Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

I've been thinkin about Morrowind...
and I've realized a few things that were implied before but not everyone realized...

Camonna Tong...
Tong in Cantonese or Tang in Mandarin Chinese is a hall or a gathering...
in 'Dunmeric' it is a guild or a sort of gang theme to it
many Chinese gangs came to be in USA's China towns, one of the most powerful was the Bing Kong Tong...

Ashkhans and Yurts
Obvious allusion to Mongolians

Extreme loyalty to race and clan
sounds like Japanese clans in Feudal japan and Chinese clans... and also like the honor-sense of Asian soldiers, like the Japanese in WW2... there are still old veterans in jungles of Thailand, old japanese who were lost in the jungles and still carry old guns willing to die for Japan...

Promiscuous but Strong women
Dunmer women live in a male-dominated society and serve the man
but get places by being promiscuous and being educated and powerful
sounds like two stereotypes of Asian people.... meek women who serve their men, and of a asian whore who makes 'American men' feel good
Often also Asian women are exotic and educated seeming to Americans...

Tight-Controlling governments
China and many other nations traditionally governed on the principles of family. As every family member followed the man of the house, every man pays homage to the local lord, and every lord to the emperor. This sort of familial piety extended to society...
infact the chinese word meaning 'root' or 'ancestral respect' is actually a character that shows a man bowing to a penis - juong
similarly, councilors and nobles in Great Houses act as fathers and founders to the clans, and the head of each clan or the hetman is regarded highly...

Controlling influence of religion with very real people
Islam has a very controlling (not necessarily negatively) style, it also has people who once lived and countless martyrs.
The same sort of fanaticism and control can be said of the Tribunal Temple which also has Saints and also 3 godlike folks

Religion - worship of ancestors
China had very little formalized religion unlike Islam. Early China was almost shamanistic and also worshipped ancestors and a variety of heros and godlike dieties
and so it is the same with the Dunmer who worship ancestors, heroes, and god like beings... but no unified practice (except Tribunal)

Battle-ready but poorly organized
Asia has that in it. A low view on the value of a warrior's life, centralizing on a few heroic warriors, and though many well trained, inadequetly managed. Traditional asian armies (except Mongolians) tended to be mobs of troops, except in say China where more regimental practices were around. Not that there wasn't strategy, but it was more on the individual warrior's prowess than the effectiveness of a certain formation, basically their preferance, perspective, and style - formations did exist and were used
however like Asia, Morrowind rarely had a unifying force to it that could allocate resources and marshall large armies... often when it did happen, the lives and honest were compromised...
like communism... and liek the tribunal temple



just some thoughts

interesting connections.
i always thought akavir was the only asian themed area in TES but you've opened my eyes on this kukulza

my favorite part of the province of morrowind is that its so diffrent from any specific culture. Cyrodiil is beautifull but its just so medival, skyrim; so nordic, hammerfell; so arabian.
i like that morrowind borrows from all sorts of cultures but also morphs them into its own wierd xenophobic experience.
you really feel like a stranger in a strange land.

welcome to our city outlander!

yeah its true...

Morrowind also is a lot like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms in Chinese history...
The Han dynasty is falling apart, and great wars are taking place, heroes are consumed by the fires of strife... every dynasty, in time, must fall, and in time, they must come together again

the Han dynasty is falling apart, and the ancestors not properly respected
--- Temple waning and puppet kings weak
as Han Dynasty is in decline, warlords rise up and Dong Zhou (a general, who is grossly obese) keeps the emperor of as a puppet, but is killed and Cao Cao takes over, illigetimate and an usurper
--- Helseth comes in and what do ya know... now he's king
For a time, there is an awesomely great warrior, LuBu, who is used by several leaders to win victories, but doesn't forge his own destiny
--- like the nerevarine... what a tool
three righteous folks come together to uphold the old ways, Liu Bei, Zhang-fei, Guan
--- sorta like a tribunal
three main powers form, the Shu which uphold the Han dynasty (hilly Riverlands of the West), Wei which are the usurpers (Central/northern plains), and Wu who just do their own thing (southern mountains and coastal)
--- like the Redoran who uphold the old ways in the rocky western region, the Hlaalu-Dres alliance led by the usurper Helseth in the flatter lands, and the Telvanni who were always just on the outskirts, scattered, but powerful when threatened.
The Shu who righteously upheld the Han are defeated at great cost to the Wei, who's Cao-lineage is killed off by Sima-Yi, one of Cao Cao's generals... and the Wu kingdom is eventually taken once its occasional ally, Shu, is taken out
--- Redoran are beginning to fall despite great leaders, Helseth's alliance has many people who'd back-stab and scheme against their own, and the Telvanni will inevitably be overrun if they stay isolated, only defending their borders


Morrowind is a lot more like Asia than you migh think...
but it still feels like... its own thing you know?
you go to Cyrodiil, to Skyrim, to High Rock, to Hammerfell, you say "oh thats just a fantasy version of ___ "

but Morrowind, and probably Black marsh are just so much more unique...
and Valenwood and Elsweyr can be too (as long as their mod-leader do awesome things )

indeed.
more like asia than i ever thought

I havn't noticed this in particular before but I do know that many of the names used in Morrowind are from history. Many of the bandit caves are named after sacred texts and stuff, such as one of the bandit caves called Upanishad, which in real life, is a text of discussion between teacher and student of ancient times. I can't remember what race it was though. It was related to the people that wrote the Rig Veda I believe.

oh, actually lots of Farsi referrences

I must apologize, I was looking at it from an Oriental's perspective...

but the old style names, the old Ashlander stuff has a lot of Assyrian/Farsi/Arab influences...
like say Zainab... that's the name of Mohammed's daughters... though there is some controversy over her place in the geneology

Edit 2007.05.24 06:15:
Hlaalu sounds pretty original right?
there's a Taiwanese Aborignal tribe named the Tsou
and they have a southern branch of clans called the Hlaalua...
dang, the Hlaalua sounds a LOT like the Hlaalu... I wonder...

This one just hit me

The imperials...

are like... white people

who usurp entire cultures!

Quote:Originally posted by cruxvader
This one just hit me

The imperials...

are like... white people

who usurp entire cultures!

THAT ONE JUST HIT YOU?! :lol:

haha, I noticed it the first thing.... they're like "we bring civilization, bla bla bla"

well, don't generalize... I never saw Icelanders usurp entire cultures... but British, French, Saniards, Dutch, etc. they did a good job of it.. or go back further, like the Romans wrecked Iberian, Gallic, Carthaginian, Numidian, etc.

The Dutch KuKulzA? The dutch just traded, they didn't really usurp cultures. I mean yes, they did get Manhattan but not by killing of the indian population but by giving them some shiny things.

I'm not saying I'm really proud of the Dutch history, they did transport slaves, for example. And we practically invented the word Apartheid

they PWNed a whole bunch of african people rather bad, i'd say they did some culture usurping.

but realy, lets not generalise here. non-european people's did usurping too, but on a lesser scale.