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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 2919685" data-attributes="member: 30001">But it also might be one of the hardest things to ever understand.  IMO the differences that people have in religion, politics, and so on comes down to differences in beliefs in human nature.  A comprehensive look at human nature would involve examining how shamans are treated in certain socieites, and look at the values such as "hospitality" that determine the respect that is accorded to "outsiders" - exactly the sort of people that AFAICT you think would be persecuted out of hand.It's a huge and difficult question IMO, and for that reason I think the designer of a fantasy world has plenty of options - even if they don't appeal to everyone's cynicism.Human nature would include humans outside of the European Middle Ages though - and different societies reactions to people who are different depend on other conditions besides the fact that they are different.  Some people in those societies with unique powers are highly respected.  Even within Europe, those traditions labelled as witchcraft existed as far back as history goes - the persecutions were motivated by a conflict of Christian and pagan traditions and were a characteristic of only a slice in time.  Ancient Egypt is full of magical tablets in the spirit of DnD's "arcane" magic.The X-Men is dealing with themes of alienation.  I wouldn't take it as a study on human nature as much as it is a story about the anxieties of people who are different.  The fact that the themes are appealing does not indicate that it contains objective truth.  IMO it's significant that the story is told from the perspective of the mutants.  You wouldn't think there would be enough mutants out there to sell tickets.  Nobody is as "normal" as they think, and I don't think it's just the modern period that understood this.  Plus IMO the modern period is full of as much human nature as the past, so people ought to be hating the X-Men movies.But IMO they weren't burned because they were herbalists.  They were burned because, for that sliver of history and that culture, herbalism was equated with older pagan pratices and clashed with other forces in the society.  There are plenty of shamans and herbalists both within Europe and without that were respected.  Lets say for arguments sake that magic doesn't exist in the real world.  Then the closest thing you have is technology - which is alternately respected, feared, and ignored depending on other factors.  Being "special" is probably a double edged sword.  There are plenty of reasons to think that "special" people could either be well respected, or hated, but it depends on factors other than "specialness" IMO.I disagree - a powerful uber-deity (like the Christian one) has a lot to do with how people think.  IMO it's overly cynical to call religion's influence on people's values "mind-control".  A respect for arcane spell casters could be built in to the ethos of the prominent deities of the campaign.  A paladin's code that says not to kill Lawful Good wizards doesn't necessarily make for a dark universe IMO.</blockquote>

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