Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1066448Hey, now, asinine pedantry is the point of any hobby. Listen to firearms aficionados debating guns or oenophiles debating wine sometime.

Well, I learned a new word today.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1066454Well, I learned a new word today.

Become one and you can forget it by tomorrow.

I had a wendigo in one of my campaigns.  Savage Worlds Necessary Evil, owing to their own decisions the PCs wind up in a safehouse for supernatural creatures in Hawaii, there's demons, werewolves, vampires, Ra occasionally raids the fridge for orange juice "It really is like liquid sunlight!" and a big quiet white sasquatch that mostly sits in the corner.  One night it slowly let itself into a female PC's room, sat on the edge of the bed and said in a quiet, reasonable voice, "you can do it you know.  You can kill them all.  I can help you.  I can tell you how.  We both know you want to."  It then got up and left the room as quietly as it came.

Mythology is just garbled or mutilated real life stuff. Like Rocs were seeing ostriches and think they are chicks of a much larger bird. Giants from seeing dinosaur bones, or possibly strange tribes of people, like how the Lestriconi (a Celtic tribe) were turned into the Laestrygonians (cannibal giants). Or look at Ireland - the Fomorians, Firbolg, Tuatha de Danu were all just people, but turned into giants, monsters, and elves.

What D&D (and really Tolkien before) does is take those mythological creatures and turns them back into flesh & blood creatures, albeit fantastic or magical ones.

I notice you do not mention the Lovecraftian version of the Wendigo, connected to Ithaqua The Wind Walker... How do you feel about that "manifestation"?

Yeah, the first time I heard Wendigo used in an RPG was CoC and I played that in the early to mid nineties.
I reckon the "misappropriation" was caused by laziness, not malice.

It probably went something like this (feel free to use Beavis and Butthead voices)
"Wendigo" sounds like a cool name.
Let's use it for a monster!
But, like, what is it?
It's from the frozen North, some sort of terrible creature
Like Bigfoot?
I guess, but with bigger teeth.
Cool, let's stat it up and put it in our next game ...

And so the Wendigo passed out of Myth and into cyberspace

Quote from: spon;1066550Yeah, the first time I heard Wendigo used in an RPG was CoC and I played that in the early to mid nineties.
I reckon the "misappropriation" was caused by laziness, not malice.

It probably went something like this (feel free to use Beavis and Butthead voices)
"Wendigo" sounds like a cool name.
Let's use it for a monster!
But, like, what is it?
It's from the frozen North, some sort of terrible creature
Like Bigfoot?
I guess, but with bigger teeth.
Cool, let's stat it up and put it in our next game ...

And so the Wendigo passed out of Myth and into cyberspace

I don't recall the CoC Wendigo so I cant comment on that. But a few of things: there is no requirement to replicate the original myth. Taking a name, and a key trait or two is entirely viable, and often desirable in the horror genre. Two, ideas often grow in odd and new directions from the original. They also get combined with other things to make something new (you see this all the time with musical styles for example). Three, CoC was pre-internet. Anyone who had to write papers or tried to look up myths and legends prior to the internet understands it was a much more involved process than looking up 'wendigo' on a search engine. Expecting people writing at that time to have the same degree of automatic worldliness that people do now, isn't realistic. But again, that point only matters if the writers are aiming for authentic connection to the original myth (and most are not).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066553Anyone who had to write papers or tried to look up myths and legends prior to the internet understands it was a much more involved process than looking up 'wendigo' on a search engine.

In the 80s, Time-Life gave me The Enchanted World. If it was wrong, I had little else to go on back then.

Quote from: JeremyR;1066535Mythology is just garbled or mutilated real life stuff. Like Rocs were seeing ostriches and think they are chicks of a much larger bird. Giants from seeing dinosaur bones, or possibly strange tribes of people, like how the Lestriconi (a Celtic tribe) were turned into the Laestrygonians (cannibal giants). Or look at Ireland - the Fomorians, Firbolg, Tuatha de Danu were all just people, but turned into giants, monsters, and elves.

What D&D (and really Tolkien before) does is take those mythological creatures and turns them back into flesh & blood creatures, albeit fantastic or magical ones.

True. A critique I have specifically of D&D is that it engages in one true wayism in its depiction of monsters. Myth and folklore were highly diverse and often inconsistent, which I consider a feature. D&D strips away most of the interesting lore, if it doesn't just apply a familiar name to something wholly fabricated.

