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Having played Warhammer40k from 2nd to like 6th ed, and working in a games shop in 2001, Tau are very anime inspired. Lots of people were mad about anime mechs being made a part of the grimdark game. I heard a lot of complaints from customers... and they also sold really well.
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May 2, 2019 14:35
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spectralent posted:Tau are vaguely space-PRC, or generically space "asia", but even then there's not that much too it. They're pseudo-communist ciphers, had warring states, and have an elemental aesthetic that includes lots of references to waves, but the degree to which they're space-japan always seems massively overexaggerated to me (not uncommonly as an excuse to do "hilarious" Japanese accents or to portray tau women as harem-bait anime girls). http://www.ninjacyborg.com/2017/01/06/all-the-ways-tau-are-oriental-in-warhammer-40000/ That "hilarious" accent is actually a Chinese-English person voicing Tau in the Firewarrior game. Some of my favorite points :
The last point especially because compare the location and shape of Firewarrior armor to samurai armor and it becomes dead obvious.   Wide, flat, layered plates over cloth. Largest segments being the shoulders, thighs, and chests with a little to no armor on lower legs, feet, and hands.
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May 2, 2019 15:00
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PinheadSlim posted:http://www.ninjacyborg.com/2017/01/06/all-the-ways-tau-are-oriental-in-warhammer-40000/ quote:The ‘Onager’ gauntlet calls to mind the Japanese name for red snapper fish – Onaga I don't think that's where the word comes from. "Onager" was a Roman word for "catapult." Edit: That said, if you think the "Oriental" accents for the Tau are bad, the audiobook Scars (about the White Scars) is even worse. Cessna fucked around with this message at 15:29 on May 2, 2019 |
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May 2, 2019 15:26
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Cessna posted:I don't think that's where the word comes from. "Onager" was a Roman word for "catapult." Oh God, I bet it sounds like a ww2 era radio show with Japenese villains
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May 2, 2019 15:34
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PinheadSlim posted:Oh God, I bet it sounds like a ww2 era radio show with Japenese villains Star Wars Trade Federation
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May 2, 2019 15:51
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PinheadSlim posted:http://www.ninjacyborg.com/2017/01/06/all-the-ways-tau-are-oriental-in-warhammer-40000/ The armour layout does make sense. Also, the accent in DOW wasn't what I was talking about; one of the lovely jokes I notice a lot of exceptionally white people doing at game stores is l-r substitution parody accents for tau. It seems very lovely!
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May 2, 2019 17:42
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Corrode posted:It's a difficult balance to get right because you obviously don't want to just say "ignore all non-white cultures," but if you're gonna do it, it needs a lot more nuance than it's typically given. probably the most difficult balance to get right in 40k imho is remembering that the setting is ultimately satirical, or at the very least should still contain strong satirical elements, and is still meant to depict a wretched future dystopia through and through - that creates certain complications, shall we say "congratulations everyone, we've managed to thoughtfully incorporate a previously unrepresented people and their culture into the 40k setting - it is being used to further our depiction of human society's decline into its most base, most vile and most ignorant form yet and using these persons to partly figurehead the hateful oppressor, the miserable oppressed or both in equal measure has succeeded seamlessly" seems like half-win for representation in the best of cases imho there are workarounds of course, ignoring all foreign peoples or cultures isn't the answer, but i'm willing to bet mixed messaging is probably going to be an ongoing issue either way, remembering certain constraints of the setting
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May 2, 2019 17:45
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PinheadSlim posted:Oh God, I bet it sounds like a ww2 era radio show with Japenese villains Yeah. I liked the book, and I've downloaded several Horus Heresy audiobooks to listen to when I run or when I'm at work, so I figured I'd try Scars. For the first few minutes it was okay, then they introduced characters who were voice-acted as "ah so, honorable mister Space Marine" and I stopped listening right there.
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May 2, 2019 17:57
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hard counter posted:there are workarounds of course, ignoring all foreign peoples or cultures isn't the answer, but i'm willing to bet mixed messaging is probably going to be an ongoing issue either way, remembering certain constraints of the setting I think the fix is to bring in people of other ethnicities but do so in a way that doesn't make them racist caricatures. Like, "these people are of Asian ethnicity - but they don't have WWII Japanese Propaganda Villain accents."
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May 2, 2019 18:04
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Corrode posted:I mean the question then is "what is appropriation" because it's a lot more complicated than just saying "thing X takes inspiration from thing Y." i think part of the distinction here is like...whether the people you're cribbing from still exist there aren't babylonians or romans irl, so as far as im concerned it's open season on those, unless you somehow take a babylonian schtick so far that it becomes general middle-eastern pastiche. It's hard to call it appropriation if you're doing an ancient dead civilization, owing to the lack of people to appropriate from. whereas mongolians and other central-asian steppe peoples are still around maya are still around japanese, obviously, are still around etc.
