Category talk:Oberon's Children

I almost hate to bring this up because it would require a lot of picky re-formatting. But I'm not sure this category belongs in the Real World Characters category. Naught is apparently made up by Greg W., and Crom-Cruach is clearly pushing it. I'm not sure about Grandmother, though I think she's real. Perhaps we should move the individual characters (except Naught and Crom-Cruach) to the Real World Characters category instead? -- Vaevictis Asmadi 23:26, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

Hmm... yes, I agree, if only because Naught complicates things. I don't know what to do with Cromm-Cruach, though. We could go either way with that one. -- Supermorff 11:04, 8 September 2007 (CDT)

Agreed, though I've noticed that "real world" here sometimes takes on a different meaning. For example, Avalon is categorized as a "Real World" place by virtue of it's showing up in literature, even though it doesn't fit what most people think of as a real world place. Maybe we should mention on the category pages what we mean by "real world." --Moeen 12:13, 8 September 2007 (CDT)

Here, here! Or else call "Real World" something else. Or better still, divide them into TWO categories. "Real World" and some equivalent of "From Literature". -- gdw

What should we do with Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth (play), Bambi, etc? They exist in the real world but are also works of literature/fiction. Well, Macbeth is distorted history, I guess. -- Vaevictis Asmadi 18:31, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

It is already specified on the Real World category page, and on Category: Real World Characters.

My feeling about Crom-Cruach is that besides being named after a god, it doesn't have much in common with any real-world legend. But this is only judging by what it says in the Real World Background about the origin of the name. I could be wrong. -- Vaevictis Asmadi 14:27, 8 September 2007 (CDT)

The two category idea is tempting. Although it would really be an equivalent of "From literature, myth or folklore", I guess. Uh... King Arthur? Is he counted as both? Or are we taking a stance on this and saying he's purely folkloric? And when considering beings from "active" religions, not including them in "real world characters" might be considered offensive (although the only such being that I can think of that might count is Coyote). We could split the real world characters category into "Historical characters" (for those that have been verified by record or evidence) and "Characters from blah blah whatever". To be honest, I'm not sure it's worth it, but I'm willing to be overruled. -- Supermorff 09:54, 9 September 2007 (CDT)

Historians disagree about King Arthur, and I don't think any of us have the expertise to offer an informed official wiki opinion. I know for certain that Coyote, Raven, and Odin (and other Norse gods) all have people who believe in and worship them -- some Native American nations still have their old religions, and some Pagans specifically worship the Aesir and Vanir. I'm pretty sure the Celtic gods still have worshipers as well, and I've heard rumors that there are even a few surviving Pagan communities who worship the Greek gods. There's also the Holy Grail which I'm sure many Christians believe in. I think that dividing the Real World category would invite too many problems. We can rename it something else, but the main point of it is to gather all the things that the Gargoyles production team didn't invent themselves. -- Vaevictis Asmadi 10:47, 9 September 2007 (CDT)

"Based on Independent Sources" maybe? I realize the name is bound to be awkward, but I always thought Real World Characters was fairly misleading. Grouping Douglas Bader with Oberon and providing no distinction, just seems odd to me.

How about just renaming the category "Historical and Folkloric"? "Historical" would cover anything that existed at some point in time, and "folkloric" would cover whatever is derived from folklore, and we can still include gray areas like "King Arthur" where scholars aren't sure if he was an actual historical figure or an invention of folklore. I think that includes just about everything in the "real world" category. The word "folkloric" is also probably a good alternative to "mythical", since it is broader. Some people might also find the use of thee word "mythical" offensive since modern parlance tends to identify the word "myth" with "falsehood", even though the technical definition of myth doesn't imply that. But that's another story. Anyway, what do you think? --Moeen 12:13, 9 September 2007 (CDT)

I'll admit that "Real world characters" is a bit confusing, but I'm not really convinced that any of our alternatives are better. "Characters based on independent sources" is okay, but to me that suggests that characters originated in folklore or literature, but not in history. If we still wanted to split the category, it would be a great name for one of the two, but we're still left with the problem of the dividing line. I think it's the same problem, just from the other end of the spectrum.

