Fantasy Counterpart Culture and Cultural Appropriation

Does anybody in here have tips for writing fantasy counterpart cultures while simultaneously avoiding cultural appropriation and (unintentionally) racist portrayals? For example, I have this ethnic group called the Kelp People, which is based off the Tlingit and other Northwest Coast tribes of America. However truth to be told, I haven't fleshed a lot of the cultural aspects since I wasn't sure on how much things that I can borrow and how many things that I could modify while maintaining sensitivity.

In other words, I'm afraid of making mistakes, even by accident. From what I have learned, research is a must, but I'm certain that there are other subtleties that are left unsaid in most articles (most articles about cultural appropriation in the internet are mostly concerned with the portrayals of the actual ethno-cultural groups themselves, their historical or present state, instead of their fantasy counterparts).

If there are tropers who are Tlingit, Haida, or other Northwest Coast tribes, I would be very grateful of your opinion on this matter.

edited 1st Feb '12 2:50:49 AM by pelagica

Don't just import names and symbols. Change things up, draw or design your own symbols. The Dreamcatcher you see in the media or for sale in tacky shops or on the web? It's a fake because the real design is sacred. Yes, U.S. military units use "Indian" symbols but it's tradition and not done lightly. Special Forces has the crossed arrows, the New Mexico National Guard has the Zia symbol due to the culture of the state.

Yes I know the "We're a culture not a costume" has undergone memeticmutation but it's true.

Don't just insert commas or flip things backwards, add your own work too. Research the meaning behind the name. Then run with that. Why is the symbol like that? You can use the theme. Numbers are a safe however. You can show your work and show that you just didn't shovel the culture into your 'verse.

NeonGenesisEvangelion example: Hideaki Anno put in his personal issues, traditional Japanese religious symbols, Kaballah and Christian elements. Why Christian? Because Christianity has an end of the world, unlike Shinto. He blended them seamlessly without just scooping them into his work.

edited 1st Feb '12 6:13:22 AM by TairaMai

Neon Genesis Evangelion example: Hideaki Anno put in his personal issues, traditional Japanese religious symbols, Kaballah and Christian elements. Why Christian? Because Christianity has an end of the world, unlike Shinto. He blended them seamlessly without just scooping them into his work.

Isn't NGE, like, the textbook example for gratuitous, meaningless symbolism?

Other than that, the above advice seems sound, assuming you're dead-set on doing a Fantasy Counterpart Culture in the first place. You may find a chiefly original, alien culture to be easier and less problematic.

Thanks you for that advice, Taira Mai! I have considered on adopting Adinkra (Ghana) designs as heraldic emblems for one of the nations, though thanks to that I can avoid making shameless copies of the originals.

There are still some issues though. Does subverting stereotypes, cultural mishmash (invoking Culture Chop Suey) could come across as offensive? For example, if I took aspects of Hopi culture (sterling silvers, potteries, matrilineality and squash-blossom hairstyle for unwed girls)yet write the society as one that promotes industrialism, mass production of items, is this okay? Hopi philosophy is quite gentle toward the environment (and unfortunately has been watered down to its Theme Park version by various New Age practitioners and pop culture), yet the one that I make defies it somewhat.

There's also this issue with religion. Does Avatar: The Last Airbender ever discussed theological concepts and actual religious practices in the show? I would be glad if someone could refresh my memory on this.

The reason why I've been making Fantasy Counterpart Cultures is that the world I'm writing on is a parallel earth (Earth p-1, with Earth p-0 being ours) where magic and Mons reigns and there are both obvious parallels and deviations if compared to our history.

I think I agree with Iaculus. Although I am not a Christian, one of my friends, a devout Catholic, was quite weirded out by the appropriation of various imageries in NGE.

edited 1st Feb '12 10:31:53 PM by pelagica

More thoughts will be very welcome. In my opinion, this is a real life issue that the literary world have managed to ignore until now.

NGE seems like a stew of gratuitous, meaningless symbolism because so much was going on. However, things like the Angel that attacked the UN fleet being named after the angel of fishes, that shows how Hideaki Anno put things in consistently.

US Army Institute of Heardry, The Isle Of Man <— check out their flag, that has meaningfully symbolism.

Google "Hearldry" as well.

New Age is what we pagans call "Fluffy Bunnies" (no it's not a term of endearment). It's not just theme park, but when they get shit wrong that what makes us angry.

