https://nitter.tiekoetter.com/AyatollahKobeni/status/2116172354154049617

I’ve noticed that Storm of Steel discussion and pretending to be interested in being a soldier of fortune has dropped off inverse to the likelihood that you might take a drone to the face and become a breathing Chicken McNugget. I guess LARPing as a mercenary isn’t fun anymore

I’ve noticed that Storm of Swords discussion & pretending to be interested in being a hedgeknight has dropped off inverse to the likelihood that you might take dragonflame to the face and become a breathing honey chicken. I guess LARPing as a sellsword isn’t fun anymore

I would have replaced “LARPing” with “Performing a mummer’s farce” if not for the character limit.

  • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    20·
    5 days ago

    GRRM invented the term hedge knight, and it’s actually a cool contribution to culture to have a word for errantry that isn’t glamorous. Like a western take on “ronin”

      • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        5·
        5 days ago

        Don Quixote works on two layers of irony, which is impressive for a time before modernism much less post modernism. Yes Don Quixote attachment to outmoded, fictional and irrational ideas of chivalry marks him as an outcast and a ridiculous figure, but his dedication to his ideals are sincere and his errantry is ultimately the most real and moral element of an unjust and cynical world. Cervantes was both criticising and celebrating the genre. But at no point was the errant made unglamorous, its unreality was made manifest. It is ridiculous that Don Quixote acts a knights errant, knights errants are not conceptually made mundane. (And when Don Quixote becomes Alonso Quijano, losing his “madness” and becoming mundane that is tragic)

        GRRM through his formalising of a “hedge knight” made the concept of the wandering knight regular and mundane. A hedge knight is not on a glamorous quest but nor is he ridiculous, he is a guy whose existence is centered around being a knight in a way that both separates him from the normal “feudal” hierarchy and society yet defines him by his place in it. He is a knight doing the most knightly things you can do as a knight, yet he has no formal place in the society that values the ideals of knighthood.

        As I said it’s a western take on a ronin.

        Edti: Let me try to rephrase it. In Don Quixote within the story it is ridiculous that anyone would actually try to be a knights errant, much less don quixote. Even if he had a good horse, good armor and wasn’t old it would still be ridiculous, but on top of that he is personally a ridiculous figure. “Errantry isn’t real and you couldnt hack it if it was”

        In the world of asoiaf being a hedge knight is just a thing you are. They’re just guys whose combination of social privilege yet outsider status give them a unique class position. But it’s not funny that someone would be one.

        Dunk has quixotic elements in that he is a fake knight who embodies the ideals of knighthood. But that’s the thing, he is contrasted with other knights who ARE knights but fail to live up to the ideals. There is only one layer of irony. The fake knight is the realest knight. The knighthood as a concept is not ironic.