[Ansteorra] Job descriptions

Jay Rudin rudin at ev1.net
Mon Jul 11 21:17:23 PDT 2005


> What is wrong with the term "troll"?  I always thought it added
> a bit of style or panache to have a "troll".  It's so far from
> mundanity.  And I work troll at every event for Namron.  And I
> happen to think it's a cute term.

Yes, it's far from mundanity, but it's just as far from the period times.
The SCA helps us to get away from the mundane, but also helps us to get
closer to the earlier times.  These words are fine for the first goal, but
actively bad for the second goal.  All events have people with each goal,
and we should be trying to serve everyone, not just the subset we agree
with.

Words like "troll", "autocrat", "feast-ocrat", etc. would not be used (for
that purpose) in a medieval or Renaissance kingdom.  They say, "I'm playing
a 21st century game."

We can be creative fantasists and invent new modern words to make the
medieval commonplace sound weird, or we can be creative anachronists and try
to live in a different time.

The term "troll" doesn't bother me because I'm not in persona when signing a
waiver and paying a fee anyway.  The words for the event steward and the
chef don't bother me on an event announcement.  But calling the
"feast-o-crat" into court feels like a movie in which Theoden, on his white
horse, rallies the troops by calling out, "All right, actors, wave your fake
swords and pretend that we're charging into battle" instead of giving a
battle speech.  Or King Arthur dubbing Lancelot and saying "I proclaim thee
for purposes of this movie a knight."

I call it my sword, not my piece of rattan.
I go to a revel, not a happy hour.
I refer to Ansteorra, not the Texas-Oklahoma region.

And for the same reasons, I'd prefer to talk about the head cook rather than
the "feast-o-crat".

Others can disagree, and that's fine.  We don't all have the same goals, or
the same intensity.

But for my goals, the word "event steward" is as helpful as a cover over my
ice chest.  It's not required, and I won't tell people they have to do it,
but I'd prefer to cover the modern stuff, and I'll try to persuade others to
want to do so too.

Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin




More information about the Ansteorra mailing list