Hindus Upset Over Asura's Wrath

[weirdee]

You don't see people getting mad every time they use Norse or Egyptian mythology, so I guess the proper conduct in this case would be to wait for the practice to die out before using their concepts.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

man's a idiot.
He's getting bent out of shape because his religion isn't being played out word for word in the game? how ridiculous can you be?

No, he's not. That's stupid hyperbole caused by a lack of journalistic integrity and a stupid author who put hype and shock value over the truth.

The issue here is that he's simply requesting that game developers put thought into the Hindu imagery and mythology they use, instead of using Faux Symbolism.

Imagine a game based with Jewish Imagery, where the Prophet Moses must lead the rebellion of Flaming Chariot-of-iron riding jews against the Pharaoh Elijiah's Golem Army, where he rules from atop the Tower of Babel - Furthermore, they enjoy eating pork, but can't eat beef.

Bad game and story? Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly screws up the source material enough to make anyone who knows about the religion ask the developer what the hell they're doing.

That isn't faux symbolism, its adaptation and inspiration. Faux symbolism is where you make something APPEAR symbolic, but have no actual meaning attached to it. What is described in the game is someone saying "hey, these little ideas sound nifty, I am going to build something around that." Were the game marketed as a pure interpretation of hindu religious beliefs, THEN his complaints would be justified. The theoretical game YOU described would definitely OFFEND jews, but unless it was claimed to be a retelling of the story, every one of those anachronic biblical details you mentioned are just HOW YOU ADAPT IDEAS.
Guess what ELSE didn't happen the way a game said it did? ALL OF GREEK MYTH. Kratos came and fucked an entire cultural narrative RIGHT IN THE ASS. But that's because IT TOOK THE NAMES AND ARCHETYPES and made its own story. Chronos wasn't carrying around a temple on his back, he was KILLED in the war between gods and titans. Ares didn't get murdered by an angry bald man. Athena wasn't a power-crazed mad god (then again, she wasn't one until the very last game anyway). Oh, and there were only three gorgons, not INFINITE NUMBERS.

See what I'm getting at? When you only take IDEAS from something, you don't need to stick to every key theme and structure of the original source. that the source is a religion makes no difference.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

What a nice chap, offering to spread the word of his religion by less traditional means to an audience that is mostly made up of atheists and don't happen to care about religion.

 

[Oroboros]

Hinduism seems to have the distinction of being one of the msot widely worshipped religions on the planet, yet is consistently represented in media (particulalry in the fantasy/science fiction/supernatural genres) in a manner that is insensitive at the least. Off the top of my head, there is Indiana Jones which shows Hindus practicing human sacrifice among other things, ther is the tv show 'Supernatural' which has an episode where assorted ancient gods along with hindu gods are shown to be cannibalistic spirits, then are later killed easily by an abrahamic angel. The show Show 'Sanctuary' had Kali as a giant psychic crab, and Stargate had hindu gods and godesses as parasitic evil megalomaniac worms. A lot of modern media tends to represent Hinduism as if there aren't Hindus around to get upset by this sort of thing. Yes, Christianity is sometimes targetted, but rarely to the same degree as ancient religions or non-abrahamic religions.

Honestly, the msot suprising thing about this situation is that people are suprised that some Hindus might be upset about their religion being misrepresented (again).

Stargate used ALL forms of gods. Including but not limited to. Celtic, Egyptian, greek, Sumarian, babylonian, Irish (different then celtic), African, Slavic, Mayan, and of course chinese. Needless to say they covered their bases. Kinda makes it justified if they get everyone lol. But we didn't exactly see a big cry of outrage against them did we? they did 218 episodes and how many spin offs? and of course the first movie was a great sci fi/fantasy original.

EDIT
Also in stargate all original myths were left as being considered factual in the show. The story begins after all other historical event had factually occurred. Therefore, its kinda like fan fiction or a phyical continuation of what and where the gods all ended up. So, I don't know, its just creativity taken places. Its hard to take it serious.

Note however that there was only one abrahamic 'god' on the show, who doesn't even go by that name for most of his appearence, using the egyptian name of 'Sokar' instead of 'Satan'. They were very diplomatic with their handling of him, saying he was 'impersonating' Satan instead of being the source of the myths, note the difference. In the entire series, I can only remember one time where the implications of living in a galaxy full of god-impersonators for the abrahamic religions is questioned-at which point it is essentially dismissed with 'that's different' and never mentioned again. There aren't Free Jaffa trying to get members of the stargate program to 'renounce their false gods', wheras pagan gods are routinely questioned. While the Ori seem to fill the abrahamic gap thematically in many ways with their religion, they are never stated or implied that they are christians or that the Ori founded christianity. Even so, their hilarious technology of the obviously christian-inspired gods over the disorganised, impotent technological magpie pagan gods could be interpreted as beign some sort of symbolic victory of christiantiy over the old religions.

