sure that there are more modern adepts of this type of Christian fantasy literature around today.

the purpose of life was, that “[i]t may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks.”[

JRR Tolkien

Not always. C.S Lewis and Tolkien were both Chrstians who employed the fantasy genre to promote Christian ideals

Well, Tolkien clearly failed his task (creating a completely non-Christian mythology). I didn’t read Lewis, but he was described as a very boring author.

I think its basically that reading fiction does appear to be a form of hypnosis, and storytelling is one of the best ways to “bypass” the normal skepticism that individuals(even children) have when told “what you should do in life.” As such, they are a form of myth-making and they help instill the myths that we live and identify by.

But as we grow older, we also gravitate to the myths that appeal to us – this is besides the “pop media” which people get pushed to these days. Insofar as War40k served that, since it has never exactly been mainstream, I think its more of an original fondness for the notions it had – for me, it was the “What if authoritarianism is necessary? Does happy sunshine bunnies really answer everything? What is the appeal in strident faith, and what if it is the right answer?”

Ultimately, it is self-reinforcing more than anything else.

Its akin to those who railed against the existence of the novel as a form of organized lying. I wouldn’t care too much about it.

It’ s true that Tolkien employed Germanic mythological symbols in some of his works, but his underlying “spirit” seems to have been primarily Christian imagery, in his own words:

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like “religion”, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.[155]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien

One might try to describe Tolkien’s philosohical and writing style as some sort of pantheism, but I wouldn’t. Just a wise man using the positive imagery of pagan symbolism within a Christian wrapper.

All comes down to the fact that Russians outside if Russia are generally cucked.

Witcher always did lean leftist. It just has, I suppose, taken on its final form(though not yet – wait until there are female witchers who are strong wahmen overwhelming everyone else).

In that sense, Warhammer40k’s Chaos is indeed the accurate myth for the time. With all things that seem good, it infiltrates, twists and corrupts until there is only madness.

It’ s true that Tolkien employed Germanic mythological symbols in some of his works, but his underlying “spirit� seems to have been primarily Christian imagery, in his own words

Tolkien might consider himself a very good Catholic, but there is nothing Catholic in his universe. Francis of Assisi and Saint Louis in Middle-earth could not exist in principle.

Rright, there isn’t a necessary antagonism between the two, but too often organized religion sees it that way.

The themes are the same – good vs evil, other worlds, supernatural beings.

I think the Church condemned Harry Potter also.

Partly, but I would imagine the main factors are higher English language proficiency/most pro-Western attitudes, and the conflation of nationalism with universalist Catholicism (a point made here by AltSerrice, amongst others).

Catholic Universalism is a good point. I choose the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible, which is a translation of the Latin Vulgate, for these selections. I think they demonstrate the seeds of liberalism in Catholic thought. It’s also worthwhile to look up the School of Salamanca. John Locke is often viewed as the “Father of Liberalism”, but a century before him Catholic theologians at the University of Salamanca seem to have beaten him to it.

Galatians 3:26-29 (Douay-Rheims 1899)
“26 For you are all the children of God by faith, in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you be Christ’s, then are you the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.”

Colossians 3:9-11 (Douay-Rheims 1899)
“9 Lie not one to another: stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds,
10 And putting on the new, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of him that created him.
11 Where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. But Christ is all, and in all.”

Pretty explicit racial, gender and class equality for all co-religionists.

Are you implying that reading fiction is a form of self induced “hypnosis” that helps individuals escape the responsibility of discerning the meaning of their own lives, “skepticism”? On the contrary, reading fiction might help individuals find their own path by exploring how others traverse through life finding their own road to meaning? There’s no doubt that reading fiction can be an “escape” path for individuals to leave their own hum drum existence, and therefore serves as an excellent form of healthy entertainment.

BTW, I always enjoy reading your comments here.

“Gratuitous Ethnosizing” = Unnecessary, unwarranted, unjustified inserting of the wrong ethnic person or ethnic group into some Commercial, TV show, Movie, Radio or Magazine advertizement

I honestly cannot continue this dialogue with you, because I just don’t know enough about Tolkien and his ability to present an authentic form of Christianity (although I suspect that he did). Hopefully, somebody here with more knowledge of the matter will be able to continue, for it’s an interesting topic that deserves more discourse and fits in perfectly well within the subject matter of this thread.

Ukrainians ” totally blend in”. LOL. ….totally incorrect.
Assimilate? Even that is not totally correct. Look like Poles? That is about it, nothing more.

No surprise of the level of English when a million plus Poles live in the UK ( probably the main reason for Brexit) Ironically from England there have been plenty of stories of Polish nurses who can’t speak English at basic level.
Polish Universities also have a dire record and Polish nation nonexistent at any of the olympiads

No, I’m being more neutral than that. Basically that fiction is just a trance state, so that when one identifies with a protagonist, one temporarily loses himself into the world of the story and thus associates his pains and triumphs with his own, usually to a satisfying conclusion from where the pleasure is derived from. It is a form of entertainment, and like all other forms of entertainment, can be escapism or meaningful or whatnot.

In its specific method of influencing the reader through that form of identification that makes it more unique than say, having a great meal. In that, it can bypass one’s defenses and cause one to identify with opinions that one wouldn’t have otherwise, if argued rationally and normally; e.g. the identification of deer with gentle and tragic creatures by experiencing Bambi as opposed to being told that killing herbivores is a bad thing.

That, therein, lies both the educational and propagandizing aspect of fiction. If in fiction, for example, one is taught that being honest is always worthwhile, then the availability cascade gradually leans one to be honest and to assume that’ll provide the best solution. Whereas if in fiction, a trickster is always rewarded, then one gradually will wonder if perhaps strategic lying is a better solution.

One sees this in differences in fiction produced by various cultures, reflecting the values and anxieties of their writers. And thus, in the values and anxieties ultimately absorbed by many of their readers.

About 90% of the books that I read are non-fiction. However, one of the things that I really enjoy about novels is that they afford the reader an opportunity to explore the inner thoughts and ideas of the various protagonists and antagonists that straight non-fiction usually does not. Historical fiction is great because although it’s based on real events, it espouses more color and insight into the inner workings of the individuals involved.

In fact I wonder if the recent promotion of Catholic-based nationalism across Europe is a deliberate plot by the elites to erode the concept of ethnic nationalism and make nationalism solely culture/religion based, so therefore anyone prepared to assimilate to “Western culture� becomes an “acceptable immigrant�.

I think its more a retreat into imbecility on the part of Trad Catholics than a plot. It seems the Francis Pontificate generated an existential identity crisis for devout Catholics. The whole point of their ecclesiology is to prevent error, but if you have Francis parading around Pachamama idols then that blows up the whole idea of Catholicism being the one true church.

Rather than face the reality that the religion they grew up in has failed, they would rather withdraw into obscurantism and perform amazing intellectual contortions. Rad Trad Civic Nationalism lets them pretend that they are the REAL Catholics and everything will go back to the way it used be if they get the right Pope in office and have mass in Latin. Ultimately, the Deus Vult Rad Trads will accomplish as much as heterosexual pride parades.

about Tolkien and his ability to present an authentic form of Christianity (although I suspect that he did).

Well, hobbits – they do not worship God (because they are indifferent to religion, convinced agnostics or even atheists), do not go to Church (because they do not have any churches and no priests), they do not pacify the flesh, do not know Asceticism, but on the contrary eat, drink and live for pleasure. And this according to Tolkien is an example of an ideal life

This is definitely not Christianity (although Tolkien might have thought otherwise)

Here are some additional screen captures showing game versus TV show:

Yennifer:

_____

Ciri:

_____

PEACE 😇

Counting years from fixed date is very modern practice anyway – in traditional society, years were counted according to regnal years of the sovereigns.

You don’t seem to know much about calendars. Fixed date calendars have been used by Romans (Byzantines) and Hebrews since about 1st or 2nd century AD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Mundi

1. Re: Ukrainians blend in

Obviously, the Ukrainians and Belarusians in Poland blend in visually
but at about 5% of the total population they are now at a danger point – too
large to assimilate. In the 1930s Poland, as a smaller version of the
former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was 15% Ukrainian and 10%
Jewish – both numbers too large to have produced high levels of assimilation.
Blacks in the U.S. are at 13%. Do they assimilate? They don’t need to. They
live in their own world.

