What a weird weekend at university

[Yora]

This weekend we had one of the weirdest but also funniest three-day seminar at university. We're all students of cultural studies dealing with the field of religion and this seminar was on Animals and Legendary Creatures.

Friday started with a random selection of terms to categorize such creatues. "Undead" didn't raise a single eyebrow and went to the blackboard without any pause by the instructor (or what do you call them in english?). But then someone mentioned the alignment system of D&D and got into a discussion with someone else about how that system really worked, they both were not so sure about the details. What suprised me was that it was two women, both I know have kids. The instructor went with it and put "RPG systems" on the blackboard as well.
Saturday I brought a german book on mythology and given the authors name, I assume she couldn't have been older than 30 at the most as well. I also brought the 3.5e Monster Manual, but we didn't end up using it. However, one woman did a short presentation on legendary horses and I was able to show that one of the pictures of the hippogriff was from the book I had with me. :smallbiggrin:
Today we had among other things a presentation about legendary creatures in Harry Potter. Because of this, the instructor skipped what he had prepared on Basilisks, because there wasn't that much new compared to what had already been said in the Harry Potter presentation. Later we were returning to the list from day one and I had to explain the alignment system in front of 16 people in an academic context. And everyone took it completely seriously. My main argument why it would not be useful for us was the several alignment threads in this forum every week, it simply isn't a system that holds well under closer analyzation. And when we came to the curse of the treasue of the dragons hoard passing on the Sigurd after he killed him and took his treasure, the instructor compared it with the ending of Diablo. :smallbiggrin:

I'm so glad I quit studying economics. :smallbiggrin:

[Adumbration]

Oh wow, that is so cool. I wish we had that kind of seminars here. :smallsmile: (Fat chance though, veterinary medicine is mostly serious business.)

[Calmness]

Diablo courses should be mandatory in college. :smallcool:

Later we were returning to the list from day one and I had to explain the alignment system in front of 16 people in an academic context. And everyone took it completely seriously. My main argument why it would not be useful for us was the several alignment threads in this forum every week, it simply isn't a system that holds well under closer analyzation.
Huh. That's pretty cool. You also saved the students from the pain of alignment discussions.

[mucat]

Saturday I brought a german book on mythology and given the authors name, I assume she couldn't have been older than 30 at the most as well.

Wait, now you've got me curious. Was there some radical change in German naming conventions around 1980?

[Traab]

Oh wow, that is so cool. I wish we had that kind of seminars here. :smallsmile: (Fat chance though, veterinary medicine is mostly serious business.)

Heh, at my last college we had course credits for bowling and wine making. You find some of the ODDEST things being taught at colleges. Trade school type setups like I assume your veterniary one are a lot more rigid since its not meant to cover the widest range of subjects possible.

[Yora]

Fat chance though, veterinary medicine is mostly serious business.
It's not that easy to explain it to outsiders, but talking about fictional creatures in populat culture is very serious business as well. :smallbiggrin:


Wait, now you've got me curious. Was there some radical change in German naming conventions around 1980?
Kind off. You will have a very hard time to find someone named "Janina" born before the 80s. Or "Kevin" born before the 90s. Or on the other side of the age spectrum, someone named "Rudolf" or "Elfriede" born after 1950. I don't know about other countries, but in Germany a huge number of names is limited to a very specific range of birth years, after which they practically disappear from birth records for several decades. There are some exceptions, but it holds true for most personal names.

[KuReshtin]

Kind off. You will have a very hard time to find someone named "Janina" born before the 80s. Or "Kevin" born before the 90s. Or on the other side of the age spectrum, someone named "Rudolf" or "Elfriede" born after 1950. I don't know about other countries, but in Germany a huge number of names is limited to a very specific range of birth years, after which they practically disappear from birth records for several decades. There are some exceptions, but it holds true for most personal names.

It is mostly true that some names are 'old-people-names', but you also see the return of a lot of older names as well. For instance, every time I see fellow forumite Asta Kask post, I somehow instinctively imagine him being a 85-90 year old woman, since the name Asta is a name that was pretty popular in the early parts of the 20th century in Sweden.

In the 70s, there were a lot of kids named Anna, Andreas, Linda and Henrik in Sweden. I think I had 2 Annas, 3 Lindas and 3 Andreas in my class when I went to school, and that was in a class of about 24-25.
Nowadays, there's an influx in 'old-style' names again, where kids get named the likes of Edvin, Axel, Albin, Gustav and Alfred for boys and Alice, Tilda, Moa, Elsa, Alva and Elin for girls.
I believe that a big reason for this is that new parents are likely to reuse the names of their grandparents when naming their children.

