#where the rightfully angry oppressed group is evil now because they wielded violence

[oceannocturne]

#fantasy racism and xenophobia is bad enough #but fantasy racism where the racists are depicted as the good guys? #where the rightfully angry oppressed group is evil now because they wielded violence #violence which was already used against them? #MY DUDE............ #like man the yiga could have been SO MUCH MORE #but i'd expect this from the same people that did the gerudo so dirty #sometimes the things we like have flaws (tags via OP)

wh-what is that one part of creating a champion

( in reference to this post )

If you’ve ever played Breath of the Wild, it’s very likely you’ve come across this chunk of dialogue from a Sheikah by the name of Cado in Kakariko Village:

“We of the Sheikah tribe have long been heralded as people of great wisdom. Our technology became the key to sealing Ganon away during the Great Calamity, some ten thousand years ago. At one point, our technology was praised as the power of the gods...but eventually the people turned on it. Turned on us. Our creations came to be viewed as a threat to the kingdom. The Sheikah became outcasts, forced into exile.”

Which is unsettling enough on its own - but on my first playthrough of the game, I was so enamored with absorbing anything and everything that I must have thought little of it at the time.  But then Creating a Champion came out, and things...quickly took a turn for the worse:

Ten thousand years ago, the kingdom of Hyrule reached an advanced level of civilization thanks in no small part to the technological prowess of the Sheikah. The Sheikah have worked from the shadows to support Hyrule's royal family since the era of myth, and their contributions have been significant. Their technology was key in helping the chosen hero and the princess seal Ganon away ten thousand years in the past and usher in an age of peace, but the king of Hyrule at the time began to fear and doubt the Sheikah. He became possessed by thoughts of imagined Sheikah betrayal. He issued an order to abolish technology and began to oppress the Sheikah. The Sheikah's laboratories were closed, research was prohibited, and data was destroyed.  Their best researchers were expelled from the kingdom and monitored.  Any Sheikah who dared oppose this order was met with severe punishment, including imprisonment.

This oppression led to dramatic changes within the Sheikah tribe and ultimately to a division into two main factions. The moderate group chose to live peacefully, accepting the restrictions placed on them out of respect for the long-standing ties to the royal family.  They built a hidden village, now known as Kakariko Village, and lived there in secret.

Those who violently rejected the king’s decree formed a militant group that specialized in assassination, the Sheikah’s original dark purpose.  In time, they came to follow Calamity Ganon.  They retreated to the remote Gerudo Province, outside of the kingdom of Hyrule’s reach, and later formed the Yiga Clan.

- Creating a Champion, pg. 368

The rising fear and exile of the Sheikah hadn’t arisen from “the people” - it was a horrendous act of oppression from the then King of Hyrule, against a people who had done nothing but serve and lend aid to his kingdom in living memory.  But what gets me the most is the language this book uses to describe this act of oppression; the Sheikah who submitted to the King’s will, after millennia of servitude, are the “moderate group” - whereas those who were rightfully furious with the King’s nonsense decrees are described as “violent.”  It almost reads as if this book was written in-universe by the royal family (or someone who wanted to make them look good), but as a piece of media that exists independently of this fictional universe that attempts to objectively explain events as they happened?  The Sheikah have served the royal family for all time, so the ones who continued to the do so are the Good Guys, and the Yiga (who definitely didn’t have a point, of course they didn’t, they’re Pure Evil and also foolish, heehoo look at them they LOVE bananas!) are the Bad Guys.  It’s all...extremely bad from both an in-universe and out-of-universe perspective. 

And this all comes to a head with this, leading back into the post that I linked at the beginning of this wall of text.  We’ve all seen this tapestry from Breath of the Wild, depicting the events from 10,000 years ago:

But I only very recently took notice to what’s going on at the very bottom:

As if hearing about the King’s acts of violence against the Sheikah wasn’t bad enough, we now get to see him weaponizing an entire army against them.  Or, as Polaris so eloquently put it: “Good, lord, what is HAPPENING down there?!”

And all of this just makes the rest of what Cado had to say that much more sinister:

“Some, like us, chose to cast off our technological advances and strove to live normal lives. Others fostered a hatred toward the kingdom that shunned them. These sad souls swore their allegiance to Ganon.”

