Omnipotent to get away from the whole Celtic thing, can you tell us which cultures (if any) are heavily drawn upon for the cultures in the game? People are getting too hung up on the fact that while the *geography* might be based on Scotland, that doesn't mean the *culture* has to be based on Celts.
For example, Yharnam's culture (ie fashion, naming conventions, etc.) is a mix of Germanic and British.
are you able to give us any hints of what similar combos might exist in the cities of Elden Ring's world?
Missed this earlier but:
As I've said before, GRRM and From like to pull from everywhere in terms of influence when world building. Bloodborne and Sekiro are kind of the odd ones out in this regard because the latter takes place in fictionalized Japan and the former takes place in a singular city and its surrounding areas, so it was a bit more easy for them to be singularly focused. Whereas there's a bit more freedom to explore when you're creating a globetrotting story like ASOIAF or a "world" like Dark Souls or Elden Ring. So I wouldn't say things are similarly cohesive here (which you can already get a glimpse of in the trailer, just compare the outfits and regalia of each character shown) because the scope is larger than that of those games. We'll get a bit more into why that is when I finish up my stuff with the lore post but I've yet to decide when I want to post that.
For naming conventions in particular, I don't know that there's a whole lot of intentional thematic or cultural overlap in that department. AFAIK it's done on a case by case basis.
and for reasons outlined both above and below (as well as the fact that I'm no well researched anthropologist or historian and have more of a casual passing interest) I'm not sure I can promise much of worth in that department as it would be more so picking stuff apart and trying to trace its lineage than anything overarching. Would probably be better to bother GRRM about it should he ever decide to talk about it. If I can dig through anything of particular interest and write something of worth about it I'll consider doing it in the future but it's not something I'm going to promise.
That's cool Omni thanks for the insight.
I personally think ASOIAF feels very influenced by our history and culture and not quite a bubble on it's own. GRRM seems like the type that would jump at the chance to share what inspires him like historic laws and tensions. Even the wall and the politics around it are a very obvious reference.
These are the kind of 'inspirations' I expected rather than a copy paste of a culture's mythos. I don't know anything about the rumours that have been circulating but from the posters impression it made it sound like Elden Ring will be completely removed from anything.
Also know nothing about the rumours other than the fake norse stuff before the announcement.
And to respond to this:
I'm not saying it's in its own bubble and that it's not inspired by our real world. I've said quite the opposite on a few occasions in this very thread.
What I am saying is that ASOIAF as a whole can't really be singularly attributed to any singular or handful of cultures, histories or fictional influences, because it pulls from everywhere, which is what helps make it feel diverse and unique. So to say that ASOIAF is heavily based on or inspired by Norse or Celtic/Gaelic mythology isn't really the case. There are singular parts of ASOIAF that are inspired by Norse and Celtic/Gaelic history and mythology for sure, but there are plenty of parts that aren't and the parts that are inspired by it are more light inspirations that have been hyperbolized to be more engaging in a fantasy world and or mixed with other things.
For example: The Greyjoy's and the Iron Islands and the Starks and the North. All of the above are clearly inspired by Nordic culture with the Greyjoy's and Iron Islands adopting more stereotypical Viking culture and the Stark's adopting what is more close to Germanic Paganism and bits of that mythology. But there's a lot more to both of these houses and their character in terms of inspiration and function within the universe, such the Greyjoy's worshiping a Lovecraftian god.
Then when you really think about it, despite both houses being large parts of the immediate story being told within ASOIAF, they're not huge parts of the world as a whole. So what seems like a "major influence" in context is actually fairly small, because influences and inspirations of similar importance are peppered all throughout the world of ASOIAF, like the Dothraki or places like Qarth. Yes GRRM will take influence from A, but he'll also take influence from B, C, H, Q, X, so on and so forth. So the end result feels like an actual world of its own rather than just wholesale lifting of elements from our real world. This is the point I was trying to get at.
As for the rumors. Basically what happened was 4chan, well known bastion of completely factual information, had a rumor circulating shortly after the original ER leak that claimed a number of things such as the game running on UE4 and having a class system, being open world, but one of them was that the game was based on Norse Mythology, and it was accompanied by an image of a Milwood Knight from DS3's Ashes of Ariandel DLC
For some reason, perhaps because there was an overlap in the 'open world' part (which is guesswork or piggybacking at best), or because of the idea that From introduces hints for their next game with NPC's that are usually out of place for the world that they inhabit, at least culturally. People picked up on that part and seem to have ignored the rest, aside from maybe the UE4 part and decided that it was factual because reasons. Then you have the broken telephone effect and confirmation bias kicking in with people repeating that false rumor over and over and over again until it became ""'"""fact"""""" in general consciousness. Because of people's general understanding of Norse Mythology seems to begin and end with pop culture like the MCU or God of War 2018, pale people with long blonde hair and a hammer are automatically Thor or at the very least Nordic and any female individual with a wing motif is a Valkyrie.
Then you have youtubers repeating that and amplifying it to larger audiences and games journalists picking it up because clickbait and you end up with the mess we have now. This of course wasn't the only rumor nor the only one to originate from 4chan (as there was an especially shitty one that should probably be left to history) and other low effort ones from Reddit but for some reason this is the only one that people latched on to.
www.resetera.com