Like I said, you can use elements. Just re-name them. Keep the theme, but keep the theme consistent. Rich white college kids latch onto the pot smoking of Rasta culture and gloss over the very conservative parts (Rastafarians are not tolerant of homosexuality). I downloaded a file called "witcheschant.mp3", it was a chant invoking Isis, Hecate, Diana and Kali. If you have taken a class on mythology or religion, you'd understand why I want to beat the artist with my M-16.

If you subvert part of the theme, again be consistent. Don't just change one detail, make sure the religion and symbols make sense. And don't make the mistake of just using a name. Lego got into lots of trouble when they used a Maori god's name of a villain.

We don't ask that you stay within the bounds of physics, but at least follow the rules you freaking made up."—8 Classic Movies That Got Away With Gaping Plot Holes

edited 2nd Feb '12 3:34:01 PM by TairaMai

Really, if you're making just a straight translation of a real world culture for a race in your fantasy setting, there's a good chance you're already going to imply something offensive that you didn't mean to. Basically, the more obvious you make them "real world culture X in setting Y" instead of your own thing you made up, the more you have to worry about saying something offensive.

Taira Mai: I do understand your urge to beat said artist. It happened to me once, though as far as I could recall it involved something else entirely.

I once read that 'fluffy bunnies' is also applied to wiccan wannabes, is this also true?

Again, thanks for reminding me all of these. I almost forgot about that Bionicle debacle, that's important. They used Polynesian-sounding names, but I have no idea whether they researched the meanings or not until the protests occurred.

Edit: apparently, the whole issue (on Bionicle controversy) was about the fear of trademarking of certain Maori words into the franchise. The spokesperson said they only trademarked the term Bionicle and none of the rest.

WOLFJUSTICE: Indeed, but regarding that, I would value your opinion about Avatar: The Last Airbender. A lot of people said that the franchise (excepting the movie adaptation) paid a huge tribute to various East Asian cultures (I'm Indonesian, so while I am Asian I didn't detect much influence from mine, so I can't say much about this). IMHO, when I first saw the Air Nomads, 'Tibetan' was the first word that rang in my head, and so does with Water Tribes as 'Inuits'. Judging from the reception, they craft the whole thing very well.

I'm pretty much set on making Fantasy Counterpart cultures; I know I could draw things from something else, or perhaps making a Xenofiction based on alien biology (which is very safe and would offend no one), but still I choose the former option.

There is a very thorough article that's centered on the analysis of said series, here:http://www.boomtron.com/2010/07/notes-from-new-sodom-the-lost-airbender/

Though to be honest, I got lost due to his continual use of obscure terms. I'm a layman when it comes to semiotics.

Edit: FYI, all are humans of all colors, so they're not distinguished to 'races' such as 'elves', 'dwarves', or 'ogres'. There is a concept though, called 'Morphotypes'. If your mother happen to gestate your embryo in an area influenced with certain elements (e.g. water), you will carry physical characterstics associated by said elements (e.g. UV color detection, slight webbing, wider latissimus dorsi, better respiratory efficiency underwater, counter-shaded patterns on your back like mackerels) regardless of your color or ethnic descent. Needless to say, all spaces in my world are influenced by such forces.

edited 3rd Feb '12 3:27:39 PM by pelagica

"Fluffy Bunnies" are different from those who want to study a religion as opposed to those who just wanna be different.

Wicca or witchcraft is like any other religion: study, dogma, ritual and practice. It takes time and you only finish when you go to meet the Gods.

Those who never do the research, appropriate random elements ("this sounds so cool!") and mostly want to annoy you with their "ZOMG I'm a Wiccan" are fluffies. It's a trifecta of FanDumb, not wanting to learn and being snotty about it.

Keep the theme consistent. You can use Hopi dress and pottery and silver. But change the designs and change the words. Don't use the name of a Hopi god just because it sounds cool. Be consistent. There are many myths that parallel each other across cultures. Many cultures have creation myths, flood myths and end of the world (or not having one). Strange but true, the story of Cinderella in some form, reappears in many cultures.

See also: Crystal Dragon Jesus

So you can tack on one culture to another, but be consistent and respectful.

As to Lego and it's troubles: Well, when the name of someone's god is going to get slapped with a trademark, it's like when Disney wanted to build a theme park on Gettysburg. Only the anger here was taken to eleven.

I read the rant and while the author seems to take issue with riffing on Asian cultures, he gets rubbed raw over the "racebending". I agree that Hollywood seems to think 90% of humanity is white. But then again that's what you find in LA when you put out a casting call.

