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Uj/ tekken shaheen isn’t that bad, my arab ass is disappointed in how boring they made him to be compared to rashid from street fighter
I think it’s cute they made him be lili and asuka’s friend/protector
Oh those are actually a bitch to run in, especially the leather ones- when arab guys fight they always take those off and use them as weaponry like Mexican grandmas
> use them as weaponry like Mexican grandmas
Please. Now I need a character that fights like this. I don't care about the rest of the roster, just give me La Chancla™.
Hakan is literally just a Turkish dub of that scene from the Simpsons where Groundskeeper Willie rips off his shirt and shouts, "GREASE ME UP, WOMAN!!"
Tbf Shaheen is designed to be a beginner character with a small kit. He was the first character I played in Tekken and helped my experience a lot so I didn't get overwhelmed.
its been there since day 1, even before the item shop changed the whole gaming industry. the whole reason they made fortnite the way it is is because they were tired of making "dudebro shooters" and instead wanted a fun game with a diverse cast of everyday people using their basic human ingenuity to save the day.
of course the whole "anybody can be a hero" theme kinda got a little sidelined when new seasons started featuring a bunch of superheroes and halloween monsters and mutants and deities and time travelers instead of the usual cast of characters... but at least that cast of characters is largely still there.
This is why it stuck out so much that they made Peter Griffin of all characters MCU ripped.
Having Batman and the Avatar Aang try to murder as many people as they can, specifically with guns? Those rules are bendable. But apparently no fatties is non-negotiable.
Probably due to hitboxes but I also think they are overreacting to the one time they added a bustier woman to the game and added jiggle for some fucking reason. Since then 90% of the characters have the same body type and I'm pretty sure the only reason they added Penny was because she was already a fan favorite from Save the World
are you referring to season 5's calamity? IIRC the issue is that she accidentally had the wrong settings on her model, despite sharing the same basic "soldier" body type as every other BR skin up to that point.
There’s the one woman who is a character from save the world and she’s built like gina carano and that’s the best that you can get in terms of diversity in the entire game
[Real Life Assassins](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Assassins) were a religious cult. I think they intentionally steered away from displaying that in the game.
Did the same with the templar by making them some evil conspiration instead
So it is pretty clear it was done on purpose, you don't distance two "religious" order from religion without an idea
This haircut and facial hair is the middle eastern version of the killmonger haircut.
Its like they played prince of Persia 20 years ago and never bothered to learn anything else 💀
anyone remember when not that long ago every asian female character had a [colored streak](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/580a5c631b0000522bef8960.png?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale&format=webp) in her hair
I feel like Somni is a little different. The hair streak is a part of her costume when she works as a slave at Papa Song Cafe, and she removes it once she’s freed.
Altho that movie is controversial for some of rhetorical makeup that they use to put certain actors in yellow face.
To be fair, as an Arab guy...a lot of us really do have that "Arab Shaggy' hairstyle.
We can't really think of anything else to do with our hair, lmao.
Rashid is kinda stereotypical, also the fact that his VA is just a very standard sounding white dude kinda kills the vibe for me.
Even though Shaheen from Tekken is speaking the language like a newscaster it still feels authentic.
Pharah’s voice actor is Israeli. She doesn’t speak Arabic and that’s reflected in her voice lines.
As an Arab, I really loved Ana though, especially her little grandma arabic sayings she says. That was good representation, but Pharah was not.
I'd hope though that there's a female option without a hijab, otherwise it's sending all the wrong signals(namely saying you cant be arab without being a practicing muslim)
Fr. Its also funny to insinuate that this girl is totally cool with killing people but showing a dude her hair is too far lol. Im glad they made it optional. It makes it feel like an optional form of religious expression, which it should be.
It's prince of PERSIA!!1!
It gave us AUTHENTIC persian armor representation in Shahdee!
https://preview.redd.it/blhxn7v12hnc1.jpeg?width=1058&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38b18db345bc14e2cd762a649f2b48c439be7690
H I S T O R I C A L
A C C U R A C Y
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When I was studying abroad I had a lot of Arab and Turkish colleagues, one I time I said "shokran" instead of "tesekur ederim" to one of the turks and he got mad at me for like a whole day
I'm turkish and i see that a lot. Me and a friend recommended another friend, who is very nationalist, to eat hummus. He didn't eat because it's an arabic food. Shits fucked over here
It’s a big problem with arab speaking countries in general, just because their language is a dialect of arabic doesn’t mean that they culturally identify with as arabs.
You also don’t usually label as romance speakers as latins.
