Let's close this evil year by summing up: what were the most read articles of 2020? The overall winners are the in-depth articles!
As we did last year with this article, the last day of the year is dedicated to sum up the activity of the Atlantean Seekers.
2020 was our second year of actual business and it was the first year that we almost constantly published one article a day. Sometimes, we have even published two, in particularly busy periods! This constancy fills us with pride and we hope to be able to maintain it in the future.
We also want to take advantage of the opportunity again for sincerely thank the readers who followed us during this 2020. Without you, who read us with constancy and attention, we would not be here to draw conclusions! But a heartfelt thanks also goes to readers and casual readers who discovered us / and by chance: we hope we were able to provide you with useful information too!
The most read articles of 2020: insights, reviews and controversies
The most read articles of 2020 on our site are above all the articles of in-depth study of general issues or specific issues. However, there is also the predictable sprinkling of mass views for articles related to controversy, which as always attract a lot, sometimes even in the long term. After all, many of our in-depth articles arise precisely from the desire to dissect some controversies in more detail, which at times seemed to us treated with a certain superficiality by other nerdy information realities.
There is no shortage of the most read articles of 2020 reviews and insights into role-playing games. The protagonists, as you will soon see, are two of the most interesting, award-winning and talked about RPGs of this year.
So let's see ours in more detail ten most read articles of 2020. It starts from number 10 up to the first position. It will take into account only and only the views received between January 31st and December 2020st 2019, even in the case of articles published in XNUMX. If you want to read them, just click on the title of the article.
Brancalonia - Land of Zappa and Sword for D&D
At the tenth position among the most read articles of 2020 is our very first article on Brancalonia, written by our Seeker R.
Brancalonia is an Italian role-playing game that uses (and reinvents) the D&D game system to convey a setting inspired by the “spaghetti fantasy” genre. Designed by Mauro Longo e Acheron Books, in collaboration with other realities such as Heroic Ignorance and Ludiblood, Brancalonia in 2020 it was the protagonist of one of the most successful playful Kickstarters.
On the spaghetti fantasy publications of Acheron Books and Heroic Ignorance, our Seeker R also wrote the following reviews: the one on first collection of Hoe and Sword and that on vilupera.
Asterisk: instructions for use in RPGs
In ninth place among the most read articles of 2020, our old flame of 2019 returns: the article on the use ofasterisk! Last year it was in tenth place in the ranking, and this year it's back strongly in the top 10.
This is a long linguistics article in which our Seeker G analyzes the use of the asterisk as a gender neutral suffix for Italian, emphasizing its potential and weaknesses. The article closes with a small analysis on strategies for talking about non-binary characters in role play manuals, giving some examples.
Upon its release, this article caused considerable sensation, but over the last year it has been read and consulted several times without arousing as much controversy. On the contrary, very interesting discussions have also arisen! In fact, it was used among the reference texts of the Editing course area of Janus Academy.
"Politically correct"? What does it mean? Let's be clear
In eighth place among the most read articles of 2020 there is another in-depth study, this time on the use of the term politically correct.
The article talks about how the term politically correct was born and used. It emphasizes the existence of a politically correct "positive", required by minorities as a form of respect, and a politically correct "negative", used by privileged people to wash their conscience.
This article was born out of Seeker G's annoyance with the misuse of this term and since its publication has found itself in the weekly top 10 of the most read articles almost constantly.
Boba Fett and body-shaming: are we done enough?
This article came in seventh place among the most read articles of 2020 by surprise. In fact, this article, which was written by Seeker G in December of 2020, has collected many views in her English version.
As you can understand from the title, the article talks about an ongoing controversy relating to the television series The Mandalorian. Indeed, the actor who plays Boba Fett, Temuera Morrison, was a victim of body shaming and fat-shaming both on Twitter by individual users and on some news sites. This controversy comes a few weeks later the one that hit the actress Gina Carano, who plays Cara Dune.
The two towers: why Rettilingua and Aragne?
In sixth place in the ranking of the most read articles of 2020 we find the first article Tolkienian.
This is an in-depth study on two translation choices by Ottavio Fatica The two Towers, within the context of the new Italian translation of The Lord of the Rings. In particular, the article focuses on the choice to translate Wormtongue with Reptangue e shelob with Aragne.
Although this is an informative article, simply setting out the translator's choices, the controversy they arrived almost immediately.
