Re: [Mid] SCA philosophy (was LOTR)

Breac,

     BINGO!!! You hit the nail right on the head! I think we're all looking
for something different, and it's easy to see why some folks become
disappointed when the SCA does not live up to their "view" of what it is
supposed to be, and I am seeing, increasingly, this disparity in people's
views of how-the-game-is-supposed-to-be-played.

     Some folks want utter, total authenticity, no modern anything, period.
They view us much as they'd view the Civ War/Rev War folks, who are
re-enactors who do everything completely faithfully as it would have been
done then. Some folks see us more as a giant fantasy role playing game type
of thing, a chance to live out some favourite fantasy from a book or movie.
Some come at it from a viewpoint somewhere in between these two. And therein
lies the disparity. Who's version is "correct"?

     The answer is, all of the above. The beauty of the SCA is that it does
allow for so many differing views of how to live out the Middle Ages. Sure,
back about the time I joined nearly 25 years ago now, there was very
beginning of the "anti-Tolkien" backlash, as in, no trolls, elves, dwarves,
etc. We all but crushed that view of the SCA. That was about the time that
there rose this conflict between the "authenticity mavens" and the "fun
mavens". Sometimes I'm not so sure we've resolved that conflict, and maybe
we never will.

     And I have to admit that the first time I went to an event where it
"felt" right, where there was a very high level of authenticity, I felt
totally jazzed up about it! I truly felt like I had gone through a time
portal and stepped back to the 14th century or someplace like that. And I
knew then that I wanted more. And yet, two weeks later at another event
where the atmosphere was very period, there was a really moving bit of
fantasy that has stayed with me all these years and remains one of my
favourite moments ever in my long SCA career:

     It was Spring Crown Tournament, 1980, in Racine, WI. The event was held
at monastery on the shores of Lake Michigan. The day dawned bright, warm and
clear and sunny, the tournament was absolutely amazing and wonderful, filled
with many memorable bouts (one of which was immortalised in song!), and the
victor was then Earl Sir Laurelen Darksbane, who many of us viewed at the
time as the living embodiment of King Arthur.

     That evening, at feast, in a gorgeous hall with a raised dais, stained
glass windows and a beamed ceiling, the cooks wheeled a small cart up to
head table, and asked Laurelen to come down and pull of the covering that
veiled it. As he did so, there was revealed a sword in a giant scone, which
he was asked to pull out. As he did so, someone in the populace stood up and
toasted, "To the Once and Future King!" Right then, right there, I was in
King Arthur's Hall, in a book, in my own personal fantasy of being there
with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table!

     It's those moments like those that I live for, when, for but a moment,
time ceases to exist, the modern world is gone, and I am somewhere in
another world, having stepped through a time portal to some other romantic
place where chivalry lives! Those moments are rare and few and precious, but
when they happen, they are special moments to cherish forever. That's my
SCA, the one I want. It's a combination of romance, fantasy and
authenticity. I am a hopeless romantic and not ashamed to admit it. And I am
forever looking for some romantic version of the Middle Ages.

     And I think in many ways that the view we as a whole tend to have of
the Middle Ages is that personified in the romantic Victorian view of that
time period, the view of Tennyson and the pre-Raphaelite painters. At least
that's the impression I get sometimes. I have to admit that it's largely
what fuels my version of the SCA, although I know it's not really
"authentic", per se. Oh, sure, I love a good measure of authenticity that
adds to the atmosphere of things, don't get me wrong! But I don't think we
should give up the romanticsm in favour of utter, faithful, total
authenticity. Maybe that's where a part of the conflict lies.

Well, just my 2¢ on the subject..............................

~Saradwen, hopeless romantic...........................

From: "Sally Burnell" <sburnell@raex.com>
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Received on Tue Jan 1 13:20:05 2002