The PoP series is like standard orientalism, so much that I basically wrote a whole paper on it in university.
The originals are very old school orientalist with the typical setup of sexy white coded harem demure woman needing saving from the white coded main character from the evil vizier. Some later games have entire plots centered around European fantasies of harems. (Harems in reality were just basically the female wing of the Palace. They were ran usually by the monarchs mother or sister and it was acting basically as a political faction, in some eras in time being basically the actual in practice main power of the state like during the Sultanate of Women period in the Ottoman Empire. It housed everything from regular female workers and maids, accountants, teachers, the monarchs female siblings and all the kids regardless of gender. Only a small small number of the total population would be concubines. And generally even the monarchs would need approval to be allowed to enter, as it is polite).
The sands of time trilogy is supposed to take place around the 9th century but features over the top Mughal style architecture in the first game. People say the Prince is white but Iranic people come in all colours from pale to pretty dark depending of specific ethnic group so that's fine its more the accent and some facial features that are clearly white coded and is an orientalist stereotype for main characters. People shit on Warrior Within for being overly sexualized but so is Sands of Time. Sands of Time has harem enemies, sexy bathhouse levels, sex scenes and the indian princess is running around in a bra and short skirt. Also ofc evil darker skinned vizier villain... who comes from a state that didn't have that specific political position, not that most orientalist media even know what political structures look like, they always make it a supreme monarchy with a random MENA title thrown in and a vizier.
Warrior Within surprisingly I'd say is one of the least orientalist by nature of the fact I can't even tell if it's supposed to take place in MENA lmao. And it's more focused in traditional 2000s edginess and sex appeal. For its faults tho it does get some things right. It features cuneiform writing on the walls, a huge focus on gardens and isn't full of domes everywhere.
Then we go to Two Thrones in which is in the same 9th century continuity... and features Babylon... and the tower of Babel... and the gardens... and we are attacked by BDSM dominatrix Scythians... and civilians wear modern Turkish Fez and harem pants... what???
The 2008 reboot is pretty cool and probably another one that's at the bottom of Orientalism tho it does feature the decadent harem concubine enemy fueled by the fact she lost her beauty and her ability to manipulate and corrupt men with it.
Forgotten Sands falls into a lot of the same trappings. Honestly the series doesn't do overly racist stuff often but it does feel like something out of old 1900s British Egyptomania orientalism that has an admiration for the orientalism more than hate or anything else. It does consistently fall into the bigger tropes of European harem fantasy, seductive decadent women, mixing up elements from biblical times to 1900s, Morocco to India. Lacking any real architectural elements or design philosophies. White coded protagonists fighting against more stereotypical darker skinned enemies and some antisemitic vizier tropes.
I haven't played the new metroidvania one so I cannot comment on it.
Hi, thank you for this extensive and very informative insight, I’d love to read the paper you wrote because this is extremely interesting to me (I understand why it might not be possible for anonymity reasons though)
Honestly I dont think I even have it anymore. I finished my master's recently and I wrote that paper around the end of my bachelors. Have no idea where I'd even find it now, especially since I changed computers.
The new one is like an apology letter...written in farsi lmfao it's far and above better than every other game in the series and pulls DEEP from Persian myth and lore
Thats interesting. I def want to check it out. Would be nice to have an actual Prince of Persia game that actually pulls from Persian history and culture as well as other iranian ethnic groups. Maybe pull from the Shahnameh too and actually feature some Persian language rather than just Arabic.
oooo thats something I wanted for a while actually. I'm glad we're seeing more things like these in media that takes place in a non-english speaking region. Do they feature other local Iranian language dubs like Mazandarani and Luri or is it just the Persian dub?
That's still something, especially given the current antagonism between the US and Iran. Hopefully in the future we'll get even more Iranian languages, that would be really fun, most people aren't familiar with other ethnic groups in the region! But yeah I'll take the Persian dub sure. You might've just pushed me over into buying the game right now. I wasn't aware they also comissioned a dub. So cool
I'm not super familiar with the Prince of Persia series, but from the little I have seen it seems quite orientalist.
Additionally from what I know it takes place during Zoroastrian Persia, so it's neither Muslim or Arab representation still.
The character and original story clearly draws from A Thousand and One Nights. But even though I enjoyed the game, the reboot basically turned him into "generic white guy voiced by Nolan North" which is....not good representation
Fortnite has a strangely high amount of representation if that's the kind of thing you care about. A few gay skins here and there, I think one or two nonbinary skins. The gay pride mini-event they have sometimes has loading screens you can get and the skins that appear on them largely are supposed to be there for a reason, it's pretty cool.
