Over the past six to eight months I have
heard of several weird “politicized” gaming incidents in Yan Kor, the Forgotten
Realms, and my beloved Miskatonic University, and it got me thinking about
political correctness in this wonderful hobby of ours. Historical reenactments,
to be more precise, is the first thing that came to mind. Like, are we now
expected to tweak history in order to make any and all role-playing politically
correct?
If I run a Hundred Years’ War campaign and
run it accurately (no magic swords, no fireballs, et cetera), you better not
choose to rock the boat – because people who rocked the boat ever so slightly
usually died, back in those dark days. Just ask Joan of Arc: a celibate woman
refusing to wear robes and donning heavy armor instead!
So if you choose to play in THAT campaign,
and your character is an openly gay French knight who also happens to blithely
deny the existence of God, and goes on to marry an Ottoman sculptor in
Granada... you’re going to be burned at the stake. Sorry. It’s nothing
personal.
If you don’t want to be burned at the
stake, don’t play this character, or just play it in a different campaign, like
Numenera. History is a huge mess, I agree – but never expect me to rewrite
it for your sole enjoyment. I am no revisionist, and if you don’t appreciate
accurate historical reenactments, that’s totally fine; we have lots of stupefying
fantasy worlds to choose from...
This weekend, we’ve got that new movie
starring Matt Damon, The Great Wall. It is pure unadulterated fantasy –
not a shred of historical fact in there whatsoever. In today’s climate of
political correctness, a big-budget film about Chinese soldiers killing Mongol
tribesmen would have been very toxic. Mongolia would have made a big fuss. And
then Tibet would have jumped in too, because they are still being
oppressed by China as we speak. And then, Taipei would have hopped on the
bandwagon. And then various Human Rights organizations––
What I’m trying to say is, you cannot kill
human beings in movies anymore. You’re still allowed to kill individual
human villains: a Latino drug dealer, a White crime boss, an Asian serial
murderer, a Navajo necromancer, or even a Muslim Sith Lord if you want – but
they have to remain unique individuals. You cannot make any distinct group
of people the enemy; if you do, the group in question will call you out and
organize a huge worldwide boycott of your movie or book.
Even if you choose groups of people that
don’t exist anymore – like classical Assyrians and Babylonians – I know their
remote descendants will stir something up. Let’s say your movie is all about undeterred
Assyrian troops conquering the “corrupt” and “decadent” Babylonian Empire, vanquishing
village after village, burning, razing everything, until they get to the big
city itself and exterminate Babylonians like it’s 1236 B.C. – because it is.
Well, I’m pretty sure some contemporary
Iraqi folks will find a way to disagree. “Babylon was in Southern Iraq, and
Assyria was in Northern Iraq – thus the Assyrians are evil Sunni aggressors,
and the Babylonians are good cultured peaceful Shia people!” Something along
those lines. You can’t escape it.
Ten years down that road, you won’t see any
“living” antagonists in movies; it’s gonna be robots, zombies, and ghosts, all
the time. That’s extreme. And you certainly can’t kill animals, unless they are
very ugly insects or reptiles, but no mammals please, because, after all, we are
mammals!
The Great Wall replaced the Manchu
and Mongol warriors with scary computer-generated crawling beasts of chaos. No
Human Rights / Animal Rights group will ever defend the liberties of the
crawling beasts of chaos (although it would be hilariously cool). So, you can
kill as many of these monstrosities as you want: they’re not furry, neither
cat-like nor dog-like – it’s perfectly okay!
Manchu and Mongol
warriors north of the Great Wall
have all been
polymorphed into Hunting Drakes!
Obviously there is no Zombie Rights or Robot Rights organizations
anywhere. This is why zombies and robots are fair game. But it’ll get old pretty fast. Trust me.
“Real people” fighting “real people” always
result in the most splendid and heart-wrenching stories. Always. Gangs
of New York is a good example. Nobody’s evil. Nobody’s good. They just want
and believe different things. They’re
all unhinged, all afraid of what’s coming, but that desperate, portentous,
sorrowful struggle will make you cringe and recoil and cry. You wouldn’t
experience any of it with those damn zombies or robots.
The highly civilized and highly patriotic
Chinese thought Manchuria and Mongolia were barbaric, and a beleaguered
wasteland. That’s why they had slaves build and rebuild that wall over
and over again. Manchu slaves and Mongol slaves, most probably...
History of the world is cruel / depressing /
mind-boggling / terrifying – but it is our history, and we have to own
it. Burying our heads in computer-generated sand won’t help us a bit.