PlaneShift Roots - Boccaccio's "The Divine Comedy" ?

[Induane]

I often have wondered about where the real roots of the PlaneShift setting.  It always seemed out of nowhere and origional.  Recently I came upon some stuff though that made me question those views and think hmmm.... I wonder if this had anything to do with PS?



and then this image I made to show the similarities - I got it from the wiki page of The Divine Comedy:



and actually the story of The Divine Comedy is an Italian poem, and if I\'m not mistaken isn\'t PS from Italy? The old planeshift mud page is in Italian I think too..
Old Mud Page

Since the Divine Comedy was so big and influenced the western view of hell even, it stands to reason that this is taught about in italian schools..  Anyhoo so is there a connection? Honestly?  Really honestly?  Or will it just be denied as a coincidence as any post questioning hte complete originality of an idea is?   I\'m not saying that PS is a rip off of this - but that it may have some roots in this poem - the coincidence is too much it seems.

Ohh and Ynnwn and Diaboli races look like popular images of satan.

Anyone care to answer me about this?


/me waits patiently for flamethrowers, personal attacks, and thread closings.

[Clayzekiel]

Well if you take a look at this:

Yliakum is an underground city. The inhabitants, a mixture of different races, also call it the \"City of the Azure Sun\", referring to the huge crystal that gives the city its light and supplies the land with life-giving energy. Yliakum is located thousands of meters under the surface inside a huge excavated stalactite, hanging inside a cave so huge that it could contain any kingdom of the surface. For this reason it is structured in grades - like Dante\'s Inferno - and each grade is smaller than the former. There are eight grades, or levels. The two highest levels are above the point where the stalactite connects to the roof of the cave.

It\'s taken from the page you took that picture of, it\'s right next to it.

I don\'t know which idea came first, to make it into a stalactite, or to make it in grades, but I think it\'s a coinsidence. If it\'s first thought to be in a stalactite, then it\'s guite obvious it must be in grades. Surely there\'s no intention to rip off from anything, for it\'s mentioned right there that it reminds from Dante\'s Inferno.

I guess The Divine Comedy is just popular amongst Italians

I don\'t have anything to say about Ynnwn and Diaboli though

[Induane]

Yliakum is an underground city. The inhabitants, a mixture of different races, also call it the \"City of the Azure Sun\", referring to the huge crystal that gives the city its light and supplies the land with life-giving energy. Yliakum is located thousands of meters under the surface inside a huge excavated stalactite, hanging inside a cave so huge that it could contain any kingdom of the surface. For this reason it is structured in grades - like Dante\'s Inferno - and each grade is smaller than the former. There are eight grades, or levels. The two highest levels are above the point where the stalactite connects to the roof of the cave.

Yep read this a long time ago and again recently so I do understand what that says.  I was just saying that there were alot of similarities in the illustrations, and between that and the italian connection wondered if it was possible that this servered as some sort of inspiration for PS.

[Clayzekiel]

Originally posted by Induane
Yep read this a long time ago and again recently so I do understand what that says.  I was just saying that there were alot of similarities in the illustrations, and between that and the italian connection wondered if it was possible that this servered as some sort of inspiration for PS.

Oh ok, just wanted to be sure you knew, no flaming intentions or anything there

It\'s hard to tell if it really is an inspiration of somekind, we\'d need the devs to tell that (if they are willing to).

[Induane]

It\'s hard to tell if it really is an inspiration of somekind, we\'d need the devs to tell that (if they are willing to).

BAM!

You hit it!

This is what I'm sort of testing with this post - that and satisfying my own curiousity.

[Gentar]

I myself have read the inferno.....I can\'t quite grasp the similarities to planeshift. however those pictures are a tad identicle

[steuben]

inferno isn\'t a bad read. but the tail end of purgatory and heaven, they just get plane weird.

the similarity is in shape more then anything else. but, you must remember there are no new ideas in holywood.

[derwoodly]

One could think that PS is set IN Dante\'s Inferno.

[Draklar]

If Yliakum was like the hell from the Dante\'s Inferno, I\'d want to live in the first circle. The coolest people in there ^^

Really does seem like some kind of an inspiration though :P

[lynx_lupo]

Well of course it was an inspiration, such coincidences are rare.

[Gentar]

Perhaps great Italian minds just think alike

p.s. Boccaccio? last time I checked Dante wrote The Divine Comedy

[Induane]

You are more technically correct than I - Dante wrote it, Boccaccio sort of named it and became the "father" of the poem, bringing it into popularity and commonplace, ensuring its future in things like the Western, (including christian) view of hell, and PlaneShift

[eggplantboy]

Howdy folks,

If anyone is interested, there is a new adaptation of the Commedia by California artist Sandow Birk. Birk and colleague Marcus Sanders have updated the text to contemporary American vernacular and set the story in the present day, with the Inferno in L.A., Pergatorio in San Francisco, and Paradiso in New York (each with excursions to other parts of the world). Birk has also redone all of Gustave Dore\'s famous woodcuts in ink to be in keeping with the new setting. Burk has illustrated every Canto in the three books, where Dore petered out halfway through the second. The books are published by Chronicle Books.

It\'s pretty cool! Check it out.