Fantasy Counterpart Culture and Cultural Appropriation

Actually, it's 2014 so it's an 8 year old thread.

That doesn't mean the topic isn't still of interest, though. Sensitivity readers have become an option for exactly this issue.

Sensitivity, yes, but claiming cultural appropriation when the original culture is unchanged is basically just gatekeeping.

That said I appreciate the bump as I have my own concerns on the topic. Albeit mostly more specific to adapting mythology.

For now I will ask if there are any examples of good use of FCC and any uses of it that are considered appropriation. For the sake of getting examples.

In my opinion, the Dothraki were an excellent subversion. While there can be some controversy in a broader view of "obviously coded this" and "not centered that" like Fremen, the depth of detail and meaningfulness in the culture...in both Dothraki and Fremen cultures...already subverts the Life Of Brian, We Are All Individuals portrayal of in-world marginalized "barbaric" cultures and peoples in fantasy settings.

How Dothraki avoid cultural appropriation entirely is how they're influenced (out-of-world, not in-world) by disparate cultures, the cultural significance to not cutting their hair was borrowed from there plus the culture built around being nomadic warlords on horseback being borrowed from there ... I think it combines to make something new that is not misrepresenting any one culture. Most human beings have hair. If there are horses in this fantasy universe, and there are people interacting with horses in this fantasy universe, then there's going to be a culture that comes from people interacting with horses that doesn't necessarily misrepresent specific established cultures that have interacted with horses.

I love Terry Pratchett mayherestinpeace—but Nation was about putting a telescope on a mountaintop in fantasy-novel Hawaii. The strong parallels with a controversial real-life issue is, uhhhhhhhhhh...

I disagree pretty intently on the Dothraki. For why, I'd recommend this pretty lengthy 4 part series by Bret Devereaux, begins here: https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-i-barbarian-couture/

But it boils down to, well, I can't do better than he did:

"In short, each change pushes the depiction from a real human society, with all of the complexities that implies, where self-interested greed and brutality coexist with beauty, art, creativity and artisanal skill, towards a flat depiction of a society made up of ultra-Fremen who are too busy dominating, fighting, killing and raping for such frivolities as elite clothing. Now to be clear, I am not singling out the ‘barbarian couture’ here at the start because it is the worst part of the depiction (it isn’t), but because it is a visual signifier of what all of the rest of the depiction is going to do."

As to what FCC work really well...I think the easiest ones to think of are ones we don't really think of as FCC's at all, namely FCC's of American/British societies. Ankh-Morpork, in Discworld, for example.

And I disagree with that disagreement because "a society made up of ultra-Fremen who are too busy dominating, fighting, killing and raping for such frivolities" also describes the Westerosi fighting over who gets to sit in the most uncomfortable chair in Planetos.

That part I agree with, and was what I meant by how it could be analyzed more broadly in a vaguely/arguably coded treatment rather than direct fantasy culture parallels like Nation or for that matter Moana.

Readers or viewers that say "but realistic medieval times" about anything in ASoIaF are (in my humble opinion) sus.

Edited by Wrensong on Oct 25th 2022 at 11:33:57 PM

I mean, I don't want to pull us too far off topic, but the problem is the relative depth of the Westorosi compared to the Dothraki. This is most immediately visible in the clothing, but also in other cultural norms and behaviors (see e.g. https://acoup.blog/2020/12/18/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-iii-horse-fiddles/ ). So, the Westerosi do plenty of rape, murder and dominating, but very definitely aren't too busy for religion, or nice clothes, or basic economic activity.

ETA: Which I guess is actually a helpful point for the topic of conversation here, for folks doing an FCC, they're probably doing more than one and want to watch not just detail, but comparative detail.

ETA 2: And to be clear, a lot of the sus in this one comes from Martin himself: "The Dothraki were actually fashioned as an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures… Mongols and Huns, certainly, but also Alans, Sioux, Cheyenne, and various other Amerindian tribes… seasoned with a dash of pure fantasy."

Edited by ECD on Oct 25th 2022 at 8:51:25 AM

Eh, I still disagree that what GRRM has said at convention panels or whatever is part of the work itself, as though it's when he shows his hand that it stops being mostly fantasy. I think the story without out-of-world author commentary shows more than a dash of fantasy, it is categorically fantasy. There are Dothraki weddings with pyrotechnics and terms of endearment and noticeable good breeding with the horses and turns of phrase to dismiss bad takes ("It Is Known".) Meanwhile, Westerosi still have a unified language, too, which isn't historical even for Britain, that Arya or Sansa don't have to change their accents if they're living in the south or not use some words that their people learned from the Forest Children that turned into vernacular. So I say that's also fantasy culture.

So, maybe a better example would have been Elves in The Witcher book series...

But back to how this subject might help aspiring authors...I encountered somebody that asked help with their original fiction high fantasy world that coded five separate nations based on "Asian, African, Peruvian, Indian, and Spanish" cultures.

When asked what time period (technology advancements) they were thinking of, or even what they liked about these cultures, I would say that they got cagey and told us that a friend picked these cultures for them so that they would write more diversely... But it seemed this author didn't want to moodboard, kept saying that they only had a surface understanding in a way that seemed they didn't want to progress beyond a surface understanding (which Africa?? Egypt prior to the conquest of Nubia? Post-Islamic West Africa? What,) and couldn't answer what they even liked about any of these whole continents or countries or cultures at any era.

