The Gothic Zone

When I first discovered the site, like many I was disappointed at it being unfinished, and moreso, how little my neck of the woods was being written about. Especially since to a large degree, I graviated towards the sight because walking through the woods and villages of my New England home could sometimes feel like I was walking through Sherwood or Hobbiton. This is actually signifigant. Most readers of the sight have pointed that, by far, the Great Plains and the cowboys have had the most most focus, with three pages directly related to them, two of the specific nations at one point being directly under their sphere of influence, and the climate page giving them a direct focus. The second biggest focus would be directed on the Deep South and Desert regions of the U.S. The most focused on the Northeast would be the pages regarding the United States of America and the Non-Denominational Church, and while a lot of that territory is in the Northeast, it's probably important to note that the Headquarters for both is beneath the Mason-Dixon Line. In fact, I would say the Mason Dixon Line, and the Eastern borders of the Mississippi are very much junction points where White leaves them a bit of a mystery. Or are they?

Something that White mentions on the Race page is how people on the Great Lakes are largely physically indistinguishable from Europeans. They might actually be at times culturally idistinguishable as well. And that may go double for New Englanders and Quebecois. The specific pages White created--Southern Secetaries, Western Empires, Cowboys Horse Archers, and of course the United States of America--they're all most destinctly not European. It's about the drift between The West as in "Western Civillization" and The West as in the Western genre of motion pictures. To some extent, the site itself is almost a twist, thinking they'll get something like castles and knights in California (something we see in the Emberverse or Shannara) series of books, and oops, it turns it is not the case at all. Or mostly not the case. Because in New England, Eastern Canada, and some of the Great Lakes region, the climate, demographics and other factors create a region that could theoretically break off an reattach to Medieval Europe and it wouldn't miss that much of a beat. (I mean, there would be differences, but differences like you might see between France and Scandinavia.) The novelty just isn't there most of the time--a Medieval New England or Quebec or even Upstate New York could be the plopped into a fantasy novel and not show the seems. This is what I call the Gothic Zone.

Now when I say "Gothic", I'm not speaking of say, vampires and Byronic dramas and the like. Well, not completely. I'm also referring to French castles. I'm also referring to the Geats of Beowulf fame. Just a general sense of Northern European classicism. Or to put it this way, the recurring works of David Eggers. Eggers, a native of New Hampshire has set two of his films in New England, one in Germany, one across the wide Viking World, with a pending film set in England. Two are set in the 19th century, one in 1600s colonial America and one, of course, the Viking Age, and aforementioned fifth film is supposed to be in Medieval England. There is of course, a recurring focus on supernatural beings, folkloric, Gothic and Lovecraftian all. (There can probably be a lot to be said on the relationship between Rhode Islander H.P. Lovecraft and Texan Robert E. Howard in the nature of fantasy Americana.) As I've talked about before, New England has the vibes of a Transylvania, or Überwald. Nosferatu has historically taken half the plot of Dracula and moved it from England to Germany without seriously disrupting things (To some degree it could be said to shave off the Victorian English racism, just a tad.) Then of course, there's the Hammer Films where a lot of the vampire fiction takes place in some undisclosed Never-Neverland, a dizzying collision of Catholic Priests, ghouls, rustic villagers and snobby aristocrats. Perhaps not unlike New England itself. So I almost want to call it "The Eggers Line". It's not so much to say all of Egger's movies could have their locations switched around--the research is simply too good. But I want to say the entire expanse, from New England to Russia, all share an almost innate commonslity where setting THE NORTHMAN in Vermomt would be a less jarring shift than setting THE VVITCH in Illinois. So what is below the Gothic Zone, the Eggers line? What filmmaker embdies the ambiance of the uniquely American terrirory that White has covered? I feel the mkst satisfsctory answer is the Coen Brothers. Together, their collabarations have covered a great deal of the territory White has concentrated on. Joel eventally went off-brand (to a degree) with Tragedy of Macbeth, but have largely stayed in this zone. Now whats interesting is they are characterized as making movies set in several locations someone might not be surprised to find a cowboy hat and spurs in, there's a trilogy of movies--THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, BURN AFTER READING and INSIDE LEWYN DAVIS, set in East Coast metropoloi, two in New York City, one in Washington DC. But I would say these actually codify my classification. As mentiomed Washington is below the Mason Dixon Line. Though the Beltway could be on Mars for all Texans could be concerned, it is, by definition, as American as it gets, two sides of the same coin. New York could be said to be the same way though as far from "Western" as it is from "Medieval"--one might say it's the consummate World City, its almosy impossible to imagine Eggers shooting a movie in the Big Apple. What's also interesting to consider is the Great Lakes states--illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan serve as something of a No-Man's Land; The Coens have not set any workd North of New York or east of Minnesota. It could be said this is a region where the culture of the American Heartland and the Europhilia of the Northeast drift in and out, much like how the Russia, which beats some climactic similarity, has often found itself at the crossroads of east and west.

Commander in Chief

I'm probably one of the last ones to say anything, or maybe I'm the authority on saying anything, but we sometimes take the idea much, much more seriously than Matthew White. For all the fantasy novelist wrld-builder and all of it likes to ponder the subject, his surreal histories are, in general, extremely tongue-in-cheek and satirical. They're also not meant to be part of any larger "shared universe" (they can't, in fact), but they are all works from the same mind, who's often made the same observations about history.


White makes repeated references to things like "thrones" and even "kingdoms", but he makes certain to never officially invoke a title more associated with Medieval Europe. "President" is used, as is "Colonel". "Governor" is referred to a couple times, though not attached to any specific nation states. As I talked about in Noveember, there's no official correspondence between these terms, the important thing is they're used instead of things words "Duke", "Prince", and especially "King". There's probably a couple of factors here. The first is just White being humorous and whimsical and overall probably adds to the ambiance of Americana. The second is that it makes sense that Americans would be resistant to outright monarchial labels, even if the sementic distinction really doesn't mean anything anymore. But the the third is something, if you're a strange bird like me, can attribute the whole thing to a "translation convention". This is done throughout history...actually done throughout the present where what we call countries isn't necessarily the name they use for themselves. It's something J.R.R. Tolkien has said was done through his legendarium (That is Frodo would never have answered to the name "Frodo"), and it's even something White has claimed for his own works. The idea of using the word "President" in a feudal setting and have it "feel" right is something that's been in my head ever since it was used (as a translated subtitle) in the television show Shogun to describe Yoshii Toranaga's office (Not the Shogunate), which was very interesting, considering the term "Shogun" is a very, very unique feudal titel. So when we go back to White's page on the Roman Empire, and how they radically rejected monarchy to the point "King" was never used during the Republic OR the Empire, instead it was Caesar as something of loophole. That word would travel throughout history, corrupted into terms like "Kaiser", and "Czar", especially ironic as "Czar" would go on to be almost synonymous with absolutism. So if one likes, and doesn't wish to use a term like "President", which rightly or wongly evokes thing modernity and democracy, the actual title could be fiddled with. (The first instinct would be "Potus", although I'm not super, super fond of use of acronyms for the scenario. It's a little "cargo cult".) "Preden" and "Powesrtant" are things that came out of my mouth when saying the word faster, and slower, or in various exaggerated dialects.