"Historical and folkloric characters" solves this problem (and I agree that the word "folkloric" is a decent catch-all term in its connotations at least) but it adds new problems instead. It could mean "Characters from the history or folklore of the Gargoyles universe" rather than "from the history or folklore of the real world". We could go ahead with the change, make the distinction clear in an introductory paragraph, and hope that we don't someday find Prince Malcolm has been added to the category. But if we're doing that then why not keep the slightly confusing name we've got now?

We could make the distinction clear in the name, but that gives us a horribly clunky name: "Real world historical and folkloric characters" or "Real world history and folklore characters". Then would we have to rename "Cat:Real world" to "Cat:Real world history and folklore" as well? And the associated places category?

Then again, maybe it's worth it. What do you think? -- Supermorff 10:11, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

Eh, I think the fans are capable of distinguishing between folklore in the Gargoyles Universe, and actual folklore, but if you feel that it needs to be pointed out, you can certainly do so in an introductory paragraph. --Moeen 23:59, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

I'm still not totally convinced this split is necessary, but if everyone else wants it, this particular difficulty can be solved by making the two categories into sub-categories of Real World, and then giving each its Characters and Places sub-categories. Ie, split the current Real World Places and Real World Characters and erect two new categories for History and Folklore/Religion/Literature, but keep Category: Real World itself in place. To be clearer, I made diagrams in Category talk: Real world. -- Vaevictis Asmadi 19:03, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

Oh, I forgot one thing: what about things that exist in the real world now? Are buildings that are still standing considered historical? -- Supermorff 10:18, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

Technically anything that existed at some point in time in history is historical, so yes. Note the difference from buildings that are historic. --Moeen 23:59, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

"Folklore" has the same problem as "myth;" the common usage of the word implies that religious figures are objectively fictional. As I said, some of the figures used as Children of Oberon have worshipers in the real world who wouldn't appreciate that. I still much prefer renaming the category instead of trying to set in stone the fuzzy line between objective history and the beliefs of living religions.

I would not want to someday see figures from my own religion described as "folklore." -- Vaevictis Asmadi 14:29, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

What about "X From Literature, Folklore, and Religion"? -- Vaevictis Asmadi 14:59, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

Depends on how you understand the terms "folklore" and "myth." To a scholar of religions, a "myth" is technically any story that is develops out of a religion. "Folklore" is literally just the lore of a particular group of people, so the folklore of a religion are stories that are derived from or based on religion. Understood that way, there's nothing derogatory about either of those terms. In fact, every religion has its own mythology and folklore simply because peoples' ideas and understanding of religion evolve over time. As an aside, throughout most of history, followers of a religion were more interested in what a religion had to say about humanity than in its historical accuracy. It's only after the Enlightenment, when people started becoming interested in the verifiability of everything, that religions, myths, and folklore came to be seen as vestiges of a time of ignorance and the words "myth" and to some extent "folklore" came to be viewed in a negative light. Religious scholars refer to myths and folklore of all religions without any negative connotations at all. Personally, I wouldn't mind if anyone referred to certain stories from my religion as folklore, since that is what they are. It doesn't necessarily imply that the stories are wrong, it's a just a term to refer to them. By the way, your usage of the folklore isn't quite right. Characters cannot be folklore. Stories can be folklore, and characters can be part of folklore, but I don't see anything derogatory about that.

To make a long story short, if you find the term "folklore" offensive enough, we can separate it from religion. But don't forget that the category also has to include history as a source as well. So then the name for the category would be "_ from History, Literature, Folklore, and Religion", which is an awfully long name, but as Greg points out, it does cover all the bases while keeping necessary distinctions. --Moeen 23:59, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

That works for me. Historical characters (and/or things, including Paris or the World Trade Center) and Characters from Literature, Folklore and Religion. Feels like that covers the bases and creates needed separation between things that objectively existed and things that require either faith or imagination or both.

So the current choice is between a total rename to "Characters from History, Literature, Folklore and Religion", or a split into "Historical characters" and "Characters from Literature, Folklore and Religion". For this split to work, Historical characters would have to be utterly verified by evidence (so King Arthur's out, I guess). What about Macbeth? Is he both, or just historical? Probably just historical, since he did not originate in literature or folklore.

