Electronic fora are the best reason to get depressed about Nordic live roleplaying. On Galadrim there are, as there had been for a decade, elitism debates. "Elitism" is, has allways been, and will probably allways be a dead end in the discourse of a movement trying to understand itself. This applies to both self proclaimed "elitists" or members of an "elite" (usually an uninfluential minority of smart people), and the witch-hunters crying "Elitism! Begone! Look how good I am at sword-making instead!". At the bottom of any elitism debate are status conflicts, rather than ideology, which is probably why they won't go away.

Let's zoom over to Norway. Swedish LARP Hamlet, which had it been a movie would have won all the Oscars, raises eyebrows with the surfacing of an anecdote, told by a fellow who wasn't there, of consenting adults having in-character sex in a closed room in a clumsy way. True; the discussion stayed on track for a while asking mostly is it possible to have in-character sex at all, and some folks wrote pretty bright things that I disagree with entirely, but still pretty bright. But then that other brand of witch-hunting resurfaces - the hunt for events that might be bad PR. Condemn it to Hell befor Diddi and the Tabloids find out! Never mind that 95% of the bad PR generated is by the witch-hunters. There are other issues, some of them important - others only if you're paranoid.

Finally, we have Denmark, still unfortunately the Developing World of Nordic LARP. Skip most of the regular debates and go to Knudepunkt. For a while, the discussion has been ongoing about whether Århus or Copenhagen should be next years location. Most of the people from the Århus initiative, including me, have stayed away from the nasty tone of the discussion. Example of rhetorics: "Tell me, the main reason you want Knudepunkt to Århus is to get more Jutlanders there?" Guy from Århus: "No, what they're saying is they want to start a tradition which includes more folks from the regions, Gothenburg, Turku, Jutland..." original fellow: "Aha! So you admit it! You do want more jutlanders!" and so on. Good'ol' Joc of Panclou and Ricki Lake fame enters the discussion and suggests a language change to English. Foreigners enter. And the old wolfs of the discussion suddenly don their civilized masques.

Best quote of the day? A guy signs his message with "member of the nordic elite" and doesn't even seem to be joking.