2. Re: Poland at Olympiads

Poland has done extremely well at various Olympiads, incl. Mathematics and
Programming. E.g., Jan Fornal of Poland in July won his second Gold Medal
at the International Math Olympiad with a perfect score. He was one of 600
participants representing over 100 countries. By the way, the U.S. is regularly
humiliated at these Olympiads either with poor performance or with teams
that are almost 100% Asian. Not surprisingly, Israel being a low-IQ country,
has not done well at the intellectual Olympiads, and neither have the American
Jews in recent years.

Let’s not forget that at the latest PISA exams (2018) Poland has obliterated
Germany, U.K., France, and of course its neighbors like Russia, Czechia, etc.
while the U.S. continues to humiliate itself with its poor performance.

3. Re: Polonians in UK

As of 2018, at least 100,000 have returned to Poland, and more are on the
way, leaving 832,000. That has certainly contributed to Brexit. However, others
would claim the main reason was that the Brits don’t want to obey the German
diktat coming from Brussels. Why should they? After all, it was the Germans
who lost the wars, after centuries of poor decision making. What right do they
have to tell others how to live their lives? Germans as history’s losers are
a horrible example to follow.

How much money would it really take to re-film the whole thing with Nigerian actors (Nollywood) and blue screens?

That is what I advocate: using existing welfare allocations to create a free black Netflix. You could cut development costs by recycling SFX assets, costumes, scripts. In the same way, video games would be patched, so that everyone was black. Anything original would be filled with propaganda about how Africa is the place to be, and how there be dragons outside of it.

Alternatively, it might be possible to do the whole thing with Deepfake.

You use it as a carrot to save policing costs – criminals have their access cut. Eventually, you create two tiers. The premium one will only be available in Africa, encouraging repatriation.

Where do you get any of that? The movies?

Re: Slavs in N. America and U.K. have a natural affinity for each other

Definitely true. In the Polish case there is also a warm relationship between
the Polonians and the Lithuanians in North America, due to the common
Catholic culture and the memories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Lithuanians, by the way, although a tiny country at 2.8 million, have done
very well economically. Their GDP (PPP) per capita in 2020 stands at $38,760.
Central Europe (i.e., V4 plus the Baltics) is flourishing right now.

The Polish-Americans at 10 million are the only Slavic group in the U.S. that
has elected many congressmen, senators, and governors, and had a number
of presidential candidates, starting with Ed Muskie. Because of the common
Catholic culture, they tend to intermarry with the Irish, Italians, and,
surprisingly, even with Germans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Godson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killion_Munyama

The latter is from the same country as a certain Unz Review columnist.

Gratuitous blacking in Witcher world is explainable as side effect of a new conjuction with Wakanda sphere!:D
As huge fan of Witcher saga I found Netflix Witcher entertaining most of time.

Let’s not forget that one reason the Partitions of Poland (more precisely,
of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic) happened is because the absolute
monarchs in Prussia, Russia (and to a lesser extent in Austria) were
alarmed by the growing Jacobin tendencies in both France and Poland.
They spared France, and sacrificed Poland, and then France, of course,
erupted in its own Revolution, forcing thousands of the French nobles
to seek refuge in Poland. Poland and France were very close in the 18th
and 19th centuries, and in opposition to the undemocratic regimes
in Germany and Russia.

Poland has a long tradition of being on the side of the underdog – after all,
there would be no Ashkenazi Jews left in the world today if they hadn’t found
refuge in Poland after the multiple expulsions from W. Europe.
Being on the side of the underdog has become incorporated in the
powerful ideology of Polish messianism which is still very potent
today, and partly explains the extremely low rates of social dysfunction
in Poland today.

Daniel Chieh touches on good explanations. The immersion people experience while reading fiction is like hypnosis. People crave the immersion because it is the best form of escapism w/o drugs. But it can also be positive if engaging the critical intellect however for most readers particularly the young it is sleepwalking that uses the subconsciousness which potentially does a (harmful) job on it.

The issue was covered by Plato and Aristotle. Plato was strongly against theater and poetry as it engaged emotions and no the critical thinking while Aristotle thought that through theater or poetry a catharsis can be achieved facilitating further development. As often when it comes to Plato and Aristotle when they are in disagreement they are both right.

Milan Kundera compared the tradition of reading novels in the European culture to mediation practices in the Orient. But obviously he meant novels intellectually engaging not the escapist ones. Interestingly Kundera was rather negative about poetry that it is for immature naive and sentimental individuals which is only sometimes true in my opinion.

For Kundera, lyric poetry is the genre of youthful naïveté and thus of susceptibility to totalitarian enthusiasm; the novel, the genre of maturity: of irony, disillusionment, sophistication and analytic detachment.

So the key points of the novel “irony, disillusionment, sophistication and analytic detachment” that would make it belong to the genre of maturity are unlikely to be found in products like The Witcher or Tolkien’s Trilogy or Game of Thrones or Harry Potter.

I would recommend reading Milan Kundera’s “Art of Novel” and Annie Dillard’s “Living by Fiction.”

I think its more a retreat into imbecility on the part of Trad Catholics than a plot. It seems the Francis Pontificate generated an existential identity crisis for devout Catholics. The whole point of their ecclesiology is to prevent error, but if you have Francis parading around Pachamama idols then that blows up the whole idea of Catholicism being the one true church.

Yeah, the only true Church is the Orthodox church.
Bowing to primitive stone age idols is lame and gay.
Blessing nuclear weapons with icon of Stalin is BASED.

Here is an Orthodox priest blessing a Tu-95 strategic bomber at Engels airbase with an icon featuring Stalin.

The church did disown that particular icon, but this is peak post-Soviet reactionary ideology salad pic.twitter.com/CCVdxWlMcx

— Prisoner of consciousness â�¤âœŠâœŒ#NotOurTsar (@Mortis_Banned) November 6, 2019

However, my experience of Slavs living in North America and Britain is that they have a natural affinity for each other and mostly get along, including Russians and Poles– with the exception of Ukrainian Galicians, who refuse to play nicely with others.

Galicians and Poles get along great in North America. When each community is not large enough to be its own self-contained world they even attend each other’s festivals and clubs. This leads to some “awkward” moments, like Poles dancing to a remixed UPA song at a Ukrainian club or festival.

The contractors I hire to do home remodeling are a mixed crew of western Ukrainian and Polish off the boaters. The two groups mix very easily.

It seems the Francis Pontificate generated an existential identity crisis for devout Catholics.

This is not true. It generated an existential identity crisis for lukewarm Catholics. Devout Catholics understand that the current Pope type guy is a Modernist* and act accordingly.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10415a.htm

The whole point of their ecclesiology is to prevent error, but if you have Francis parading around Pachamama idols then that blows up the whole idea of Catholicism being the one true church.

At times like this, the point is to act in simple ways that prove the enemy’s error. Thus, a young traditional (and, I believe, nationalist) Catholic man took the idols out of the church in Rome and threw them into the Tiber. Problem solved. This young man has zero doubt whether Rome is the true Church or not. He knows it is, and that is why he destroyed the idols.

Rad Trad Civic Nationalism lets them pretend that they are the REAL Catholics and everything will go back to the way it used be if they get the right Pope in office and have mass in Latin.

We aren’t asking for everything to go back to the way it used to be, because obviously the way it once was must have been flawed if we’ve gotten to this point. Like all intelligent people, we will use what was good before to build a better tomorrow.

underlying “spirit� seems to have been primarily Christian imagery, in his own words

The most obvious similarities would be the God and Lucifer parodies, Eru Iluvatar and Melkor

It seems the Francis Pontificate generated an existential identity crisis for devout Catholics.

This is not true. It generated an existential identity crisis for lukewarm Catholics. Devout Catholics understand that the current Pope type guy is a Modernist* and act accordingly.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10415a.htm

The whole point of their ecclesiology is to prevent error, but if you have Francis parading around Pachamama idols then that blows up the whole idea of Catholicism being the one true church.

At times like this, the point is to act in simple ways that prove the enemy’s error. Thus, a young traditional (and, I believe, nationalist) Catholic man took the idols out of the church in Rome and threw them into the Tiber. Problem solved. This young man has zero doubt whether Rome is the true Church or not. He knows it is, and that is why he destroyed the idols.

