kira

Folks, you kinda jumped the gun on this one. Seriously. I have a few points to make on this and it may not be liked, but as a history enthusiast and someone who loves to learn, I have to clarify some things.

If I do get some things wrong, feel free to correct me on them! That's kind of the point here. I'm always ready to learn some more.

1.) Sumeru is somewhat based on the Abbasid Empire.

If people bothered to look at the content we've received about Sumeru so far and actually pay attention, you will be able to tell that there are Indian, Persian, and South Asian elements to the region as well as Middle Eastern. This is shown in the little bits of information that you can find here.

And if one looks at the reaches of Islamic empires throughout history, it will show that at some point, these elements have mixed, matched, or have come into contact with each other during the Islamic Age.

The picture below represents the reach of the Islamic Empire during its initial run from 622-750 CE under the Umayyads along with the Islamic Golden Age under the Abbasids.

The regions that are shown here include Egypt, Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, Northern Africa, Central Asia, India, Turkey, Iberia, and Central Asia, but they do not do justice to the spread of their culture and Islam at the same time periods.

(Please note that while the empires did not reach these areas the places shown were heavily influenced by Islamic culture and religion, thus forth making them majority Muslim at the time.)

And as you can see, South Asia is right there.

Now look at these maps compared to a modern map of the same areas and tell me with a straight face that this region wasn't diverse enough to hold multiple cultures besides Egyptian and Arabic.

This would not only explain the different regions featured in Sumeru concerning the characters but also why they may or may not look different and dress as such. I'll go into the really gritty bits about the dress later.

2.) The Baghdad House of Wisdom definitively inspired the Dendro Archon's basis as the Archon of Wisdom and Sumeru Academia

This point speaks for itself, but just to be sure people get it, the Baghdad House of Wisdom was considered the height of knowledge and intellect for centuries during the Islamic Golden age.

As the crown jewel of the capital of the Abbasid Empire, every nation in the known world and their rivals wanted a piece of what was in that place! We got math, language, science, stories, art, music, and all sorts of stuff from them. In fact, we have them to thank for preserving a good chunk of human knowledge, even with its destruction in 1258 by the Mongols.

Now, wisdom is typically defined as the application of knowledge and intellect combined with practical experience, which Sumeru may or may not have a lack of at the moment if Lisa brings this point up once or twice with the state of Sumeru's intellectual elite. This may or may not be the hinting of inspiration from the Abbasid Empire's decline due to bureaucratic corruption, heavy taxes, social strife, civil war, and the impending Mongol invasion.

With this, it's no mistake that Sumeru Academia and the area surrounding it sounds a hell of a lot like that intellectual haven and that it may or may not serve as a tragic future plot point.

3.) Dori's design does take some checkmarks for orientalism, but for less reasons than you think.

Yeah, you guys need to look at this first. You need fresh eyes.

First of all, I'm going to tell you to completely banish Disney's Aladdin from your mind. It holds no bearing on what I'm about to say. None. It's a cheap copy. Don't even process it, because I'm going to bring up the real inspiration of One Thousand and One Nights.

Contrary to popular belief, the stories contained in One Thousand and One Nights is not based in just the Middle East. There's actually a lot of it based in Persia and Mesopotamia as well as in India, South Asia, and some of China.

If the time period of this is to be believed (the book itself was published around the same Islamic Golden Age I keep bringing up), the style of dress was vastly different from what people think, and speaking of their style of dress, I'd like to introduce you all to something called the shalwar kameez.

The shalwar kameez is popular in Central and South Asia (Pakistan, India, Afghanistan) and As you can see, the bagginess of the bottom is very accurate, and given the established fact of Sumeru's basis, this dress has some historical basis and concrete reasons for it to exist.

Now, let's talk about the lamp. There is real basis for this to be a thing, but I need to clarify some things first. This lamp is based on an oil lamp and to be fair, the basic design for it being made of metal and its look stay true to its purpose and sticks to the regions discussed here. Bronze oil lamps of this look were definitely around.

Now I will briefly touch on the djinn. Djinn are classified as beings of elemental energy and naturally inclined to pranks, harmful or playful as well as possessing an unholy amount of power and knowledge. Djinn in Islamic canon have been known possess people, produce offspring with them, and be described as a force of good or evil.

In the tales within the One Nights, however, they are typically trapped in small objects, typically a ring or a lamp. The rubbing of either of those things can summon them out. In the tale "The Fishermen and the Jinni", the jinni (djinn) is the one to grant the fishermen three wishes, while in the tale "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp", Aladdin acquires a djinn in a ring and a more powerful one in an oil lamp.

So the djinn in the lamp at its basis is not stereotypical at all as the idea of having an all-powerful being trapped by something relatively insignificant to its existence is common enough.

However, the overarching cry of what I believe the rest of the design is based on is something that I can see wholeheartedly. The 'dancer girl' top does not mesh at all with the time period described in detail and does indeed give to the stereotypical orientalism. This video goes more into length on that here.

So yes, there is issue with the dress and inspiration behind it, but it was not the egregious crime it was made out to be.

4.) I am personally terrified that appearances have such large precedence over personality with people in this fanbase.

We haven't met them. We don't know them. We have no idea what they're really like at all. And yet, despite this fact, everyone loses their shit once they aren't what they envisioned them to be based on what they look like. Even if they are pale as hell, why does it matter so much? Do I wish that they could consider that? Sure! Will it cripple my enjoyment? No!

As someone quite dark-skinned myself who has suffered constant mischaracterization and bullying at the hands of literally everyone around me for acting certain ways while looking the way I do, I find it puzzling and concerning that people are so quick to write people off because of the color of their skin as the very same thing has happened to me.

As a result, this point has to be made as controversial as it has become:

Culture does not equal looks and there is no difference between discriminating against skin colors because the basis of it is the same.

Let that sink in for a second.

People really call themselves 'not racist' and 'educated' and then they pull this kind of heinous shit in public discourse and pretend that it's completely okay because they looked white.

And I guarantee you that if they were dark-skinned, people would still call it racist for being 'the stereotype'. I've seen it happen and it will likely happen again. You can't please anyone anymore.

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So those are my thoughts on the leaks and everyone's reactions to them. Feel free to agree, disagree, or do something in between because I don't care anymore. I'm tired of skin color determining everything here. It exhausts me.