Earth Sea is another sad, sad example of Hollywood thinking hero=white, but that's another rant.

edited 3rd Feb '12 8:01:27 PM by TairaMai

Ged - one of my heros as a kid. I read the Earthsea trilogy in class. In apartheid South Africa. Under a teacher who was... how shall I put it... a product of his time. The wizard on the front was depicted white. I knew better. If anything, the Barbary Coast sprang to mind.

I'm just glad that the author was brave enough to express her utter disappointment on the Race Lift. So does with Neil Gaiman, who managed to say "no" to the executives who wished to "make the characters white, or drop the magical elements together" for the movie adaptation of Anansi Boys. Anyways....

I found this in the deviantart not too long ago (not mine), what do you think? Did she manage to make it correctly? Or are there any aspects of cultural appropriation that she unintentionally added into her artwork/character background?

http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=fantasy+counterpart+culture#/d2e7g4e

Weigh in.

edited 10th Feb '12 5:01:11 AM by pelagica

Taira Mai's points are great, but I feel that it is best to focus on why the culture acts the way it does rather than just having it be an obvious Fantasy Counterpart Culture.

While I might talk too much about the subject, take dragons. Dragons are universal, but never the same in more than one place. Sometimes they're demonic, sometimes they're divine. Their physical traits vary just as much as their motivations and psychology. And that's all for a reason. How cultures view the natural world shapes their interactions with it.

So don't just base it on the traditions of a culture, have your characters embrace their lifestyle and perspective on the world around them. Not exactly, of course, but in a way similar enough that let's them have a reason for having the culture they do.

The DA pic and description did a good job of lampshade hanging. She did a good job of respecting a real culture. Smyer...I'm surprised that the Quilutes didn't sue her.

Thanks Sgt Hydra. In the 'verse I'm planning, a group of spacefaring nomadic workers has slang taken from real world sayings and slang from Asia and Latin America. I make sure to change the spelling and syllables to reflect a linguistic drift. I went and looked up Hobo slang from the great depression and slang around the world to make it consistent. So terms for "danger", "hurry", "job", "welder", and boot (in this case magnetic boots) I adapted from my various sources. I threw in the Jarhead term "inkstick" for pen (well the Marines I met when I was in ADA school, we were all re-classing to Patriot Radar Tech).

It's the why that sells the couterpart culture.

edited 11th Feb '12 2:41:56 PM by TairaMai

> "For example, if I took aspects of Hopi culture (sterling silvers, potteries, matrilineality and squash-blossom hairstyle for unwed girls)yet write the society as one that promotes industrialism, mass production of items, is this okay?"

It sounds okay to me, because on the basis of that description it doesn't sound like a close parallel to Hopi culture, just a few shared elements.

Basing a fantasy culture closely on a real-world one, and changing one crucial element, is pretty problematic; but taking inspiration from real-world sources is pretty much unavoidable.

I'm not sure where I stand on Fantasy Counterpart Cultures. Not only is borrowing elements from real-world civilizations almost inevitable as others have said, but sometimes said civilizations can even inspire us. On the other hand, the more you want your Counterpart Culture to resemble its real-world inspiration, the more research you'll have to do on the real-world culture and the less creative leeway you have when designing your own culture.

I have a country in my setting which is basically a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of medieval Iceland and Norway. One of the supporting characters who's a dwarf is involved with a human woman from a reindeer-herding ethnic group living in the mountains that's basically the Sámi and who has awesome magical powers and becomes the protagonist's foster mother. Any tips on how to handle this non-offensively? Anyone know much about the Sámi? (I've already done some cursory research and thought of combining this ethnic group with ethnic groups like the Greenland Inuit (like what I'm doing with The Pearl Of Combat.)

edited 13th Feb '14 2:17:16 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

I think one thing most people forget is to avoid making them all "cool and foreign". They should be normal to themselves. This is something Avatar: The Last Airbender does very well, and many other things do not.

Cultures are defined by what stuff they have in them, not by how they're different from the writer's own, "baseline" culture. The Sami people, for example, exist that way because their culture formed that way after hundreds and hundreds of years. It's not a counterculture to "generic modern Scandinavian culture", or to North American, and because it's not a counterculture, it does not exist to compare itself with the latter two. A culture based on it should be able to stand on it's own, as opposed to exist only as a foil for other cultures, or for the "normal".

