[HN Gopher] The 18th-century French media stoked a werewolf panic
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       The 18th-century French media stoked a werewolf panic
        
       Author : PaulHoule
       Score  : 69 points
       Date   : 2024-07-03 16:39 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.openculture.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com)
        
       | LaundroMat wrote:
       | The question isn't answered, except for one sentence that says
       | illustrators had a field day depicting a large beast.
       | 
       | Also, nowhere is it said people believed the beast to be a
       | werewolf.
       | 
       | A reminder that headlines that start with an interrogative
       | pronoun usually have little substance.
        
         | BoingBoomTschak wrote:
         | French here, never heard of any connection with werewolves.
         | Only that it was either an immense wolf or possibly a hyena
         | brought who-knows-how from Africa.
         | 
         | Note from a dive in the rabbit hole of the French Wikipedia
         | page: it seems it was truly a wolf which was - according to its
         | autopsy - 1m long "from the base of its tail to the top of its
         | head" and weighed more than 50kg.
        
       | backtoyoujim wrote:
       | Fun French flick on a fictionalized version of this panic is a
       | film called "Le Pacte des loups" or "Brotherhood of the Wolf".
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotherhood_of_the_Wolf
       | 
       | Worth watching for some of that cultural milieu.
        
         | hattmall wrote:
         | Pretty Amazing movie and story.
        
         | karaterobot wrote:
         | Worth watching for the craziest match cut ever. Monica Bellucci
         | into a mountain range.
        
         | Loughla wrote:
         | Sweet Lord that is one of my favorite movies! The fight scenes
         | are amazing, and the story is absolutely phenomenal.
        
         | cushychicken wrote:
         | Brotherhood of the Wolf is rad.
        
         | eastbound wrote:
         | What about the other film, The Beast of the Gevaudan, is it
         | good? I thought it was more famous.
         | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0352224/
        
         | pyinstallwoes wrote:
         | I remember watching that as a kid and freaking out. Those were
         | the good days.
        
         | emmanueloga_ wrote:
         | I love this movie, but I wonder what happened to the director
         | [1]. This movie was his one-hit. Apparently, he has a Silent
         | Hill movie in production since 2020. Not a good sign ... :-/
         | 
         | Fun trivia: Mark Dacascos who played "Mani" starred in John
         | Wick 3 as the main antagonist :-) [2].
         | 
         | --
         | 
         | 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophe_Gans
         | 
         | 2:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wick:_Chapter_3_%E2%80%93...
        
           | homarp wrote:
           | according to IMDB the movie is done, just no release date
        
           | atombender wrote:
           | With filmographies like these, I'm really curious about how
           | the person makes a living. It's been ten years since his last
           | film. How is he paying the rent?
        
       | usrusr wrote:
       | Amazingly effective game, apparently even turned into a movie not
       | once but twice (Cry_Wolf and one Austrian adaption, according to
       | de.wikipedia). That connection to an 18th century media hype adds
       | an interesting new angle to the success of that game, in
       | particular given how France is not exactly known as a big
       | exporter of modern games except for that one.
       | 
       | (whereas in pre-modern games, there seems to be be a huge amount
       | of frenchess everywhere. I guess that's still a consequence of
       | the idleness enforced at Versailles and Europe's near-universal
       | scramble to replicate?)
        
         | donkeybeer wrote:
         | Can you comment more on what you mean by pre-modern games and
         | their Frenchness?
        
           | usrusr wrote:
           | For example the suits of playing cards [0]: here in Germany
           | we have our own suits, but those decks are really only used
           | for some very specific games. For all other games, we use the
           | same cards as the English speaking world and we call those
           | _French_. For diamonds and spades even the French names
           | remain, in heavily adapted spelling: Karo from carreau and
           | Pik from pique.
           | 
           | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_card_suit
        
             | dmoy wrote:
             | What's funny is those Skat decks that are clearly the
             | "normal" (French I guess hahah) suits, except with still
             | only Skat number of cards and nonstandard colors. So it's
             | 32 cards, and green/etc colors, but it replaces the bells
             | and acorns.
             | 
             | That's like 90%+ of the skat decks I ever used, but it
             | didn't occur to me that it was like halfway between
             | original German deck and French deck
        
         | dlachausse wrote:
         | This French company exports a few modern games...
         | 
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubisoft
         | 
         | I know it's not exactly what you meant.
        
       | soneca wrote:
       | From my understanding, a panic was the result of more than a
       | hundred people being violently killed by an animal. Not by "the
       | media".
       | 
       | There is not one mention of werewolf in how it describes the
       | happenings of the time, only when talking about the game.
       | 
       | Very clickbaity title trying to get the attention of those that
       | like to blame "the media" for everything
        
         | helpfulContrib wrote:
         | "Stoked" implies there was already a fire - indeed, an animal
         | was attacking and killing villagers - it doesn't mean 'created
         | entirely out of nothingness' ...
         | 
         | You stoke a fire to get it going, and you can do that with old
         | or new fires, alike.
        
       | Mistletoe wrote:
       | Wait is The Werewolves of Millers Hollow the modern game with the
       | app One Night Ultimate Werewolf? My family loves that game! Never
       | knew it was a modern take on such an old game and this story.
        
         | throwawayk7h wrote:
         | It's more like Mafia from what I understand, with multiple
         | day/night cycles.
        
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