Opinions on Kara-Tur

[FrogInATopHat]

It is very possible that the fascination with samurai, etc, is country-specific.

Oh, not at all. It was reasonably prevalent in Ireland and the UK at the time. And from my time in Australia, they seem to have experienced the same waves

[Willie the Duck]

Imagine my relief when I realised that I wasn't preparing an article for peer-reviewed publication.

Fortunately, There has been some writing on some of these attitudes by others:
<list of articles>

It has nothing to do with what you were trying to present, but upon what you were commenting. The existence of individual people on message boards who have a specific misconception doesn't inform us regarding the prevalence of said misconceptions. They are individual data points speaking to an unclear numerator, truly unknown denominator, and no understanding of cofactors which might have influenced that outcome. I am in no way saying that one shouldn’t discuss what one personally has seen out in the wider world regarding these potential misconceptions (you will notice most everyone else is doing so as well, mostly couched in qualifiers), only that it doesn’t answer the question of prevalence.
I actually have a little free time (the huge upsurge in non-covid-related healthcare usage that keeps being about to swamp us is still waiting in the wings) and I'll start going through these. It’s super frustrating not being a student or teacher right now, and not having a university access to some of these journals. I’ll have to find my public library ID login and see how many of the paywall-gated ones I can grab. I see others have found some link issues as well. Do you have a direct link to the one from https://www.ed.ac.uk/? The original link is sending me to the professor’s staff page instead.
A few of these are quite nice. The Macquarie Ancient History Association chapter references some seminal work by Moses Finley, which I read in my second go at undergrad. I agree with the chapter that it was transformative in the understanding of Sparta (admittedly transformative in 1968 from the model that had been perpetuated by Nazi-era Germany and other early 20th century work, or of course historians of antiquity such as Herodotus or Plutarch, who of course had an incentive to portray the Spartans and worthy adversaries/frenemies). One thing that I note about most of these is that they are history texts related to what is known about Japan and Sparta, without much sociological analysis (except in some cases fiat declaration) of prevalence of misconceptions. It would be interesting to find some studies related to that issue (perhaps some of the paywall ones will bear fruit in this regard)

And going back to the source I originally posted a link to regarding "warrior mythos":
https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collec...partan-school/

There’s definitely some good reading in all of this. Page one showcases a couple popular culture Spartan references I had forgotten about, as well as a case of an academic disagreement the author has with another academic, with some relevant material used to back up their point. I will have to see if said individual has a counterpoint. This is all numerator stuff again, but it is interesting.
It also brings us back to a question of which question we are exploring – which population (general public or academia) are we mostly discussing misconceptions within, and how much non- or mis-knowledge counts. If Joe Schmoe on the street’s gut reaction to Spartan is ‘I don’t know, they’re proud warriors or something? Else why would they be a sports mascot, along with Vikings, wildcats, and uh, makers of steam engines?’ does that tell us anything?

Well, there is the Sengoku RPG. Its accuracy level is actually pretty good, though it does deliberately indulge in some misconceptions because it is ultimately a game and is trying to emulate the feel of old Japanese samurai movies and not actual life in 16th century Japan. But yes, it's a niche project by a tiny publisher that never made much of an impact in the market.

Oh, I do remember that one! It seemed like it was fairly good, while still being quite playable. I think, like Pendragon, it fits the mold of ‘this is what got made, instead of a purely accurate one, because indulging in some of the mystique-version of history is what people actually wanted’ that we are running into.

[Tanarii]

https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com...th-vs-reality/

I thought this was was pretty good, except for the conclusion going all political-agenda pushing. The writer did a good job of acknowledging when and at what Spartans were actually quite skilled militarily, as compared to what's commonly attributed to them, and laying out the timeline / progression of the way they changed and the way the myths about them changed. (Or more accurately per the article, vice versa.)

[Max_Killjoy]

I thought this was was pretty good, except for the conclusion going all political-agenda pushing. The writer did a good job of acknowledging when and at what Spartans were actually quite skilled militarily, as compared to what's commonly attributed to them, and laying out the timeline / progression of the way they changed and the way the myths about them changed. (Or more accurately per the article, vice versa.)

Those endings, those conclusions on these articles, are part of the point of writing them -- it's not just academic accuracy that's at issue when it comes to the idolization and idealization, of the myth-making in question.