Rad Trad Civic Nationalism lets them pretend that they are the REAL Catholics and everything will go back to the way it used be if they get the right Pope in office and have mass in Latin.

We aren’t asking for everything to go back to the way it used to be, because obviously the way it once was must have been flawed if we’ve gotten to this point. Like all intelligent people, we will use what was good before to build a better tomorrow.

Why must we always be doing something to develop our intellect? Why are only things for the sake of some future goal worthwhile? A perfect experience, done for its own sake, is worthwhile.

A good book is a piece of art. It is worthwhile for its own sake.

The flaw in these philosophies of doing things only for the sake of some future improvement of our intellect, is that we develop our intellect so that we are better at survival – but we try to survive, so that we can have perfect experiences. A good book is a perfect experience.

In fact I wonder if the recent promotion of Catholic-based nationalism across Europe is a deliberate plot by the elites to erode the concept of ethnic nationalism and make nationalism solely culture/religion based, so therefore anyone prepared to assimilate to “Western culture� becomes an “acceptable immigrant�.

I would love for you to provide proof for the assertion that “Catholic-based nationalism” is being backed by the elites. LOL at this conspiracy theory.

Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were devout Christians and their works are certainly compatible with Christianity.

utu has his own well-developed opinions and good for him.

Well put.

Tolkien’s Christianity is the most obvious thing ever. His world is clearly the Christian world. Of course, it wouldn’t be expressed in something so stupid as hobbits worshipping in a church.

BTW, who says that Lewis is boring?

OK so having thought about it a bit:

You make them sound like hedonists.

I don’t know where you get that they are agnostic or atheistic. I don’t recall that at all.

As for church or priests, true they have none, but do the elves or the dwarves or humans have any either? I can’t remember any. They basically don’t exist in middle earth. Religion in general does not exist in the sense that the gods of the ME are presented as objective fact (mostly in the Silmarilion).

Tolkien did not present hobbits as living the ideal life but rather an idyllic life. There is a difference. If there are ideal characters presented by Tolkien it would be the elves or the men of numenor (Aragon, Beren). The shire is modeled on the Midlands of England. It is a bucolic, rural, agrarian lifestyle. Hobbits are above all meek, simple minded, parochial, habitual and incurious. They factor into the story of LOTR precisely because they are so unlikely to factor in the story, their small mindedness and timid meekness make them more resistant to the corruption of power.

I wouldn’t say Tolkien amounts to an ‘authentic form of Christianity’, he was trying to create a myth not be a denomination. But he definitely did draw from Christian sources as well as celtic and germanic pagan sources for his mythical elements. It’s most evident in the Silmarillion. Middle Earth has a creation account with a mono-god Eru, that is directly inspired by Medieval Christian cosmology (IE Music of the Spheres). Morgoth is Lucifer, a fallen angel. All the other semi-divine like gods, the Valar / Ainur / Maiar and such, are angels of Eru. The balrogs are fallen angels (demons).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eru_Il%C3%BAvatar#Eru_Il%C3%BAvatar

If you read Tolkien’s letters, I think he makes it fairly clear that he was not trying to create a religion at all but a mythology, he wasn’t trying to make it a form of Christianity but saw a myth as something different. But also, that he wanted it to be compatible in it’s philosophical and moral views (it’s theodicy) with Christianity and an argument for it. His view of evil takes a very deep role in the story and is consistent throughout all his writings, it’s a very Calvinistic view of evil that sees the root of all evil motives as starting with the motive to do good, but with imperfection caused by pride causing a creature try to do what it cannot correctly do, exceeding one’s station, rising above one’s place. A good motive, combined with a lack of wisdom and ability, produces an imperfect result, the flaws in which are the seed of evil.

Hobbits know their place. They don’t try to be anything greater. They are not presented as perfect or ideal by any means. The story says they used to be different in the past and will have to change again in the future, which they do somewhat at the end of LOTR. But they have a place in the story as they are because they are harder to corrupt through the desire to fix things and do great things, their nature at the time of LOTR is they just want to be home in time for tea and haven’t a stomach for anything frightening. Creatures of simple habit. Their lack of desire to fix what’s broken in the world doesn’t make them ideal just harder to corrupt with power.

Gerard desperately avoiding a ban?

AK: Banning all his nicks is tiring. I don’t bother until he gets to breaking the rules I’ve established for him.

Clarifications? Think about actors and what Faustian bargains for success they are willing to make? Think about acting schools that use all kinds of tools from esoteric knowledge, occult and to what extent actors must be willing to open their psyche by their teachers, coaches, directors who are their cult figures. All that comes with the negative baggage of power trips and manipulations, seductions and domination. Why Scientology is so prominent in Hollywood? And the directors are puppet theater masters. Except that the puppets have flesh, bones and souls. Though in case of actors those souls are usually already sold. The directors must unscrupulously use and coordinate large groups of people just for one purpose which is their ego, their vision and the financial success of the financial and ideological backers behind the project. They are not like common folks. And yes, they have more in common with secret police handlers.

I did not use the term conspiracy but some of their projects take a lot of conspiring. The scope maybe far reaching beyond the understanding of individual participants.

Re: Key points of the novel are unlikely to be found in the Witcher or Tolkien’s Trilogy

And that’s why Poland is producing both serious writers like the recent Nobelist
Olga Tokarczuk whose 950+page novel The Books of Jacob will finally be published
in English this coming spring, and popular genre writers like Andrzej Sapkowski
who will definitely not win the Nobel Prize anytime soon. Larger countries can
produce great poets, great novelists, and great fantasy writers all at once.

“I think its basically that reading fiction does appear to be a form of hypnosis, and storytelling is one of the best ways to “bypassâ€� the normal skepticism that individuals(even children) have…” – Exactly. And film is more powerful. Lenin knew that film was the most important of the arts. You can reach the illiterate. Then there is the manipulative power of music that can turn any most banal image into something seemingly profound. The French got it right by calling the film show séance de cinéma. In English seance has only one meaning: “a meeting at which people attempt to make contact with the dead, especially through the agency of a medium.” A child is totally vulnerable and powerless when exposed to it. The lights go off, music begins to play and a child opens her mouth or bites her lip and stops her breath in anticipation. And the seance begins. We are all children wanting to relive the intensity of such experience.

I haven’t read anything by Tokarczuk and most likely I won’t though I would be curious how did she utilize the history the Sabbatean Jacob Frank in the globo-homo philosemic anti-Catholic and anti-Polish agitprop. Tokarczuk is a product of the Forces of Progress who cast their Eye of Sauron on Poland. Poor Poland that some Poles rejoice the tools that are there to bring their destruction.

Sailing into New York Harbor, Sigmund Freud stood on the deck with Carl Jung and gazed out at the statue illuminating the world. Their arrival was a much-anticipated event for American psychologists so very curious of what this new theory of the psyche could expose. Whether out of hubris or prescience—and are they not often one and the same?—Freud turned to his disciple and whispered, “They don’t realize we’re bringing them the plague.�

Think about actors and what Faustian bargains for success they are willing to make?

We are all children wanting to relive the intensity of such experience.

Well, I don’t think that you can have it both ways? Embracing fantasy literature etc; (or even music as you indicate) as a simple diversion is one thing that might lead to an innocent childlike experience, but to make a contract with the Devil himself (Faustian bargain) is quite another. I think that you’re perhaps conflating two things here. It seems to me to be a matter of degree? Certainly you can see a difference between reading one of Tolkien’s or Lewis’s fantasy novels and getting some good moral direction from within and on the other hand belonging to some sort of an occult group where the practitioners/adepts give up their free will to some sort of charismatic mind control freak?

Yes, obviously it is a multifaceted thing but in general their weakness seems to the Catholic universalism.

The burden of proof is on anti-Catholic nationalists to prove this sort of assertion.

I admit that E. Michael Jones has, unfortunately, a big weakness in this area. He claims, rather obtusely, that language is the only component of ethnicity. This is not the teaching of the Catholic Church – quite the contrary. Among others, the 9th and 10th century Benedictine, Regino of Pruem, wrote ably of how ethnicity consists of language, race, customs, and legal traditions.

