ShonHarris said
I see what you mean and would agree if history weren't recorded by humanity.
"History is merely the chronicling of events based on the perspectives of those who lived within those times and what physical evidence remains of it all.
Perspectives are verified to physical evidence left behind. Fields like Archeology contribute to this immensely. There are some assumptions made based on quality of character, such as when Alexander the Great or Caesar makes a claim about a conquest, and it's verified by several other sources of the times, it probably happened. This is why the Bible isn't considered historical literature: Many of the events contained within have no physical evidence, or worse still,
contradictory evidence, such as the Egyptians recording no great flood, pestilence, frogs, mass first child deaths, or even a mass slave escape by Jewish peoples.
History isn't perfect, but it's as close to it as we can make it, and is constantly edited and repaired as more information is discovered about our pasts. Ergo why Archeology is a science.
If anything, history reveals nobody is particularly squeaky clean. Nobody.
ShonHarris said
As an idea history should not have failings, as it should be an objective account of what happened. However, history is recorded and in a sense sculpted by people, each group, and within reach group each individual holding their subjective wants and passions. History is absolutely chronicling of events based on the perspectives of those who lived, but if those who lived held a perspective not actually the truest account -- just the only surviving one-- then really history is an attempt at objectivity that can be bought and manipulated by influence. Physical evidence is also a great way of finding objective truth, but many peoples have destroyed any remnants or accounts of their enemies, either leaving gaps or placing false histories.
I don't hear about placing false histories. Ancient peoples didn't tend to care for such things. They just cared to have the land, slaves, and less enemies.
ShonHarris said
So, I would say that history should be a like science in that it should be objective, but history has really proven that there is often more to it than what's visible at the surface -- ironically, history shining light on history.
That's what history does though. Because history is based in the sciences. Science changes opinions on things when new evidence is revealed about it. That's literally how it works. Honestly. :-3
ShonHarris said
All that just to say, I agree with you abstractly, but in reality, I would say history have failings in relation to the people and peoples it describes.
... Generally, yes? History's goal isn't to identify the true nature of people as that task is impossible even now save to perhaps psychologists. It's to identify the best truth we can. Stuff like Joan de Arc's witch trials. We have her word and the church's word. One truth and the other truth. History's job is to do the best it can in representing what the truth of it all was. It's not perfect because information is missing and some information is misleading, and that's how it works... But then, history often provides different versions of the same tale or conflict for everyone to read. Mein Kampf is for sale after all.
ShonHarris said
We look with a modern eye and I don't think it's necessary to remove judgement of our predecessors simply because we're born later.
Except yes it is. They literally didn't know better. This is like being condescending to a child because they aren't born knowing calculus and Shakespeare. Well, older peoples weren't born knowing what we know about genders and the sciences and social revolutions. There was no feminism as we know it, no social justice, most of the time there wasn't even the shrewdest sense of equality but plenty of people who felt righteous and indignant towards those around them. That was all they knew. To them, the world was flat, God was real (to the point of killing anyone who disagreed or decrying them as insane), there was no sovereign rights of a country that couldn't easily be annihilated even against first world powers with sufficient Cassus Belli, the diplomatic consequences of war were often totally irrelevant in the eyes of the rest of the world powers, world powers constantly shifted in strength...
It was a chaotic time. To judge our ancestors for what we know now is to damn the ignorant for their lack of knowledge... In doing so, we are jackasses laughing at our reflection in the mirror, as we'll be mocked soon enough by our descendents for how backwards we were.
We can learn from them only if we first accept them for what they were. Primitive, and living in terrifying times.
ShonHarris said
I know! Besides the imaginative worlds and evolving plots, that's another thing I enjoy about your roleplays.
The only way to learn from the past is to explore it in all of its beauty, and all its flaws. That is the only way to further illuminate the wall.