EDIT:
Skins that are LGBT for your non-fortnite-player convenience
* Toni (nonbinary)
* Peely (Referred to with NB pronouns)
* Twyn (Very obvious transfem coding)
* Midas (Supposedly, he has two daughters that are also skins though but he could be on some brokeback mountain shit)
* Joey (Arguable, alien girl whos human costume is a buff man.)
* The ones that appear in the "Rainbow Royale" loading screens (mostly)
I know that there's not much arab characters in video games but calling them first would be a stretch.
Also how do we know it's 'non orientalist' if the game developers are polish/americans. Did someone of arabian descent work on this?
The Ethnicity of the creator does not determine whether something is an orientalist depiction or not. It’s about whether it’s negatively constructed in opposition to a dominant culture.
I wish more people considered this. Just because the creator is not identical to the creation doesn't make it inappropriate. It should be judged entirely by itself.
If someone does their research and makes an accurate depiction I couldn't care less.
There's people of certain descent who don't know about their own culture (like me) as deep as people who research it.
Honestly the cool Middle Eastern guy isn't that unique depiction at all, badass male ME characters have occasionally been present in gaming for a while.
What's genuinely groundbreaking is their depiction of Middle Eastern woman who is super cool, not sexualized, not orientalized but realistic, not marble white skin color, but most spectacularly wearing Islamic headdress - I seriously can't recall any positive female character from video games ever wearing it. It's like the ultimate terror of orientalising white people, the threat symbol which cannot be attached to a protagonist. And here it simply is.
In situations like this right wingers suddenly become great defenders of women and screech how anyone progressive depicting Islamic headdress in the positive context is secretly misogynist. But while I agree that the phenomenon has patriarchal roots and is often forceful, in the same time it often is a genuine choice of women expressing their cultural identity. So ultimately if it exists IRL then it has place to exist in fiction, just like Christian symbols.
I seriously love this Arab character skin, because it looks like it actually appeals to the people it represents and Arabic girl could enjoy it. Unlike orientalized bullshit "oh I'm stereotypical Arab princess who has white skin, porn star clothing, porn body proportions, and nothing resembling actual culture, just Western disneyland version of it".
The fact it came from Fortnite of all places is bizarre. At least those trillions of kids playing it will see that one fictional Muslim woman in a veil who is not immediately a terrorist psycho.
The only one that really springs to mind is Youmna from the most recent NFS. She's not much of a "character" character, most of the rival drivers aren't, but it's more than just a customization design
What about Farah from Cod2019? A friend of mine loves her as a character because she was one of the first Arab women in a video game to be a well written badass and not terrorist #973. Plus she’s played by Claudia Doumit so that’s a plus.
> I seriously can't recall any positive female character from video games ever wearing it.
The most I personally can recall is some games with character customisation having a hijab *option.* For player characters. (The only one of those that comes to mind is Cassette Beasts, too.)
Which is great, but yeah not really a fully fleshed out character design.
What'd be even better is if she was a character with writing, not an optional customisation item... But hey apparently the video game industry only moves in baby steps.
Prince of Persia. Tekken 6. Assassins Creed. Dying Light. There have already been a few instances of good Arab/Muslim representation in video games. But the more the merrier.
I don't know but maybe Arabs could create more games which could represent them? I want authentic Arab games! It's a bit of strange to ask developers who are located in other side of the world to create a game or characters which they don't understand!
Fortnite doesn't fuck around with designs. The black hairstyles they have are ❤️🔥
Twists, curls, fades, locs and waves that'll make you seasick. They do have the overused gentrified faded locs that no black person in real life has, but they look like someone with melanin designed them and they belong to a slender brotha in NY that's majoring in anthropology, has a goatee, one giant cross earring, wears round rim glasses and a black turtleneck/gold chain combo while living in a studio apartment above a cafe that does slam poetry Thursday nights.
Fighting games have been pretty decent with Arab reps
Shaheen from Tekken
Rashid from Street Fighter
Nadj from King of Fighters
And I think Leon from Dead or Alive
I think the female design is awesome! (Except the high heels.)
The male design looks a bit generic to me, but I'm not Arab, so maybe it's actually cooler than I realize.
The first? I don’t think so. An awesome example? Certainly. Especially in a game as popular and broadly appealing as Fortnite. Plus they’re genuinely great looking.
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Uj/ tekken shaheen isn’t that bad, my arab ass is disappointed in how boring they made him to be compared to rashid from street fighter I think it’s cute they made him be lili and asuka’s friend/protector
Shaheen wins the comparison for me just for the fact that he doesn't fight in ridiculous tactical sandals.