We both know why I can't explain that more plainly, right?

Setting the facts straight is not "an agenda".

And when these games uncritically and enthusiastically take up the concepts that originate how and why these deliberate myths originate... it's not great.

[JoeJ]

I don't get the impression that historical accuracy was a major goal, either of the devs or the players. If I want to roleply in a accurate historical setting, D&D is not my system of choice to do it with.

[Tanarii]

We both know why I can't explain that more plainly, right?

Setting the facts straight is not "an agenda".

The reason the conclusion is an agenda is the same reason we can't write about it breaking it down and explaining our points of view. It's real world politics. I agree that breaking down a myth for that reason may be the entire point to some people. I don't find it interesting though.

[Mechalich]

Oh, I do remember that one! It seemed like it was fairly good, while still being quite playable. I think, like Pendragon, it fits the mold of ‘this is what got made, instead of a purely accurate one, because indulging in some of the mystique-version of history is what people actually wanted’ that we are running into.

The authors of Sengoku were very up front, in the game text, that they were trying to recreate a setting that fit the mold of the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_cinema]chanbara[/film] film style rather than a perfectly historically accurate setting. However just the intent to emulate historical fiction based on a specific time period made by people with a decent knowledge of the time period raises the bar significantly.

People definitely want a slightly pumped-up version of history as opposed to what actually happened, which is hardly a new impulse. Romance of the Three Kingdoms was written at some point in the 14th century (probably) and represents a distinctly pumped up and stylized version of the grand history of the period even though it mostly sticks to the course of real events.

One of the things that makes cross-cultural adaptations fraught is that it adds another layer in which the natural tendency to go 'bigger and better' with each iteration of a property further distorts the fundamentals. This can easily be seen even in the case of totally fictional constructs, like Godzilla, who continues to get more and more ridiculous over time.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by FrogInATopHat
Oh, not at all. It was reasonably prevalent in Ireland and the UK at the time. And from my time in Australia, they seem to have experienced the same waves

A friend of mine in Brazil was also quite taken with the samurai. He was very enthusiastic when I gave him one of Stephen Turnbull’s hardcover books.

Originally Posted by Mechalich
[/film]

Interesting bit of coding there.

[Satinavian]

Oh, not at all. It was reasonably prevalent in Ireland and the UK at the time. And from my time in Australia, they seem to have experienced the same waves

Well i can say that the for the two Germanies those waves don't match at all with the most divergence obviously from before, during and after WWII. And even later at least Eastern Germany got to really share western pop culture only after 1990 and usually had a completely different reaction to it. That is even neglecting what communist propaganda had to say about Japan. And while the FRG might have more success at least to the translated stuff, it was still not all the same or at the same time and they didn't really fear Japanese economic resurgance either instead they thought it mirrored their own.

So ... definitely country dependend. But the Anglosphere might be closer to each other.

[FrogInATopHat]

Do you have a direct link to the one from https://www.ed.ac.uk/? The original link is sending me to the professor’s staff page instead.

That was deliberate. He was quoted in the BBC piece and has published additional material, listed in his bio.

It also brings us back to a question of which question we are exploring – which population (general public or academia) are we mostly discussing misconceptions within, and how much non- or mis-knowledge counts. If Joe Schmoe on the street’s gut reaction to Spartan is ‘I don’t know, they’re proud warriors or something? Else why would they be a sports mascot, along with Vikings, wildcats, and uh, makers of steam engines?’ does that tell us anything?

My understanding is that we are discussing common misconceptions among the general public.

Given the mis-steps by Legendary Games, both in recent days and in their wider... loose interpretation... of Asian culture, coupled with the prevalence of articles addressing 'popular misconceptions' of Asian and other cultures, I'm not sure how one could support any assertion that these cultures are fully and widely understood.

But, since evidence has been provided that they weren't and aren't, I would welcome any evidence you can provide to the contrary.

[FrogInATopHat]

I thought this was was pretty good, except for the conclusion going all political-agenda pushing. The writer did a good job of acknowledging when and at what Spartans were actually quite skilled militarily, as compared to what's commonly attributed to them, and laying out the timeline / progression of the way they changed and the way the myths about them changed. (Or more accurately per the article, vice versa.)

We're probably skirting veeeery close to forum rules on this. But modern militaries absolutely fetishise that aspect of Spartan culture, incorrectly. So the article isn't wrong in that regard.