ShonHarris said
I agree with you and see how my lack of elaboration could be misconstrued. I did not mean suggest that male dominance would be solved by simple exchange, resulting in female dominance. What I meant to say, is that media representation already favours a specific group of people based on a specific set of characteristics.
They're what the industry calls the FOTM, or flavour of the month. Things come and go as society changes and people grow weary of old archetypes and want to see new ones. ex: Disney princesses used to be portrayed along the lines of Sleeping Beauty--something to be won, a damsel in distress in every traditional way. Now they're more like Mulan or Merida, strong women who take charge of situations and move forward, or like Tiana, someone who is deliberately non-white in a traditionally white-dominated role (princess).
Even in ye olde times, the idea of what should and shouldn't be portrayed in the media, what was and wasn't popular, changed as society did and people's tastes did. This ranges wildly, from a True Roman to a Powerful Celtic Warrior, to an honour-bound knight, and onwards through to a gentleman with a pistol and a learned mind. A war hero, a medic, a healer, the rise of the anti-hero to surpass their traditional cousin of the ideology hero, and so on.
Hell, even in The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones we have examples of non-whites getting clear character development, and women in powerful roles such as knights. Battlestar Galactica featured Starbuck (albeit not the best example imho), and so on.
Expect more as time passes. It's very much a generational thing, just like hair or clothing styles.
That being said, there's no reason to exclude traditional or FOTM choices. They only service to enrich the tool box. One can even use them to validate new forms: Having a party which contains the traditional mentor, the middle aged war veteran, with some younger woman or otherwise who becomes a fighter over the course of the story...
Kind of like boxing. This also tends to be the more accepted and believable method of portraying a world: Because that's the world we live in today.
I'm not trying to say that your way is wrong, just that there are other ways to do it that might get better results. :-3
ShonHarris said
The roleplays I take part in and create are media, though not that broadcasted compared to film or published literature. Because of this I constantly try to flip our expectations to create questions. I recognize that creating a world that reflects history is safe as it abides by our records -- not fault on me, logically. I recognize that creating a world where things are pretty balanced tempts a few questions and gets things flowing -- bit riskier, but I'm not exposing myself to get those questions. Finally, I recognize and prefer to create worlds that have elements that are drastic, overt when they appear, and bring big questions. I do not have a quota for how many female bodied leaders should be in my roleplays, but I consider what powers my ideas reflect in history and fiction and how they might've been different were a few apparent characteristics flipped -- would it really be different?
It... Actually is very different even simply flipping the gender on a historical piece. There are reasons why Elizabeth and Isabella are known as remarkable women, and why that's one of their most memorable traits. According to biology, men have more testosterone. Testosterone inspires aggression. Men also evolved to be more disposable than their female counterparts: A few men with several women can continue the species, or tribe. Several men with few women is a species-ending event, or at least a death knell to the tribe. Ergo men, with their increased aggression, developed a need to prove themselves worthy. To gain power, respect, adulation, and so on. Women became the caretakers because they were the ones who had to carry children within them, and being wired to be less aggressive, tended to be better suited to
be caregivers.
Entire societies and cultures built up around this biologically wired tendency.
So yes, to change just the gender alone in a historically based piece is enough to destabilize all of history. Because it goes against our instincts that our primitive ancestors depended on. It's also why a lot of conservatives tend to resist change: It goes against every intrinsic feeling they have.
It's a very difficult topic to appropriately broach and explore, especially if one wants to do it realistically, which is another reason why a lot of people tend to go to fantasy. It's an easier method to explore such topics without making something unbelievable out of it. Because once you break suspension of disbelief, it's over, your audience is gone.
ShonHarris said
I see a lot of characters who are male and white, and I know in the shared lore common today this fits the profile for a hero in most of fiction. I get that.
And that sucks, but it's changing, slowly. When generation Y takes the helm of the film industry expect to see a lot more LGBT and female empowerment characters, as well as some minorities getting more spotlights. Another generation after that and things should ideally stabilize quite nicely, but I still encourage you to definitely continue what you're doing.