Basically, the legitimacy of the Abrahamic faiths is never seriously questioned, despite being exactly the sort of settign where one would expect it to be, whereas every pagan god bar the Asgard and lord Yu is debased and evil by assumption, including ones that are currently widely worshipped, the implication being that it's OK to portray Hindu gods in a bad light, but questioning the legitimacy of the Abrahamic religions is a no-go.

Very accurately put, but (other then my joke that its okay if you cover all your bases) I still stand by that its simply creativity put forward. There are plenty of instances where other religions are inaccurately assaulted. Your own point is that stargate had only a few instances where they went against the original lore. Since they are the stardard with which we are discussing many other medias actually fall far far short of this mark. If you think about it, there's about 16 books of the bible, of which only several are integral to the over all conception of the religion. Proving that tangential work has been arbitrated since the beginning of writing. All of which are positive and negative in nature. Its conjecture to assume since one instance is sited that a group is being targeted. nor multiple uses either since our world has grown small and originality in short supply.

The examples were Hindu because the article is about Hinduism, I would contest that it is not unique in being targetted, only in that it is the one of the largest religions that it is acceptable to target. I would also contest that it is 'simply creativity put forward', as when abrahamic religions are targetted, they are usually targetted more subtly. For example, Breath of Fire II used a lot of catholic symbolism and had an antagonist styled off of the abrahamic god, but they avoided using the names of christian figures directly, in this way, the viewer knows that it is inspired by christianity, but not intended to be representative of christianity. This allows for the exploration of traits of said religious structure without outright condemning it. In video games and TV shows however, Greek, Babylonian, Norse, Hindu etc gods are often used without any alteration of the structure of the religious pantheon or so much as a name change, thus these characters aren't intended to be inspired by their source material, but rather are intended to be representative of their source material, typically with some altercations to make them 'fit' better-usually at a cost of the meaning behind these gods. This shows either a profound ignorance or disintrest in faithful representation of these gods and goddesses.

In short, non-abrahamic deities have been essentially commodified into stock characters. Add to this the fact that these deities are almost always cast in a negative light and are frequently portrayed as killable entities (not divine) and you have systemic religious ethnocentrism when it comes to religious characters in video games, TV, and movies. Additionally, it cannot be stressed enough that Hinduism, unlike many of the other religions cast in this role, is one of the most prominant religions in the world, yet is treated as if it is a relic of the past alongside the likes of Zeus and Ishtar, which displays a flagrant disregard for the religion and cultural identity of a large portion of the world's inabitants.

 

[CapitalistPig]

The examples were Hindu because the article is about Hinduism, I would contest that it is not unique in being targetted, only in that it is the one of the largest religions that it is acceptable to target. I would also contest that it is 'simply creativity put forward', as when abrahamic religions are targetted, they are usually targetted more subtly. For example, Breath of Fire II used a lot of catholic symbolism and had an antagonist styled off of the abrahamic god, but they avoided using the names of christian figures directly, in this way, the viewer knows that it is inspired by christianity, but not intended to be representative of christianity. This allows for the exploration of traits of said religious structure without outright condemning it. In video games and TV shows however, Greek, Babylonian, Norse, Hindu etc gods are often used without any alteration of the structure of the religious pantheon or so much as a name change, thus these characters aren't intended to be inspired by their source material, but rather are intended to be representative of their source material, typically with some altercations to make them 'fit' better-usually at a cost of the meaning behind these gods. This shows either a profound ignorance or disintrest in faithful representation of these gods and goddesses.

In short, non-abrahamic deities have been essentially commodified into stock characters. Add to this the fact that these deities are almost always cast in a negative light and are frequently portrayed as killable entities (not divine) and you have systemic religious ethnocentrism when it comes to religious characters in video games, TV, and movies. Additionally, it cannot be stressed enough that Hinduism, unlike many of the other religions cast in this role, is one of the most prominant religions in the world, yet is treated as if it is a relic of the past alongside the likes of Zeus and Ishtar, which displays a flagrant disregard for the religion and cultural identity of a large portion of the world's inabitants.

I agree that your examples hold merit and occur more naturally then Judaic centrism examples but I would remind you that media often portrays christian symbolism very specifically (case in point in south park when you actually see a representation of God.) It is not only portrayed from source material but it is mocked as a religion in itself. That holds true with jesus, satan and even Mohammad (of which 1 billion people worship Islam.) Needless to say i find the fingerpointing on a specific example in the "1 in a million" examples bluntly, a lame attempt to show compassion. especially living in a country where Christianity is constantly beat into submission. Furthermore I don't hold religion to a higher regard then the things I find meaningful in life which are daily withered with comedy and assault. Its a take it in stride moment.

