The Middle Eastern fighter, building a legacy, part 2...

Capcom and SNK have been thinking about incorporating Middle Eastern and Indian fighters for some time. The concept art in their design books could point to the number of times they had tried to diversify the lineup in Street Fighter or the King of Fighters series. Yet if you were to look at some of these concept characters you might find them lacking. It was painfully obvious that the artists didn't really know how to represent characters from the Middle East or South Asia without relying on trope. The characters wore baggy pants, sashes and large turbans. It was as if people from this part of the world were still dressing up in ancient costumes. The SNK artists even went so far as to poach the look of Mola Ram, the villain from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, at the leader of a South Asian team. To be fair the formal and ceremonial wear in some parts of the world did stick to classic fashion and had not changed much in centuries. Yet from day-to-day the same people could also be seen in western attire, especially the younger cultures.

There were some Arab characters that did make it past the planning stages and were put into fighting games. The sad part was how stereotypical they were. Avu was one of the first, introduced in Martial Champion. The game featured brawlers from around the world, each representing their particular nation. The title was released in 1993 and poached a lot of ideas from Street Fighter II. Avu was a very typical Arabian hero. He wore the baggy pants, boots and carried a scimitar. It was as if he was one of the characters from the Arabian Nights stories brought to life. The sad part was that he was supposed to represent the modern Middle East. The same exact details were used with the character Sheik Maherl from Visco's 1996 sleeper Breakers. Surprisingly the Breakers title did well enough in the arcade to garner a sequel, Breakers Revenge. I would not have had an issue with either Avu and Maherl if they had been featured in Arabian Fight or Arabian Magic, the games mentioned in the previous blog. Their look and move selection was definitely pulled from a different era.

 

So what was so offensive about the characters aside from the clothes they wore? Well for starters lets take a look at their moves and special abilities. Maherl, like all token Arabian characters, was a master of the mystic arts. Not only could he use his sword in a fight but he could also summon magical creatures. He could call on a djinn that appeared from a puff of smoke to punch at opponents. It was the equivalent of a super fireball attack. Again, context was everything. If this was a move in the games set in mythological Arabia then it would have made sense. But this was a character set in modern times, fighting against martial arts masters and soldiers from the current era. Avu didn't fare much better when it came to stereotypes.

 

Both fighters were presented as wealthy figures, of course we were to assume they were oil barons. Konami made sure to bring in another cultural touchstone from Arab tradition that wouldn't necessarily win Avu any fans in western culture. In the ending of the game Avu was greeted by his beautiful wives. His harem gushed over him and made the other fighters in the game insanely jealous. They escorted Avu to his limousine and rode off. The translation in the English release of the game mentions a singular wife however in the design and Japanese version the three women were each wives. Avu was a Sheik from Saudia Arabia, and that nation actually recognizes polygamy via Sharia law. A man may take up to four wives provided that he treats each of them equally. If Konami was going to take a jab at a culture at least they managed to get this detail right.

What was odd from a design standpoint was how much of a trope the characters had become. Surely the Middle East was not trapped in some sort of time machine. Surely the people and traditions of the Arabian Peninsula were not still locked in the era of Scheherazade. What the Japanese developers were doing was creating a caricature of the region. They had done this before to great success in other fighting games and would continue to do so. It wasn't as if the Japanese were pulling these ideas out of thin air either. The media they consumed continued to feed them images of how men and women of the region dressed. How their politics were organized, what religions they followed, how their families were structured, how their armies were built and how their societies ran had been seen in the news and was especially dramatized in film.

When it came to Saudi Arabia the sharp contrast between the modern world and ancient world was best demonstrated in the film Lawrence of Arabia. The movie was based on the military exploits of Thomas Edward Lawrence. It was set in World War I and depicted the events that would ultimately shape the region. There was a great contrast in the violent conflicts depicted in the movie. On one side there were soldiers with tanks and artillery and they would continuously get swept aside by rebels with swords and rifles riding horses and camels. The nomadic tribal system worked well, was still very much alive in the 20th century and would continue to be honored in the 21st century. These were the things that Avu and Maherl were representing.

 

The modern nations of the Middle East were still very culturally isolated. Since they were rich in resources, especially in oil, they held tremendous global influence. If the nations did not want to advance culturally, religiously or socially then they were under no obligation to do so. If they wanted to adhere to traditions that had not changed in a thousand years then they had the liberty to do so. This was cultural relevance, we could judge them and say they were refusing to get with the times. Or they would say that they were defending their culture and traditions from outside influences. Either point of view could be true depending on what you believed in. For example, they stuck with classic fashion and it was accepted as a cultural norm. The thawb for example was a long white garment, it looks like a robe, that had been worn for centuries. It hadn't changed in its design and was still worn by most men when they traveled to a mosque. By contrast fashion in the west changed from moment to moment. A character designer that had to create a modern fighter would have a harder time trying to make a passable western fighter than they would a traditional Asian, South Asian or Arabian fighter. I would like to believe that Avu and Maherl were exaggerations of the region, something more in tune with fantasy characters.

