Mongoliad and fantasies of alternate histories
The group played with the movie idea for a while, but then they got sidetracked by a question about some of its backstory — specifically why it was that the Mongols, having already flattened Eastern Europe, didn’t press onward into Western Europe after the death of Ögedei Khan in 1242. The answer they devised was that a small crew of European warriors, or whatever the European equivalent of samurai would be, came up with the inevitable dangerous but cunning plan.
Isn’t this, like pretty well known history?
Feudal Europe was saved from sharing the fate of China and Muscovy not by its tactical prowess but by the unexpected death of the Mongol’s supreme ruler, Ogedei, and the subsequent eastward retreat of his armies.”
I mean, I get that part of fun historical based fiction is rewriting “What ifs?” into history, but the constant need for white authors to rewrite “fictions” about how white people are great, all the time, has had a definite effect on the media space and how people ACTUALLY understand real history.
- Like the NDNs being violent to white people, thereby justifying violence in return
- Like NDNs happily giving up their land and magically disappearing
- Like Black folks being lazy, violent, or lesser in all ways
- Like Yellow Peril
- Like Mexicans being “foreign” to the land - even though, significant chunks were once Mexico
…
It doesn’t read to me as fun neutral space when white authors gather together to explain how European countries weren’t ACTUALLY defeated by what was, at the time, the most modern army (both in tactics and logistics), comprised of many peoples, with freedom of religion, and several rights that would not be seen in European countries until centuries later…
If the roles were reversed, it would certainly be about how despite the conquest, look at how much civilization the European countries were bringing everyone else, and it’s about a sense of adventure(don’t mind the bodies as you step through), and those people weren’t properly using their resources ANYWAY.
While I’m all for folks to explore their martial arts history of their cultures (because, yes! Martial arts are awesome), I have to sideeye the fact that it could have been simply placed in any of the MANY MANY wars European countries have had with themselves, but rather, how they’re secretly so awesome they turned back the Mongols, even though all history points otherwise.
Europeans turn out to be better at being Asian than Asians could ever hope to be?! OH STEPHENSON WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED AHAHAHAGOFUCKYOURSELF.
P. S. Just tried to explain my raeg to white guy friend, was unsuccessful. Explained it to the cat, cat was very empathetic.