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May 2, 2019 18:24
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When Tau came out there was an article from the designers in White Dwarf that mentioned they were inspired by anime. Full stop.
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May 2, 2019 18:25
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This was posted on Reddit just this morning, coincidentally
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May 2, 2019 18:26
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of course this distinction would get dicey and isn't really hard/fast you could call the tang dynasty an ancient dead civilization, but obviously chinese people still exist and may or may not identify with that imagery do people from the modern arabized state of egypt identify with ancient Egyptian imagery? i don't think so, but you never know!!
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May 2, 2019 18:34
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Darwinism posted:People tend to forget, or not learn at all I guess, that the Nazis went all-in on crony capitalism. Elector_Nerdlingen posted:And... uh... practically every single fantasy setting ever has an unexamined assumption that things used to be great before a great evil hosed them up which often turns into something weirdly close to the fascist idealisation of the past. Especially when the great evil is sentient humanoids who are, you know, just evil because that's what they are. JBP posted:Zeon seems more like some insane feudal aristocracy to me. Cessna posted:If that's right, is someone going to tell the Wehraboos that the "humanoids" were their beloved Germans?
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May 2, 2019 18:36
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Cessna posted:I think the fix is to bring in people of other ethnicities but do so in a way that doesn't make them racist caricatures. Like, "these people are of Asian ethnicity - but they don't have WWII Japanese Propaganda Villain accents." rejecting existing racist stereotypes is a definite start and part of any good workaround i agree, but i think i'll still argue that, for e.g, if someone were wedging in a regiment based on, say, historical vietnam into the 40k setting as an oppressive force every bit the equal of the imperium and the rest of the setting you're already flirting a depiction that'll necessarily be an evil caricature of a sort that's the part that i suspect will result in mixed messaging when it comes to representation that aims at inclusion into the IP
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May 2, 2019 18:38
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Halloween Jack posted:
that's gotta be taken straight from R.E. Howard i bet
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May 2, 2019 18:41
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hard counter posted:rejecting existing racist stereotypes is a definite start and part of any good workaround i agree, but i think i'll still argue that, for e.g, if someone were wedging in a regiment based on, say, historical vietnam into the 40k setting as an oppressive force every bit the equal of the imperium and the rest of the setting you're already flirting a depiction that'll necessarily be an evil caricature of a sort I've mentioned that I'm working on Tau that will have a vaguely "US in Vietnam"/jungle theme. Maybe I should switch them up a bit more.
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May 2, 2019 18:42
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PupsOfWar posted:of course this distinction would get dicey and isn't really hard/fast My experience is that Egypt is proud of its ancient past but would very much appreciate people realizing it also has other things in its history that are more recent.
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May 2, 2019 18:46
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PupsOfWar posted:that's gotta be taken straight from R.E. Howard i bet
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May 2, 2019 18:49
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otoh it's the case that the tau are significantly more hopeful/optimistic/reasonable than the rest of the setting, to the point where it's even a little contentious i'm not sure if it was intentional but it does avoid making a fully evil caricature of a group we'd feel less comfortable criticizing as caustically as we sometimes criticize ourselves
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May 2, 2019 18:55
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Has Battletech/MechWarrior done much about their little problems involving stereotypes? If there was one system with troublesome fluff it's that one.
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May 2, 2019 19:02
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Cessna posted:I don't think that's where the word comes from. "Onager" was a Roman word for "catapult." An onager is a type of donkey. The catapult was named after the donkey, because it kicked like a mule. The Tau special weapon is the "Onager Gauntlet." It's a donkey punch joke.
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May 2, 2019 20:46
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Holy poo poo how did I miss that?
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May 2, 2019 21:23
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Two Beans posted:Has Battletech/MechWarrior done much about their little problems involving stereotypes? If there was one system with troublesome fluff it's that one. ehhh sorta? Draconis Combine's always been kinda written as a racially diverse society working around government mandated samurai cosplay. Capellan Confederation's still kinda bad but at least they traded the yellow peril stereotype for the much less offensive revolutionary chinese aesthetic.
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May 2, 2019 22:17
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Resting Lich Face posted:Meh. Art can take on meaning beyond anything the artist intended. I'm with you on that. One of my favourite books as a child and probably now is Tarka The Otter by Henry Williamson. He was an out and out nazi fascist, but he wrote a beautiful book about an otter. I felt conflicted when I found out about his political beliefs but now I think gently caress it. It's a good book. Just to justify my place in this thread, not that I have to. But I'm painting up some 15mm late war British infantry by Peter Pig for Chain Of Command. And I've been on more anti fascist demos back in the day that I am quite relaxed in thinking I've done my bit. Time for the young uns to shine.
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May 2, 2019 23:22
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General China posted:And I've been on more anti fascist demos back in the day that I am quite relaxed in thinking I've done my bit. You don't get freebies on... whatever it is you're trying to say, just because you used to attend anti-fascist rallies. That's not how being a good person works.