Jones’s stance has helped foster the false idea that traditional Catholicism is universalist in the sense of being anti-nationalist.

Unfortunately, there are very few Catholics besides Jones who have any kind of interaction with the online real right wing. Jones does have a superb memory for Christian history, so his work is valuable, particularly the books on the Jews.

This Catholic blogger, going by the name of Karl Nemmersdorf, wrote an excellent response to Jones and helps set the record straight on Catholicism and nationalism: https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2019/12/10/ethnos-needs-logos-and-genos/

In any case, Codreanu was right: the Jew swims in the sea of our sins. Good luck trying to get rid of your sins, and correct their effects, without the sacraments. Seriously, best wishes.

Isn’t Kaedwen the closest equivalent in the Witcher verse to Russia: big, cold and located in the North-East?

Kaedwen (from Elder Speech Caedwen translated as White Forest) is the largest of the Northern Kingdoms (and the second largest country in the Continent, next to Nilfgaard). Its main cities are its capital, Ard Carraigh, and the city of Ban Ard, famous for its sorcery school. Known for its cold and unforgiving climate, along with the many forests within its borders.

Obviously, the Ukrainians and Belarusians in Poland blend in visually but at about 5% of the total population they are now at a danger point – too large to assimilate. In the 1930s Poland, as a smaller version of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was 15% Ukrainian and 10% Jewish – both numbers too large to have produced high levels of assimilation.

Very different circumstances. 1930s Poland included Ukrainian ethnic territory that Poland had conquered. Those people wouldn’t assimilate and, indeed, many became murderously anti-Polish in response to being within Poland’s borders.

Modern settlers* are scattered in Poland (or clustered in largely Polish areas) and have no claims on these lands. They intermarry with Poles and have Polish children.

*Of course, most of the 5% Ukrainians in Poland are not settlers but temporary workers who stay for 6 months and go back. These do not assimilate.

It’s never a swarthy Turk, Moor, Tatar or Arab whos passing through with a trading caravan
It’s always some bloke who looks like he just got out of the Congo who’s always lived there

Type 1 are the only real Slavic nations

Sooo Russia, Poland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Czechia and Croatia?

The elevation of Africans over American blacks, and UK blacks over American blacks is an interesting phenomenon. I don’t know whether it is political or economic, though I suspect it might be a touch of both.

I guess Africans probably have more signaling value because they are purer blacks and often have very strange names to stroke the ego of the xenophile.

Of course, I’m very familiar with the passage about Freud and Jung you quoted.

I myself have no intention of reading anything by Tokarczuk (although I have friends
who will give me their book reports). I’m very familiar with all her biases (e.g., she
is anti-Sienkiewicz whereas The Witcher can be understood as essentially the plot
structure by Sienkiewicz combined with the dialogue by Chandler’s Marlowe), and
I don’t find her intellectually very interesting either. However, watching her videos
is very rewarding. It’s rare to see someone display such a command of the Polish
language in speech on practically any topic.

It’s so normal it’s practically expected of writers to be critical of their own country.
We all know about the horrors of Dickensian England. Tokarczuk sometimes
criticizes Poland from the point of view of the Ukrainian minority. That’s
understandable – she has some Ukrainian ancestry. CzesÅ‚aw MiÅ‚osz, another
Nobelist, was occasionally critical of Poland from the point of view of the
Lithuanian minority. Again, he was part Lithuanian. Witold Gombrowicz,
Nobel Prize candidate who died too soon, criticized the Polish nobility in
Ferdydurke and many other works. He was descended from the nobility himself
but being gay, there was no pleasing him – he could never be happy.
For me it’s in one ear out the other. Poland has such a long, rich, and vibrant
literary tradition that I have the privilege to keep what I like and disregard
the rest.

By the way, I encourage everyone to watch a couple of long interviews with
Sapkowski. What a character! He seems like Sienkiewicz’s Zagloba
.- a combination of Odysseus (Ulysses) and Shakespeare’s Falstaff –
reincarnated before our very eyes.

Type 1 are the only real Slavic nations

Sooo Russia, Poland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Czechia and Croatia?

Remove Croatia from the list and add Slovakia.

There’s also possibly a case to be made that Poles are just Catholic Russians from over 1100+ years ago while Bulgarians are just Tatar-Mongol Serbs from over 1300+ years ago. I’m not claiming this is the case since I haven’t definitively made up my mind on this yet, but it seems plausible.

True. I would have included these points if I had more space.
I was being very concise.

Christ is all, and in all. Colossians 3:11

That, in a nutshell, is the gospel that Jesus preached.

That is true spirituality.

Poland’s beloved national icon, the Black Madonna:

The original inspiration (Isis and Horus, from Ancient Egypt):

I don’t know where you get that they are agnostic or atheistic. I don’t recall that at all.

Hobbits don’t know anything about God. They just don’t care.

As for church or priests, true they have none, but do the elves or the dwarves or humans have any either? I can’t remember any. They basically don’t exist in middle earth.

On Numenor there were some temples of the God Eru. But in General, Yes – middle-earth is a world without a real religion. That is not a Christian fantasy at all

Religion in general does not exist in the sense that the gods of the ME are presented as objective fact (mostly in the Silmarilion).

That’s not the point. Christianity requires a sincere adoration of god. The Christian must not only recognize the existence of god , but he must adore god with all his heart. Elves, people, dwarves in middle-earth believe in god / gods roughly so as modern people believe in existence stars. At best, it is something like the religion of ancient Greece. But definitely not Christianity

Tolkien did not present hobbits as living the ideal life but rather an idyllic life. There is a difference. If there are ideal characters presented by Tolkien it would be the elves or the men of numenor (Aragon, Beren).

These proud warriors are even less Christian than hobbits. They live (if they can) at their own pleasure without thinking at all about god. The core of their life is honor, sometimes love (for beautiful princesses, but not for god).

That is, Tolkien honestly tried to create something Christian / Catholic, but completely failed.

Even the head of the SS, Himmler, was part black, as proven by this photo of him:

He looks like Japan’s part black Emperor Hirohito:

Saddam Hussein, OTOH, was probably a Mexican:

As I pointed out before in a number of posts, I see writers like Tolkien,
George R.R. Martin, and Sapkowski as attempting to correct the
imbalance in our view of divinity. Christianity, and other monotheistic
religions have overemphasized the transcendent dimensions of
divinity so what needs to be done is to bring back the immanent
dimension of divinity, which paganism, in purified form, can
indeed provide.

In Central and Eastern Europe the Enlightenment Project that
provides the philosophical foundation for science and technology
fortunately had not gone as far as it did in Western Europe. The
essence of the Enlightenment Project was not just the overemphasis
on reason (which, irony of ironies, has produced nuclear weapons
and two World Wars!) but primarily the de-enchantment of the world,
i.e., ridding the world of its animistic, magical properties (will,
emotion, and intelligence) so the world could be reduced in the
Mechanistic Paradigm to dead particles in motion. This project was
immensely successful – Newtonian Physics became the queen of the
sciences and many superstitious fears were eliminated, for example
witch trials came to an end in the 18th century. The price we have paid
is that rivers, mountains, forests, and animals were no longer seen
as enchanted, that is no longer possessing indwelling spirits or at least
protected by spiritual forces. As a result, nature was left open to human
exploitation and degradation, with us as the predators in chief. This
is what the re-enchantment of the world (i.e., the concept of indwelling
divinity) will try to correct if given a chance.

As I implied, the Slavo-Baltic cultures have not yet lost the sense of the
sacredness of nature so they can show the West what it had lost.
This is, I think, why Sapkowski’s vision of the world is so immensely
popular, and why it can help in the process of the re-sacralization of the
world, without hopefully scaring the kids too much with witches,
monsters, and demons. That’s the writer’s privilege – he has to make things
interesting.

To be continued

LOL, so according to you this story told by Jesus wasn’t a Christian one because it was about a lord and his servants, without God being explicitly mentioned:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_talents_or_minas

But in General, Yes – middle-earth is a world without a real religion. That is not a Christian fantasy at all

The story is a religious one and parallel to the Christian one. Tolkien’s story doesn’t need to have a real religion depicted in it, because the story itself is Christianity and Catholicism.

One can easily find sources discussing this:

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/blog/the-lord-of-the-rings-may-be-more-catholic-than-you-realized

(cont.)

