It looms over the horizon...silent and dark as a grave

Whoever says that Fantasy literature and real-world History are unrelated has clearly never read the genre's best. Just as with world mythology, the finest Fantasy authors draw on real-world events for inspiration, making the genre a kind of mirroring allegory of humanity as it was and is.

As it is what gave me the idea for this post, that would be most recent and most fitting Fantasy-History simile I am aware of. In the card game Magic: The Gathering, the latest set – Ixalan – is based off mesoamerican lore and history with a slight touch of Indiana Jones; hence filled with treasure-seeking pirates, people riding dinosaur, a lost city of gold, and a general sense of braving the unknown and uncharted jungles and seas. All very well, and an excellent idea, for it draws upon some of I hold what be Fantasy's greatest quality: the sense that one is exploring unknown lands.

Conqueror's Galleon

However, in this set, MtG also decided to add real-world conquistadors and colonizers to the various factions of Ixalan. Are they Humans? Close. In a a brutally apt analogy, they are Vampires. And why not? To quote the MtG developers, "Think intrepid Spanish sailors searching for spices from the New World, but instead Vampires searching for fresh blood. They discover an indigenous tribe inspired by Mayans, Incans, and Aztecs. Peace? War? Who knows—culture clashes always create conflict, and conflict is necessary for a compelling story." Naturally the picture of the Vampire Conquistadors' arriving vessel looks dark and menacing, which makes sense as Vampires are not known for their sense of cheer in both mood and decorative inclinations. 

But is it really so far off from how the European colonizers arrived in the Americas? Sure their ships did not look Vampiric nor carried a sense of dread, arriving in bright daylight upon picturesque beeches and whatnot. Yet is the above picture truly so inaccurate? Did the Europeans not truly bring greed and death the Native Americans, seeking gold and spices as Vampire seeks blood? Per my own lessons, for I love History no less than Fantasy, the analogy fits hand in glove. Not literally, but spiritually, making the ship picture an excellent foreshadowing of the eventual fate of many Native American cultures: a mighty ship comes from lands unknown beyond the horizon, the dark clouds marshaling behind it blotting out the sun.