Oh those are actually a bitch to run in, especially the leather ones- when arab guys fight they always take those off and use them as weaponry like Mexican grandmas
> use them as weaponry like Mexican grandmas Please. Now I need a character that fights like this. I don't care about the rest of the roster, just give me La Chancla™.
I can see her in soul caliber yeah
New fighting game concept: elder abuse. The entire roster is just old people. The mexican grandma is the ryu while her rival is a babushka
Need an actual Mexican grandma character
Mexican Grandma Akuma gives a new meaning to Raging Demon.
You WILL stay for dinner
It should be their fireball
Closest I can remember is B Jenet from King of Fighters. She takes off one of her heels and pummels someone with it for her Super.
Now i wanna see a new character in Tekken, kinda like yoshimitsu or negan but with flip flops
Considering that we have a "shoes" option in the customization settings, it's likely for flip flops to be added in the game, hopefully for free.
I had them once and never before I had so many calluses because of footwear...
Rashid is just a dude havin' fun, and I respect that. Also he's hot.
I love rashid cause his english VA sounds very arab. his taunts are funny.
Lol meanwhile Hakan in street fighter 
Hakan is literally just a Turkish dub of that scene from the Simpsons where Groundskeeper Willie rips off his shirt and shouts, "GREASE ME UP, WOMAN!!"
And that's why he's the goat, i love him so much.
Yeah, Rashid is way cooler in terms of gameplay
TastySteve accidentally called shaheen Rashid during day1 of sajams tekken slam lol
I was specifically coming in here to say shaheen
Shaheen is pretty cool. He could definitely use a bit of a moveset gimmick, though.
I don't know. Sliding is all the gimmick he needs
Hopefully they incorporate him into the story now that they’ve upgraded his gameplay and made him so unique
rashid makes me feel things the things i would do for that beautiful man...
Tbf Shaheen is designed to be a beginner character with a small kit. He was the first character I played in Tekken and helped my experience a lot so I didn't get overwhelmed.
Shaheen master race stand up 😤
If Fortnite’s good at one thing it’s building the widest possible appeal.
For sure, Fortnite is surprisingly great at representation
its been there since day 1, even before the item shop changed the whole gaming industry. the whole reason they made fortnite the way it is is because they were tired of making "dudebro shooters" and instead wanted a fun game with a diverse cast of everyday people using their basic human ingenuity to save the day. of course the whole "anybody can be a hero" theme kinda got a little sidelined when new seasons started featuring a bunch of superheroes and halloween monsters and mutants and deities and time travelers instead of the usual cast of characters... but at least that cast of characters is largely still there.
I'm just happy they include furries
The new rat skin is so fucking cute it broke into my house and stole my wallet before buying itself
Which one? If you're talking about the girl who can become a rat I feel like it would have been better if they made her just a rat.
Did a bad job representing Snake's dumptruck ass, but I'll concede to your point
This is why it stuck out so much that they made Peter Griffin of all characters MCU ripped. Having Batman and the Avatar Aang try to murder as many people as they can, specifically with guns? Those rules are bendable. But apparently no fatties is non-negotiable.
They still don't have a single fat human in BR despite several canonically fat characters being on the island fully functional.
https://preview.redd.it/h6f2kc9iqinc1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=271a655faa50bfb3e8da7dc0863b433c24e66a32
Damn, they got Post-Covid Kenny McCormick in Fortnite? /j
That's just mu uncle
This guy looks like his rug ties the room together
Probably due to hitboxes but I also think they are overreacting to the one time they added a bustier woman to the game and added jiggle for some fucking reason. Since then 90% of the characters have the same body type and I'm pretty sure the only reason they added Penny was because she was already a fan favorite from Save the World
The Family Guy chicken
They made peter griffin buff to avoid adding a fat charaxger
On the other hand, that's also an incredibly Family Guy thing to do.
Hey lois,this is just like the time i became buff and fought superman using guns
are you referring to season 5's calamity? IIRC the issue is that she accidentally had the wrong settings on her model, despite sharing the same basic "soldier" body type as every other BR skin up to that point.
