Pop Culture References of Wizard101
Privates Rosencranz and Guildenstern – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Shakespeare’s Hamlet)
http://www.wizard101central.com/wiki/NPC:Private_Rosencranz#axzz7Un4MTkfe
http://www.wizard101central.com/wiki/NPC:Private_Guildenstern#axzz7Un4MTkfe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosencrantz_and_Guildenstern
Privates Rosencranz and Guildenstern are two of the three Wizard City guards that serve in Olde Town. They carry out their duties alongside Sergeant Muldoon.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. They are childhood friends of Hamlet, summoned by King Claudius to distract the prince from his apparent madness and if possible to ascertain the cause of it.
Rosencrantz (“rose wreath”) and Gyldenstjerne/Gyllenstierna (“golden star”) were names of Danish (and Norwegian, and Swedish) noble families of the 16th century; records of the Danish royal coronation of 1596 show that one tenth of the aristocrats participating bore one or the other name. James Voelkel suggests that the characters were named after Frederik Rosenkrantz and Knud Gyldenstierne, cousins of Tycho Brahe who had visited England in 1592.
I have always loved the pop culture references in Wizard (and Pirate) 101. This series was inspired by a series I did featuring the Heroes of Lemuria and their ties to early 20th Cent. pulp heroes. This is the ninteenth article chronicling the #W101PopCulture references starting in Wizard City. The current list of all the (known) Wizard City references can be found here. These articles were originally put together for a Facebook group I belong to. Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Rosencranz and Guildenstern images are from Wizard101, and are copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment.
The image of Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is from: The Works of Shakespeare / Edited by Howard Staunton / The Illustrations by John Gilbert / Engraved by the Dalziel Brothers / Vol. 3 Published: London: George Routledge and Sons, 1867, it is in the public domain.
All image usage in this article qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
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