For the split, I would prefer both categories to be of the same form (either "Characters from ___" or "___ characters", but not one of each). The simplest fix would probably be using "Characters from history" with "Characters from literature, etc". In fact, I like that name better also because (incomprehensibly) it seems to make it clearer to me that these are characters from real-world history and not just characters from the past of the Gargoyles universe.

Who would the structure of this work? Would both categories be sub-categories of "Real world characters"? Would we delete that category and set them as subcats of both "Real world" and "Characters"? Would we get rid of the "Real world" category as well? Hmm... let's keep the "Real world" category for now, until we can discuss what we want to do with it elsewhere, although we might want to rename "Real world places".

Uh... it might be too late to mention this idea. How about a rename to "Category:Characters from real world sources" or "Category:Characters with real world origins"? It does lack the distinctions we've been working for, but it also doesn't suggest that characters are themselves "real". Just another option to consider. -- Supermorff 08:48, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

I know what myth and folklore are technically, but this isn't AnthropologyWiki, it's Gargwiki and it's meant to be read by the layman. So we use layman's terms.

I still oppose any split of the category, but "___ from history" and "___ from literature, folklore, and religion" is better than "___ from history and folklore" I guess. I like the idea of "___ with real world scources/origins"

I mean, really, we've got a full explanation of the term in the intro to each category and sub-category. How explicit does the name have to be? -- Vaevictis Asmadi 09:16, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

And what, I'm not a layman? Folklore isn't a technical term, it's just understood differently by different people. How about this, we use "folklore" as a catchall term, and in the intro we say that by folklore we are referring to the traditional beliefs, legends, customs, etc., of a people, and in particular, the lore of the people. That way no one can accuse of being derogatory. We also simplify the name of the category while still making distinctions that need to be made and keep everything in the same category. How does that sound?

"Characters with real world sources" could work, but you still have the problem that it's to vague, and doesn't make the necessary distinctions between things that objectively existed and things that didn't. --Moeen 14:30, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

Folklore and religion just are not the same. Folklore is stuff like Santa Claus and Cinderella. Fairy tales. Not religious figures that are taken seriously by adults. I don't worship Santa Claus, and I didn't stop believing in God after I turned 12. Anyway, what I'm trying to point out is that I am insulted when you say that religious figures objectively don't exist. I'm all for the distinction between science and religion, but I don't care for the words you're using to describe religion.

Literature is also not folklore. Why can't we say Literature, Folklore, and Religion? Is that really so painfully hard? Why is "real world origins" any more vague than using "folklore" for everything from modern novels to living religions to Titania, who was invented by Shakespeare? Really, how is that not vague and imprecise? A huge category that includes everything from God on down to Santa Clause and Prospero? Might as well leave it the way it is now. -- Vaevictis Asmadi 16:22, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

You're not understanding me properly. I didn't say religious figures objectively don't exist. What I did say is that they are figures in folklore, which is different, and this is simply because every religion develops its own folklore. Certainly many religious figures were also historical figures, but this doesn't mean that they weren't figures in some of the stories that later developed as the folklore of the religion. You're assuming folklore is by definition fantasy. Folklore just refers to the traditional beliefs, legends, practices, etc. of a people; there's nothing in there that says any of that is fictitious, okay? That's the whole point I was trying to get across about folklore!

The problem with the name "real world origins" is that it's vague and can be misleading depending on what you mean by "real world." As Greg pointed out grouping historical figures like Douglas Bader, and characters from folklore, like Oberon and making no distinction seems absurd. (I don't know if Oberon and Titania were actually invented by Shakespeare of if he was working off something else). What I was trying to get at, and what Greg said, is that we needed a renaming that "creates needed separation between things that objectively existed and things that require either faith or imagination or both." I thought "historical and folkloric" would be a good compromise, but if you're that much against using the word "folklore" as a general term for stuff derived from traditional legend and lore of a people then we can use something else. --Moeen 19:37, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

Wow, it seems like this debate has really become heated. Maybe it's best to take some time to cool off? There's no rush to get to a decision.