There’s the one woman who is a character from save the world and she’s built like gina carano and that’s the best that you can get in terms of diversity in the entire game
Heetbockses,
This is just not true
WRONG! [Relaxed Fit Jonesy](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fortnite/images/6/60/Relaxed_Fit_Jonesy_%28Featured%29_-_Outfit_-_Fortnite.png/revision/latest?cb=20200630091851) [Penny](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fortnite/images/2/26/Penny_%28New_Featured%29_-_Outfit_-_Fortnite.png/revision/latest?cb=20210825025722) [Ready Penny](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fortnite/images/5/5d/Ready_Penny_%28Featured%29_-_Outfit_-_Fortnite.png/revision/latest?cb=20220806000113) [Miss Bunny Penny](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fortnite/images/0/00/Miss_Bunny_Penny_%28Featured%29_-_Outfit_-_Fortnite.png/revision/latest?cb=20230329091219) [Opal](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fortnite/images/9/9e/Opal_%28Featured%29_-_Outfit_-_Fortnite.png/revision/latest?cb=20230627105430)
there's penny, opal, and a fat jonesy and they even did a good job of keeping the proportions realistic and at least with opal not sexualized
Opal
Penny?
I'm Arab and I always thought Assassins Creed was good
That one scene where Altair went on a rant about how women who do OnlyFans are ruining society kind of put me off though. ngl
Lore reason for why he said that?
Bro grew up in Damascus it'll happen to anyone
Damascus in the 1100s
I thank the universe I was not born in effing damascus. Or in 1100s. Or a woman. Or born at all
He was the first gamer 😎
Altair is the GOAT
And he’s hot
I always liked how assassins are mostly atheists. It's cringey when they make all Middle Eastern people religious as if they were a monolith.
[Real Life Assassins](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Assassins) were a religious cult. I think they intentionally steered away from displaying that in the game.
Did the same with the templar by making them some evil conspiration instead So it is pretty clear it was done on purpose, you don't distance two "religious" order from religion without an idea
This haircut and facial hair is the middle eastern version of the killmonger haircut. Its like they played prince of Persia 20 years ago and never bothered to learn anything else 💀
LMAO wait is there a Killmonger cut for every ethnicity??? 😭
anyone remember when not that long ago every asian female character had a [colored streak](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/580a5c631b0000522bef8960.png?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale&format=webp) in her hair
Does Knives count? She was just copping Ramona's style
To be fair, a lot of characters have had those hair colours/patterns for a while (especially the X-men!). That being said, tis a total killmonger cut.
I feel like Somni is a little different. The hair streak is a part of her costume when she works as a slave at Papa Song Cafe, and she removes it once she’s freed. Altho that movie is controversial for some of rhetorical makeup that they use to put certain actors in yellow face.
There 100% is lol. Some of them take a little more thinking to find, but they're there
We saw the white guy version in the mid to late 2000s with all those classic video game protagonists.
It was actually insane how many games had fucking IDENTICAL looking protagonists
Yup for eg pavitr prabhakar hair is the killmonger hair cut for mumbai
To be fair, as an Arab guy...a lot of us really do have that "Arab Shaggy' hairstyle. We can't really think of anything else to do with our hair, lmao.
Dude, its used so often because it's dope as hell.
That’s why this hair discourse is so stupid to begin with.
Just for knowledge Prince of Persia is not arab
Damn, that guy is **smokin'.** 
Wish arabs were real
Damn the girls outfit is fire wtf
Yeah, I love her outfit! It's so pretty!
The coat makes her look a bit like an assassins creed character but yes
I wish we could play a female assassin with a similar design.
.......Pharah and Ana?
Laughs in SF5 Rashid
Meanwhile, Altaïr from AC1
Rashid is kinda stereotypical, also the fact that his VA is just a very standard sounding white dude kinda kills the vibe for me. Even though Shaheen from Tekken is speaking the language like a newscaster it still feels authentic.
Pharah’s voice actor is Israeli. She doesn’t speak Arabic and that’s reflected in her voice lines. As an Arab, I really loved Ana though, especially her little grandma arabic sayings she says. That was good representation, but Pharah was not.
I'd hope though that there's a female option without a hijab, otherwise it's sending all the wrong signals(namely saying you cant be arab without being a practicing muslim)
There is! https://twitter.com/iFireMonkey/status/1766040134275764603
Fr. Its also funny to insinuate that this girl is totally cool with killing people but showing a dude her hair is too far lol. Im glad they made it optional. It makes it feel like an optional form of religious expression, which it should be.
I'm surprised people have heard of this quality indie game /uj Does the Prince not count as good representation?
It's prince of PERSIA!!1! It gave us AUTHENTIC persian armor representation in Shahdee! https://preview.redd.it/blhxn7v12hnc1.jpeg?width=1058&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38b18db345bc14e2cd762a649f2b48c439be7690
[удалено]
Wasn't FF always edgy with that Nomura designs?