Take any D&D monster with a name from myth or folklore, compare it to the original, and this becomes obvious. Greek monsters like the Lamia and Minotaur are stripped of most of their original interesting features that could have been expanded on, like the lamiae being the ghosts of women who died of heartbreak and the Minotaur being a divine curse for the crimes of greed and impiety. The D&D troll has nothing in common with Scandinavian trolls, since it was based entirely on a single monster who appeared in all of one scene in a Poul Anderson story.

I get that Gygax and friends didn't have the best research materials, but continuing to mindlessly copy their work without awareness isn't a good thing in my opinion. There is so much more that can be done with the monsters. You can make mythology for them that isn't specific to any setting.

Quote from: shuddemell;1066539I notice you do not mention the Lovecraftian version of the Wendigo, connected to Ithaqua The Wind Walker... How do you feel about that "manifestation"?

To try vainly to halt the stream of accusations in my direction, I'm not Algonquin and I'm not really qualified to decide what is and isn't cultural appropriation. The absolute best I can do is criticize writers for getting the myth wrong and parroting the talking points of Algonquin writers who criticized the misappropriation.

Ithaqua is a weird meta-fictional case.

Within the fiction itself Ithaqua (as well as the creatures related to it) is never actually called a wendigo or similar, despite having numerous traits attributed to multiple different First Nations cannibal ice giant myths. It also seems influenced by Old Man Winter and similar personifications, with a Lovecraftian twist.

To further confuse the issue, within the fiction Ithaqua is stated to have inspired the wendigo myths (and presumably failing your SAN roll may cause you to develop wendigo psychosis, but I don't have the book with me to check). That is, wendigo don't actually exist in the mythos... last I checked, anyway.

Of course, the mythos in general often claims that most human religions misunderstand the truth at best. I've seen an article arguing that Jesus was the son of Cthulhu.

Quote from: spon;1066550Yeah, the first time I heard Wendigo used in an RPG was CoC and I played that in the early to mid nineties.
I reckon the "misappropriation" was caused by laziness, not malice.

It probably went something like this (feel free to use Beavis and Butthead voices)
"Wendigo" sounds like a cool name.
Let's use it for a monster!
But, like, what is it?
It's from the frozen North, some sort of terrible creature
Like Bigfoot?
I guess, but with bigger teeth.
Cool, let's stat it up and put it in our next game ...

And so the Wendigo passed out of Myth and into cyberspace

Correct. Most misappropriation is the result of laziness, not malice. I'm actually having difficulty imagining what a deliberately malicious portrayal would look like. Virtually every portrayal of the wendigo in popular culture has treated it as the vicious monster it is, even if everything else about the original myth has been stripped away.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066553I don't recall the CoC Wendigo so I cant comment on that. But a few of things: there is no requirement to replicate the original myth. Taking a name, and a key trait or two is entirely viable, and often desirable in the horror genre. Two, ideas often grow in odd and new directions from the original. They also get combined with other things to make something new (you see this all the time with musical styles for example). Three, CoC was pre-internet. Anyone who had to write papers or tried to look up myths and legends prior to the internet understands it was a much more involved process than looking up 'wendigo' on a search engine. Expecting people writing at that time to have the same degree of automatic worldliness that people do now, isn't realistic. But again, that point only matters if the writers are aiming for authentic connection to the original myth (and most are not).

Even so, wendigo still have some mitigating issues like 1) the surviving Algonquin people genuinely believe wendigo exist, 2) wendigo psychosis is a real condition specific to Algonquin culture that has resulted in a number of recorded deaths, and 3) wendigo psychosis has historically been used as a excuse for the genocide of the Algonquin people.

To use a recent example, Netflix is currently streaming a series called Ghoul which deals with Islamophobia in India. The protagonist is a woman of Muslim background who works as a government agent who investigates terrorist activities. Her colleagues distrust her because of her background despite her obvious and constant displays of loyalty. Etc. Then paranormal stuff happens involving a malicious genie from Arabic folklore called the ghoul. I highly recommend watching it.

That is the sort of treatment that the wendigo should get in media. First Nations peoples are still being treated horribly by the United States and Canada after centuries of genocide. I'd have to do more research to be sure, but I've come across mentions that in modern Algonquin culture the wendigo has come to be associated with the colonial powers due to their destructive greed. You could very well spin a horror series from that in a similar vein to Ghoul.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066558True. A critique I have specifically of D&D is that it engages in one true wayism in its depiction of monsters. Myth and folklore were highly diverse and often inconsistent, which I consider a feature. D&D strips away most of the interesting lore, if it doesn't just apply a familiar name to something wholly fabricated.

