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How Ludwig II’s love for Wagner inspired the world’s greatest work of fan art
- AndrewBissell 9y agoGabriel Knight 2, one of the last full motion video adventure games of the 1990s, used Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig, and a fictional lost Wagner opera as central elements in its plot. I can't look at Neuschwanstein without thinking of the atmosphere it lent to that game.
- emodendroket 9y agoThe greatest work of fan art? How about the Aeneid? :)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- afarrell 9y agoOr Dante's Inferno
- emodendroket 9y agoI guess Paradise Lost is another contender, while we're at it.
- olavk 9y agoI'm not sure "fan art" has an exact definition, but I think the term only applies to art inspired by fictional creations, not art based on history or mythology.
- emodendroket 9y agoThe Aeneid is clearly inspired by and derivative of Homer.
- olavk 9y agoYeah but Homer was considered history or mythology, not fiction. Homer didn't invent the characters or story line. I guess it is rather grey area, but I consider "fan art" art that is derivative of a specific artistic expression. E.g. if i draw Robin Hood as a vampire, it is not fan art, but if I draw Disneys Robin Hood as a vampire, it is fan art. Don't know if that makes sense?
- emodendroket 9y agoHe outright has pastiches on scenes in Homer, so I think it still works.
- ginko 9y agoThat's what I was thinking of as well.
- Compulsion 9y agoI didn't expect Lapham's Quarterly to show up in a Hacker News thread. Good magazine. Worth the subscription.
- pillowkusis 9y agoLudwig is memorable to me because he stands out as the essential Nerd long, long before it was OK to be a nerd. Ludwig’s life was tragic largely because he was so far from society’s norms and expectations. Gay, uninterested in his family’s court, definitely not neurotypical (his brother was likely schizophrenic) and unquestionably nerdy; in the early 1800s, he defied basically every expectation society had of him and paid the price by being deeply unhappy, getting overthrown, and dying in his 30s. He’s a patron saint and martyr of Nerd-dom, almost, although of course the history is more nuanced than that. His story serves as a reminder of how good us nerds (and anyone outside the “norm”) have it now. Being obsessed with art, opera, science, or computers just makes you a super-fan — there’s a website, subreddit, and convention just for people like you. Computers and the Internet made nerds like Bill Gates cool, and enabled all of us outside of societal norms to find and accept each other. I’m sorry Ludwig never got to post at wagner-fan-forums.com. He would have liked it there.