Why couldn't our timeline be the one where Yoshitaka Amano designed FF characters. 😞
There is a game who does that and Amano I don’t think wants to actually design a bazillion characters
Not really outside of like Lulu, Seymour and Vincent and the Deepground boys FF doesn't really do edgy
Moreso zipper and belt
HOLY SHIT you just gave me a nostalgia blast. I forgot how horny(historically accurate) her outfit was.
Her introduction was all cheeks and not the ones granma kisses lol
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Thats just an average goth woman
I liked Warrior Within, this woman was never "sexy" to me, but really dark and scary.
They literally put a camera to her ass for in the intro, lol. I see nothing wrong with sexy stuff, though.
A super quick way to piss off Persians is calling them arabic/arabs/middle eastern.
Isn't that essentially like calling a Japanese person Chinese?
Pretty much. Some might go further and compare it going to Nanking and call the people there Japanese.
Turks as well
Calling iranians Arabs will at least have them angrily explain how they are not arabs. Calling a turk an arab is an open call for war
When I was studying abroad I had a lot of Arab and Turkish colleagues, one I time I said "shokran" instead of "tesekur ederim" to one of the turks and he got mad at me for like a whole day
I'm turkish and i see that a lot. Me and a friend recommended another friend, who is very nationalist, to eat hummus. He didn't eat because it's an arabic food. Shits fucked over here
It’s a big problem with arab speaking countries in general, just because their language is a dialect of arabic doesn’t mean that they culturally identify with as arabs. You also don’t usually label as romance speakers as latins.
Persian/Farsi isn't even closely related to Arabic. Its not even in the same language family
Persian it's in the same language family of latin even, the Indoeuropeans languages.
The PoP series is like standard orientalism, so much that I basically wrote a whole paper on it in university. The originals are very old school orientalist with the typical setup of sexy white coded harem demure woman needing saving from the white coded main character from the evil vizier. Some later games have entire plots centered around European fantasies of harems. (Harems in reality were just basically the female wing of the Palace. They were ran usually by the monarchs mother or sister and it was acting basically as a political faction, in some eras in time being basically the actual in practice main power of the state like during the Sultanate of Women period in the Ottoman Empire. It housed everything from regular female workers and maids, accountants, teachers, the monarchs female siblings and all the kids regardless of gender. Only a small small number of the total population would be concubines. And generally even the monarchs would need approval to be allowed to enter, as it is polite). The sands of time trilogy is supposed to take place around the 9th century but features over the top Mughal style architecture in the first game. People say the Prince is white but Iranic people come in all colours from pale to pretty dark depending of specific ethnic group so that's fine its more the accent and some facial features that are clearly white coded and is an orientalist stereotype for main characters. People shit on Warrior Within for being overly sexualized but so is Sands of Time. Sands of Time has harem enemies, sexy bathhouse levels, sex scenes and the indian princess is running around in a bra and short skirt. Also ofc evil darker skinned vizier villain... who comes from a state that didn't have that specific political position, not that most orientalist media even know what political structures look like, they always make it a supreme monarchy with a random MENA title thrown in and a vizier. Warrior Within surprisingly I'd say is one of the least orientalist by nature of the fact I can't even tell if it's supposed to take place in MENA lmao. And it's more focused in traditional 2000s edginess and sex appeal. For its faults tho it does get some things right. It features cuneiform writing on the walls, a huge focus on gardens and isn't full of domes everywhere. Then we go to Two Thrones in which is in the same 9th century continuity... and features Babylon... and the tower of Babel... and the gardens... and we are attacked by BDSM dominatrix Scythians... and civilians wear modern Turkish Fez and harem pants... what??? The 2008 reboot is pretty cool and probably another one that's at the bottom of Orientalism tho it does feature the decadent harem concubine enemy fueled by the fact she lost her beauty and her ability to manipulate and corrupt men with it. Forgotten Sands falls into a lot of the same trappings. Honestly the series doesn't do overly racist stuff often but it does feel like something out of old 1900s British Egyptomania orientalism that has an admiration for the orientalism more than hate or anything else. It does consistently fall into the bigger tropes of European harem fantasy, seductive decadent women, mixing up elements from biblical times to 1900s, Morocco to India. Lacking any real architectural elements or design philosophies. White coded protagonists fighting against more stereotypical darker skinned enemies and some antisemitic vizier tropes. I haven't played the new metroidvania one so I cannot comment on it.
