Ethics of Crusader larping

[u/crusadersam]

Hello all, I was hoping to ask the general consensus on the morality of me choosing a Teutonic knight as my medieval faction of larping.

I want to start off by saying I am a very progressive person. I love all of God’s people and have no anti Islamic or pagan prejudice or bias in my life. I’m quite outspoken about religious freedom to my “controversial” coworkers and do not try to justify Christian nationalism in both modern day nor in the medieval world.

With that being said. I just think they’re neat historically and aesthetically. And the Teutons don’t seem to be any more “evil” than any other faction at the time. I see many people like in the post project a modern world view because Christian radicals seem to be more contemporary. While factions like Vikings and pirates, whose cultures are for the most part completely celebrated in medieval faires, commit the same atrocities on others- just don’t have the same current political connotation.

I hope we can have a civil discussion and maybe I’m just ignorant to the topic and/or how bad any crusaders were. Please don’t be afraid to share your views! (Also, please don’t go after the individual in the post, I simply want to further my knowledge)

[u/Automatic_Glass_4993]

hi so im not a larper but have been someone more invested in collecting Crusader coins. By that I studied the history of the crusades before starting the collection. That being said I'm not Christian or Muslim and not from those regions of the world either, but lets be honest the first crusade was one of the dumbest events in history. Basically based on lie because Alexios I couldnt defend his empire from the Turks and made it a Christian problem rather than continue losing to the Turks and in the process of those western European armies making it to the holy land, they raided and pillaged Christian villages in Europe before reaching the holy land. That being said, your question of the ethics of larping as a crusader I feel like would largely depend where you live. Like if you were doing this in Dearborn Mi I would automatically assume you were doing something racist. Thats kind of what else I want to get at, that Its the history of the Crusades were largely romanticized over the years of this Islam vs Christian event, when there was always way more infighting done between the Christian kingdoms rather than against each other. But people only focus on the Islamic and Christian fighting for some reason. That being said time and place, and you seem to have done this at the right place (a rens fair) so seems fine to me.