Aliasing mind_flayer → illithid
Link to alias

Reason:

You didn't really give any reason...
I did some research on the matter, and I have to say, the results say no. While in Dungeons and Dragons lore, the Mind Flayers are Illithid, there are Mind Flayers in other works, too. It's an open source name, whereas Illithid is not.

final_fantasy, for example, has a Mind Flayer species, but while it is very similar in appearance to an Illithid, they are not restricted to four tentacles. Some may have six, some may have two.

Furrin_Gok said:
You didn't really give any reason...
I did some research on the matter, and I have to say, the results say no. While in Dungeons and Dragons lore, the Mind Flayers are Illithid, there are Mind Flayers in other works, too. It's an open source name, whereas Illithid is not.

final_fantasy, for example, has a Mind Flayer species, but while it is very similar in appearance to an Illithid, they are not restricted to four tentacles. Some may have six, some may have two.

I'd say +1 since the tentacle difference really isn't really much of a difference... However it's obvious that Illithid is a specific trademark version of a mind flayer.

It looks like the mind_flayer was cleared out by Zemar at one point, who probably (logically) thought that "everything was tagged with both, and they are basically mean the same thing".

I'd say instead we should do one of two things:

• Alias illithid, mindflayer -> mind_flayer

Or

• Implicate illithid -> mind_flayer
• Alias mindflayer -> mind_flayer

I'm leaning towards the first. We don't have many posts of the creature anyways (less than 30) and the difference isn't very clear to begin with. However, the second is always another option.

Yay! An area where I'm actually pretty knowledgeable! Mind Flayers were created for DnD by Gary Gygax (the co-founder), and are also called illithid. The race as a whole had been known as both pretty much some their beginnings.

There are other variants of mind flayers from different intellectual properties, but they're all based directly off of Gygax's original concept. They're commonly known as mind flayers instead of illithid, that term is pretty much just used in DnD, but it is the true name for the original race. Kind of like how japanese people call Japan "Nippon."

The two names should definitely be aliased, but in which way should maybe be up to the mods. Go with the original incarnation, as used by the company that created them? Or go with the name that other companies and most people tend to use? Personally I would go with illithid in support of the original creator (and because illithid is the coolest word since obsidian), but the creature has worked its way into popular culture enough that it could be easily argued its as public domain as goblins or dragons, and this the common name should take precedence. I suspect most people would want to use Mind Flayer, and I wouldn't argue.

parasprite said:

• Alias illithid, mindflayer -> mind_flayer

Plus one to alias.
They're similar enough, and we don't tag other fantasy species such as orcs or kobolds by the setting either despite minor variations in color and shape.

there are Mind Flayers in other works, too. It's an open source name, whereas Illithid is not.

I'm pretty sure both are still copyrighted, but other companies have used the concept with permission/licensing. Or maybe I was just misled. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0032.html :P

But yeah, from the looks of it, it might be better to do the reverse in that case and alias illithid, ilithid, mindflayer -> mind_flayer since more people use the latter.

Esperskel said:

I'm pretty sure both are still copyrighted, but other companies have used the concept with permission/licensing. Or maybe I was just misled. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0032.html :P

But yeah, from the looks of it, it might be better to do the reverse in that case and alias illithid, ilithid, mindflayer -> mind_flayer since more people use the latter.

Mind flayer is less likely to be misspelled.

Thank you all for helping hammer this out. And a huge thanks to Tokaido for their expertise and very clearly thorough information about it. All of this was invaluable when weighing this one, as it's not something I had much background in.

Alright, approved the following aliases:

illithid to --> mind_flayer
ilithid to --> mind_flayer (amazingly, it was in use so I went ahead and aliased it as well)
mindflayer to --> mind_flayer