I thought this was a good read, but I think the game deserves a little more credit for handling a specific and relatively distant historical setting. Now, it's been a few years since I played the game, so I may be misremembering things slightly, but the way I remember it, it was surprisingly level with its depictions and interactions, especially if you dare to compare it to basically anything coming from the gaming industry that gives you a GUN and wants you to use it. The game really stands out to me for being an RPG with the most believable and relatable arc for the protagonist, going from a rural kid who sees his tiny backwater village being caught in the middle of a larger conflict like the start of a JRPG where a Demon King shows up and destroys everything he's ever known, then gaining more worldly experience until by the end he's able to grasp that there's more important things at play than his personal desire for revenge.
I agree that the way commoners and even Henry's betters talk about the Cumans is dehumanizing, dismissive, and offensive... but is probably accurate to how most people regardless of time or place view invading forces, and the game even has sequences that entirely revolve around how exaggerated and misguided the locals fear and hatred of the Cumans is, like when you meet with your old friends and help them put together an over-the-top Cuman disguise, which they keep insisting isn't barbaric and exotic looking enough. It's also no surprise that Henry gets told over and over how despicable Sigismund and his mercenaries are - he's an impressionable young man, exactly the type you want to gin up to fight for your cause, and only nearer the end is he spoken to more squarely about how the mercenaries too are victims of the war's progress, how complex and sometimes petty the politics of the conflict are, and what his role can be in managing it. I think the masked helmets, in particular, are a perfectly reasonable, and arguably sensitive compromise - as you point out in the footnotes, 'real' Cuman mercenaries were probably very diverse, while in the game, the models under the masks are the same as any Czech local. It would've taken a lot more work to make the faces look genuinely accurate enough, on top of then having to defend the historicity and necessity of giving some of the enemies discernibly Asiatic features.
I think the game is broadly mischaracterized by two opposing factions, one treating it as a racist, white nationalist manifesto, an entire game built from the ground up for the sole purpose of dismissing and obscuring the contributions of medieval PoCs, and the other as an honorably, infallibly researched depiction of our real history the political left is dogmatically whitewashing. It's easy to miss that the game really does have incredibly nuanced, grounded, and thought provoking depictions of a surprising variety of topics, like the origins of conflict and the suffering of those caught in the middle of it, xenophobia and religious tension, the plight of refugees and the struggles of the populations absorbing them, and the duty and responsibility of those born into privilege in a culture with castes, all without being saccharine, preachy, or feeling full of anachronisms. It's also a game where you can brew magic potions. Let's see how steamy this gay sex scene is before we give the studio a final judgement.
Thank you for reading, and for your thoughtful comment!
I had actually forgotten about the quest with the outrageous and comically inaccurate Cuman costume, that is definitely another piece of evidence that the game is perhaps more self-aware and less nationalist than some would suggest. You're also probably right that the masks were a better solution than actually making models of visibly different ethnicity, that would only have pissed people off even more. And yes, it's true that Henry is almost an 'unreliable narrator' insofar as what he is told and what he believes (at least in the early parts of the game) aren't necessarily the authoritative voice of the author, and he does grow and develop a broader experience of life over the course of the game.
I talk more about this (and a number of other things you mentioned) in Part 2, which comes out tomorrow. The tl;dr is that I think the game did a great job with showing the limits of Henry's perspective in A Woman's Lot, had a fairly nuanced take on class and religious dynamics, and also did a very good job of showing various marginalised groups within Czech society, all of which kind of challenged the nationalist assumptions that were set up in the prologue - it's far from an idealised or harmonious view of the Czech nation. There's definitely more to the game's worldview than the simplistic dismissal it got from (generally left wing) critics would lead you to believe.
I'm very much looking forward to the sequel, and cautiously optimistic!
I thought this was a good read, but I think the game deserves a little more credit for handling a specific and relatively distant historical setting. Now, it's been a few years since I played the game, so I may be misremembering things slightly, but the way I remember it, it was surprisingly level with its depictions and interactions, especially if you dare to compare it to basically anything coming from the gaming industry that gives you a GUN and wants you to use it. The game really stands out to me for being an RPG with the most believable and relatable arc for the protagonist, going from a rural kid who sees his tiny backwater village being caught in the middle of a larger conflict like the start of a JRPG where a Demon King shows up and destroys everything he's ever known, then gaining more worldly experience until by the end he's able to grasp that there's more important things at play than his personal desire for revenge.
I agree that the way commoners and even Henry's betters talk about the Cumans is dehumanizing, dismissive, and offensive... but is probably accurate to how most people regardless of time or place view invading forces, and the game even has sequences that entirely revolve around how exaggerated and misguided the locals fear and hatred of the Cumans is, like when you meet with your old friends and help them put together an over-the-top Cuman disguise, which they keep insisting isn't barbaric and exotic looking enough. It's also no surprise that Henry gets told over and over how despicable Sigismund and his mercenaries are - he's an impressionable young man, exactly the type you want to gin up to fight for your cause, and only nearer the end is he spoken to more squarely about how the mercenaries too are victims of the war's progress, how complex and sometimes petty the politics of the conflict are, and what his role can be in managing it. I think the masked helmets, in particular, are a perfectly reasonable, and arguably sensitive compromise - as you point out in the footnotes, 'real' Cuman mercenaries were probably very diverse, while in the game, the models under the masks are the same as any Czech local. It would've taken a lot more work to make the faces look genuinely accurate enough, on top of then having to defend the historicity and necessity of giving some of the enemies discernibly Asiatic features.
I think the game is broadly mischaracterized by two opposing factions, one treating it as a racist, white nationalist manifesto, an entire game built from the ground up for the sole purpose of dismissing and obscuring the contributions of medieval PoCs, and the other as an honorably, infallibly researched depiction of our real history the political left is dogmatically whitewashing. It's easy to miss that the game really does have incredibly nuanced, grounded, and thought provoking depictions of a surprising variety of topics, like the origins of conflict and the suffering of those caught in the middle of it, xenophobia and religious tension, the plight of refugees and the struggles of the populations absorbing them, and the duty and responsibility of those born into privilege in a culture with castes, all without being saccharine, preachy, or feeling full of anachronisms. It's also a game where you can brew magic potions. Let's see how steamy this gay sex scene is before we give the studio a final judgement.
Thank you for reading, and for your thoughtful comment!
I had actually forgotten about the quest with the outrageous and comically inaccurate Cuman costume, that is definitely another piece of evidence that the game is perhaps more self-aware and less nationalist than some would suggest. You're also probably right that the masks were a better solution than actually making models of visibly different ethnicity, that would only have pissed people off even more. And yes, it's true that Henry is almost an 'unreliable narrator' insofar as what he is told and what he believes (at least in the early parts of the game) aren't necessarily the authoritative voice of the author, and he does grow and develop a broader experience of life over the course of the game.
I talk more about this (and a number of other things you mentioned) in Part 2, which comes out tomorrow. The tl;dr is that I think the game did a great job with showing the limits of Henry's perspective in A Woman's Lot, had a fairly nuanced take on class and religious dynamics, and also did a very good job of showing various marginalised groups within Czech society, all of which kind of challenged the nationalist assumptions that were set up in the prologue - it's far from an idealised or harmonious view of the Czech nation. There's definitely more to the game's worldview than the simplistic dismissal it got from (generally left wing) critics would lead you to believe.
I'm very much looking forward to the sequel, and cautiously optimistic!
I'm looking forward to part 2 almost as much as KCD2. Sorry if I got in front of your surprise twist!