Polish critics have analyzed the Witcher world in detail, and have shown
that Geralt of Rivia has many Polish traits (or, more broadly, Slavic traits).
It’s not just his world-weariness, or the Central European landscapes
used in the games or that the plot structure follows Sienkiewicz in many
cases. It’s something even more specific.

For example, in the fourth act of the first Witcher game, Geralt comes across
Lady Midday wandering in the fields. This creature is actually a young woman
who refuses to accept her own death. Geralt needs to help her realize that
she is dead but he has little time – Lady Midday needs to be gone by night.
He turns to his friend, the bard Dandelion, for help. The bard protests that
he may not have enough time to put together something coherent that will
do the trick but finally begins to recite a text so beautiful, coherent, and perfect
for the occasion that the listener might wonder what the difficulty was in the first
place. Well, Dandelion has cheated, which only a Polish player will recognize – he
simply started reciting a famous poem The Ghost (Upiór) by Adam Mickiewicz
– Poland’s national bard.

There are many such borrowings from Polish literature in the Witcher world.
For more examples I recommend the article (in English) “How the Witcher plays
with Polish Romanticism� by Paweł Schreiber at culture.pl

Granted, the example of someone who clings to this world and refuses to accept
her own death is rather extreme but hey the Witcher world is a fantasy so almost
anything goes but there are more benign examples of what happens when we
accept the re-enchantment of the world, and we don’t need to resort to psychedelic
experiences. Anyone who meditates long enough, meaning a number of years,
will see his world transformed. The world will appear more three-dimensional
to the point that people will look like moving sculptures, the colors will be more
intense, even simple food will taste sensational sometimes, sex will be out of
this world, and few things will be as beautiful as bare tree branches as nature
begins to reawaken in early March. I speak from experience. You will feel like
you are experiencing memories of Paradise, something you once knew but
then lost to your eternal chagrin. That’s why Plato says that all true knowledge
is recollection.

I do not think there is a contradiction. The pretense of innocent childlike experience is just posturing, an oxymoron because there is no innocence which neither can’t be regained nor is desirable. Just like AaronB’s interjection about l’art pour l’art this is just false pretense and bad faith which btw sums up AaronB pretty well.

The story is a religious one and parallel to the Christian one. Tolkien’s story doesn’t need to have a real religion depicted in it, because the story itself is Christianity and Catholicism

It “натÑ�гивание Ñ�овы на глобуÑ�”. With equal success, you can say that the “Witcher” is very Christian / Catholic (the main character came to the defense of a just cause, was killed by an evil crowd, then resurrected – I think it is clear what associations are here)

But the reality is that Christian fantasy practically does not exist. The Lord of the rings is not a Christian book, the Witcher (or a Song of Ice and Fire) is an anti-Christian book.

…products like The Witcher or Tolkien’s Trilogy or Game of Thrones or Harry Potter.

One of these is not like the other.

P.S. Why is it that people who obviously don’t read are the ones the most adamant and puritan about reading only “quality” literature? Is it a psychological complex to rationalize why they don’t read? (That is to say, “I only read good books, which means no books at all”.)

A child is totally vulnerable and powerless when exposed to it.

Not really. At least my kids are picky and will immediately ignore the film if they find the message or presentation objectionable.

But in General, Yes – middle-earth is a world without a real religion. That is not a Christian fantasy at all

Middle Earth is a world before Christ. So obviously there can be no ‘religion’ in it, from a Christian point of view. (Christians don’t believe in ‘religions’ anyways, the concept of ‘religions’ as a lifestyle choice is a modern American abomination.)

Christianity requires a sincere adoration of god.

First of all, it’s ‘God’, with a capital ‘G’. Secondly, you’re confusing Christianity with something else. Christianity requires faith in Christ, not ‘adoration of god’, whatever that means.

Secondly, you’re confusing Christianity with something else. Christianity requires faith in Christ, not ‘adoration of god’, whatever that means.

Oh really?

“And Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. ”

Probably this guy, too, have confused Christianity with something else.

First of all, it’s ‘God’, with a capital ‘G’

So the Gods – Zeus and Poseidon?

What they find objectionable in life is taught to them by the movies (and other pop culture outlets) in the first place. They will not object to miscegenation propaganda, homosexual propaganda, etc because that is what they have been brought up with.

Mother holding child, so original

Russia Serbia Slovakia
RSS

Also, Cowboy Bebop is better than some Netflix show meant to westernize colored kids, and colorize western kids.

Also, Cowboy Bebop is better than some Netflix show meant to westernize colored kids, and colorize western kids.

Probably lol

Slovak just means “Slav”, same case in Slovenia, can’t really call them unique especially when they have the “reeee we’re not themâ€� with Czechia

Remove Croatia from the list

I’d rather pretend they are separate from Serbs, as it would otherwise mean Serbs made the only concentration camp for children in history

Poles are just Catholic Russians from over 1100+ years ago while Bulgarians are just Tatar-Mongol Serbs from over 1300+ years

Well we are all Sarmatians from 2000 years ago but you have to draw the line somewhere and 1000 years it plenty far
Bulgars have their own distinct language, Orthodox Church and have an obvious difference in appearance
Poles have a VERY distinct language from Russian and are Catholic, with a long tradition of existing as a separate state

Well the ones that aren’t cucked seem to have a tendency of returning to Russia

In my opinion, the Witcher is one of the most overrated books in the world. I would rate the entire series about the “Witcher” at 4 out of 10.
“Lord of the rings” – 9 out of 10. From the Polish fiction/fantasy known to me, “Pharaoh” by Boleslav Prus and” Eden ” by Stanislav Lem is also 9 out of 10.

“And Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. �

A ‘commandment’ is something required by God from human beings because they are human beings, not something related to ‘religion’ per se. That is to say, this commandment applies equally to everyone, regardless of faith.

So the Gods – Zeus and Poseidon?

Learn the difference between ‘god’ and ‘God’, this is very basic stuff.

The diverse casting doesn’t particularly bother me. This is not a fantasy based on planet Earth where there was minimal contact between Europe and Africa prior to modern times. The planet here has humans who arrived en masse from elsewhere during the Conjunction of the Spheres 2,000 years before the start of Geralt’s story. So it’s not a stretch to assume a variety of groups arrived from who knows where and were rapidly mixed up.

Learn the difference between ‘god’ and ‘God’, this is very basic stuff.

Yes, of course. In the USSR, it was supposed (according to the rules) to write “Communist Party”, but at the same time ” Republican party of the USA”. To make everyone aware of the very basic stuff -difference between ‘party’ and’ Party’.

But I’m not a Christian, and I’m not a Communist, so I don’t need to do these Orwellian tricks .

Well, we can believe Tolkien himself who insisted it was a Christian book, or we can believe a random internet anon..Tolkien even timed the Ring’s destruction to Christian dates.

Its a problem, agreed Poz is making its way here full stop

I agree we are very bad at this…our weakness is that USSR drilled multiculturalism into our boomers heads since 1917

other problem is ukraine was always sort of multicultural in itself being full of russian minorites, poles, jews, hungarians, etc

gonna have to somehow redpill normies to make them snap out of it which is no easy task…and our extremely retarded elite always picks up the worst trends from the west(which is currently poz/globohomo)

Devoutly Christian societies tend to be cucked on the race issue. Racial awareness and Christian values don’t really go together very well.

Devoutly Christian societies are usually trad con, but that’s not the same as being racially aware.

Well, we can believe Tolkien himself who insisted it was a Christian book

This is not an argument, because not only Tolkien (who was a good man and a good writer) considered himself Christians, but also people who are, so to speak, the embodiment of anti-Christianity, often consider themselves Christians. For example, there are advocates of same-sex marriage who consider their activities to be the embodiment of the will of Christ. There are other examples. Therefore, in this case, self-esteem is not a criterion.

The conjunction of the spheres brought in monsters, not West Africans. Neither the book or the game added in blacks living in what was very clearly a medieval European setting, this is in your face blackwashing of the worst kind.

This is not an argument, because not only Tolkien (who was a good man and a good writer) considered himself Christians, but also people who are, so to speak, the embodiment of anti-Christianity, often consider themselves Christians.