 

[Oroboros]

I agree that your examples hold merit and occur more naturally then Judaic centrism examples but I would remind you that media often portrays christian symbolism very specifically (case in point in south park when you actually see a representation of God.) It is not only portrayed from source material but it is mocked as a religion in itself. That holds true with jesus, satan and even Mohammad (of which 1 billion people worship Islam.) Needless to say i find the fingerpointing on a specific example in the "1 in a million" examples bluntly, a lame attempt to show compassion. especially living in a country where Christianity is constantly beat into submission. Furthermore I don't hold religion to a higher regard then the things I find meaningful in life which are daily withered with comedy and assault. Its a take it in stride moment.

I cannot comment on your situation, as I have no idea where you are from, but where I am from, my perception has been that Christianity 'gives' a lot more than it 'takes' in the form of a lot more hostility directed at non christians than it recieves. I think it should be pointed out that Christians are the largest religious group in the world, so there are a lot mroe places where christians outnumber other religions. At an rate, the original subject was on the depiction of specific gods in the media, where I think it is clearly demonstrated trend of exploitation and demonization of non abrahamic religions. By all indications I have seen, there are a lot more pieces of media that treat christianity in the same way, such as the 'His Dark Materials' series. Fact of the matter is, when someone needs a big bad evil monster for a movie or game etc, they are just as likely to reach for Baal or Kali as they are Asmodeus (thus equating those gods with demons), and it is almost unheard of to cast the likes of jesus in such a role.

 

[Lunar Templar]

ok, after having sat down with it (IE: watching a full play through on you tube)

yeah, i can see they took liberty's with it.

it was also one of the most 'fucking awesome' things i've witnessed, that game is insane with its set pieces.

ether way, its just a game, they kinda need to lighten up

 

[Estevao Levy Lima]

Digital Devil Saga gets hinduism right most of the time. It even manages to mix the digital (and evolutionary, and quantic...) themes into the religious ones in a interesting manner. When people discover that YHVH is the final boss of a SMT game...

 

[deserteagleeye]

Rajan: We are offended.
Me: I don't care.

I really want to say this to his face.

 

[Joel Bridge]

Digital Devil Saga gets hinduism right most of the time. It even manages to mix the digital (and evolutionary, and quantic...) themes into the religious ones in a interesting manner. When people discover that YHVH is the final boss of a SMT game...

What about SGT series and there spins off is now what using onces I kinda surpise at greative linsce they take. For example Last Boss in DD 2 is Brahman, reguardless what branch you come the Brahman is ever nothing it infinite and unknowing, and ultimate truth in it everthing hinduism, it insane that you fight, because you can not fight cosmos, two the personfication of Brahman is Brahma, that creator god among in the hindu trinity, and your not fighting him.

 

[putowtin]

Refreshingly, he did not threaten an international boycott of Capcom, Sony, Microsoft or anyone else; instead, he said that he or other Hindu scholars "would gladly provide genuine seekers from [the] videogames industry the resources they needed for their study and research regarding Hinduism."

That is refreshing, though a sad day for torch and pitchfork sales men!

 

[Strazdas]

Offend religion? mission accomplished.

 

[makano]

This guy's right, all faiths deserve respect. As a Viking descendent I was greatly offended by Too Human.

fellow descendent here
you should play good games like valkyrie profile for that. Too human was a bit basic(i did play it and it did suck) yes but you should be proud having games bassed on old norse just like i am.

 

[SD-Fiend]

I think what not many people consider is that if the same game had been made but instead of giving the lead role of a psychotic, world destroying, robot to Asura it had been given to Jesus, the game would have been banned worldwide. If the main character had been Mohammed, the developers would now be dead. Because it's an insignificant religion like Hinduism, it doesn't deserve to be depicted with any sort of respect.

well that's not right at all

 

[MacLeRoy]

Wow I totally understand being upset and these guy actually responded in a VERY mature manner. Not something you see everyday especially when dealing with video games.

P.S. This is not sarcasm

 

[Joel Bridge]

Hinduism third larget relgion in work. With far deep philiosohpical thought then it aberamic bother in west.

 

[Oroboros]

I think what not many people consider is that if the same game had been made but instead of giving the lead role of a psychotic, world destroying, robot to Asura it had been given to Jesus, the game would have been banned worldwide. If the main character had been Mohammed, the developers would now be dead. Because it's an insignificant religion like Hinduism, it doesn't deserve to be depicted with any sort of respect.

Third largest religion in the world? Insignificant? How ethnocentric.