The Location Debate

[Zavi]

I've always thought Eric's kingdom never had a definite place in the real world--that it was just an imaginary country based on Italy, Denmark, France, and England. But a member of LAF provided some interesting evidence to the story's country of origin:

I dunno if it sways me, but it's worth a look.

[WickedElphie]

I have to say I completely disagree.

1) The timeline RE Hans Christian Anderson makes the assumption that he wrote the story immediately after his 'rescue' by Ariel and that it was published soon after.

2) Information taken from a sequel is suspect at best and there's no reason to believe Atlantica is "close' to Morgana's lair, which is not necessarily iceland. And for that matter they have polar bears and penguins. Polar Bears are found in the Arctic, Penguins in Antarctica.

3) And for the windmills, there were windmills in Don Quixote, a SPANISH novel. And while we're on arctitecture in the audio commentary they talk about how they deliberately gave the castle a "warm" "Mediterranian" look.

4) The shoes looked more like boots than clogs to me.

5) "Eric" comes from Germanic origin but could be an "imported" name or a family anme from his mother's family. The Phantom of the Opera's real name is "Erik", and again, that's from a French novel.

6) The name Atlantica and the names Triton, Posieden, Neptune, Athena and all of the "end in A" names suggest some proximity to Greece and/or Rome.

7) The climate and ""look" of Eric's kingdom in no way suggests Scandonavia, windmills aside.

8) Heck, there's the look of Eric himslef. He looks about as Scandonavian as Antonio Banderas.

To sum up my feelings: There is no way Eric's kingdom is Norway.

[Coral]

I'm with Jess. While all those theories what's-his-face posted are very interesting, it's too big of a leap for me. His kingdom is not Norway or Denmark or Sweden or Finland.

I still firmly believe the kingdom is an island in the Med. I view all of the little Scandinavian things in the scenery as nods to the original story. Not as indicators of where the kingdom is. There are far more things in the scenery and setting that are *not* Scandinavian than are Scandinavian.

Windmills may be synonymous with the Netherlands, but they are by no means exclusive to the Netherlands. They've been used all over Europe for centuries.

[fathomsbelow]

I just jumped into that topic to stress my point that it's Mediterranean. There are windmills in both Greece and Italy, and the architecture of Eric's castle reflects that of Italy and Greece. Also, if you look in the picture he inserted, there are palm trees. Palm trees don't grow in Norway the last time I checked. As for the sequel..there are so many things wrong with that movie I don't count it as a credible source.
And there is no way Eric is Scandinavian

[Zavi]

I try to look to the developer's perspective on this issue. If I made TLM, I would rather the film look stunning than have it restricted to one set environment. And then there are all the artists, plus the separate sequel teams that care in varying degrees about canon, who contributed to the backgrounds. If the settings aren't consistent with one country, were the developers ever told to conform to one? Beyond the medetteranian inspiration, anyway. The artists stuck to moods instead of places, so I don't know if grounding the location is even possible. You could do it generally, I think, but nothing beyond that.

[Coral]

Whoever that guy is, he's rather on the weird side! Very few fans are going to take his evidence seriously if he's using TV and sequel material as his evidence. We all know that very little in the show and the sequels jives with the original. It's fun to try and make them fit in, but they should not take precedence over the original.

[DanTheMan]

I think we can deduct that it's in Europe somewhere? lol..

It also has to be right on the coast of the Atlantic, so that narrows it down to a few places.

[Coral]

I just watched it. She's not carrying wooden shoes in the carriage. They're boots!