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

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)

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)