Oriental Adventures, was it really that racist?

[Bedrockgames]

I don't understand the relevance between that and the phenomenon I'm describing, which is people who don't think there's a problem who keep reverting to their own framing of the problem, while rejecting the framing offered by the people who do think there's a problem....I don't know what to make of that.

That is just disagreement. I mean one group thinks A is a problem, another thinks A is not a problem. Just because you find something to be a problem, and just because you feel other people do as well, it doesn't mean I have to find it to be a problem, and it doesn't mean I have to agree with your assessment of how many other people find it to be a problem. But it is a little more deep than that I think because usually there are a number of points as to why you would find A to be a problem, and people might have varying degrees of agreement and disagreement with each of those points.

 

[Bill Zebub]

That is just disagreement. I mean one group thinks A is a problem, another thinks A is not a problem. Just because you find something to be a problem, and just because you feel other people do as well, it doesn't mean I have to find it to be a problem, and it doesn't mean I have to agree with your assessment of how many other people find it to be a problem. But it is a little more deep than that I think because usually there are a number of points as to why you would find A to be a problem, and people might have varying degrees of agreement and disagreement with each of those points.

Here's my perception of the conversation:
"A is a problem"
"B just isn't true."
"I didn't say B, I said A is a problem."
"But B isn't a problem!"

 

[Bedrockgames]

Here's my perception of the conversation:
"A is a problem"
"B just isn't true."
"I didn't say B, I said A is a problem."
"But B isn't a problem!"

If that is happening it is probably a communication issue. But even so, someone doesn't have to agree with you that A is a problem. If they are missing your point, responding to the wrong point, I think most of the time that is a product of people rapidly responding to posts on a forum, and a product of people reading other peoples posts through their own lens (I have definitely had my own words fired back at me in an uncharitable way). This is one of the reasons why I am saying we need to get more comfortable with our disagreements without despising one another, because I think once it becomes a moral difference, those kinds of reframing you are pointing to become more and more common

 

[Voadam]

This really seems like a reach to me. I can sort of understand complaints that it is a pastiche of asian culture (I think those complaints are misguided as pastiche, in my view, is perfectly acceptable aesthetic) but to argue that by prioritizing Japanese tropes, it was perpetuating Japanese Imperialism from earlier in the century.....that really makes no sense. I don't think anyone in their right mind would read Oriental Adventures and see it as an endorsement of Japanese occupation of Korea or China for example. This is the kind of argument that you really have to squint hard to see. By the time you get to the 80s, the reason the book is using so much Japanese material is because Japanese martial arts tropes were everywhere in the culture (there was the ninja craze, the Shogun Miniseries, karate was everywhere, etc).

I think whether you need to squint hard to see an issue here is going to vary from person to person.

The claim is not that OA is an endorsement of Japanese occupation.

The issue here is a structural one, because of overlaying fantasy Japanese feudal culture onto the fantasy Chinese it both diminishes and erases Chinese culture from the picture (not to mention the East Asian nations erased from any representation in the fantasy Asia) and this is particularly grating given the historical context of the occupation and imposition of Japanese culture.

I think someone thinking about it from the perspective of a background in one of those occupied places can empathize with finding this presentation and those parallels off-putting and distasteful.

This can vary a lot.

Warhammer is mostly fantasy Holy Roman Empire Germany but also has a Grail Knights land supplement that is a mashup of England and France. England and France have historically been enemies and world power rivals for centuries from before the Normans conquered England up through the Napoleonic era. Mostly people find Warhammer not problematic here even with the culture mashup and apparent complete erasure of Ireland and Scotland from their fantasy Europe.

It would be easy to think of examples though that would make the juxtaposition and overlays more grating to some.

If you had a fantasy Middle East area and based it on Israel and Jewish traditions and had a cleric equivalent rabbi class in D&D that could be a neat cool fantasy thing. If you detail the area's culture as all Jewish but then at the end mention the area includes a much bigger fantasy Arabia as well as the fantasy Israel kingdom, it could be offputting to see that the fantasy Arab areas get the entirely Jewish culture and traditions applied, to see in the follow up supplements on the fantasy Arab areas that their cleric equivalents are called Rabbis with power to make clay golems, and so on. I find it easy to think that from a Palestinian perspective viewing such a presentation of a Jewish overlay onto an Arab area could be distasteful and grating.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think whether you need to squint hard to see an issue here is going to vary from person to person.

The claim is not that OA is an endorsement of Japanese occupation.

The issue here is a structural one, because of overlaying fantasy Japanese feudal culture onto the fantasy Chinese it both diminishes and erases Chinese culture from the picture (not to mention the East Asian nations erased from any representation in the fantasy Asia) and this is particularly grating given the historical context of the occupation and imposition of Japanese culture.

I think someone thinking about it from the perspective of a background in one of those occupied places can empathize with finding this presentation and those parallels off-putting and distasteful.

