FH has finally released its latest heroes, the Aramusha and
the Shaman, fully. What can be said about them?
As we have talked about them the last time, the ‘Aramusha’
means a fierce warrior, which is a fairly basic description, when you think
about it: which warrior, especially in FH, isn’t
fierce? Today, however, we heard the full promo – and now we know that for FH
the Aramusha is a ronin, aka a masterless samurai.
To elaborate, in RL history samurais were knights of ancient
and Medieval Japan, serving a noble lord – in theory. In practice, most of them
ended up unemployed for a part of their lives at least, and were named ronin –
masterless. Such masterless or unemployed samurai wandered the lands of Japan,
ready to work for anyone for money or food and board, doing anything…but
usually something military, because the samurai were the professional military
class of the feudal Japan, just as the knights were of the feudal Europe.
So far so good, but if the European kings, emperors, lords
and popes usually sent their knights, (especially the poorer ones) to fight
abroad, especially in the Crusades in the Middle East and in similar
undertakings in eastern Europe, keeping them under control, and their numbers
down, their Japanese counterparts…didn’t, and as a result feudal Japan had
plenty of professional warriors in its lands that were ready, eager and/or
desperate to join in any civil mischief/uprising and make it worse/more
intense, because professional warriors, remember? Consequently, feudal Japan
was much more tempestuous and unpredictable than feudal Europe was…for a time.
Then it all changed…and it can be noted that the European system of dealing
with unruly and sometimes landless knights didn’t always work – from the Middle
East came the Templars – yes, those Templars, which caused a lot of trouble in
western Europe…and might’ve become the Illuminati…but we’re going conspiracy
theory here, which isn’t good or healthy.
And in eastern Europe? The knights failed there too, though
perhaps not as spectacularly, and vanished without a trace from history again.
At least the samurai left a spiritual legacy to their descendants, which has
caused no end of trouble for the Sino-American relationships in WWII and beyond
– the two countries do not always get along, no matter what both of them would
say…
However, this is RL. What about FH?
In FH, the question here is why the ronin is called an
Aramusha instead? A rose by any other name and all that – but before get into
it, let us talk about the Shaman also.
…As it was said before, the Shaman may be a part of the
Viking faction, but in FH, s/he is also a Native North American stereotype, and
the weapons do not disavow this motion either. The Aramusha is armed with two
katanas – the Japanese version of the longsword that requires just one arm to
wield, unlike the nodachi or the claymore, for comparison, which require two.
This puts the Aramusha right next the Orochi, who, admittedly, uses only one katana, a fact that is so convincing to players, undoubtedly.
…And on the other hand, we got the Shaman, who is armed with
a dagger and a hatchet/hand-ax, more similar, especially in size, to the ones
used by the Berserker than the Dane-ax used by the Raider. This is not the
worst idea the game designers could have come-up with, but-
Why a Shaman? A
Shaman is a religious person, a priestess or a priest, in a non-European
tradition, (especially of Native Americans and Asians). So how exactly did the
Shaman in question become a ‘Viking assassin class’? Leaving aside the fact
that contemporary Native Americans tend to view this sort of their depiction
with dissatisfaction and are able to protect their legal rights quite well,
where exactly, in what imaginary depths, did a ‘Viking assassin’ become associated
with a Shaman?
Here is the thing – imagination, especially when it comes to
mass media – online games, TV series, movies, etc., can be tricky. Just look at
the ‘Dark Universe’ – it was supposed to be some sort of a response to MCU
& DCEU, but with movie monsters, (including Frankenstein, Dracula and the
Wolfman). Sadly, after the first movie, (yet another ‘Mummy’ reboot), this idea
half-stalled and recently has fallen apart completely. There will be other
monster movies, (a ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ reboot is in the works),
but they will not be a part of a shared universe, that is shelved, for now.
Minus one for imagination, here.
Or take the upcoming SW8 film. The previous, SW7, was
already rather lackluster by SW standards, ‘Rogue 1’ was the better film out of
the two, but the point is, SW8 will be introducing yet another ‘new’ character,
Rose Tico, as a possible love interest for Finn.
Here is the thing – Rose is Asian, Finn is Afro-American,
whereas Rey and Kylo Ren are WASPS – and the last two are supposed to be/become
a couple. Unfortunately, as far as many people are concerned, Kylo and Rey
showed zero romantic interest in each
other, (though plenty of the other sort), while Rey and Finn had plenty of
romantic interest between each other. The problem is, Rey is the female lead,
while Finn is a sidekick, plus there is the entire racial issue.
To clarify: the racial issue exists in Hollywood, whose
inhabitants ruminate on it long and hard, about as much as politicians from
D.C. do. In real life, there is no issue, aside from what some morons make
about it. One of them may have become the current president of the U.S., but so
far, there is no indication that even that
character is actually racist, because if he was, the press would have ferreted it
out by now – but no, he is just an overly horrid person, it seems. However, SW
has nothing with RL, (duh!), so there are issues; there is already an
Afro-American actor playing a role of importance, (does anyone remember Lando
Calrissian, anyone?), so let us give him an Asian-American love interest as
well.
The problem here is not just racial, it is the cliché – in movies
and on TV WASPs tend to get paired-up with other WASPs, and POCs – also with
each other. When there is an exception to the rule, such as on ‘Remedy’ as an
example, they do not always last, (the couple on ‘Remedy’ broke up by the end
of S2, and the show itself got cancelled not long after). Basically, when it
comes to relationships, Hollywood and co. (‘Remedy’ was a Canadian show,
actually), are clichéd and unimaginative – kind of how the FH creative team was
with the Shaman. With the Aramusha, they might have gotten ‘too clever’
instead, and unnecessarily so: when push comes to shove, ‘Ronin’ can be as good
as a label as ‘Orochi’ is, for example.
Moreover, as for the weapons… The Aramusha has the same
katana(s) as the Orochi does – this is the first time FH repeated a weapon; it
might be a landmark but not a good one – and the Shaman’s weapons are a part of
the character’s image problem, which was discussed earlier…
So, there you have it: a ronin by unnecessarily different
name, a Native American/Asian mystic that has even less ties to Vikings than a
Centurion and a Gladiator have to the Knights, and a possible creativity
problem in FH in general. See you all next time!
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