Fate's Refusal to Honour (or at least properly research) Depictions of Non-Japanese Figures 2: Electric Bogaloo ft. Wandjina from the Current JP Summer Event
Disclaimer: While I am an Australian, I am NOT of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Therefore, I am coming at this issue from an outsider's perspective. If there is an Aboriginal person, or more specifically of the Mowanjum people from the Kimberly regions, please PLEASE correct me if I am wrong on any front.
The culprit behind the events of the current Summer story in the JP servers has recently been revealed to be Wandjina, a creator Dreamtime figure from the Mowanjum people's culture.
In any other context, I would be thrilled to have an Australian figure in FGO, but the problem here is the figure they use.
Wandjina are sacred to the Mowanjum people, and therefore one needs to go through Aboriginal Law to obtain the right to use the Wandjina's image.
In Australia, this resulted in an actual conflict between a non-indigenous artist and aboriginals. You can read more here, but one quote to note is from an Aboriginal man of the Darug people, Chris Tobin: "Aboriginal law is very specific on what you can and can't do with wan[d]jinas." Another quote on this topic is made by the owner of an Aboriginal art gallery, Adrian Newstead: "Only a few Aboriginal artists ever win the right to depict wan[d]jina, and only then after years of initiations and ceremonies..."
I am NOT attaching an image of FGO's iteration of Wandjina due to this. Not only is her appearance only Aboriginal on a surface-level with her 'dot art' aesthetic (dot art* is only a recent addition to Aboriginal culture, created back in the 1970s), having no resemblance to an Aboriginal person (note, that while many Aboriginal people are white/pale, FGO continually chooses to depict people of colour as light skinned as possible. And yes, I know she's blue, not white. There is literally no records of her being blue skinned; is this because Wandjina's are associated with rain????) but she is also not very Wandjina looking? These figures do not have mouths, have large eyes meant to resemble the eye of a storm and are typically depicted with elaborate headdresses. That little glowing boomerang on her head is not exactly elaborate. And WHY does she have a boomerang??? Because she's Australian???? By that logic, every Japanese figure needs to have a katana. #GiveMurasakiaKatana2023.
There is also the issue of Cnoc na Riabh. While it is funny to think that she's a foreigner because of an Australian influence, Yaraan-doo is also another Aboriginal figure. And it is slapped onto a white girl for a fan service event. I'd just rather Fate leave Aboriginal culture alone and just do, like, Ned Kelly or something if they're going to continue like this.
More resources and info under the read more!
You'll have noted in the quotes that I've edited an 'n' into wanjinas. This is so I didn't confuse anyone: both can be the correct spelling! I just stuck to what I thought FGO was using for their Wandjina.
Here's an overview of what wandjinas are and their inappropriate use in art: https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/arts/what-are-wandjinas
Here's another page about an inappropriate use of Wandjinas (note: it's only a short synopsis about a documentary that covered the incident, I'm uncertain if you would be able to get access to the documentary outside of Australia): https://www.creativespirits.info/resources/movies/who-paintin-dis-wandjina
It should also be noted that the two websites I've linked above are from the website Creative Spirits. While it is run by a non-Indigenous person, the person behind it is currently transitioning it to be an Aboriginal owned and run resource. You can read more about how this site is run in his About page.
*If you want to know about dot art's origin, here and here are some resources on them. However, this article brings up something interesting that I would like to bring back to FGO Wandjina's dot art aesthetic. It notes that "the term 'dot painting' stems from what the Western eye sees when faced with contemporary Aboriginal acrylic paintings" (emphasis mine). All three articles note that dots were used to obfuscate sacred symbols and artifacts so that those who were not initiated into their cultures could not see what these figures were. In that case, what the hell is the dot art seen on Fate's Wandjina supposed to represent? In this article, it talks about the symbolism in Indigenous art. Fate's Wandjina has none.