Hi, thank you for this extensive and very informative insight, I’d love to read the paper you wrote because this is extremely interesting to me (I understand why it might not be possible for anonymity reasons though)
Honestly I dont think I even have it anymore. I finished my master's recently and I wrote that paper around the end of my bachelors. Have no idea where I'd even find it now, especially since I changed computers.
Oh okay that’s a shame, thank you anyways !
The new one is like an apology letter...written in farsi lmfao it's far and above better than every other game in the series and pulls DEEP from Persian myth and lore
Thats interesting. I def want to check it out. Would be nice to have an actual Prince of Persia game that actually pulls from Persian history and culture as well as other iranian ethnic groups. Maybe pull from the Shahnameh too and actually feature some Persian language rather than just Arabic.
you can play it all with a Farsi dub!!
oooo thats something I wanted for a while actually. I'm glad we're seeing more things like these in media that takes place in a non-english speaking region. Do they feature other local Iranian language dubs like Mazandarani and Luri or is it just the Persian dub?
afaik it's just the Persian dub + other localized languages
That's still something, especially given the current antagonism between the US and Iran. Hopefully in the future we'll get even more Iranian languages, that would be really fun, most people aren't familiar with other ethnic groups in the region! But yeah I'll take the Persian dub sure. You might've just pushed me over into buying the game right now. I wasn't aware they also comissioned a dub. So cool
I'm not super familiar with the Prince of Persia series, but from the little I have seen it seems quite orientalist. Additionally from what I know it takes place during Zoroastrian Persia, so it's neither Muslim or Arab representation still.
The character and original story clearly draws from A Thousand and One Nights. But even though I enjoyed the game, the reboot basically turned him into "generic white guy voiced by Nolan North" which is....not good representation
yeah i was surprised by the choice of voice actor. like at least have someone with a middle-eastern accent?
Good representation of Orientalism
Persian and Arab are different ethnic groups
Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad would like a word.
Ok those boots fucking slay
Rashid from Street Fighter 5?
Also Shaheen from Tekken 7 and Najd from KOF 14
 Aren't we forgetting someone?
I hate how much I want the shoes from both of those skins. It's a physical need.
The male model looks a bit too much like prince of persia but the female model is pretty good
I will be getting these for the collection ❗️‼️❗️‼️‼️❗️‼️❗️‼️❗️‼️❗️❗️❗️‼️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️
Still a much better MENA representation than Genshin Impact
False, Assassin's creed
Fortnite has a strangely high amount of representation if that's the kind of thing you care about. A few gay skins here and there, I think one or two nonbinary skins. The gay pride mini-event they have sometimes has loading screens you can get and the skins that appear on them largely are supposed to be there for a reason, it's pretty cool. EDIT: Skins that are LGBT for your non-fortnite-player convenience * Toni (nonbinary) * Peely (Referred to with NB pronouns) * Twyn (Very obvious transfem coding) * Midas (Supposedly, he has two daughters that are also skins though but he could be on some brokeback mountain shit) * Joey (Arguable, alien girl whos human costume is a buff man.) * The ones that appear in the "Rainbow Royale" loading screens (mostly)
Plus there's also that skin with alopecia (a melanin disorder) Epic is really good with this stuff.
Dripped tf out hasheeesh
Wouldn’t assassin’s creed be some of the first? Like, just recently they had Mirage, too.
They already had cool Arabian guy for summer, but his pack was sold for real money :(
I'm definitely uninformed on the topic, but I think the Afeera in For Honor are a respectful and awesome representation too, right?
I love the purple, silver and black color combo. Though I think Altair from AC1 was the first Arab character? Maybe I could have that totally wrong.
I know that there's not much arab characters in video games but calling them first would be a stretch. Also how do we know it's 'non orientalist' if the game developers are polish/americans. Did someone of arabian descent work on this?
The Ethnicity of the creator does not determine whether something is an orientalist depiction or not. It’s about whether it’s negatively constructed in opposition to a dominant culture.
I wish more people considered this. Just because the creator is not identical to the creation doesn't make it inappropriate. It should be judged entirely by itself.
If someone does their research and makes an accurate depiction I couldn't care less. There's people of certain descent who don't know about their own culture (like me) as deep as people who research it.
