Popular Misconceptions

1. Popular Misconceptions

   #1

   Hello Everyone.
   
   In any complete fantasy world, there are many cultures, and those cultures can differ widely from each other. Because of these differences, there are often many misconceptions about different cultures. For example, The Japanese culture might think a man a coward for surrendering to a superior force, while in western culture, some of the bravest men in existance surrender when they know that they are beaten.
   
   Even more notable, are the misconceptions that are completely off base. These are the kind of misconceptions you saw in "Back to the Future", where Marty kept saying "Heavy", and the Doc misinterpreted this to mean that the world's gravitational pull had been altered in the future. Or when the Doc assumed that everybody wore radiation suits in the future to protect themselves from apocolyptic nuclear fallout.
   
   And this, of course, is the reason for this thread. What kind of crazy misconceptions would different races and cultures have about each other. What misconception would a foreign race or culture get from seeing a person wearing shoes. Maybe humans use feet for mating, and so they keep them covered most of the time. Or maybe Humans believe that feet are where evil spirits enter into the human body, when anybody should know that they really enter through the belly button.
   
   So what other popular misconceptions could be drawn about different cultures or races in a Fantasy world.

2. Re: Popular Misconceptions

   #2

   Well, I know one that would be rather interesting to use would be the Mayan's mistaking Europeans for gods.  This could have interesting and potentially very cool in game reprecussions.  A second could possibly be people believing that their ruler was a god.  But, this is so common that it's probably already being done in a lot of settings or games.  So, that may not be the best example.

3. Re: Popular Misconceptions

   #3

   In the Shattered Galaxy, Humanity views their original homeworld, Earth, as all that was pure and good, despite the fact it was a seething cesspool of corruption- But the misconception came about to give greater fire to the crusade against the 1.0 Machine Empire, since the machines destroyed the Earth. They've also taken on a very traditional Japanese culture style, where whatever you did was a form of art, be it war, farming or cooking. They view surrender as cowardly, and state that no matter what, a man should fight to the death for the honour of the Human race.

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