** About half of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' fits. The city of Windhelm wins the award for grimness, and if the player sides with the empire, fits the villain base criterion as well. The further north you go, the more dangerous things become, with the wilderness around Dawnstar and Winterhold best being described as an endless parade of irate polar bears, hungry frost trolls, pissed-off horkers, and terminally idiotic bandits. However, the northernmost city in the game, Solitude, is actually fairly nice and not snowy at all, apparently due to warm water currents in coming through the northern sea [[note]] Warm water ocean currents are the reason why the British Isles, Ireland, and the North American West Coast remain temperate despite having the same latitude as places whose primary export is snow and frostbite[[/note]]. Its grim enough that Nord culture has the FourthDateMarriage as the norm. Skyrim is such a harsh and dangerous land even within the civilized areas that Nord culture in general frowns on lengthy courtships, so if you care about someone enough to love them or want to marry them, you wear an Amulet of Mara and just tell them, and if they're favorably inclined they'll accept, you get married, and then everyone can go back to keeping the bear, vampires, trolls, bandits, and dragons at bay.

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** About half of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' fits. The city of Windhelm wins the award for grimness, being plagued with FantasticRacism, slums, and a serial killer in the streets. The further north you go, the more dangerous things become, with the wilderness around Dawnstar and Winterhold best being described as an endless parade of irate polar bears, hungry frost trolls, pissed-off horkers, and terminally idiotic bandits. However, the northernmost city in the game, Solitude, is actually fairly nice and not snowy at all, apparently due to warm water currents in coming through the northern sea [[note]] Warm water ocean currents are the reason why the British Isles, Ireland, and the North American West Coast remain temperate despite having the same latitude as places whose primary export is snow and frostbite[[/note]]. Its grim enough that Nord culture has the FourthDateMarriage as the norm. Skyrim is such a harsh and dangerous land even within the civilized areas that Nord culture in general frowns on lengthy courtships, so if you care about someone enough to love them or want to marry them, you wear an Amulet of Mara and just tell them, and if they're favorably inclined they'll accept, you get married, and then everyone can go back to keeping the bear, vampires, trolls, bandits, and dragons at bay.

27th Apr '13 11:22:08 AM JIKTV

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27th Apr '13 4:00:17 AM LordGro

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Namespacing, formatting. We don't usually list aversions. Weeding natter.

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* In ''TheSilmarillion'', Morgoth's fortress of Angband is in the north extreme of Beleriand.
** His first fortress, Utumno, was in the north of Middle Earth. Apparently, this is why North is cold.
** There's also the Witch-king of ''TheLordOfTheRings'' fame, whose realm of Angmar lay in the far north of the world.
*** Also averted in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', where ''{{Mordor}}'' is in the south-east.
*** Although this led to MisaimedFandom assuming it represented Soviet Russia, and Tolkien angrily wrote letters educating them about this trope and how he put Mordor there as a subversion of the more classic 'evil in the cold north'.
*** Parts of Middle-Earth, when mapped out, correspond to real-life regions (the Shire, as admitted by Tolkien, is supposed to resemble Oxfordshire). The real-life corresponding regions to Mordor and Angmar would probably be Romania and Northern Norway; see, for example, [[http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/121-where-on-earth-was-middle-earth/ one mockup]].
** The Grinding Ice is the site of many deaths of migrants, so it could probably count. There's no inherent evil fortress there, though; it's just a nasty stretch of inhospitable icecap.
** The Withered Heath in the Grey Mountains is noted in ''Literature/TheHobbit'' as the home of many vile dragons, including Smaug himself.
* In George R. R. Martin's ''ASongOfIceAndFire'', the Wall protects civilized people from all kinds of scary stuff that live in the north. Most people south of the wall think there's just wild men and direwolves on the far side, [[spoiler: the [[OurWightsAreDifferent wights]], Others, and [[OurGiantsAreBigger giants]]]] having faded into myth for them. Seasons are also much longer, with winter typically lasting several years.

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* In the works of Creator/JRRTolkien:
** In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', Morgoth's fortress of Angband is in the north extreme of Beleriand. Similarly, his first fortress, Utumno, was in the north of Middle Earth. Apparently, this is why North is cold.
** Also in the ''Silmarillion'', many Noldor emigrants die when they try to cross the Grinding Ice, a sea-strait between Aman and Middle-Earth filled with icebergs. There's no inherent evil fortress there, though; it's just a nasty stretch of inhospitable icecap.
** ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' mentions that Angmar, the former realm of the Witch-king, lay in the far north of the world.
** As noted in ''Literature/TheHobbit'', the Grey Mountains are rife with "orcs, goblins and hobgoblins", and the Withered Heath in particular is the home of many vile dragons, including Smaug himself.
* In George R. R. Martin's ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', the Wall protects civilized people from all kinds of scary stuff that live in the north. Most people south of the wall think there's just wild men and direwolves on the far side, [[spoiler: the [[OurWightsAreDifferent wights]], Others, and [[OurGiantsAreBigger giants]]]] having faded into myth for them. Seasons are also much longer, with winter typically lasting several years.

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27th Apr '13 2:31:04 AM WeAreAllKosh

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27th Apr '13 2:30:35 AM WeAreAllKosh

Send WeAreAllKosh a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

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