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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raduin711" data-source="post: 8661277" data-attributes="member: 15303">Okay. So when I posted this I kind of expected to see a reply like this.Remember that this is in the context of a discussion of Orientalism, and specific to the board game Istanbul.While he doesn't elaborate why he was glad he didn't see harems, opium dens and djinn in the board game, if we take what he said about what Orientalism is, we might be able to guess why he picked out those select items.First of all, Orientalism is not "randomly leaving things out based on your cultural preference." If that's what you took away from the post, here it is again:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Orientalism is a point of view that favors the colonizers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Orientalism sees the differences between the people of Europe with the Orient and the East, and not the similarities. It also exaggerates those differences.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Orientalism makes those peoples seem to be all the same, and denies their individuality, thus making the colonizers themselves seem more complex, while the people depicted seem simpler, lesser.</li> </ol>So, there is nothing in there about "you can't ever depict djinn, harems or opium dens."As I said before, he never elaborates on those items specifically, so I don't want to put words in his mouth/steal his authority. But those items in particular are examples of differences that might be over-emphasized or exaggerated in an Orientalist lens. And in a board game that probably could shove those items in for no good reason (because every euro game in historic Istanbul is going to have these things in them<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" />) the game makers chose to portray the people in the game as ordinary people going about their lives.</blockquote>

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