Tolkien considered his book to be a Christian book. Which it is:

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/art/20-ways-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-both-christian-and-catholic.html

And of course, just because anti-Christians are wrong does not mean that Tolkien, a Christian, is wrong.

“Racial awareness” is irrelevant in Christian societies because they are healthy and have no thought for such things. Just as a man whose leg is fine does not think about his leg but when it is injured he does so.

Christian Europe wasn’t focused on “racial awareness”, it just naturally spread its culture and people around half the world. Post-Christian Europe, in its sickness, is in retreat everywhere, and has “racial awareness,” racism, etc.

Stupid contradictory garbage. If you believe in your colour blind kumbaya, then the near endless hordes of third worlders that are Christian can also counted as European when they enter and thus there is obviously no sickness to worry about.

When writing LOTR, Tolkien borrowed very extensively from Norse (i.e. Scandinavian) mythology. As so many Christians in Europe, he took from the deep roots of his own culture (Danelaw was a historical fact, after all) and shoe-horned in a thin Christian outer layer to satisfy his own religious biases. Without the Norse mythological superstructure, that would have been no LOTR.

Nationalism and racism are anachronistic forms of governance. We need to move past that and increase selection based on character and emotional profile.

It is understandable why you wouldn’t want that. After all, humanists of all backgrounds very easily co-operate with each other whereas racists and bigots hate each others guts. Learn to co-operate with others.

Considering that it has been renewed for two more seasons will the diversity go up now that people are going to watch it? Netflix does have a knack at ruining shows with follow up seasons so maybe.

The Medici, first season showed a Moor among Venetian nobles and another in a Roman crowd. Second season, no Africans at all. They didn’t even racebend the white slave (likely Eastern European) mother of Cosimo Medici’s bastard son. There were also gays in the very first episode (nothing unusual for Renaissance Italy, lol), who disappear entirely for the rest of the series. Looks like the Italian creators quickly threw together the obligatory “party’s task” of SJW stuff, then went on to do what they love – sword fights, boy-girl romances of beautiful people who look nothing like the historical Medicis, and ridiculous cheesy plots.

The sickness is in the Europeans, not in the healthy Christian third-worlders who are replacing the sick.

This “content of character” nonsense is not a new thing, look at early European settlements that race mixed with the natives and see how that turned out in the end compared to those that didn’t. Or look at brown messes such as India that had race mixing for thousands of years, nothing good comes out of miscegenation.

I am sure that the hundreds of millions of Sub Saharans, that will soon overwhelm the world, is full of wonderful content of character people. How you can sincerely believe that such a world will be a better place is however ridiculous.

News: Hollywood is preparing for the film adaptation of Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago

You have it backwards – the morality and essence of Tolkien’s story is Christian, the pagan elements (no matter how fascinating and detailed) are the window dressing. Mercy, ideas of good and evil etc. are pure Christianity.

We should not forget that Tolkien was an expert in Norse mythology. He had to be, given its tight links with ancient English history. You cannot possibly claim that one can divorce the lore from its moral consciousness. Stories and mythologies develop within a certain spiritual framework. If you base your tales on the same foundation, you cannot help but assimilate the same spiritual world view. What a profoundly mechanistic and materialistic world view you suddenly acquire when it suits your interests.

Tolkien was a pagan man in denial. Catholicism was his petit bourgeois way to rebel against the dominant Christian strain of his social class, an intermediate path for those who did not dare go all the way.

nothing good comes out of miscegenation

We are all the offspring of those who mixed with others. Before there were Swedes, there were östgötar, västgötar, gotlänningar and skåningar. There were Samer, lapplänningar and norrlänningar.

What are the English of today if not the offspring of many different groups of peoples? The Angles, Saxons, Celts and many others. Ethnogenesis is a natural part of life. I would even claim that (white) American is an ethnicity in of itself.

American whites have become their own people, where the dominant identity marker is no longer, Irish, Italian or whatnot. These are curiosities, driven by your last name and sentimentality rather than meaningful and deep identities for most white Americans. Whether they accept it or not, they have become their own distinct people. Raging against ethnogensis is like raging against rain. It is futile and you will only waste your breath.

I am sure that the hundreds of millions of Sub Saharans, that will soon overwhelm the world, is full of wonderful content of character people. How you can sincerely believe that such a world will be a better place

I have never claimed the world will be a better place because of africans, I have claimed that most of humanity’s survival is something I am deeply agnostic about, regardless of their race.

So you’re spreading make-believe claims now? No one else but you stated:

We are all children wanting to relive the intensity of such experience.

Sounds to me like a pretty strong endorsement of “desiring” this innocent, childlike experience, through the auspices of fantasy literature, etc;?

It is kind of an interesting question what would happen if you took a bunch of blacks in similar local proportions and set them down somewhere in Europe in about 1000 AD.

Would it cause Europe to go crazy, with a medieval multicultism? Would they rapidly die off due to rickets or Northern diseases? Would they not be functional self-reproducing economic units because of lack of monogamy? I.e. would their kids die off, due to lack of paternal support? Would the criminal tendencies be genetically reduced, due to harsh punishments? Would they simply be out-competed on the serf-level? Would they become smarter and more like Europeans, or become like gypsies?

So are all Christians today also pagans because they’ve incorporated pagan symbols from the past into their current worship practices? What a sterile environment it would be without the Christmas tree or a beautiful pysanka offered at Easter time? Even the burning of incense within Christian churches was first practiced in ancient Egypt and Rome. Even Platonic thought was succesfully incorporated into the Christian world view. I’m no expert on Tolkien’s Christian basis for writing his fantasy literature, but everything I’ve read here (including your own worthwhile comments) seem to indicate that Tolkien was just another Christian who borrowed carefully from the past in order to augment the future.

Complexity? Subtlety? Not in Netflix!Witcher. (Spoilers!)

They consistently simplified all the stories that they tried to adapt and made them as clear-cut as possible.

Let’s look at the very first episode (which actually also a best adaptation of the original story – Lesser Evil – in the series). They on purpose distanced Renfri from her bunch of thugs and downplayed her actual plan to draw out of Stregobor (and also missed the opportunity to show how Stregobor laughed off her threat, essentially dooming a lot of villagers to their deaths if not Geralt interference), they also made Geralt into social pariah from the very beginning instead making the villagers to hate him only after he massacred a bunch of people for no apparent (for the outside observer) reason. In the story Geralt was hosted by the village alderman for fuck sake, not in the fucking forest. They also did not spell out that Renfri had a writ of authority from a king, so Geralt essentially murdered a local senior official.
And it was the best adaptation in the season which mostly captured the idea of the original intact.

Last Wish for example was outright butchered. Local politics that lead to the Yennifer’s seclusion was thrown out in favor of ridiculous story arc in which Yennifer essentially mind-raped a whole lot of people and nobody even make a fuss about it. Evil fucking shit was put into the show as a piece of kinky scenery. I honestly was perplexed by that creative choice. Yennifer casually brainwashing Geralt (and few others previously) was quite enough to show her as not very nice and also really powerful, but they simply turned that shit up to eleven because fuck the subtlety and we need a lots of naked tits and asses for the episode.

Limits of Possibility (Dragon episode) was also cut into a primitive mess. They even didn’t bother to adapt Geralt explanation for why he is not killing dragons and missed the opportunity to contrast his approach to more radical enviromentalism of Yennifer’s colleague Dorregaray. Instead of all that we have a toilet jokes.

How Niflgaard was treated is discussed here again and again. But the gist is that again complexity was removed in favor of simplistic evil religious fanatics narrative.

Brotherhood of Sorcerers is also received dose of ‘fuck the subtlety’ treatment by making essentially prostituting a bunch of female wizards to the local kings. I had total WTF reaction to that. Yeah, dance scene was visually stunning but from the narrative standpoint it was a combination of high school prom and high class bordello. Mages in the book never had such kind of relationship with royalty, they were actually powerful and valuable advisers if not full blown grey cardinals.

And of course all this mess with turning students into eels and shit. What is subtlety? Nah, we need another dose of stupid evil and without any reason for it really. The only real reason for it is creation of fake drama by showing stakes of potential Yennifer failure but she is fucking protagonists, we know that she will not fail and you simply have no time to make the viewers to care about her fellow students. So this entire arc of Yennifer substory was superfluous at best. If they wanted to expand Yennifer backstory. there was much better ways to do so instead of what they actually did.

