The Wetʼsuwetʼen are a First Nation who live on the Bulkley River and around Burns Lake, Broman Lake, and François Lake in the northwestern Central Interior of British Columbia.
They speak Witsuwitʼen, a dialect of the Babine-Witsuwitʼen language which, like its sister language Carrier, is a member of the Athabaskan family.
Their oral history, called kungax, recounts that their ancestral village, Dizkle or Dzilke, once stood upstream from the Bulkley Canyon. This cluster of cedar houses on both sides of the river is said to have been abandoned because of an omen of impending disaster. The exact location of the village has been lost. The neighbouring Gitxsan people of the Hazelton area have a similar tale, though the village in their version is named Dimlahamid (Temlahan)
The endonym Wetʼsuwetʼen means "People of the Wa Dzun Kwuh River (Bulkley River)"
The Wet’suwet’en First Nation was formerly part of the Omineca Band. However, in 1984 the Omineca Band split into the Broman Lake and Nee-Tahi-Buhn bands. The Skin Tayi band later split off from Nee-Tahi-Buhn. Today, the Skin Tyee Band, Nee Tahi Buhn Band, Wet’suwet’en First Nation, Moricetown Band and Hagwilget Band make up the Wet’suwet’en Nation.
Like most First Nations here, Wet’suwet’en never signed treaties with the Canadian or provincial governments. Nevertheless, the latter took the land and leased forested acreage to logging companies. Today just 20% of British Columbia’s old-growth forests remain.
In 2020, after decades of activist pressure, the province identified about a quarter of the remaining old growth as at high risk for logging and recommended a pause while deciding their fate. Yet today, logging has been deferred in less than half of the high-risk area.
Another conflict with the settler state has been the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which seeks to transport liquefied natural gas from northeast BC to a terminal on the coast near the town of Kitimat.
The 670-kilometre (417-mile) pipeline will cut across traditional Wet’suwet’en lands that cover 22,000sq km across northern BC.
The hereditary chiefs, who under Wet’suwet’en law claim authority over those traditional territories, said they never gave their consent for the project to move forward. They have raised concerns about the pipeline’s potential effects on the land, water, and their community.
In late July, Amnesty International took the extraordinary step in naming Dsta’hyl Canada’s first ever designated prisoner of conscience, and now demanding his immediate and unconditional release.
“The Canadian state has unjustly criminalized and confined Chief Dsta’hyl for defending the land and rights of the Wet’suwet’en people,” Amnesty International’s Ana Piquer stated in a press release. “As a result, Canada joins the shameful list of countries where prisoners of conscience remain under house arrest or behind bars.”
In October 2021, Dsta’hyl was arrested and charged with criminal contempt after confiscating and decommissioning heavy equipment utilized by Coastal GasLink to construct its LNG pipeline on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. Dsta’hyl said he was enforcing Wet’suwet’en laws as the company did not have the free, prior and informed consent of hereditary chiefs to build the pipeline.
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It's slop but tbh at least it had some heft
I used to think it was gauche but after being horrified by seeing so many insufferable libs and cryptofash dweebs who treat Tolkien like sacred text I'm much more forgiving of it.
I really like it. I think it engages directly with core themes, especially that you can't use the methods of evil to fight evil. Of all the adaptations I've ever seen I think it does the best with the orcs. I like seeing directly what means for someone to openly wield a Ring of Power for conquest and dominion. Derping around Mordor and just interacting with the orcs is great and it expands on Mordor well beyond the movie depictions of scary dark volcano place. Idril's archeology musings are a fun way to expand on the culture of Gondor and Celebrimbor's various musings on Elven virtues and bits and pieces of history are cool.
Overall I think the story team had a deep respect for the source material and found ways that they could represent what was already written in a very deep, rich way while also creating their own story within a space that was left open by Tolkien. I think a lot of the folks complaining about this or that thing in the story forget how weird LotR is and how many open questions there are. Like what is Carnan? Well, there's a ton of options from some kind of primordial spirit, to a maia, to an entwife. The game doesn't tell you what she is or why she can do what she does, but the character fits right in with strange things like Tom, old man Willow, and various other weird woods. Why is Celebrimbor a wraith? The story says "Well, he was deeply tied to the construction of the One Ring and in our version Sauron conscripted him to finish it, so he was tied to the Ring's fate like all the other Ringbearers. Why is Shelob a hot chick? uh... But I do like the idea that she hooked up with Sauron at some point. The dating pool for evil dark sorcerer angels is probably pretty small and Sauron presumably does stuff during the hundreds and thousands of years where there's no big stuff happening. Shelob is his neighbor, they must have had some kind of understanding with each other. She's the child of the completely inexplicable primordial monster of darkness Ungoliant and had lived in Mordor since before Sauron came, you can't just take someone like that lightly.
Overall I think it's one of the better derivative works. Most aren't willing to take liberties or tell new stories and most of those that do do so quite poorly.
I will adore Shadow Of til I die.