What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[AnotherGuy]

If someone was thinking in Ptolemaic terms, they'd probably not come across as African or Middle Eastern in look, but I'm not sure I'd depict pseudo-Greek rulers that way, either.

True, not Hellene but I like the artwork.
Iman though was great casting for the Egyptian Queen in Michael Jackson's Remember the Time music video - although she was depicting Nefertiti rather than a Ptolemaic look. Keri Hilson dressed the part too for Halloween, but we are talking about 2 incredibly beautiful women so there is that.

 

[Mesero]

But this is no fear: it is happening.

Right now major game companies are cherry picking random things they don't like and removing them from their games forever.

Everything in every game comes from some culture, and if you can't have anything from any real world culture....that is everything. And again major game companies are removing cultures they have a problem with, right now.

Not all cultures are equally protected. It will still be allowed to "steal" and mangle from european/white cultures. (And then people will complain why nearly all fantasy realms remain european).
I would love to run some different settings than Europe inspired ones, but currently that is so dangerous, especially when recruiting new people (and because I like my setting to be a bit more historic than whatever Hollywood uses). On one hand you have to be respectfull but also leave out every aspect of said culture that is considered controversial and thus falsyfying them.

The pharao picture from the last page is complicated. On one hand pharaos like this did exist. On the other hand I doubt those pharaos are supposed to be shown here because of the lack of greek elements. On the third hand (yay radiation) in nearly all media egypt is never shown with greek elements anyway. How many depictions of Cleopatra do you known where both she and Egypt in general have heavy greek influences?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not all cultures are equally protected. It will still be allowed to "steal" and mangle from european/white cultures.

Well, considering the bulk of RPG designers have historically males of North American or European nationalities, and that’s only beginning to change significantly in the past couple of decades, I don’t have much of a problem with that. It’s very hard to claim misappropriation of culture in a game when the manglers are from or are relatively adjacent to those cultures.

It’s a bit of a clearer issue when the misrepresentations are being done by those with no significant connection to the cultures being sloppily portrayed.

How many depictions of Cleopatra do you known where both she and Egypt in general have heavy greek influences?

Mark Antony minted coins featuring her profile, and they look fairly Grecian. While it’s a contemporary image, it was probably created by a Grecian or greek-trained artisan. Her depictions in hieroglyphs look pretty typical of other Egyptian rulers.

Which is more accurate?

 

[Hussar]

The point being, if you’re going to have art that is supposed to show sort of archetypal Egyptian pharaohs, maybe, just maybe, don’t use a blond model?

I mean is it really that hard to find a model that isn’t blond?

But again that’s the problem. “Oh we couldn’t be bothered to make an effort” just isn’t going to fly anymore.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The pharao picture from the last page is complicated. On one hand pharaos like this did exist. On the other hand I doubt those pharaos are supposed to be shown here because of the lack of greek elements. On the third hand (yay radiation) in nearly all media egypt is never shown with greek elements anyway. How many depictions of Cleopatra do you known where both she and Egypt in general have heavy greek influences?

The issue is that that picture doesn't show Greek looking figures even. If you're trying for Ptolemics, not showing the Greek elements may be quick and dirty, but showing them as what appears to Nordo-Celtic doesn't really relate to anything; its just sloppy at best, and doesn't represent anything any form of ancient Egyptians looked like. You're not being either historically accurate or stereotypical; its hard to see it as anything but whitewashing.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The issue is that that picture doesn't show Greek looking figures even. If you're trying for Ptolemics, not showing the Greek elements may be quick and dirty, but showing them as what appears to Nordo-Celtic doesn't really relate to anything; its just sloppy at best, and doesn't represent anything any form of ancient Egyptians looked like. You're not being either historically accurate or stereotypical; its hard to see it as anything but whitewashing.

It is I, Ramses II, defeating the Hittites!

I, uh, left my chariot at the Pyramids.

 

[S'mon]

The issue is that that picture doesn't show Greek looking figures even. If you're trying for Ptolemics, not showing the Greek elements may be quick and dirty, but showing them as what appears to Nordo-Celtic doesn't really relate to anything; its just sloppy at best, and doesn't represent anything any form of ancient Egyptians looked like. You're not being either historically accurate or stereotypical; its hard to see it as anything but whitewashing.

While it's far from clear, I get the impression the Sea People invaders were probably Indo-European speaker (trad: 'Aryan') types related to the Ionian Greeks et al, so pretty fair, so related to Celts & Nordics but likely darker.

Most Egyptian dynasties seem to have resembled, or been, Semitic peoples. The Semitic peoples evolved in NE Africa, but descended from European migrations into Africa, and would mostly be considered white or mixed by typical modern standards.

The earliest Egyptian self-representations don't look to me like any extant human race, but most closely resemble beefier Khoi-San of southern Africa, and seem likely to have been a people indigenous to Africa.

 

[Committed Hero]

Well, we might be less then a year away from this....

Games and the books they run on are protected by the First Amendment in the US.

 

[S'mon]

Well, at least one famous person from Antiquity who spoke an Afro-Asiatic language has been frequently portrayed as blond in Western representations.

BTW Ovid (edit: actually Virgil) in The Aeneid describes Queen Dido of Carthage as blonde. She's a Phoenician colonist. The Romans seem to have seen blonde hair as something that existed, but rare enough to be noteworthy.

 

[deganawida]

BTW Ovid in The Aeneid describes Queen Dido of Carthage as blonde. She's a Phoenician colonist. The Romans seem to have seen blonde hair as something that existed, but rare enough to be noteworthy.

Yeah, history is actually more fascinating than our imaginations sometimes. However, to the Romans, blonde might have meant what Northern Europeans and North Americans would consider just to be brown.