We're not very pro-military in my country as a whole, mind you.

[Tanarii]

We're probably skirting veeeery close to forum rules on this. But modern militaries absolutely fetishise that aspect of Spartan culture, incorrectly. So the article isn't wrong in that regard.

Political agenda doesn't mean it's wrong, nor that I don't agree with it. It's a label of what it is, and not what I'm particularly interested in, and not what we can discuss on the forums.

I'm assuming the objections are because it's often used as a pejorative to dismiss alternative political views. In that case, please mentally revise to "political aspect discussion with a particular viewpoint" and leave it there.

[LibraryOgre]

Ad res, I've picked up a number of Usagi Yojimbo trade paperbacks from work. Now, there's some rose-colored samurai. Fun books, though.

[FrogInATopHat]

I'm assuming the objections are because it's often used as a pejorative to dismiss alternative political views. In that case, please mentally revise to "political aspect discussion with a particular viewpoint" and leave it there.

To be frank, the militarism and the misinformation seem to go hand-in-hand when it comes to Spartan common mythology. At least at the superficial level that's sufficient to actually impact real politics in the US.

There are reasons that both the Spartan lambda and 'molon labe' aren't tattoos that lefties get.

'Agenda' is certainly not a dirty word. But some agenda are indisputably grubby.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Ogre: Let's back away from the politics before I have to get my thumpin' stick.

[t209]

Well, let's get back to Kara-Tur.
From what I read...seems that either Cook or Pondsmith wanted to include China (the "good" China and somehow split responsibilities to two authors instead of the same author, who would make the same culture, or the fact that Tu Lung is over-the-top unstable and tyrannical while Shou Lung is "well-meaning and large bureaucracy but overall-good guy") but decided to make Japanese-equivalent.
This is not mentioning the Japanese terminology instead of Chinese words for some reason.
I mean they kinda was Geisha equivalen for not!China with Sing-Song Girl, but these kinda like having a medieval fantasy with tuxedo tone (ignoring the sexual aspect due to professional being courtesans) since those are kinda long after "ancient China" was long-gone (like radio age). Maybe "Asian" Bard equivalent.
My favorite being "Shou kinda suck at sword making compared to not!Japan, so we don't use swords and our soldiers use Kung-Fu and martial art weapons even if we had arts of everyone carrying Chinese swords, or a fully armored soldier with a Halberd".
Also maybe copy-pasting from entire tourist or text book, which kinda had inconsistent art since the text say the equivalent of "Qing dress" but the art tends to be "anything with few Manchu".
Yeah, other than sensitivity, it kinda seem too jumbled even comparing it to Forgotten Realms (that is ignoring that TSR kinda had bad years later on and may not have continued it).

[Satinavian]

Yes, what i have seen with various kinds of China is that they are often all over the place regarding which dynasties they take inspiration of. As if people have a problem understanding that China is not one setting, it is many of them. And at the same time there is no problem avoiding to populate your fantasy London with Roman legionaries, Norman knights and Red Coats at the same time as if the idea of different European time periods were easier to understand.

[Mechalich]

Yes, what i have seen with various kinds of China is that they are often all over the place regarding which dynasties they take inspiration of. As if people have a problem understanding that China is not one setting, it is many of them. And at the same time there is no problem avoiding to populate your fantasy London with Roman legionaries, Norman knights and Red Coats at the same time as if the idea of different European time periods were easier to understand.

Chinese-origin historical fiction, or history-inspired fiction in the form of various Wuxia productions has a tendency to do a lot of temporal flattening and in particular tend to use costuming, arms, and armor that is vaguely Early Ming Dynasty in effect regardless of when the story is set. So a film like Jet Li's Hero, nominally set in something like 225 BC since Qin Shi Huang is not yet Emperor of all China, and a film like Red Cliff, set in 208 AD during the battle of the same name, and a film like Curse of the Golden Flower, set mid-tang Dynasty so probably like 750 AD, all use very similar styles, materials, and weapons none of which match the historical periods they are nominally emulating.

There are probably a lot of reasons why this is the case, including the long standing influence of Chinese Opera to bring these various stories to the masses and the necessity of opera troupes to use the same tools for all of them, but it definitely serves to blur the distinctions between historical periods in terms of fantasy settings.

[Satinavian]

Yes, but...