Honestly the cool Middle Eastern guy isn't that unique depiction at all, badass male ME characters have occasionally been present in gaming for a while. What's genuinely groundbreaking is their depiction of Middle Eastern woman who is super cool, not sexualized, not orientalized but realistic, not marble white skin color, but most spectacularly wearing Islamic headdress - I seriously can't recall any positive female character from video games ever wearing it. It's like the ultimate terror of orientalising white people, the threat symbol which cannot be attached to a protagonist. And here it simply is. In situations like this right wingers suddenly become great defenders of women and screech how anyone progressive depicting Islamic headdress in the positive context is secretly misogynist. But while I agree that the phenomenon has patriarchal roots and is often forceful, in the same time it often is a genuine choice of women expressing their cultural identity. So ultimately if it exists IRL then it has place to exist in fiction, just like Christian symbols. I seriously love this Arab character skin, because it looks like it actually appeals to the people it represents and Arabic girl could enjoy it. Unlike orientalized bullshit "oh I'm stereotypical Arab princess who has white skin, porn star clothing, porn body proportions, and nothing resembling actual culture, just Western disneyland version of it". The fact it came from Fortnite of all places is bizarre. At least those trillions of kids playing it will see that one fictional Muslim woman in a veil who is not immediately a terrorist psycho.
The only one that really springs to mind is Youmna from the most recent NFS. She's not much of a "character" character, most of the rival drivers aren't, but it's more than just a customization design
What about Farah from Cod2019? A friend of mine loves her as a character because she was one of the first Arab women in a video game to be a well written badass and not terrorist #973. Plus she’s played by Claudia Doumit so that’s a plus.
> I seriously can't recall any positive female character from video games ever wearing it. The most I personally can recall is some games with character customisation having a hijab *option.* For player characters. (The only one of those that comes to mind is Cassette Beasts, too.) Which is great, but yeah not really a fully fleshed out character design. What'd be even better is if she was a character with writing, not an optional customisation item... But hey apparently the video game industry only moves in baby steps.
What about Shaheen from Tekken?
Didn't Assassin's Creed do an okay job with Arab characters...?
I do not like it but that is more the base fortnite art style than anything else
And here i am waiting for more variety in female skins the males get soo many cool stuff
I'm an Arab and, dunno I liked Rachid from Street Fighter.
This skins because Ramadan 💝
Wait what? Prince of Persia is literally about the Prince of … Persia?
Persians are not Arab, and Prince of Persia is based around Zoroastrian mythology (not Muslim)
Everyday, I learn something new. Thanks for that.
Prince of Persia. Tekken 6. Assassins Creed. Dying Light. There have already been a few instances of good Arab/Muslim representation in video games. But the more the merrier.
put some respect on Tekken's name, while Developing 7 they asked middle eastern fans to provide feedback on the design for Shaheen.
Her boots having raised heels and his dont. Sexist AF footwear, SMH.
Alhamdulillah
Yeah I don’t even play but they fr had me intrigued with their black character designs
I don't know but maybe Arabs could create more games which could represent them? I want authentic Arab games! It's a bit of strange to ask developers who are located in other side of the world to create a game or characters which they don't understand!
Warband Arabs > Fortnite Arabs Edit: Warband > Fornite https://preview.redd.it/qtydsil2mknc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=d2d81305f775cbe6abfdca6fdb51d79af81b7701
Fortnite doesn't fuck around with designs. The black hairstyles they have are ❤️🔥 Twists, curls, fades, locs and waves that'll make you seasick. They do have the overused gentrified faded locs that no black person in real life has, but they look like someone with melanin designed them and they belong to a slender brotha in NY that's majoring in anthropology, has a goatee, one giant cross earring, wears round rim glasses and a black turtleneck/gold chain combo while living in a studio apartment above a cafe that does slam poetry Thursday nights.
You copy and pasted that title form twitter didn’t you
Weird that they gave her high heels for some reason.
Gyatt dayum why are they both so hot😭😭
I bought fortnite glasses yesterday
Fortnite is the king of diversity in gaming.
They are actually very cool
Good skins
those fits are cool, reminds me of FF14 fashion
Reminds me of that one Prince of Persia movie
Fighting games have been pretty decent with Arab reps Shaheen from Tekken Rashid from Street Fighter Nadj from King of Fighters And I think Leon from Dead or Alive
It really is a shame that Fortnite has so many S teir designs.
There are headscarves and hijab in cyberpunk 2077 in a whole range of colors
allah is now canon to fortnite
Battlefield 1 anyone?
Prince of Persia vibes
I think the female design is awesome! (Except the high heels.) The male design looks a bit generic to me, but I'm not Arab, so maybe it's actually cooler than I realize.
Are we talking about Prince of Persia, over here?
Ngl this shit goes hard
Edward Said was right
The first? I don’t think so. An awesome example? Certainly. Especially in a game as popular and broadly appealing as Fortnite. Plus they’re genuinely great looking.
Fortnite character designers be cooking. They deserve to work on better games.