772 notes
·
View notes
Trauma-Dumping on your plants: The Anthony J. Crowley Chronicles
This has been living in my silly head rent free for so long, I finally decided to slap it on here in hopes of thinking about it a little less (than three times a day. It's been years. I need to get over it.)
Also, I'm absolutely certain I'm not even remotely the first person to realize or post about this, since it's not the hardest of parallels to figure out. Alas, I still shall, because out of mind, out of sight and all that. So:
Let's talk about how Crowley is using his houseplants to work through his own Trauma of the Fall. Or, well, maybe not work through it per se, but more so roleplay it to give it somewhat of an an outlet because he never got over it. Lol.
It's not rocket science to figure it out and God Herself actually gives us a pretty spot-on explanation of it in her own narration.
Crowley's plants are perfect. They're, as God Herself tells us, the most luxurious and beautiful in all of London. He takes great care of them, waters them, mists them. Does any and everything to give them the perfect conditions so they won't have a worry in the world.
And yet, we're immediately shown that despite the seemingly perfect conditions they're living in, Crowley's plants still get *gasps quietly* spots. And we all know how Crowley feels about that:
It seems like such an unnecessary tiny thing to get upset about, right? Like, plants get spots all the time. They're not perfect, they're part of nature and nothing is ever perfect in nature. Crowley would know that by now. Imperfection is the whole point of nature. If everything had stayed exactly the way it always was, nothing would have ever changed or evolved.
Besides, Crowley is a demon. If it were merely about aesthetics to him, he could easily miracle away any spot with a blink of his serpent eyes. But he gets so angry about it, it's almost comical. At first we think it's just to show us, the audience, that, in contrast to Aziraphale, who cares very dearly and lovingly for his books, Crowley is a mean, mean demon who, instead of being outwardly nice to the things he loves (like Aziraphale does), yells at his plants because he's a mean meanie.
But! If you look at the whole scene and what God says, it's pretty obvious what he's actually doing is something else entirely: "What Crowley does is he puts the fear of God in them. Or, the fear of Crowley. The plants are the most luxurious and beautiful in London. Also the most scared."
Folks, this man dude serpent is literally roleplaying the concept of God/Heaven threatening angels with their Fall in order to keep them obedient ... with his houseplants.
Have I mentioned yet that I am absolutely obsessed with him and also desperately wanna get him a therapy voucher?
Because what does he do once he sees a plant disobeying his rules of perfection and acting out? The same thing God did to her questioning, equally disobedient angels (including Crowley): Parade it in front of the very scared rest, making an example of it ...
... only to then, well ...
... quite literally chuck it out.
To anyone else, this seems like a completely ridiculous thing to do over a tiny, minuscule spot. There would have been a bunch of other ways to go about fixing that spot.
Figuring out what it was the plant needed that might not have been given to it yet.
Taking care of it in a different, individual way so it would have been able to thrive again.
Listening to the plant and letting it tell you why its spot appeared in the first place.
Telling the plant, that loves and relies on you entirely, you love it too, despite it not being without fault, despite of it not fully living up to your unreachable standards of perfection.
Caring for the plant not because you want it to be perfect, but because you're okay with it being imperfect.
(We're no longer talking about plants here, as you are probably aware.)
Alas, this isn't what Crowley does. Because it wasn't what God did, either. We still know very little about Crowley's actual Fall and the Fall of Lucifer and the rest. But we do know that Crowley was never like or even with them.
All he did was ask some questions. A tiny spot. A seemingly insignificant blemish in the luxurious, beautiful flora of Heaven.
And yet, before he knew it, he did a "million lightyear freestyle dive into a boiling pool of sulfur". Cast out, chucked away, just like his little spotty plant. And for what? Well ...
... to keep the others angels plants check, for the rest of time.
***
(Addendum from the comments: If we go by what the book tells us, Crowley doesn’t actually end up violently throwing out the ‚bad‘ plants. He just finds a different place for them and makes sure they‘re looked after. So much to him being a big, bad, meanie-mean demon.)
463 notes
·
View notes