By the way, Titania was invented by Shakespeare, but Oberon wasn't. There's a comment at AskGreg about it here. -- Supermorff 08:35, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

As you can see from Dictionary.com, your definition of folklore is one of several, and some of those definitions are very different from the one you use:

1. the traditional beliefs, legends, customs, etc., of a people; lore of a people.

2. the study of such lore.

3. a body of widely held but false or unsubstantiated beliefs.

4. The traditional beliefs, myths, tales, and practices of a people, transmitted orally.

5. The comparative study of folk knowledge and culture. Also called folkloristics.

6. a. A body of widely accepted but usually specious notions about a place, a group, or an institution: Rumors of their antics became part of the folklore of Hollywood.

b. A popular but unfounded belief.

The Oxford English Dictionary (2001) defines folklore is:

a. The traditional beliefs, legends, and customs, current among the common people; the study of these.

b. Recently in extended use: popular fantasy or belief.

And the Oxford Companion to the English Language notes: "In the use by scholars of such terms as folk belief, folk etymology, and folk linguistics there is often a dismissive quality implying that 'folk' movements inherently operate at a lower and therefore less ignificant level than the traditions to which the scholars themselves belong." (emphasis original)

I understand you aren't using folklore to mean "fiction" but I'm trying to point out that the word has other meanings, completely regardless of your own intention, and those other meanings are perfectly legitimate interpretations! I am also trying to point out that "folklore" is even more inappropriate for Titania and other recently invented and utterly fictional characters (including anything Greg uses from Les Miserables), and that "folklore" when used so broadly is every bit as vague and useless as "real world". Especially considering that if we can't agree on it's meaning, the average reader of this website won't have a clue what it means, either. If we're making a new category name that's supposed to be more specific, let's use a name that's actually specific and easy to understand. The point is not to make sure I understand what you mean. The point is to pick a name that everybody who reads the wiki can readily and easily understand the intent.

You propose to say "beliefs, legends, customs, etc., of a people, and in particular, the lore" but never once will the word "religion" appear even in the introduction? It's fine to separate religion from history, but we should acknowledge that it is religous.

I propose that the new subcategories be Category:Historical and Category:From Literature and Religion or Category:From Literature, Folklore, and Religion. -- Vaevictis Asmadi 14:14, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

You'll also notice that the primary meaning of folklore is "The traditional beliefs, legends, and customs, current among the common people," which the other meanings are secondary. The Oxford English Dictionary even points out that folklore as "popular fantasy" is Recently in extended use.  ::sigh:: Leave it to humans to name things and then change what the name means huh? My point was that if we did use folklore, we could just point out in the category page exactly what it is that we mean, instead of having a category name that lists every type of non-historical source. I figured "traditional beliefs" in the definition would cover religion, and similarly "traditional lore" would cover the literature (though I suppose figures like Titania wouldn't be part of such literature). But as I said, if it doesn't work for you we can go along what you suggested; and given that you've already modified the relevant pages I won't bother arguing the point further. --Moeen 19:58, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

What matters which definition is listed first? What matters if one meaning is more recent than another? Does that mean we should assume nobody ever uses the second meaning? Does it mean that that second definition doesn't exist? What higher authority than the Oxford English Dictionary do you want? Can't you just accept that the word has a second and very derogatory meaning? This word is ambiguous and not everybody has the exact same point of view as yourself.

Yes, I am angry now. I try to explain that this word is offensive, that I am offended, and first you insist that your point of view is the only one that's real, then when I even quote a respected dictinary you outright tell me that my understanding is "secondary" just because of somebody's choice of list order. Like somehow that means that my point of view doesn't count? -- Vaevictis Asmadi 20:45, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

First of all, I did not insist my point of view is the only one that's real. I was only trying to explain what my point of view was and its intended meaning. Second of all, I didn't "outright tell you" that your understanding is secondary. I was trying to point out that that particular usage was secondary. At least, when I learned how to use a dictionary, my understanding was that if more that one meaning is possible in a given context, the more common usage is listed first. Perhaps I'm wrong. Look, I didn't intend on offending anyone and I never implied your point of view doesn't count, and I'm sorry if you took things that way.

How about we listen to Supermorff's advice and take a breather? --Moeen 21:52, 12 September 2007 (CDT)