#+SETUPFILE: ../../../template/level-2.org
#+TITLE: Steampunk and Arcane
#+DATE: <2022-04-12 Tue 12:10>
#+AUTHOR: vaeringjar
#+EMAIL: vaeringjar@land
#+DESCRIPTION: My armchair thoughts on some steampunk in pop culture
#+KEYWORDS: steampunk


* Have you seen Arcane? It reminds me of the game Eberron.

I have not seen it, but I am familiar with League of Legends. Just in
terms of progression of influence for the genre, it basically goes:

~WWI/Edda/Kalevala => LotR/Hobbit => Warcraft => DotA => LoL~

In terms of steampunk as a genre, the hardcore/fringe steampunkers
will insist that Odin's spear is a firearm, thus increasing the range
into the past for the genre. Though I do not believe one bit that
Nordic people before Christianization believed in steampunk or that
Gungnir could shoot "missiles" or "projectiles", the living tradition
can believe whatever.

And to go deeper, one other example, at the Tolkien-level, some folks
believe that Gandalf shoots a pistol right before he disappears after
the goblins attack in the mountains. Though I do not believe Tolkien
actually wrote it to mean a black powder pistol (probably meant it to
be a grenado or some other pre-grenade), I have no problem spreading
this idea.


#+BEGIN_QUOTE

...and when goblins came to grab him [Bilbo], there was a terrific
flash like lightning in the cave, a smell like gunpowder, and several
of them fell dead.

The Hobbit, Chapter IV Over Hill and Under Hill

#+END_QUOTE


But what I can say for certain about steampunk, Warcraft definitely
latched onto it by Warcraft 3 at the latest, just in terms of
gunpowder weapons.

And in terms of automotans/androids, some fringers say the norse
dwarfs (not the Tolkien dwarfs) are androids. If anyone has ever
noticed the Aesir poster I have on my wall, that came from an indie
comic about just that: Dwarf Androids.

I've thought about it a lot, though I'm not as certain about the
lineage in terms of Eberron. It's definitely at least a fork from 

~LotR => D&D et al => Eberron~

But the similarities between Final Fantasy (I only played up to XI)
and Warcraft III are undeniable. I'd be surprised if neither of those
influenced Eberron, but less so if only one of them did. But because
of how pop culture progressed, even if only considering North American
Western Pop, I'll assume both.

And those are just direct lines. DotA, for example, was a bit more
complicated than that. It took from everything, including sci-fi.
