Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

I don't think you can cite Japanese works where mukokuseki straight up isn't used (and therefore show clear visual markings of ethnicity) as proof that Mukokuseki is therefore coded white. It's a non-sequitur.

I mean, the anime/manga art movement has so many different varied styles and artists working within it that making such sweeping statements as 'mukokuseki is obviously coded white' to be impossible to be true. It's coded to be ethnicity neutral.

Edit: You know, I think Negi from Negima is a good example of both Mukokuseki played straight and Phenotype Stereotype being subverted. His ethnicity is Welsh, as established first thing in the manga. A reader who skipped those scenes could be forgiven for assuming he's as Japanese as the rest of the cast.

Edited by GoldenKaos on May 18th 2019 at 10:14:12 AM

As someone who never tried the series. You're absolutely right that is easy to mistake Negi's ethnicity.

Also. To add to Protagonist' post. Ambiguously Brown can get into extremely similar issues.

"This brown skinned character is meant to be (insert brown ethnicity here)????"

I'm doing a Dark Skinned Redhead MC and I'm not sure if I should make him a "real" redhead (with his "actual hair" being brown or black) or just made it a case of artist style?

He's descendent from Latin Americans, but mixed (well, even more than the average OTL Latinoamerican...) BTW.

Edited by KazuyaProta on May 18th 2019 at 4:53:32 AM

I’m still thinking on what major influences from fiction that affected me

I typically don’t have a established agenda or litmus test before getting into a work that disqualifies it. Of course, if there’s really gratuitous stuff like slavery apologia or rampant racism and sexism, I’d probably drop it and avoid works with that reputation

I guess it’s one of those things you really have to try to be conscious of and put effort into

Most redheads are dyed anyway. But natural dsrh are a thing. See Malcolm X.

Edited by Oruka on May 18th 2019 at 4:39:23 AM

@Kazuya: To be clear, when you say 'influential to you' you mean that's personally influenced my own politics?

It's hard to say if any fiction has really affected my personal views on most issues all that much. More often the reverse happens: I prefer fiction that resonates with me, though I am able to enjoy works that have a message I disagree with.

I might say Star Trek TNG to some extent, somewhat surprisingly. It definitely helped fuel my idealism about the future, and as an army brat there's something about starship life that strikes a cord with me. Plus, the Federation are clearly good guys; they're a nation one can feel a lot of patriotism towards.

I'm thinking on that particular case of someone with reddish tintes. And dunno, dyed hair isn't exactly something that fits the character, who isn't someone that would care much for his personal appareance.

Yikes, I mean exactly that

I've wondered if there any fiction about rebuilding a failed state.

Belgium?

Rome under Diocletian?

Kazuya's wondering if there's any fiction about doing that, though.

I know. I just thought it was funny to name an existing country as "a fiction to rebuild a failed state".

Love all you Belgians out there, sorry for using you as the butt of the joke there.

Edited by Kayeka on May 19th 2019 at 10:06:01 AM

I can't seem to understand Belgium. Or, before it, the Austrian Low Countries, and the interplay of Religion and Language there. How do the Dutch relate to the Flemish?

Belgium isn't real

Yep

Edited by KazuyaProta on May 19th 2019 at 3:24:43 AM

Well, to give you the heavily simplified Theme Park Version:

In ye olden days of the 15th century, the countries that are currently known as the Netherlands and Belgium (roughly) were an area with strong cultural ties and a common language, except for the people occupying current-day Wallonia, which spoke Roman languages. At the time, they were all in a personal union under Burgundy, IE they were their own countries with, to an extend, their own laws customs, but Duke of Burgundy was their ruler.

Then the Duke of Burgundy died without an heir, and the entire area was successfully claimed by the Spanish Habsburg monarch. The Habsburg house were an Austrian noble house that managed to weasel marry themselves into all sorts of prominent positions of nobility and royalty all across Europe, such as the Archduchy of Austria and the throne of Spain.

This went well for a bit, with the Low Countries mostly doing their own thing aside from paying taxes to the Spanish crown. Then the Reformation took hold of Europe, and protestantism turned out to be very popular amongst the people of the Low Countries. This did not sit well at all with the sanctimonious pious Phillip II of Spain, who cracked down on the autonomy of the Low Countries, raising taxes and introducing all kinds of cruel measures to make life for protestants more difficult.

So then the Dutch Revolt, or Eighty-Years War broke out. History books in school will say that it was about religious freedom, but the raising of taxes was probably just as much of a motivator. The result of the war: The Northern Netherlands broke away from Spanish rule, but the Southern Netherlands did not. The North would become more Protestant, while the South remained largely Catholic. Also the Thirty-Year war happened somewhere in the meantime. You probably want to google that as well at some point.