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May 2, 2019 23:27
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LatwPIAT posted:You don't get freebies on... whatever it is you're trying to say, just because you used to attend anti-fascist rallies. That's not how being a good person works.
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May 3, 2019 00:04
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Ilor posted:Heh, would that be like the Antifa version of papal indulgences? How many times do I have to egg nazis to let me play RaHoWa
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May 3, 2019 00:29
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Two Beans posted:Has Battletech/MechWarrior done much about their little problems involving stereotypes? If there was one system with troublesome fluff it's that one. House Davion's hangups with Asian people may have an understandable cause (the Kentares V massacre) but the series makes no bones about how stupid and shortsighted their racism makes them. Meanwhile, House Kurita has never had a Coordinator as skilled and capable as Yori Kurita (a "mere" woman). The Draconis Combine now has a New Avalon prefecture and I am 100% onboard with the Draconis Combine and Federated Suns merging because they are basically the same nation with only your preference as to whether you prefer a Samurai or Cowboy aesthetic. Samurai Cowboys are inherently superior to both. More seriously, the novels describe most everyone with build, and then either hair color or eye color. Skin tone is almost never directly mentioned with a few rare exceptions. I've always felt (accidental or otherwise) that that was a pretty alright way to handle things, as it showed how little that aspect of anyone's appearance mattered to the viewpoint characters. Hell, we only know Lincoln Osis was black because of official art, not because of how he was described in any novels. Der Waffle Mous posted:ehhh sorta?
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May 3, 2019 01:14
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Minobu Tetsuhara is pretty much the notable exception. And yeah I forgot about the lost cause bullshit.
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May 3, 2019 01:29
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PoptartsNinja posted:The Draconis Combine now has a New Avalon prefecture and I am 100% onboard with the Draconis Combine and Federated Suns merging because they are basically the same nation with only your preference as to whether you prefer a Samurai or Cowboy aesthetic. Samurai Cowboys are inherently superior to both.
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May 3, 2019 01:50
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Absolutely.Der Waffle Mous posted:And yeah I forgot about the lost cause bullshit.
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May 3, 2019 02:47
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Halloween Jack posted:
Shadowrun gets into it, as all of the 'fantasy' races are genetically human and cross-fertile, they just have recessive genetics that express once the magic level rises enough. Elf, dwarf, ork, and troll babies are still born to otherwise apparently human parents, and a large number of apparently human people underwent a kind of second puberty once the magic level crossed that line. The best part is that it doesn't in any way correlate to what modern humans consider race. Unfortunately they didn't go far enough to dodge the stereotypical Tolkein takes on greenskins, and a few of the later writers have done some lovely stuff with linking (for example) the treatment of orks and trolls with that of modern American racial minorities. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 05:15 on May 3, 2019 |
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May 3, 2019 05:09
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...how did non-Warhammer orcs become green, anyways? I'm not even sure when green goblins took hold of the genre, or even if Spider-Man's Green Goblin came first.
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May 3, 2019 05:38
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Joe Slowboat posted:...how did non-Warhammer orcs become green, anyways? I'm not even sure when green goblins took hold of the genre, or even if Spider-Man's Green Goblin came first. I'm guessing Warcraft did a lot to codify the green orc, and that aspect was likely inspired by Warhammer (since Warcraft was originally intended as a Warhammer video game but Blizzard couldn't get the rights to the IP).
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May 3, 2019 06:06
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It's a misnomer in SR's case, too, because orks and trolls aren't green. I use the term out of habit because I play a lot of Games Workshop stuff. 
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May 3, 2019 06:14
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Joe Slowboat posted:...how did non-Warhammer orcs become green, anyways? I'm not even sure when green goblins took hold of the genre, or even if Spider-Man's Green Goblin came first. Wyvernil posted:I'm guessing Warcraft did a lot to codify the green orc, and that aspect was likely inspired by Warhammer (since Warcraft was originally intended as a Warhammer video game but Blizzard couldn't get the rights to the IP). It's this. Warhammer lead to Warcraft, and Warcraft's setting is, sorry to say, the most interacted with fantasy setting in the world.
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May 3, 2019 06:55
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Warcraft and Starcraft ripping off GW was one of the most bitter and hate filled battlefields an opinionated child could find themselves on.
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May 3, 2019 06:59
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ProfessorCirno posted:It's this. Warhammer lead to Warcraft, and Warcraft's setting is, sorry to say, the most interacted with fantasy setting in the world. That is a good point, and also it fills my soul with a deep and abiding frustration. Especially since Warcraft is, if not the worst of the Tolkien-knockoffs, a pretty deeply standard one with some added cartoonish stereotypes.
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May 3, 2019 07:00
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Warcraft is what you get if you read Warhammer and utterly miss all the satire. Same with Starcraft and 40k.
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May 3, 2019 07:33
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