I'm guessing that's one way to not do it. Least of all because it seems to me that it never got done. (Beyond asking help from the internet, and then getting cagey about follow-up questions from people that were honestly trying to help make this happen. Even if it was obviously coming from a less ideal creative place like "my friend is forcing me.")

So I guess...an early writing process question could be, What's the story being told, here, that would maybe not gel as well with any other cultural situation? Unless the process is fictional culture first, plot and characters later, which seems common to genre fantasy writers (I think it's called Worldbuilder's Syndrome), but is then a creative process that I'm less familiar with how to take somewhere good.

wouldn't that have it's own challenges if you're trying to work in mythological motifs or adaptations from... basically anywhere that isn't Greco-Roman, Norse or Judeo-Christian mythologies or concepts?

I took it more to mean that it's how fantasy settings implement those, that while it is a fantasy counterpart culture, most readers don't think of it that way because the culture is not othered or flattened.

I'm guessing that idea is more to do with how the writing is executed in explaining the world, rather than the hegemonic nature of the Anglosphere instead.

Not, "Stick with what's safe and popular, like colonizer cultures, perpetuate those because it's easier to get those right."

Not necessarily? It's pretty rare for a fantasy counterpart culture to literally just be the country plopped in another setting. Figuring out how to incorporate reincarnation, or other cultural/religious structures as the dominant force in an FCC 'American' culture is a perfectly plausible way to come up with something fun. Now, it's a bit tricky, because it may come across not as tweaked American FCC, but a massively Americanized Pashtun (or whatever) FCC.

Basically. The key point here is, if you're planning an FCC of something, then you need to understand the culture sufficiently to be able to import it into the fantasy setting and make the adaptations necessary for it to make sense.

Edited by ECD on Oct 26th 2022 at 4:56:49 AM

IMHO, one of the best examples are the fantasy cultures depicted in "The Wheel of Time" series. The Aiel stand out for me as an extremely interesting and detailed take on a desert culture.

well it was intersting to see this post and how it move with times, let me add my two cents:

-First at all let go out of the game: By the inherit nature of what a writer due, it WILL take apropiate to some degree of another, since you are using another culture and changing to suit your need for the purpose of entretaing your own fiction, this isnt bad in itself(one can said the counter to "culture are not a custom" is "culture is not copyright"). The best you can do is understand this and moving on with the idea of being respectfull.

-Second to that is by changing the element that let to that culture around and adding of subtracting is a sort of "Because is cool" or more reader friendly or easy stuff, from making everyone speak the same language to avoid complication to introduce gimmicks because, why not? stuff like "vikings but they workship demons" Like warhammer to how Space wars use nazi imaginary to said the empire is evil without having them to be totally uberly nazis so he can toy with them as he see fits.

-Power diferencial DO play a role here, there is a reason why the OP worry was about hoppi or other add he sami and the like: because they are tribes, often marginalized, often the subject to various degree of atrocity and often no capable of putting their own spin or share their culture on their own terms which create issues like using the skinwalker or others who by their culture you just cant do. Which bring the idea they are some lines you cant cross at the moment of adopting a culture into a fantasy.

A good example of christianity is probably the most obvious: Jesus Christ itself. You want to puse pope or religious as evil? sure, you want to use angels are horror or monster not better than demons? goa head, hell even the big capital G? Kinda tasteless but sure......BUT jesus? no, he stay out limits.

This also bring us to another kinda sorta unconfortable fact here: "dead" religions like ancient egypt and nordic one are very often see as free state in that regard because....well, who is going to complain? If you are cynic you can see the diferent between a belive everyone respet and free to use concept is how much people will complain about it.

-Finally I think is how much do you want to use and why and how, after all if you have a high fantasy series that gloss over details because plot then no adapting much is kinda sort of aceptable because people will also gloss over it too, after all we often use fantasy counterpart as short cut to create factions and stuff with ease.

So for me is all the point one need to take acount at the very least.

I'm currently writing a retelling of the Pygmalion and Galatea myth but setting it in pseudo/low-fantasy Minoan Crete...a pre Ancient Greek culture that is long dead and theoretically public domain.

From what Blue at the Overly Sarcastic Productions channel said, Minoan Crete had redistributive marketplace compounds that were labyrinthine, boating was a big part of archipelago trade, bull veneration was a big thing, along with human sacrifice and cannibalism.

Fashion historian communities link to fashion plates and reconstructions of those frescoes that show women's garments bared the chest (Jim Henson's Storyteller series about Theseus and the Minotaur capture the silhouette very well in the costuming, but of course they give Ariadne's actress a top that covers the chest), while men's wear at the time were more for tunics and waist-sashes or maybe capes.

The peoples whomst would later become Athenians didn't like being colonies of the bull-worshipping cannibals that do human sacrifices, so the legend of Theseus might not have been something specific that happened but that story was rather a way to absorb collective anxieties.

So I'm taking all those scant details, plus something Alan Moore mentioned in the many appendices of From Hell about the goddess Diana possibly being a deified princess from Minoan Crete...

...and am mixing all that with Crystal Spires and Togas

But I don't want it to be "hard worldbuilding" with numismatics and conlangs. It's mostly vibes/aesthetics being the backdrop of a myth or fairy tale, like something that never was yet is always happening.

Does this count as Fantasy Counterpart Culture?

Never mind! It's Ancient Grome .