I really like playing in pseudo-China and do so in various groups. But i am not really that knowledgable about Chinese culture and history and still even i have to cringe when i encounter stuff clearly borrowed from Han and later Qing existing in perfect harmony. It is not exactly a subtle mistake if an amateur like me gets it.

And yes, Ming works best as compromise, and i get it, there is a really good reason to do Three-kingdoms-stuff with Ming esthetics but sometimes i with settings were a bit more focussed instead of being a weird melting pot.

[Tanarii]

Does it make you cringe when there is a mix of Viking and French Flower of Chivalry and Arthurian Legend stuff? D&D not-Europe (or however you guys are symbolizing it) is full of this stuff. Including in sub-regions of Forgotten Realms, e.g. Waterdeep and the North, the Heartlands, Comyr/Dalelands/Sembia.

Same for not-Arabian Zharhara, which I know includes stuff from pre-that-one-real-world-religion times all the way through Ottoman Empire stuff.

[Yanagi]

Ad res, I've picked up a number of Usagi Yojimbo trade paperbacks from work. Now, there's some rose-colored samurai. Fun books, though.

Nothing wrong with rose colored historical romance as long as you do something interesting with it.

[t209]

Chinese-origin historical fiction, or history-inspired fiction in the form of various Wuxia productions has a tendency to do a lot of temporal flattening and in particular tend to use costuming, arms, and armor that is vaguely Early Ming Dynasty in effect regardless of when the story is set. So a film like Jet Li's Hero, nominally set in something like 225 BC since Qin Shi Huang is not yet Emperor of all China, and a film like Red Cliff, set in 208 AD during the battle of the same name, and a film like Curse of the Golden Flower, set mid-tang Dynasty so probably like 750 AD, all use very similar styles, materials, and weapons none of which match the historical periods they are nominally emulating.

There are probably a lot of reasons why this is the case, including the long standing influence of Chinese Opera to bring these various stories to the masses and the necessity of opera troupes to use the same tools for all of them, but it definitely serves to blur the distinctions between historical periods in terms of fantasy settings.

I can agree to that. But Kara-Tur--mostly because it was 80's and Chinese works weren't widespread even with Kung Fu.
I mean even the description of "Forbidden City" (kinda go back and forth and not sure it wanted to be a city or palace by writing) is "let's put magic-shield over it" (I mean maybe add more fantasy-like Fu Dog statue which is actually Golem or "Bronze Men" would be good).

Does it make you cringe when there is a mix of Viking and French Flower of Chivalry and Arthurian Legend stuff? D&D not-Europe (or however you guys are symbolizing it) is full of this stuff. Including in sub-regions of Forgotten Realms, e.g. Waterdeep and the North, the Heartlands, Comyr/Dalelands/Sembia.

Same for not-Arabian Zharhara, which I know includes stuff from pre-that-one-real-world-religion times all the way through Ottoman Empire stuff.

Yeah, but I think I've said that while I do agree to that, the writers do know when to draw a line to keep the "authencity" (like the whole "firearms--even musket--in fantasy" argument) and Kara-Tur and Zakhara was added to Forgotten Realms later on (at least "officially", it was more stand-alone before 2E).
But Kara-Tur writing, especially Sing-Song Girl, is like introducing an equivalent of a modern age pop star to medieval fantasy (mostly I think they wanted Geisha equivalent and not sure if they had seen musical fighters, but all I can think is Kung Fu Hustle that was released two decades later). Also the issue of wanting to keep authenticity but being too afraid to add more fantasy due to fear of ruining it.
Also maybe Shou Lung having more Japanese analogue or terminology (Gaijin and the monasteries seems more Sohei-y than Shaolin) didn't help, though being spoiled by more consistent cultural themes (like Avatar the Last Airbender, Exalted, recent Total War Three Kingdoms. or World of Warcraft's Pandaria being consistently Chinese) didn't help.
Interestingly, players I've met tend to found Zakhara to be more interesting than Kara-Tur.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by t209
I mean even the description of "Forbidden City" (kinda go back and forth and not sure it wanted to be a city or palace by writing)....

I can't quite follow you here, especially in the parentheses. Could you elaborate, please?

[t209]

I can't quite follow you here, especially in the parentheses. Could you elaborate, please?

