(no subject)

[learnedax]

Catching up on the olympics, thanks to TiVo, has made me realize how many strong parallels they have with Pennsic. From the athletic core which revives ancient tradition (with champions contesting points ranging from archery to fencing) to the strong cultural representations of diverse homelands, there's a big cognitive similarity. When landscape-transforming temporary construction, ingrained rivalries, and a healthy dose of pomp and circumstance are taken into account, I begin to seriously wonder whether the two events serve similar psychological purposes.

This nicely dovetails into two longstanding discussions that came up again at war: first, is there any significant difference between Pennsic and a large sci-fi convention, and second, is the role of martial activity within the SCA truly a critical element, or merely a historical quirk?

Specifically, if fighting, as the Olympic tradition seems to, serves a higher purpose than being yet another fun thing that people do, it represents a qualitative difference between the SCA and other things that the counterculture does... And if it's just a diversion for a bunch of stick-jocks, then what is Pennsic but a themed con?

Thoughts?

Comments

[tpau]

i am not sure i agree. i _can_ do weavingand bobbin lace and such without the SCA but i proubably never would have thought of it. the SCA facilitates those things for me. if i wanted to fight peopeli'd go join amartial arts club that uses wooden sticks.

to me, fighting in the SCA is completly extraneous, it only affects me in one way, and that is it enourages my husband to do a thing i think is stupid and bad for him to do.

there are many great peopel in the SCA who are fighters, but i look at most fighters at pennsic and i can't help thinking that the place would be better without them. It's like saying we need frats in college or jocks in HS. _i_ never had any use for them. my HS experience would have been better without them. and i think my SCA expoerience woudl be better without the fighter-culture. i think i am very biased though...

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Well, think of it this way - would you be getting thousands of people out in that field for weaving and bobbin lace? How many folks would drive all that way if the fighting weren't happening?

Around the world, people will show up in droves for a sporting event. They visit museums and workshops in far fewer numbers. It seems reasonable to assume that SCAdians follow the general pattern - you'd get them hauling out there for the sport, but not for the Arts and Sciences.

[jducoeur]

I don't think I can buy this argument. Most clubs, whether formal or informal, tend to have a Big Jamboree of some sort. Indeed, I don't know any even remotely organized fun activities, from Masonry to Fandom to SCA to Gaming, that *don't* have some sort of giant central event. And most of them have no sport component at all. So I think the desire for a big event is some sort of universal, and the SCA would probably have one even if it didn't have fighting.

Mind, I do think that armored combat is central to the SCA on some subtle levels: it informs many aspects of how the club thinks of itself and its purpose. And I think Pennsic would be dramatically *different* without the fighting. But I don't think the event's existence is dependent upon it...

[umbran.livejournal.com]

I don't know any even remotely organized fun activities, from Masonry to Fandom to SCA to Gaming, that *don't* have some sort of giant central event.

I think, though, that if you look at it for most, if not all, of the remotely organized fun activities, the giant central event is not terribly central.

WorldCon is generally the largest science fiction convention of the year, but the calendar year of most fen is not altered by it. GenCon Indy is the biggest gaming convention of which I'm aware - but most gamers never attend any gaming con, much less GenCon itself, so it could hardly be central to gaming. The National Jamboree is not central to the Boy Scouts - the vast majority of Scouts never get anywhere near the event.

As opposed to Pennsic War, which between my own experience and anecdote, seems to shut down other SCA operations in the northeastern USA in the month of August. You can't swing a cat in any other SCA event without hitting a multi-year Pennsic attendee.

So, is it really fair to analogize between them? Rather than compare them as similar, perhaps you need to contrast them? Those other big, central events aren't really all that central. But Pennsic is. What is different about Pennsic? Well, the core excuse of fighting is one of the differences.

[jducoeur]

I'm still unconvinced. I mean, physical proximity is quite relevant here. Worldcon doesn't warp everyone's schedules because it moves around the world, but it *does* have a major impact on the region where it's being held each year. Pennsic does totally warp the Northeast, but its impact on the other coast is considerably smaller.

Also, it's important to note that Worldcon and Pennsic attendance look a lot more alike when you factor in activity levels. The highly active fen are very likely to be at Worldcon, just as the highly active SCAdians are at Pennsic. In particular, those who *identify* with the activity are far more likely to be at the central event; fringier members are far less likely.

And as for shutting down, it looks to me like the con schedule is pretty warped by Worldcon. I see relatively few SF conventions happening in Aug/Sept. (The one big exception being DragonCon, which is largely an illustration of the way that fandom seems to be schisming.)

Yes, there are major differences, and yes, Pennsic does seem to be somewhat more central to the SCA's life than Worldcon is to fandom's. But there are plenty of other factors that I think are likely to be more responsible for that than fighting is -- not least, having a stable location that permits us to build upon it, for something like three decades now. That's allowed the site and event to grow together in some unique ways that a hotel doesn't allow...

[siderea]

Don't know about fandom, but until you mentioned it, I hadn't noticed that in Fandom and Gaming, as at Pennsic, the central draw is (a) contest(s).

Fandom? Contest? Yes. Speaking as someone who decided she could not sit through one more Arisia "Masquerade", and finding there was basically nothing else to do, Arisia most definitely is organized around a contest. WorldCon has its Hugos. I don't know about the others.

Maybe the key is competition.