"Wait, Brovo, didn't you just say--" yes, that the traditional archetypes shouldn't be taken out back and shot just because they're usually white and male, but that's no reason to
not make a Hispanic heroine, or a black captain, or a so on and so forth. The more of these appear, the better, until things stabilize. (Note: Equalizing doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be, perfect-- a 60/40 split that flips on its head from time to time would be perfect for FOTM reasons and will likely be what ultimately happens given enough generational change.)
ShonHarris said
So I want to see if anything changes when the heroes don't match up with that expectation any more.
It changes as much as the author and audience wish it to. The magic of fiction is that the words will always reflect what you will them to. I can think of no better example than comic books and their evolution through the decades. The golden, silver, and bronze age of comics each showed entirely different flavours of the exact same characters, right from their origins to their potential endings. Batman had a corny 60's TV show, which contrasts heavily against the new film series that puts him through a lot more pain and depicts him in a more human light, entirely destroying the corniness that the 60's show had, and that's honestly probably the worst example I can think of.
ShonHarris said
See I agree with you that a character is interesting because of their character, not because they lack specific genitalia and rule. My way of engaging that topic is to change the common lore though. The heroes could be white males, absolutely, but the canon I personally create is apt to be more diverse with a range of populations based on the world's history and challenges. So yes, yes, a thousand times yes to what you're saying. I just choose to go about a bit differently, not thinking that reversing majorities magically changes everything, but creating a world where the lore reflects our own in substance, just not appearances. I think that's something that I love about the Assassin's Creed label.
Footnote: Assassin's Creed is probably not the best example of racial diversity in gaming, but then, Battlestar Galactica's Starbuck is not the best example of a strong female character, so yeah, I get what you're saying.
ShonHarris said
While I wish they'd push more boundaries, one they do well with is casting gaze upon times and cultures we don't usually talk about. Often these cultures look different than what we'd expect.
They also butcher history for the sake of entertainment value. Again, not the best example, but I get what you're going for.
ShonHarris said
Inequality is a big problem in history.
Inequality is a core part of the history of our species. Whether that be racial, sexual, financial, or otherwise.
ShonHarris said
Specifically, in the histories certain countries we tend focus on more.
Certain countries get more focus because certain countries held more weight in the world and certain countries have more people who can actively consume the products produced by writers and others of the like. You see a lot of stories focused around the United States for example, or the perspective of your traditional white hero from the USA, because for a long time (read: decades) the USA was (and still is) a powerhouse economically speaking and in the way it affected history, especially recent history. The GDP of the United States
alone is only surpassed by the entirety of the European Union, and even then, not by much. That speaks volumes about it, leave alone the fact that it's the birthplace of what we consider modern cinema and entertainment to be. (ex: Hollywood & significant portions of the film industry, music labels, entire genres of music, and so on.)
Ergo, it's not too surprising that most stories tend to be from a USA-centric standpoint, and emphasize points that the US culture deems integral or important, like freedom, civil disobedience, loyalty, patriotism,
firepower, and so on. These stories had an effect within the United States' sphere of influence during the Cold War while most first world nations were rebuilding from the aftermath of World War 2, which in turn affected their cultures and start-up local industries which aped the successes of American cinema.
It's only been recently that other countries have even really gotten anywhere near a fair share of the spotlight because it's only been recently that Globalization and the Internet has finally had its effect of blurring national boundaries. (Even then, I have to admit that I'm getting tired of shit like the latest Call of Duty game making a villainous threat out of
South America... Really? South America? That's where we're gonna go now to make mook villains Activision?
Brilliant.) There's also the fact that the world has a mind numbing amount more people than it has ever had before and gained those people at a very dramatic pace over the last 60-ish years of our 200,000 years of history as a species. With more people comes more voices in a louder chorus which cannot be ignored from a much greater number of identified cultures and social groups.
