A Look at Darkon

I recently saw a very interesting documentary on a group of LARPers (Live Action Role Players) who, strangely enough, happen to be practically in my own backyard. I’ve blogged about Darkon over at Black Gate this week. It chronicles the lives — both in-game and real world — of an unconventional group of weekend warriors who like to strap on armor, negotiate treaties, and whack each other with foam swords. Culturally, I’d rate that as ‘High Geek,’ and it’s the sort of thing practitioners of this hand’s-on brand of fantasy role playing have been denigrated for for years. Yet they still do it, in their hundreds, nay thousands, and have fun despite the ridicule.

One might almost say this makes them more adult than those who would mock them.

Anyway, while it isn’t my cup of tea and odds are it isn’t yours either, the documentary is a compelling look at a sub-culture just a few degrees removed from the more comfortably mainstream one us consumers of genre fiction, film, and games find ourselves in. To look askance at this crew, as I have admittedly done in the past, as somehow having gone overboard when there are those of us in the larger genre community who have gotten in vehement discussions over superheroes, bought two sets of action figures (one to ‘fool with’ and the other to keep in pristine condition), spewed vitriol all over the Phantom Menace or Star Trek: Enterprise as if it actually mattered, or bitched a blue streak about George R. R. Martin having a life outside writing A Song of Ice and Fire, anyone guilty of those things and a thousand others should probably refrain from casting any stones here.

This goes beyond any sort of ‘brotherhood of genre geeks,’ to touch further upon the equivalence of escapism that I brought up last week:

But every pursuit has its pitfalls, and for the majority of the hundreds of people involved in Darkon (and the thousands that LARP) these pursuits just seem like a fun, but absorbing, hobby. Certainly they seem no more ridiculous to the critical eye than the spectacle of baggily attired adults in gaudy football colors screaming apoplectically about a field goal. One is stigmatized, one accepted, one is ‘escape,’ the other, so-called reality. But at least those LARPers have the courage to take their pleasures beyond the mere vicarious, and at least the uniforms they wear are their own, rather than a jersey with the name of some sub-literate child millionaire emblazoned on the back.

Darkon is a sympathetic look at an interesting group of non-conformists. Sure, they seem silly at times, but without the insulation of the proscenium so would most actors, without the conformity of the crowd so would most sports fans, and without layers of respectability, tradition, or expectation society affords nearly every aspect of human life, so would most of us at one time or another.