That is not One True Wayism. It's the exact opposite of that. It's saying "Here's some random shit, use it as you will." Jesus, you're the one advocating for One True Wayism here.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066553I don't recall the CoC Wendigo so I cant comment on that. But a few of things: there is no requirement to replicate the original myth. Taking a name, and a key trait or two is entirely viable, and often desirable in the horror genre. Two, ideas often grow in odd and new directions from the original. They also get combined with other things to make something new (you see this all the time with musical styles for example). Three, CoC was pre-internet. Anyone who had to write papers or tried to look up myths and legends prior to the internet understands it was a much more involved process than looking up 'wendigo' on a search engine. Expecting people writing at that time to have the same degree of automatic worldliness that people do now, isn't realistic. But again, that point only matters if the writers are aiming for authentic connection to the original myth (and most are not).

Also CoC setting itself makes any argument of "waaaaah muh authenticy!" totally pathetic as the whole premise is that the things people have called "insert god or monster here" are just named given to things that sometimes are barely related, or things that have different names in different cultures.

Ithaqua and the Gnoph'Keh both have been attributed to Wendigo and other horrors. You dont like it? Tough! These are implacable space gods who really could care less what a microbe thinks as long as it opens the gate to let them play in its fragile little petri dish.

I guess to appease Box we will need to rename all Wendigo to "the cannibalism challenged".

Quote from: Bruwulf;1066566That is not One True Wayism. It's the exact opposite of that. It's saying "Here's some random shit, use it as you will." Jesus, you're the one advocating for One True Wayism here.

Point taken. I'm trying to avoid doing that. I can't articulate myself as well as I would like.

The Greek myths are still being told and retold and expanded on today. Fantasy gaming sticks out to me because it doesn't do that: it takes isolated memes, strips away any context or meaning, and... doesn't do much with them.

For example: Minotaurs in D&D are bland and boring furries. There is so much more you could do with them.

Quote from: Omega;1066568I guess to appease Box we will need to rename all Wendigo to "the cannibalism challenged".

The article I linked on First Nations comparative mythology already calls this meme "ice cannibal."

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066558Even so, wendigo still have some mitigating issues like 1) the surviving Algonquin people genuinely believe wendigo exist, 2) wendigo psychosis is a real condition specific to Algonquin culture that has resulted in a number of recorded deaths, and 3) wendigo psychosis has historically been used as a excuse for the genocide of the Algonquin people.

To use a recent example, Netflix is currently streaming a series called Ghoul which deals with Islamophobia in India. The protagonist is a woman of Muslim background who works as a government agent who investigates terrorist activities. Her colleagues distrust her because of her background despite her obvious and constant displays of loyalty. Etc. Then paranormal stuff happens involving a malicious genie from Arabic folklore called the ghoul. I highly recommend watching it.

That is the sort of treatment that the wendigo should get in media. First Nations peoples are still being treated horribly by the United States and Canada after centuries of genocide. I'd have to do more research to be sure, but I've come across mentions that in modern Algonquin culture the wendigo has come to be associated with the colonial powers due to their destructive greed. You could very well spin a horror series from that in a similar vein to Ghoul.

I see these as two very separate issues. The treatment of native cultures is one thing, whether cultures should be able to control their mythology like it is copyrighted, quite another. I think this notion comes from a good place but is deeply misguided. Cultures connect by sharing, not by drawing lines in the sand. If you want people to understand the Algonquin, telling people the Wendigo is off limits unless they abide by certain rules, isn't going to promote deeper understanding. However people finding the Wendigo cool and interesting, will probably lead folks to learn more about them. I get this argument. I understand it. But I think it does more harm than good. And I think it is counter to the spirit of creativity and openness that humans should be striving for.

I just happened to be reading a graphic novel that reprints the two Wendigo issues of the Uncanny X-Men (139 and 140). They're very well done, even if the Wendigo of the story is a powerhouse. And so what? The Wendigo originally appeared in the Hulk, and they had a three-way brawl with Wolverine. So they made Wendy a bruiser who could go one-on-one with the Hulk, while being as cunning as Wolverine. That's not laziness or misappropriation, that's creating an appropriate opponent. And it does hint at the original myth, calling it a curse, which takes hold when someone eats human flesh in the great north. That gave the writers a hook.

Or what about Harpy? She's another Hulk-tier bruiser, which is even further from the original myths, but it happened because they wanted someone for the Hulk to beat on with wings. There's nothing wrong with that.

Now all the people who just copied Marvel's Wendigo, they are being lazy, and/or ignorant. There's a strong tendency in geek media, including RPGs as well as comics, to become too self-referential. Too many weapon lists are on earlier weapons lists in other RPGs, instead of getting a book by Oakeshott, and too many monsters based on other monsters in monster manuals, instead of digging into the legendary sources. But that's just poor writing and research, not misappropriation.