It’s called the “narcissism of small differences.� Far from a Slav specific thing.

Your “small difference” could be a wide chasm for many? It’s too bad that I’m no adept of Triunism. What a platform I would concoct, a Triunism based on real respect for the Ukrainian language, culture etc; not one based on a stale form of Russification. It’s too bad that I haven’t been able to find such a version here at this blog (or elsewhere). Really, isn’t it time to dismantle the sugar coated Blackshirted variety that has lost its “luster” a long time ago and come up with something fresh and inspiring?

Wow I am impressed with how clean Poland is…

Good on the poles!

very easily co-operate

There is a golden mean for cooperation. The ideal level is not “very easily”, since it does not address the free-rider problem. You yourself have alluded to the the economic problems regarding affordable family formation. One of the biggest of these is the free-rider problem. How will your “very easily cooperative” group reproduce with replacement TFR, in an environment of ever-increasing social parasitism?

It seems to me that the racists and “bigots” are your friends here, as they are trying to cooperate with you in order to address this important problem, but you are turning down this very useful cooperation. Perhaps, you are not as cooperative as you think?

whereas racists and bigots hate each others guts

I’m confused by what you say here. The “racist” West in the 1950s was notably more cooperative, on the street level. As a principled racist, I am perfectly willing to cooperate with other peoples and especially other racists, so long as it benefits and does not harm my group, which seems to be a sensible test.

There is an extreme difference between cooperating with other people and surrendering to them, or giving them infinite tribute.

BTW, I am still trying to pin you down with a label. I think humanist is too vague, and anyway aren’t you a trans-humanist? But I still think that would be inadequate. Would you reject the modifier of pan-Eurasianist? (specifying that it included Amerinds and Mestizos)

Increasing bathroom humor is a sign of the decline of civilization. You can see it in more and more movie trailers for animated kids’ films. These are films that have many man-hours put into their production, and these are jokes that would have previously been rejected, in the brainstorming process.

If I were forming some anti-globalist Okhrana, I would definitely send a few of my best agents to the black movie festival in Warsaw.

It is something obviously funded with outside money. Probably as a recruiting tool, for globalist NGOs.

BTW, I am still trying to pin you down with a label. I think humanist is too vague, and anyway aren’t you a trans-humanist? But I still think that would be inadequate. Would you reject the modifier of pan-Eurasianist? (specifying that it included Amerinds and Mestizos)

I thought we all agreed ?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Map_of_Danish_Settlements_in_India_%281620_-_1845%29.svg

The ideal level is not “very easily�, since it does not address the free-rider problem.

The free-rider problem is largely minimised in a group with strong coherency checks. Among liberals, this takes the form of outsized ideological/moral tests. In common parlance: SJWs. I can’t say I am a fan of the more ostentatious displays of this kind of deformed performance art, but it serves an utilitarian purpose. To weed off any non-believer.

I tend to veer towards free speech, especially for heretics, but I view SJW culture as one form of cultural adaption to the issue you raised. I’ll agree that it is far from ideal.

It seems to me that the racists and “bigots� are your friends here, as they are trying to cooperate with you in order to address this important problem, but you are turning down this very useful cooperation

How are they my friends? My friends are those with a strong ethical foundation. I see no purpose in categorising them by gender, religion or race. It is the least of my worries. I am ultimately not that pessimistic about humanity’s capacity to solve major issues. I am just skeptical that the ideal form of social organisation should be stuck in the 1800s. Time to move past that.

As a principled racist, I am perfectly willing to cooperate with other peoples and especially other racists, so long as it benefits and does not harm my group, which seems to be a sensible test.

Then you are an honorable person, but history is full of bloodsoaked conflict between various nationalists. Europe’s 20th century history is a perfect companion piece for this postulate. In this sense, you are the curiosity and the odd bird out. Liberals and humanists in particular are those driving humanity to greater progress. That has always been the case and always will be.

I am still trying to pin you down with a label

I don’t find it particularly useful to get bogged down in ideological pigeon-holing, either of myself or of others, because it typically prevents you from taking positions that you’re not “supposed” to take by assigning yourself to a particular camp or the other. Much better to take a fresh view of every single issue without prejudice or pre-conceived notions.

Labels just slows the conversation down.

Hobbits don’t know anything about God. They just don’t care.

Hobbits don’t know about or care about anything outside the Shire. True. So what? Like I said, that is not presented as the ideal way to be, it’s just the way hobbits are, and it’s used as a part of the story.

As for the hobbits, it’s not a rejection of the outside world or ideological view of the supremacy of the Shire or anything like that, it’s just ignorance and parochialism. They don’t know anything else and they are too timid and incurious to find out.

middle-earth is a world without a real religion. That is not a Christian fantasy at all

In Christian terms, Middle Earth is supposed to be in the time before the first coming of Christ. It’s effectively pre-religious. It’s set in a time that is close enough to the creation of the world that the affairs of God and his angels are just semi-recent history.

Christianity requires a sincere adoration of god. The Christian must not only recognize the existence of god , but he must adore god with all his heart. Elves, people, dwarves in middle-earth believe in god / gods roughly so as modern people believe in existence stars.

Elves are not flawless divine beings, they are corrupted by their presence in ME with Morgath’s corruption. Even outside of middle earth, they have free will and they can do evil. The Simaril gems in particular show how pride and the contagious effect of Morgath’s discord corrupt elves. Orcs were originally elves.

That being said, the elves are closer to the angels than humans are. The angels do in fact worship Eru, and the elves do somewhat as well, and as you mentioned the best traditions of the men of Numenor (men who are closest to elves and the angels) did as well.

This is actually a very deep, foundational plot element to ME. All of the creation of ME is worship of Eru, everything inspired by it is worship, people’s desire to create or do anything great is inspired by the original act of creation and is a form of worship. This is where it gets heavily inspired by medieval Catholic creation theology. Everything creative is derivative of the original creation, an homage if you will, and if harmonious a form of worship and participation in Eru’s project of creation. The Music of the Spheres.

Opposition to Morgath’s discord is also done out of love and fidelity toward Eru’s intent for his creation, to restore harmony.

As far as elves believing in the gods objectively as phenomena, like stars, what can you expect of them when they are living in a time when divine acts are phenomena, like stars? They personally interact with divine beings. Like I said, Middle Earth is pre-religious.

These proud warriors are even less Christian than hobbits. They live (if they can) at their own pleasure without thinking at all about god. The core of their life is honor, sometimes love (for beautiful princesses, but not for god).

That mis-characterization of the Numenor is as bad as your mis-characterization of hobbits as nihilistic hedonists. It seems like you based it on a cliff notes version or something. It would be more fitting for heroes in Beowulf or the Nibelungenlied or Ring of the Nibelung, and Tolkien certainly shares some creative inspiration with those sources. His version is entirely different though.

‘Our choice then,’ said Gimli, ‘is either to take the remaining boat and follow Frodo, or else to follow the Orcs on foot. There is little hope either way. We have already lost precious hours.’

‘Let me think!’ said Aragorn. ‘And now may I make a right choice and change the evil fate of this unhappy day!’ He stood silent for a moment. ‘I will follow the Orcs,’ he said at last. ‘I would have guided Frodo to Mordor and gone with him to the end; but if I seek him now in the wilderness, I must abandon the captives to torment and death. My heart speaks clearly at last: the fate of the Bearer is in my hands no longer. The Company has played its part. Yet we that remain cannot forsake our companions while we have strength left.’

Likewise you have Earendel who took the Silmaril to Valinor and was not killed for going there, because he went ‘for the sake of all men and elves’ and not for his own sake or his honor. They are not supposed to be perfect and they make mistakes, but their pride and honor if they live by it is their flaws, and what gets them into trouble. What made them heroic in ME myth was their altruism and self sacrifice. It was for the love of everything that Eru created which was the same as love of Eru.

Aragorn was living as an indigent ranger slaying monsters in obscurity to protect hobbits for his own pleasure? No.

Even when these guys are motivated by love of a princess like Beren (and angels and elves with romantic motives too), they have plenty of beautiful women throwing themselves at them and they remain faithful to the one they love. Aragorn shot down the beautiful princess of Rohan. In Tolkien’s writings, such romantic motives are always portrayed as true love in a binding of the souls together sense. It’s not portrayed as lust or for pleasure but as deep spiritual one-itis.