Not The End: The Review
The fifth place in the ranking of the most read articles of 2020 is held firmly by our most read review ever: that of Not The End, written by the Seeker S.
The success of this review doesn't surprise us, because 2020 has been a fantastic year for Not The End. This role-playing game of Fumble RPGIn fact, this year it achieved three great milestones: it was funded in just 47 minutes in a great campaign on Kickstarter in January, it was officially released in March and in November it won the Role Play of the Year award.
Our Seeker S has followed this project from the very beginning reviewing the quickstart in November 2019 and reviewing the actual game in May 2020.
Female Space Marine: the missing daughters of the Golden Throne
Also this year, an article written by one of our collaborators ends up in the top 10. In fact, in fourth place among the most read articles of 2020, there is the article by Martha Palvarini on Female Space Marine in the narrative universe of Warhammer 40.000.
Published close to the release of the Italian manual of Wrath & Glory, this article questions the possible existence of female Space Marines within the changing and chaotic canon of Warhammer 40.000, reflecting on how this franchise deconstructs fantasy tropes and wondering whether including female Space Marines might be far less progressive than people realize.
This long and in-depth article has sparked the interest and ire of many and many players of Warhammer 40.000. We are pleased to say that there were many and many who commented on the article quietly arguing their opinions, but unfortunately we also had to moderate several subjects who were convinced that insults were tolerated on our platforms. (Strange but true: we don't tolerate them.) The fact remains that we are happy to host this beautiful article on our site, with all due respect to these subjects.
Vittoria Alliata and her "truth" about Tolkien: do we clarify?
In third place among the most read articles of 2020 is one of the most challenging articles by Seeker G: the one on the statements of Alliata victory, the first translator of The Lord of the Rings.
This article talks about the clash between Vittoria Alliata and Bompiani, reconstructing the story on the basis of the statements of both sides and trying, as the title suggests, to clarify this smoky question. In fact, it seems that Alliata refused Bompiani's proposal to revise her translation, despite the fact that the translator herself had repeatedly stated, over the years, that she wanted to revise her work. Furthermore, doubts are presented as to whether the first translation of The Lord of the Rings had been read and approved by Tolkien.
This article received a lot of different reactions and was also cited by this article de The Post.
JK Rowling and transphobia: let's take stock of the situation
In second place among the most read articles of 2020 there is obviously also an in-depth study on JK Rowling's transphobic statements.
This article takes up the story of the tweets of the Harry Potter writer, explaining why they are transphobic and what the court case of Maya Forstater so attacked by Rowling consisted of. It explains, therefore, how Rowling trivializes the path of trans people, how she characterizes women only on the basis of their genitals, ignores the existence of gender identity and claims that trans people are not discriminated as such.
This article has received a lot of attention from the public and also attracting transphobic people on our Facebook page who have learned firsthand that we Seekers do not even tolerate transphobia in our spaces.
Answers on the new translation of The Lord of the Rings: Ottavio Fatica in Parma
Finally, in the first place among the most read articles of 2020 there is another feature article on Tolkien, this time published in late 2019.
This is a report of the intervention of Ottavio Fatica, the new translator de The Lord of the Rings, at the University of Parma, shortly after the exit of the new translation de The Fellowship of the Ring. In this article you can read Fatigue's explanations on some of his translation choices, with which he tries to make people understand how complex it is to translate Tolkien.
This article, at the time of its release, had a good success, but it was not as explosive as our other articles of the kind. Nonetheless, in the course of 2020 it has accumulated a truly remarkable number of views, finishing in the weekly top 10 of the most read articles almost constantly.
Let's sum up the most read articles of 2020
In short, if 2019 was the year of controversy, 2020 was the year of insights. This is a pretty positive trend in our opinion since if the controversy is strong, the deepening well done lasts over time.
We closed 2019 with this question:
We will manage, in 2020, to write something that sinks War and lawsuit?
The question referred to our most read article of 2019, namely War and lawsuit against Tolkien's translation: let's clarify. Well, after this top 10 we can say that War and lawsuit has finally been ditched and that in 2020 we wrote many articles that have, over the year, racked up more views than War and lawsuit.
So, we close the year with one new question, to be resumed on 31 December 2021: will the trend of insights persist? Or will a new kind of article be the most successful? And will we be able to get an article that doesn't talk about Tolkien to the top?