Fair enough, the poster used language more like 'this is highly insensitive' (not an exact quote) and not "this is an endorsement of Japanese occupations in the 20th century). But even then, i think that is a very tenuous point. Especially given that OA was written in the 80s, when Japan was no longer an imperial power. But I just don't really see how heavily relying on Japanese tropes would be read as something like Japan occupying China. That seems like highly symbolic thinking to me. Like you have to go out of your way to be troubled by it. At the very least, it is super obvious this wasn't the intention. The aim was explicitly stated in the Zeb Cook quote provided earlier, where it had to do with things like familiarity, marketability, etc.

That said, I understand the other argument here: the pastiche one. I disagree with it. But I don't think it is an argument you have to squint to understand or perceive.

 

[MGibster]

Yes. And even though I'm very much in the "OA is a huge embarrassment" camp, I'm not calling for censorship of the book.

This kind of rings hollow for me. It's like hearing from the Tennessee school board that they're not censoring Maus they're just removing it from the curriculum. It's true in a technical sense I guess but somehow not a satisfactory conclusion.

 

[Willie the Duck]

This kind of rings hollow for me. It's like hearing from the Tennessee school board that they're not censoring Maus they're just removing it from the curriculum. It's true in a technical sense I guess but somehow not a satisfactory conclusion.

That seems a stretched analogy. That Tennessee school board has the power to do something about whether others have ready access to a given product. BZ can do nothing but advocate what they'd like to see other people decide with regards to picking up the book.

 

[Voadam]

But I just don't really see how heavily relying on Japanese tropes would be read as something like Japan occupying China. That seems like highly symbolic thinking to me. Like you have to go out of your way to be troubled by it.

It would be the overlay of Japanese stuff onto the representation of fantasy Chinese given the history and context of the Japanese occupation.

In OA 6 Ronin Challenge the oriental adventures module is set in Shou Lung the fantasy Chinese empire. One of the pregens is a Shou Lung yakuza with a background that "Even the head of the clan, the oyabun, has taken note of this hardened veteran."

There is an attempt in OA6 to make some things more Chinese appropriate, there is a list of Shou Lung equivalent class names, but OA's base fantasy samurai Japanese culture and names and feudal Japanese honor system overlayed onto non-Japanese fantasy Asian countries is still a big mismatch that can be grating.

 

[BookTenTiger]

This kind of rings hollow for me. It's like hearing from the Tennessee school board that they're not censoring Maus they're just removing it from the curriculum. It's true in a technical sense I guess but somehow not a satisfactory conclusion.

I'm curious, let's say that Wizards of the Coast did produce something in the past that everyone agreed was racist. What do you think the right thing for WotC to do would be?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But there are plenty that are, or use some well known Chinese legend or element.

And so much cultural mash-up. Very, very good mashup.

I don't think it is the same thing... Japanese culture grew up in the shadow of China. They got their writing system (one of the main ones anyway, and the first one) from China. They got one of their major religions from China. They got a lot of stories, traditions, and attitudes from China as well. So, when you look at elements in Japanese fantasy, or even some myths/legends, a lot of it is heavily influenced by Chinese elements. Consider the whole thing with 'Fantasy Martial Arts' (which covers a lot of what makes up 'superhero' equivalents in both Japanese and Chinese lore and fiction) and the associated teaching traditions and attitudes about how and why you pass on knowledge, its all very clearly got a pretty common source.

The point is, if you see something in a Japanese Manga or whatnot, just because it evokes something that is typical of Chinese stories or culture, doesn't mean it isn't very much a traditional part of Japanese culture. Same with Korea, which has a very strong tradition of getting things from Chinese culture as well. Its a lot like European cultures, actually. King Arthur and the whole Arthurian cycle as it is generally known to us today (IE Mallory as the primary source) is a mashup of Welsh, Irish, British, and Medieval French which is mashed in on top of that, and then transmitted BACK to England. That doesn't make it not a British legend though. You can see the elements that came from various places, but they do all kind of just belong together. It is kind of the same with Tolkien. He was drawing MOSTLY from Old English mythology, to a degree, but when he mashes in something that might be referencing Finnish myths, its hard to say where one starts and another one ends.

So, I think Japanese Manga and such are pretty uniquely Japanese, they aren't appropriating stuff from someone else, its just that their culture drew a lot of influences from another one.

IMHO, as others have stated, this is a lot of the issue with OA, it just doesn't seem to understand. They take a uniquely Japanese (and rather historically narrow and anachronistic one at that) and then view all of Chinese culture as if it was basically the same. Actually a lot of it COULD work, but not without a lot more subtle presentation. Like, Chinese ideas of honor maybe do sound a good bit like Bushido, but you cannot just lump it all under this one term and not do a lot of violence to the whole thing. OA's 'not-China' does not read much like China at all in many ways (though in other ways maybe it does capture some of the general concept). Anyway, I'm not really qualified to say a whole lot on that subject, as I probably know no more than Zeb Cook, lol! (not to knock the guy, he seems rather cool).