Emma and Gil sit down with James Mendez Hodes to discuss his work as a cultural consultant, and the series of "orcticles" he wrote describing how the depiction of orcs in fantasy games can bring up problematic real-world stereotypes.
CONTENT WARNING: This episode includes many references to racism and a section discussing sexual assault.
SHOW NOTES
01m55s: Orcus, a god of the underworld.
04m29s: J.R.R. Tolkien's Urak-hai, the strongest kind of Orc in Middle Earth.
27m49s: The Marathi people from India. We also get into the thorny, complicated, and vitally-important subject of intersectionality.
32m57s: Here is the Adam Ruins Everything episode on the "model minority" myth.
34m30s: Gil meant the "domino theory," a Cold War idea that suggested that one country that became communist would inevitably make its neighbors, and those neighbors, communist as well.
38m04s: More information about James Baldwin's writings on race.
45m19s: We had John talking safety tools on Ludology 227 - Respect the X.
53m03s: Edward Said’s Orientalism is an important analysis of how a group of colonizing nations perceive the nations they colonize.
57m56s: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
1h06m28s: Here is the comic Gil and Mendez are talking about, as well as the Sam Sykes tweet that inspired it.
1h11m43s: Here's another link to Jiangsi: Blood in the Banquet Hall (which seems to come up every episode!). We spoke with Banana in Ludology 228 - The Roles We Play, and Sen most recently in Ludology 236 - Role With It. Of course, you will hear a lot more from Sen soon on this very show!
We also mention the RPG Agon.
1h14m43s: Blaise Pascal first expressed the sentiment in his 16th Letter from his lettres provinciales: "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte." Mark Twain wrote out a similar thought two centuries later: "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."
1h19m08s: More information about Maria Dahvana Headley's modern-day vernacular translation of Beowulf. Also, Eric Zimmerman's plea to keep games away from art, because in his words, "enshrining something as art is death."
1h22m47s: Mendez' website, Twitter, and Patreon.
GameTek Classic 222.5 - Alpha Zero, Part 2
Ludology 222 - Johnny Fairplay
Biography of a Board Game 221.5 - The Game of the Goose
Ludology 221 - The Pac Less Traveled
GameTek 220.5 - Quantum Computing
Ludology 220 - Adventures in Storytelling
Biography of a Board Game 219.5 - Trivial Pursuit
Ludology 219 - Professor Scott's Wild Ride
GameTek Classic 218.5 - Alpha Zero
Ludology 218 - Building Games, Bit By Bit
Biography of a Board Game 217.5 - Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots
Ludology 217 - What IF?
GameTek Classic 216.5 - Path Dependence
Ludology 216 - Buonohardcore 2020
Ludology 215 - Table Topics
Biography of a Board Game 214.5 - Mafia/Werewolf
Ludology 214 - Escape from Reality
GameTek 213.5 - The Incan Gold Experiment
Ludology 213 - Your Humble Narrator
Ludology 212.5 - Naked Baby Photos
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