On AE’s blog, Thomm recently gave another tell when he mentioned the greater adjutant: an impressive but endangered bird with a seasonal range in India. I had never heard of it, even though I once took a class on birds.

BTW, I thought when he said, “You will have to consume the Greater Adjutant (in one sitting)” that it was a very odd construction, since it is an endangered bird. Possibly, an Indian expression? I shall put it to our resident Indians and Indian experts (crypto-Indians?)…

How many words and everything is missing the target. In Tolkien’s world, there is no love of God and no worship of God. In this world there is no humility, no mortification of the flesh, no asceticism.

As a result, it turns out that the Christian doctrine in his books is about the same as in the Old Edda or Kalevala. Of course Aragorn as a good king is ready to sacrifice himself for people and elves (but not for God!), of course he sleeps only with his elven beauty (a complete contrast to the Witcher). But a good king / warrior / lover= / = Christian.

In Tolkien’s world, there is no love of God and no worship of God.

It’s an accurate portrayal of a world before Christ.

In this world there is no humility, no mortification of the flesh, no asceticism.

What? Lol. Or maybe WTF.

Try reading the books, looks like you’re basing your post on skimming the movie. (?)

One of these is not like the other.

Which one?

So just be Sarmatians from 1500 years ago.

In Tolkien’s world, there is no love of God and no worship of God.

It’s an accurate portrayal of a world before Christ.

We can argue about the love of god before Christ (in the Christian view of history), but the veneration of god before Christ was carried out on a Grand scale (among the chosen people)

In this world there is no humility, no mortification of the flesh, no asceticism.

What? Lol. Or maybe WTF.

Well, give examples of mortification of the flesh, asceticism, humility in the Tolkien universe.

Or is the fact that Aragorn sleeps with an elven Princess only an example of asceticism for your?

Tolkien would have explicitly rejected that interpretation. Which doesn’t make it wrong, you can still read it that way, but that was definitely not the intent of the author and practically the polar opposite of what he was trying to do.

Evil according to Tolkien is not a thing unto itself, it’s a malfunctioning or mutation of the good, and in the beginning there is only good, and even evil descends from good. In his letters he specifically rejects any kind of gnosticism.

The way he wrote it he meant it was Morgath that wanted to be a Demiurge and Eru would not allow it.

Well, give examples of mortification of the flesh, asceticism, humility in the Tolkien universe.

Most obvious: Gandalf.

Also, Aragorn as Strider.

Tom Bombadil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bombadil

I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were, taken ‘a vow of poverty’, renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the questions of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless…

There is also plenty of the abject version, the elf that created the Silmarils and many others, including Saruman. And the role of the simple hobbits with their simple lives and simple concerns.

Well, give examples of mortification of the flesh, asceticism, humility in the Tolkien universe.

Wait, did you miss the entirety of books 4 and 6?? (It’s six books, by the way, not a ‘trilogy’.)

It’s hundreds of pages of nothing but mortification of the flesh and humility. It’s impossible to miss if you’ve actually read the books – it’s the most tedious parts of the novels, normal humans aren’t ready to handle so much mortification. (Maybe it’s easier for Catholics.)

…but the veneration of god before Christ was carried out on a Grand scale (among the chosen people)

You have an urban Mowgli’s conception of history, theology and civilization. They were the ‘chosen people’ because they had a covenant, not because they venerated God.

In fact, all ancient people venerated God, with varying degrees of success and correctness. Only one people had a covenant. In principle, ‘venerating God’ is rather pointless given mankind’s fall and lack of plans or capability to undo it. (Hence: Christ.)

Is “How many words” your way of saying TL;DR?

You don’t address what argument I made that in Tolkien’s view, which is consistent with a lot of medieval Catholic dogma, half the acts in the book constitute worship and love. The creation of the silmarils was an act of worship and love. One that got corrupted.

Galadriel wanting to destroy half the world with the power of the ring was rooted in worship and love, but twisted. And she had enough wisdom and humility to know it was twisted. She did not fear the ring she feared herself with the ring.

doctrine in his books is about the same as in the Old Edda or Kalevala

Have you ever read them? Hardly the same thing.

Aragorn would not sacrifice even 2 hobbits to do his duty and uphold his honor.

You also are evading the fact he (or anyone) cannot be a Christian pre-Christ.

Also why would you need to sacrifice yourself to preserve God? That’s ridiculous.

But I’m not a Christian, and I’m not a Communist, so I don’t need to do these Orwellian tricks .

Urban Mowgli strikes again, lol.

My friend, it’s not about “Orwellian tricks”. It’s the fact that European languages don’t differentiate between two quite different concepts. We need to use capitalization to make intent clear here.

(It’s easier in Chinese: 神 vs 上å¸�, for example.)

Start with baby steps: consider that ‘God’ is a proper noun, a name, while ‘god’ is an occupation.

Tom Bombadil sounds like a perfect Taoist in that excerpt.

Its good that Tolkein’s universe contains that sensibility.

The excerpt is not from the books themselves but from the wiki, which is quoting one of Tolkien’s letters discussing the character.

He also says:

Tom Bombadil is not an important person—to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a ‘comment.’ I mean, I do not really write like that: he is just an invention (who first appeared in The Oxford Magazine about 1933), and he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyse the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function.[18]

and

And even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally).[12]

So he was meant to be an inscrutable enigma, which he kind of is. In LOTR he has a very minor role, a larger role elsewhere in his own tale, but he is living a simple ascetic life in the woods with his wife (who is a fairy) and all the creatures of the forest and the trees, to whom he talks and they talk back.

The oddity of him is he as portrayed as one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful being in all of Middle Earth. And also one of the oldest, being called ancient even by the most ancient and eternal characters.

‘Fair lady!’ said Frodo again after a while. ‘Tell me, if my asking does not seem foolish, who is Tom Bombadil?’

‘He is,’ said Goldberry, staying her swift movements and smiling.

Frodo looked at her questioningly. ‘He is, as you have seen him,’ she said in answer to his look. ‘He is the Master of wood, water, and hill.’

‘Then all this strange land belongs to him?’

‘No indeed!’ she answered, and her smile faded. ‘That would indeed be a burden,’ she added in a low voice, as if to herself. ‘The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves. Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.’

He’s not all powerful; Sauron would have eventually destroyed him. It does suggest he is Vala, though, so Sauron’s capability must be waxed pretty ridiculous had he been allowed the Ring.

The elves claim that the Conjuction brought in humans, with is a non-subtle implication that “humans are monsters.”

The Witcher was always leftist, just kinda edgy and more nihilistic.

https://www.reddit.com/user/l_schmidt_hissrich/comments

Ah yes, the hot topic!

The discussions about race in the writers room, with the producers, and with Andrzej himself were long and varied. We talked about the history of the Conjunction of the Spheres (are all humans out in the ether the same color? Did the Conjunction drop certain races in certain areas?), we talked about the Continent being a huge place (are we to believe that people don’t migrate?), and we talked the most about how racism was presented in the books. Like all readers, we always came down on the side that racism in the books is represented by species-ism — humans vs. elves vs. dwarves vs. gnomes vs. halflings vs. monsters and so forth. It’s not about skin color at all. You don’t notice skin color when instead you’re looking at the shape of ears, or the size of torsos, or the length of teeth.

Furthermore, in the books, there are a few mentions of skin color, usually “pale” or “wind-chapped.” Andrzej very specifically didn’t add in many details of skin color, he told me himself. Readers generally make assumptions (typically, unless otherwise noted, believe characters to be the same color as themselves). That said, the general assumption is that everyone in The Witcher is the same color, which is why all the focus is on species.

Because it’s 2020, and because the real world is a very big and diverse place, we made a different assumption on the show. That people don’t pay attention to skin color — not because they’re all the same color, but because the bigger differences are about species, not skin. If you went to your local supermarket and there were people with horns and tails, do you really think you’d be paying attention to how much melanin is in their skin?

Maybe the answer is yes. Clearly, it is for some people! But it wasn’t for us, the writers and the producers.

Works for me.

You again have it backwards. The foundation was Christian, as others have explained very well here. The “pagan� elements were the decorations.