Think of Harry Potter and its use of "magical" words. Half of them are JUST WORDS. Words that are used in common conversation in other languages. It's kind of bothersome when they're implied to be inherently magical (can't mispronounce) because things like "wingardium leviosa" are put on par with things like "incendio", meaning that to JKR at least, they both sound equally non-sensical, magical and "weird". This kind of thing shows the extreme ethnocentrism of the series, which is very England-centric. This is not necessarily bad, but it is annoying to many people who aren't English or at least native Anglophones. That's one problematic thing about the series.

Most of it though, is just being respectful. No assuming there's one right way and all other ways are wrong, no taking a look at a cultural practice and making it seem all enlightened (or idiotic) just because it's different. Treating other cultures like groups, made of people, and these people like doing these things, because of reasons that they have for it. Many cultures are perfectly logical, they just have widely different premises than the one you may come from and think is perfectly logical.

@Faramir: Some things about the story changed after I asked that question, but thanks for that advice.

Well, the "magic words" were generally just pseudo-latinate gibberish. If the story requires magic words, they have to sound like something, unless you're going to go the Angel route and have the be all consonants. (In which case someone will probably knock you for basing them on Hebrew.)

One thing to keep in mind is the practical aspects of this. One class I was in got into it on the term "Japanese feudalism," since Japanese feudalism... wasn't terribly feudal, at least not in the European sense. The professor eventually settled the argument by yelling at the class at the top of his lungs for about two minutes in Japanese. Which only he spoke.

The point was, not every description is going to be perfect, but we convey ideas using the terms we have. Even if they're not perfectly accurate, conveying the general idea in a way the audience can understand is important. It doesn't matter how beautifully diverse and inclusive your fantastic culture is if it needs two thousand pages of backstory and six history degrees for the reader to understand it.

edited 13th Feb '14 2:10:13 AM by edgewalker22

I think the biggest thing to remember when writing a Fantasy Counterpart Culture is that while counterpart's dictionary definition includes "copy" and "duplicate" that doesn't mean a fantasy counterpart should be one, so much as simply strongly based on something, if that makes any sense.

But, in all honesty, even when you aren't creating a counterpart culture you're always going to manage to offend somebody - and even if you try to faithfully portray something or add something that ought to be there for equality you'll still upset people.

The best things you can do to minimize the number of upset people are: research in depth, know why things are one way in a culture instead of just what they are, parallel instead of duplicate, never include something if it doesn't suit the environment, know how the elements of the surrogate culture relate to each other and - if at all posible - justify your choices.

If Thing A affects how things B and C are done and how thing D is viewed and you wholesale copy C into your story but exclude A, people from the surrogate culture are going to be far more upset - because you didn't understand how the various parts of the culture interacted and interwove - than they would be if you took thing C and altered it to remove the affects of thing A and used what was left over.

Then there's justification. Doylist explanations like Edgewalker gave - reader's ease of understanding - are valid, but can raise objections such as people of the surrogate culture saying they shouldn't be used as a costume (valid) because the writer's people were too stupid to learn (not so valid, as it doesn't take into account other factors). The actual intelligence level of the readership and author's room to explore an invented culture like nothing anyone's ever known won't necessarily be reflected by this sort of complaint.

Then there's the Watsonian justifications. Are you dealing with an alternate Earth history (e.g. Rome with dragons!), future history, world hidden from muggles by the masquerade, world that is connected to Earth by some sort of portal and the two cultures have had extensive contact before they drifted apart, or one settled the other? You'll get more slack for your counterpart culture.

But if your world has absolutely no connection to our Earth and/or doesn't fall under the more-slakc banners of genre conventional Standard Fantasy Setting and Friends, the more similar to any Earth culture the more eyebrows will be raised and the more capslock and spelling error riddled comments are going to turn up online eventually.

Wait, this isn't the standard? And why not?

Because fantasy writers are, in general, shit.

This. And it's a bloody shame too, since our genre has so many fascinating possibilities that are almost universially ignored in favour of cookie-cutter plots, characters and cultures. I think the main problem is that people figure they don't need to logic out and justify things because "it's fantasy, I can do what I want!" ...which sounds suspiciouslly like badfic writer's typical replies. Well, that and because humans are terrible people who tend to judge themselves and their culture as "normal" even though that's neither true nor fair and everything else gets viewed as "foriegn" and "exotic" and "weird" instead of just "different".

Take it up to eleven and if possible past that, as Terry Pratchett did in the Discworld. Make it so ridiculous it can't possibly be racist - an affectionate dig. Or do the background research, find what that people themselves find ridiculous and laugh about in their own culture - and use this as a hook.

Be aware that you are responding to a 6 year old thread. The people you are responding to may not even be around here anymore.