ShonHarris said
Power dynamics are created by society though, and the -isms are social constructs. That means certain societies may have inequality, to many of us meaning women, people of colour, and non-hetero individuals have are usually undervalued.
Because by mostly random chance...
#1: Europe historically outperformed its "competitor continents" by constantly molesting itself with wars that it needed to think of better ways to defeat itself with. Europe happens to be filled with mostly white people, and being primitive with the total lack of understanding about biology, while they recognized other coloured peoples as being humans, they weren't the
same in appearance. Which they used as a justification naturally because we humans are really good at making life miserable for ourselves.
#2: Men has testosterone and are more disposable biologically than women. Ergo development of the culture that men had to prove themselves worthy of power, women had to be care takers because they were too valuable to lose, as cold as that is to say. Totally irrelevant now, but still holds to the foundation upon which our culture came, and such instincts do still exist within us.
#3: As above with the babies: Homosexuals do not reproduce. This is bad for a tribe. Also as above with people of colour:
Fantastic dehumanization tactics employed by twisted bastards who needed scapegoats, mostly the religious surprisingly, as the Greeks had no problems with it. (Though the Romans did.) I haven't done enough research to confirm that though. Take it with a grain of salt.
Most power dynamics nowadays are societal based though, definitely.
ShonHarris said
Other societies may have inequality that looks very different, perhaps even the opposite of all that. I do enjoy stories that remind us that history is more complex than white people being the age-old oppressors despite borders and passing millennia.
Well, another big problem that just came to mind: Most of the Americas (perhaps all of them) do not have written histories. They never invented writing. Ergo the only side of history we have is verbal accounts written by white men whom at the time viewed them as a lesser, savage people.
It's perhaps one of the worst parts of history to try and understand from the "people of colour" perspective. No written history. :(
So far as I'm aware, Africa has the same problem.
Asia did manage writing though, and we do actually have a lot of stories from their perspective. So nyeh. Hm.
ShonHarris said
Inequality has formed favouring different groups, including the overvaluing of women rather than men, and some cultures even placed women as the dominant hunters as we've placed men. So, historically is a weird term.
A big issue with this though is a lot of history from tribal cultures that may have actually been this way are skewered with their own mythos and legend. Take the Greek example of
Themiscyra. Some are convinced it was a real place. We haven't found any concrete evidence of that with archeology, though. The point being this: It's hard to define what is true about a culture if there are no archeological or written documents to truly support it. Then, even if said culture did exist, if we know very little about it, portraying it accurately is a near impossible task, as is making the public care about it. (Because we are such an egocentric society, honestly. The ethnocentrism is something that still needs to be worked on, but, generational thing, it'll probably be one of the last things to go, if it ever truly forever perishes from human society.)
ShonHarris said
The Minoan cultures are believed to have been a matriarchal society with the suggestion women were seen in a way we see men. Other cultures have done this too. That's also history, perhaps centuries of it, but we're not approaching all this from the perspective that could be solid belief. So when I say I'd play with inequality to stimulate questions, that's what I mean. I should've spoken more about that before. We really approach all this from a small perspective amplified some by books and studies and cultural teachings. Our experiences too, all that's valid, but we really need also consider that history does hold more than we have as of now -- personally, I mean, but also as a world. We keep focusing on certain aspects of history and it's like we just expect the whole world was like medieval times in Northern Europe.
Because medieval Europe has a written history, detailed in a manner that few, if any, can match, and Europe ended up dominating the world in terms of culture and power for a very long time by human civilization standards. Ergo our focus upon it.
ShonHarris said
Inequality can mean different things and I think recognizing it when it doesn't look so obvious, especially through roleplay, teaches us and actually creates a more creative story.