Some names, though, stay ageless and are popular whatever the generation. Like Carl, Emma, Oscar, Anna, Casper and Sofia.

[rakkoon]

There was a class on Science fiction at our uni but it was cancelled because everybody wanted to follow it. Your discussion sounds amazing, sorry I missed it.

Also, there are no people called C-O-O-N around here younger then 30 :smallsmile: I want a revival of this fantastic name!

[Yora]

Last semester I almost wrote a paper about Neon Genesis Evangelion. Now I'm once again seriously considering writing my bachelor thesis about Ghost in the Shell. If I can convince the professor to allow me to write with a movie as my primary source. (My theory doesn't work so well with the manga, but I wouldn't have a problem with writing about "populat literature".)

[Flickerdart]

Oh wow, that is so cool. I wish we had that kind of seminars here. :smallsmile: (Fat chance though, veterinary medicine is mostly serious business.)
I'm sure you could splice together some parts and make a handful of Magical Beasts. :smallbiggrin:

[Partof1]

I'm sure you could splice together some parts and make a handful of Magical Beasts. :smallbiggrin:

Such as the rhinoctopus or laser-giraffe. :smallbiggrin:

[Yora]

We could do that interdisciplinary, we had lots of mix-and-match critters on our list. :smallbiggrin:

[Eldan]

Switzerland seems to have the same thing with names. I know absolutely no one my age or younger with a Germanic name. Lots and lots of Latin (Fabian, Christian, ), Greek (Christoph, Philip(p), Lukas) and Hebrew (Gabriel, Raphael, Michael) names, one or two Irish ones (Kevin), but that's it.

[Yora]

Our current RPG group is just strange:
Martin, Christian, Andreas, Philip, and Florian.

You can't have names more ordinary than us. :smallbiggrin:

[KuReshtin]

My current (well, slightly on hiatus now) RPG group consists of.
Robert, Karl, Mikael, Kirsty, Christian, Matthew and Alf.

[snoopy13a]

Later we were returning to the list from day one and I had to explain the alignment system in front of 16 people in an academic context. And everyone took it completely seriously. My main argument why it would not be useful for us was the several alignment threads in this forum every week, it simply isn't a system that holds well under closer analyzation.

So philosophy and DnD, huh :smallsmile:

Actually, I think the DnD good/evil axis can work if one makes two assumptions:

1) The ends never justify the means (removing any "greater good" arguments)

2) Inaction is not evil (providing a solution for the "trolley problem")

Obviously, these are two fairly broad assumptions that many, if not most, people would not agree with. So it would not work in any "real life" setting where reasonable minds can differ. But in an artificial setting (such as DnD) where these assumptions can be deemed to be fact, I think a bright line between "good" and "evil" can be drawn.

On the other hand, I think the law/chaos axis doesn't work because no one can agree on what constitutes law and chaos.

[TheFallenOne]

heh, nice :smallbiggrin: which university are you at? Never had something like this in Heidelberg

well, there was the one time we translated latin texts from the early crusades in which the heathens were called worspippers of Baal. When asked who that might be, one guy went into the whole "god of murder" thing, which of course was less conducive so I had to subtly correct him :smalltongue:

[Yora]

So philosophy and DnD, huh :smallsmile:

Actually, I think the DnD good/evil axis can work if one makes two assumptions:

1) The ends never justify the means (removing any "greater good" arguments)

2) Inaction is not evil (providing a solution for the "trolley problem")
We debated it, but discarded it very soon. Almost all fictional creates are characterized by a great deal of ambiguity. There are some that can be defined as good or evil, but those are exceptions and if "other" is by far your largest group, it's a very strong indicator your categories don't work that well. :smallwink:

We also debated "helpful to humans" and "hostile to humans", which a lot of people liked, but I don't consider very helpful, because there are a number of creatures that want to be kind and help people, but cause even more damage in the proccess. Others do help people, but not out of kindness but for purely selfish reasons and often only because the humans find a loophole that saves them from being tricked.

My favorite distinction is "creating harmony" and "creating discord and suffering". Or in other words, is their appearance in a story a cause for the audience to be relieved or anxious? I didn't really understand why some didn't consider it a usefull distinction, but it was sunday evening and we were all not particularly at the height of our attention.