Veni Vidi Ludi

Sate the beast little knight

[[ i appreciate the acknowledgement! it also frustrates me when it's not considered, but sometimes i give a little grace. how are you supposed to know something you dont know?

[[ i chose idris after the prophet, who in turn is theorized to be the Islamic interpretation of hermes trismegistus the thrice wise sage and psuedonomical author of the corpus hermeticum, ie the foundation of all western occult pholosophy. lots of syncretism in the middle ages!

[[ i've considered yahya as well, for john, and other names of religious or philosophical importance like ahmad (as in ahmad al-buni)

as an individual arab, i dont have a problem with the name "al-Hazred". i think its fine to get a little creative, plenty of names get to be made up in the english language and we deserve to get a little fun with it too. that is not why al-hazred, the original character, is racist.

the orientalism specifically comes from the fact that the original character was a white man's self-insert arabsona and is thus a caricature of medieval muslim scholars, painting the work of sufi scholars as something dark and sinister.

the occult is inherently mysterious, however the way that mysteriousness surrounds the original character is inherently orientalist due to that context. again: the problem is not that his name is "al-Hazred" the problem is that the original character is rife with racist tropes. another problem is that the actual subject of orientalism is only touched on at a surface level.

names are just the start of the conversation. as previously mentioned, the nickname "al" is problematic when it's metatextually sincere and not used to highlight a characters ignorance. its an immediate and most blatant othering, but it's not the whole picture and i consider it to be honestly just a small fraction of the bigger issue

In the fields of Rattay.