Inequality is hard to represent truly. It usually goes too far or not far enough, or portrays it in a way that always makes the character who has such views out to be evil. For every one knight that may wish to save women because he truly and sincerely believes they're fragile flowers that need to be protected and cared for (admirable but blatantly sexist), you'll have a hundred piggish knights that just want to rape and pillage "cuz' reasons". It does make stories more creative, but consistently representing it poorly one way or the other doesn't do anyone any service, leave alone those still experiencing it day to day.
ShonHarris said
The story is something I've been working with off and on for years. That may sound silly, but I've been careful to obtain as much perspective as I can around the time and the topic.
That's not silly. That's actually very respectable, a thing called "research" and appreciated by all.
ShonHarris said
I'd like to avoid specifics in a general forum, but I'd be happy to share with you the premise through PM. I'm not sure it'd be good form to air out an idea I've put so much into, and will continue to, on an easily searchable forum -- not that's probably worth stealing.
It's fine, I understand.
ShonHarris said
Very generally, the perspective is that of a young mixed boy living in a time and setting where racism exists as we think of it now, as well as in a form that recognizes more than visible extremes of colour. The story covers a lifetime, well, and more, and includes the ways we change in our perception of the world, morality, and sexuality. I'd like to engage with topics surrounding gender-queer individuals in times where we presume such was not a topic. The character's race will be a factor, but considering the time and situation not one that takes over the story. That said, so far, I have not ignored the life of one who cannot hide their characteristics in a world where certain characteristics are worthy of harsh repercussions. As a whole, the story actually surroundings a series of events this character witnesses, but the events reflect a greater problem building in teh world. As they grow up their recognition of the bigger problems grows too, so the story expands from personal experiences and anguish to a greater, loftier issue that reflects those of today. All this is very vague, and I know it might not be super helpful, but I would be happy to share with you a premise that doesn't describe just about every action/adventure story ;).
It was helpful enough and told me all I needed to know: That it's a story featuring a minority character in a world not friendly to minorities is the brief of it.
ShonHarris said
That's sort of a slippery slope, right? Change one king to a queen and suddenly the entire state of the planet changed. At some point or another I'm certain a king died and, in that time, a queen was at least a figure-head ruler until a male heir or some other solution came around.
Elizabeth and Isabella come to mind. Joan de Arc as well. I'm sure I could think of more if I gave myself more than 60 seconds. (I make it a rule of thumb that if I can't think of an example for something in 60 seconds or less that either I'm uneducated on the topic or there is a serious, critical problem I haven't noticed yet.)
ShonHarris said
And no, this is not a request for specific examples suggesting such thing unthinkable.
oops.
ShonHarris said
Gender order is established in a certain form by certain societies. In those societies Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings pull most from, absolutely, changing the gender order would be pretty drastic.
Actually I used GoT and LoTR as examples where the gender order did end up being defied for the sake of empowering women, and in a good way to boot.
ShonHarris said
But what happens when say 'oh hey, what about societies or mythos that actually set the same expectations? What happens when suddenly we choose to focus on a time in history that defies what we've grown to expect and use as a springboard for a roleplay or narrative.
You get Pocahontas?
ShonHarris said
Or, even better, what happens when we use a time and an event we know largely from one perspective and find sources from the other, perhaps the society that was nearly wiped out, and use their perspective and order to build a story from.
You mean like the Gauls? (Actually this has been happening a
lot lately.)
ShonHarris said
Absolutely, gender order was probably similar in many areas, but it wasn't everywhere, and it wasn't always exactly the same.
No, it wasn't, but the general rule of thumb: People write what's familiar. To most people, that is the standard gender order, the regular dichotomy we've come to know throughout human history. (Or at least the European-dominated version of it.)
ShonHarris said
So it's not ground-breaking, and absolutely not history-breaking, to highlight parts of history that have wonderful story potential, and happen to not follow the gender order we see as historically common. Again, I agree with you, I just think it's maybe more valuable to use stories and histories that are just as valid to introduce ideas that are relevant to today.
Certainly, but then you have to sell it, and that's where it gets tricky...
