Originally Posted by JimMorrison (Post 647031)

Psionics all taste like purple to me. Even Oriental Psionics.

Originally Posted by Kristoffer O (Post 647025)

> Its a fantasy game, with fantasy flavors.

No way! It's a space game, with psionic flavours.

BTW we all love Orientalism, so why deny that dominions is orientalistic. I don't think Omni or anyone else wants to change that. He just wants to show us ourselves, and it tis a beautiful sight :) Look at me! I'm awesome! :D

Sorry! We were talking about you.
Look at you! You are also awesome! :D

Originally Posted by TheMenacer (Post 646987)

Like I said in my previous post, I think the OP's point about orientalism is perfectly valid, but I don't think that the game's offensive in the slightest specifically because everyone gets painted with that brush pretty liberally. Yeah, you've totally got the eastern nations given a romanticized version of their mythology, but every other nation has it too, from the ice giants stomping around the frozen northlands to the forests full of faeries and trolls. There isn't a single nation who doesn't have aspects of their culture and mythology exaggerated and brought to the fore in order to make it more interesting. I mean hell look at the Ermor. They accidentally unleashed death itself trying to resurrect Jesus. I honestly don't think that's any more offensive than extrapolating a nation with hindu mythology from the monkey section of The Jungle Book.

Originally Posted by Omnirizon (Post 646670)

Orientalism is the representation of the Orient in and by the Occident. The 'Orient' nations in Dominions would be the Bandar Log nations including Lanka (India), C'tis (Egypt), Tien Chi (China), and Yomi/Shinuyama/Jomon.

Isn't it funny how all these nations, with the exception of TC, are flavored using anthropomorphisms and celestial/demonic themes whereas all other nations are just humans (or giant humans) of some kind? Does this demonstrate the effect of Orientalism in Occidental historical consciousness?

To TC as an exception, historically China and Japan are areas of the Orient that were never fully sublimated to Occidental empiricism. Thus they are always seen as duplicitous in Occidental representations, but rarely sexualized, mysticized, and romanticized in the way that other areas of the Orient were. Incidentally, China and Japan are the only modern competing world powers of the Orient. Both TC and Yomi as relations of their respective nations are still fully under the auspices of Orientalism as TC (and Jomon to some point) is portrayed as very authoritative and hierarchical, while Yomi et al are fleshed out with themes of devious demons. Both nations draw on celestial/demonic themes, things which are seen as irrational in the occident and complete the Oriental representation of these nations.

Not that I don't like the way these nations and their themes were constructed. The thing about Orientalism is that it _is_ the Orient. Its very emergence abolished on originary Orient. But to assume that it alone is responsible for the loss of a pure Orient is fallacy. The western theory that Orientalism draws upon tells us that there is no such thing as a pure history, or even "a history". The relation of these nations in both the Dominions and the Occident as a whole is only a performance then, not a static and deliberate representation.