The Sheikah are literally brainwashed into thinking mindless and eternal submission to a monarchy which has treated and continues to treat them like garbage is a good thing, and that those among them who rightfully fought against their exile are “sad souls.” But, yeah, the Sheikah of today totally aren’t oppressed in any way, right, Nintendo?  They willingly strove to live “normal lives”?  Geez.

[midzelink]

wh-what is that one part of creating a champion

( in reference to this post )

If you’ve ever played Breath of the Wild, it’s very likely you’ve come across this chunk of dialogue from a Sheikah by the name of Cado in Kakariko Village:

“We of the Sheikah tribe have long been heralded as people of great wisdom. Our technology became the key to sealing Ganon away during the Great Calamity, some ten thousand years ago. At one point, our technology was praised as the power of the gods...but eventually the people turned on it. Turned on us. Our creations came to be viewed as a threat to the kingdom. The Sheikah became outcasts, forced into exile.”

Which is unsettling enough on its own - but on my first playthrough of the game, I was so enamored with absorbing anything and everything that I must have thought little of it at the time.  But then Creating a Champion came out, and things...quickly took a turn for the worse:

Ten thousand years ago, the kingdom of Hyrule reached an advanced level of civilization thanks in no small part to the technological prowess of the Sheikah. The Sheikah have worked from the shadows to support Hyrule's royal family since the era of myth, and their contributions have been significant. Their technology was key in helping the chosen hero and the princess seal Ganon away ten thousand years in the past and usher in an age of peace, but the king of Hyrule at the time began to fear and doubt the Sheikah. He became possessed by thoughts of imagined Sheikah betrayal. He issued an order to abolish technology and began to oppress the Sheikah. The Sheikah's laboratories were closed, research was prohibited, and data was destroyed.  Their best researchers were expelled from the kingdom and monitored.  Any Sheikah who dared oppose this order was met with severe punishment, including imprisonment.

This oppression led to dramatic changes within the Sheikah tribe and ultimately to a division into two main factions. The moderate group chose to live peacefully, accepting the restrictions placed on them out of respect for the long-standing ties to the royal family.  They built a hidden village, now known as Kakariko Village, and lived there in secret.

Those who violently rejected the king’s decree formed a militant group that specialized in assassination, the Sheikah’s original dark purpose.  In time, they came to follow Calamity Ganon.  They retreated to the remote Gerudo Province, outside of the kingdom of Hyrule’s reach, and later formed the Yiga Clan.

- Creating a Champion, pg. 368

The rising fear and exile of the Sheikah hadn’t arisen from “the people” - it was a horrendous act of oppression from the then King of Hyrule, against a people who had done nothing but serve and lend aid to his kingdom in living memory.  But what gets me the most is the language this book uses to describe this act of oppression; the Sheikah who submitted to the King’s will, after millennia of servitude, are the “moderate group” - whereas those who were rightfully furious with the King’s nonsense decrees are described as “violent.”  It almost reads as if this book was written in-universe by the royal family (or someone who wanted to make them look good), but as a piece of media that exists independently of this fictional universe that attempts to objectively explain events as they happened?  The Sheikah have served the royal family for all time, so the ones who continued to the do so are the Good Guys, and the Yiga (who definitely didn’t have a point, of course they didn’t, they’re Pure Evil and also foolish, heehoo look at them they LOVE bananas!) are the Bad Guys.  It’s all...extremely bad from both an in-universe and out-of-universe perspective. 

And this all comes to a head with this, leading back into the post that I linked at the beginning of this wall of text.  We’ve all seen this tapestry from Breath of the Wild, depicting the events from 10,000 years ago:

But I only very recently took notice to what’s going on at the very bottom:

As if hearing about the King’s acts of violence against the Sheikah wasn’t bad enough, we now get to see him weaponizing an entire army against them.  Or, as Polaris so eloquently put it: “Good, lord, what is HAPPENING down there?!”

And all of this just makes the rest of what Cado had to say that much more sinister:

“Some, like us, chose to cast off our technological advances and strove to live normal lives. Others fostered a hatred toward the kingdom that shunned them. These sad souls swore their allegiance to Ganon.”

The Sheikah are literally brainwashed into thinking mindless and eternal submission to a monarchy which has treated and continues to treat them like garbage is a good thing, and that those among them who rightfully fought against their exile are “sad souls.” But, yeah, the Sheikah of today totally aren’t oppressed in any way, right, Nintendo?  They willingly strove to live “normal lives”?  Geez.