Eventually, the Southern Netherlands would be passed on to the rulers of Austria, which expanded the territory by taking bits off of France. Then Napoleon started running wild, conquering both the Southern and Northern Netherlands. Once Napoleon was defeated, the Low Countries were liberated, and formed into the United Netherlands, to act as a counterbalance to France, under the first actual Dutch king Willem I van Oranje.

Turns out that being the first Dutch king doesn't actually mitigates one's natural dickishness, and soon the Catholic population of the Southern Netherlands were treated as second-class citizens (is that ironic? It feels ironic). One of the ways this exhibited itself was in the way that the majority of foot soldiers in the army were Flemish/Walloon, yet nearly all officers were Hollandic. This policy backfired about as rapidly as one would expect when the entire Southern region revolted. The Southern Netherlands installed a king of their own, naming their new kingdom Belgium, after the classical Latin name of the area, because classicist origin myths were all the rage back then.

This program was brought to you by a quick glance at wikipedia, some half-remembered titbits I got from school history classes, and far too many hours of Europa Universalis IV. And now I pray to Calvinist Jesus that I didn't get everything entirely wrong, except that it doesn't matter because me getting everything entirely wrong was predestined anyway so I can't be considered at fault.

Edited by Kayeka on May 19th 2019 at 11:42:09 AM

Eh... No.

A lot of what you said is sorta largely correct, but this, no.

While there was an attempt to introduce a Dutch equivalent of the Inquisition, even the majority of the Catholics in the Low Countries opposed that idea. While modern Dutch historians, for some dumb reason, take all the whining accounts from Protestants about how the Dutch Inquisition was oppressing them at face value, the records of the clergy overseeing the whole matter show that, like the Spanish Inquisition it was clone of, the Dutch Inquisition mostly targeted Jews.

The real repression of Protestantism in the Netherlands started in reaction to the Beeldenstorm, when large bands of Protestants started moving into Catholic-majority regions and smashing up churches and killing Catholics in the streets.

Which is, of course, not a good look for the Protestants and so the Beeldenstorm usually gets referred to in history books in Dutch schools as a 'disagreement' between Protestants and Catholics about what a church should look like with 'a couple of people getting a little over-excited and damaging some statues in a couple of churches'.

(You'll also see most accounts of the Geuzen in Dutch history books describe them inaccurately as heroic freedom fighters, instead of accurately as 'asshole pirates who went around killing Catholics and stealing their stuff until they lucked into capturing a town that happened to be strategically important for the actual army of the revolt.')

I left the Beeldenstorm out because we were talking mostly about Belgium here, but yeah, that's kinda how it often happens when it comes to teaching history in school, isn't it? A lot of it seems aimed at instilling national pride in the students, rather than teaching them the reality.

Edited by Kayeka on May 19th 2019 at 12:08:31 PM

Another good sign of how distorted the history we're taught is, is that the Beeldenstorm actually started and happened predominantly in Flanders and was far more violent and featured far more mass-killing of Catholics there.

Which is why most of the Spanish soldiers got sent there and why Dutch history books tend to focus on the less violent stuff happening later further north in Protestant-majority regions after most of the fervour that started it had already died down, as if that's the only stuff that happened.

Edited by Robrecht on May 19th 2019 at 12:32:00 PM

...I feel a bit annoyed because my question was never answered

Also, anyone here interested on Alternate History?

Edited by KazuyaProta on May 19th 2019 at 9:11:44 AM

There's plenty of fiction about a rightful king or something reclaiming a kingdom or country brought to ruin, but an actual story covering the rebuilding process? Not so much.

It'd be like if someone actually made a movie covering how Simba helped the Pride Lands recover from Scar's rule.

Edited by M84 on May 19th 2019 at 10:15:37 PM

The rebuilding process isn’t particularly thrilling.

Oddly, the one I like most is the Anime Pumpkin Scissors.

That's about a WW 1 analogue, though.

And let me be the first to say (here) fuck the ending of Game of Thrones. King Bran!?

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 19th 2019 at 7:23:32 AM

What? King Bran? Given the Broad Strokes nature of the show, Weirdwood Leviathan theory confirmed!"

...is a theory I'd liked.

It's the first very shaky steps towards democracy in Westeros.

Edited by M84 on May 19th 2019 at 10:50:14 PM

You have to begin from somewhere

The episode just came out, so thanks for that.