Well, the descriptions of Forbidden City in Kara Tur, which the entire palace complex does seem to be copy-pasted from real-life and not much magic, aside from magic shield negating flight and levitation, even for fantasy analog.
Parentheses were just what they should have included since they have mages and can include fantastical defenses like "statues that are actually constructs/magic robots" (also a nod to Bronze Men of Shaolin, which would have been popular in TSR days).

[Max_Killjoy]

Does it make you cringe when there is a mix of Viking and French Flower of Chivalry and Arthurian Legend stuff? D&D not-Europe (or however you guys are symbolizing it) is full of this stuff. Including in sub-regions of Forgotten Realms, e.g. Waterdeep and the North, the Heartlands, Comyr/Dalelands/Sembia.

The way FR does it... or the way the Hyborian age does it... yes, it makes my cringe.

[Tanarii]

The way FR does it... or the way the Hyborian age does it... yes, it makes my cringe.

Did you ever read the BECMI gazetteers? The known world had a bunch of adjacent cultures modeled on a variety of time, late Feudal (with vampires/werewolves), Arabian, glantri was a pastiche (with lots of Magic & vampire werewolves), Islander / Pirate, Viking, merchant kingdoms (one sea and one land), horse nomads, and Roman. It'd probably drive you crazy

[t209]

Did you ever read the BECMI gazetteers? The known world had a bunch of adjacent cultures modeled on a variety of time, late Feudal (with vampires/werewolves), Arabian, glantri was a pastiche (with lots of Magic & vampire werewolves), Islander / Pirate, Viking, merchant kingdoms (one sea and one land), horse nomads, and Roman. It'd probably drive you crazy

Gazetteers, I understand that point since it was supposed to be theme based setting.
In fact, it would fit well with Kara-Tur, and maybe it was planned for this area...or Greyhawk.
But Forgotten Realms seems rather out of place--at least the magic-heavy 5E feel, not sure about previous editions--and even Greenwood disliked it. Being more how he would say "ruin the fantastic feel with historical analog and cause arguments on setting context to historical aspect".

[The Glyphstone]

Which brings to mind the question: If the cultural kitchen sink approach of Faerun and Golarion doesn't work, how do you make a world with iconically distinct cultures while constraining them into the geographical region players will tend to interact with? Or are those mutually exclusive, and you cannot have widely divergent cultures in close proximity without a continental or oceanic gap?

[Tanarii]

Which brings to mind the question: If the cultural kitchen sink approach of Faerun and Golarion doesn't work, how do you make a world with iconically distinct cultures while constraining them into the geographical region players will tend to interact with? Or are those mutually exclusive, and you cannot have widely divergent cultures in close proximity without a continental or oceanic gap?

You can't, not to that degree. But you can within the overarching culture. Theres a reason real world very diverse cultures get divided up by large geographic divides.

But Forgotten Realms seems rather out of place--at least the magic-heavy 5E feel, not sure about previous editions--and even Greenwood disliked it. Being more how he would say "ruin the fantastic feel with historical analog and cause arguments on setting context to historical aspect".

Interestingly AD&D is much lower magic than forgotten realms is considered to be.

Just as BECMI os much lower than Mystara ended up being, once they introduced Glantri and Alphatia.

The reason is both have far more extremely high level NPCs than it is reasonable for the population and adventuring to support. Getting to level 10 in either is hard, on the order of one in a million of the population. Getting to level 20/36 should be one in ten billion or more, in other words on the entire planet.

[Mechalich]

You can't, not to that degree. But you can within the overarching culture. Theres a reason real world very diverse cultures get divided up by large geographic divides.

You can have a large geographic divide that's not impassable though, like the Mediterranean or the South China Sea, and have wildly different cultures spread around it in very different environmental conditions. The tricky part, in such a circumstance, is preserving the cultural diversity of the initial state against homogenizing forces after the barriers to accessibility fall. In the case of a sea that's usually a major innovation in shipbuilding technology.

In a fantasy world you could produce some kind of artificial barrier to cultural exchange and trade and then drop that barrier shortly prior to the campaign, thereby creating a window in the timeline with widely divergent cultures that the characters can move through. For example, in the not!Mediterranean example, perhaps sea travel was nigh impossible for centuries because the sea was infested by a hyper-aggressive Sahuagin Empire. That Empire got destroyed for some reason and now people are spreading throughout the sea again.