 

Sometimes it was hard to separate fact from fiction when it came to an "exotic" region. The attacks given to the Arabian characters were definitely given to them from myth. Summoning a genie was just one thing they could do. The other was breathing fire. In the previous blog I had mentioned that the fire breather was based on a classic tradition. Yet how many fighters from the Middle East or South Asia could there be that all shared this same gimmick? Four if you count Karnov and Dhalsim as well. Seeing Avu perform an "Arabian Burner" was nothing compared to the more outlandish moves given these fighters. One of the most absurd moves in any fighting game (I mean just as absurd as the worst Street Fighter IV super attacks!) was used by Karnov and Maherl. The two figures could inhale and expand into enormous balloons. Yet since they were filled with air they were almost weightless and would float to the ground. These things again made sense in a different context. If the games were based in ancient Arabia and the fighters were battling mythical creatures then having some magical attacks absolutely worked. But this wasn't a fantasy game, this was set in the here and now. How did the Japanese designers expect audiences to react to these characters? More important what were they doing to the public perception of the Arabian as a fighter? Were they reinforcing a stereotype or was this harmless funny design work? This was also cultural relevance, it depended on your point of view and whether you were Arab or not.

 

If you were a hero pulled from Arabian tradition then you must be big, fat and rich. The trope was not necessarily sugar coated. Karnov for example was an awe-inspiring character, one of the most important designs in the history of gaming. Yet at the same time he was an ugly caricature of a people. His facial features were an amalgamation of Asian, Arabian and Eurasian characteristics. Yet these weren't necessarily meant to be flattering to the character either. He had rolls on his neck, multiple chins, fat lips and a bulbous nose. His eyebrows were absent and his eyes were drawn incredibly tight. To add a bit of grotesque to an already ugly face he had deep scars on his forehead that told a story about his life as a fighter. Between Fighters History and Fighter's History Dynamite, just a couple of years really, Karnov actually became uglier than the artists at Data East had started with.

In his final appearance Karnov was larger, fatter and more scarred up than he had ever been. I'm not sure what caused the developers to push the character in this direction. When he debuted he was not exactly a handsome person. He was bald and he was fat but he was also insanely strong and heroic. In some versions of his story he was called a circus strongman rather than Arabian adventurer. His nationality was never quite defined, in one game he spelled  his name out of fire in Cyrillic rather than Abjad or Arabic. Perhaps he was Russian or Eurasian instead. On the official box art and arcade posters he was presented as having enormous muscles rather than a gut. He was the antithesis of the typical hero. He was not the dashing Prince of Persia or the devilish Sinbad. He was nonetheless a great character and one of the few body positive role models in gaming.

 

What Data East had changed the most for this character was not his appearance as much as his context. Karnov was a perfect fit for the mythical worlds of ancient Arabia. In his original arcade and console game he traveled through many exotic lands and fought all sorts of mythical monsters. At no point was it ever assumed that he was going through the modern era. He was pulled from his original title because Data East was desperate for a hit game. Capcom had become very successful thanks to the release of Street Fighter II. The other publishers could tell as arcade operators ordered more and more Street Fighter II cabinets and less of anything else. Capcom did not create the fighting game genre but they certainly perfected it. Data East, Konami, Sega, SNK and the other publishers began developing fighting games of their own.

Many studios copied the formula, controls and characters featured in Street Fighter II. Data East had copied them so closely that Capcom had to take them to court. Capcom lost the case because Fighters History and Street Fighter II were different enough that plagiarism could not be proven. This meant that other studios could also develop fighting games using similar characters and control schemes. Data East needed something to set their game apart. They had a well regarded console and arcade figure in Karnov. Data East had already brought him into modern times as a cameo boss in Bad Dudes. What the designers did next was actually tone down some of his special abilities so that he wouldn't be too overpowered. At the least they had him keep his fire techniques. In this way he could be accepted as a fighter and a boss character for the franchise.

 

The other thing the studio did was change his appearance slightly. Let's face it, the character was always fat and should remain the same. However the final version of Karnov had scars crossing his body, from a life of battles no doubt. He still retained his muscles underneath his fat. The changes to Karnov were influenced not by legend but by professional wrestling. Professional wrestlers had inspired many characters in Capcom fighting games, this went well beyond Zangief and Darun Mister. It made sense too why the Japanese studios relied so heavily on pro wrestlers as a template. If you think about it. Pro wrestlers often had great physiques, they were photogenic and sold themselves well on television. Some were brilliant talkers and really made you believe they were the real deal whenever they cut a promo on TV. Some wrestlers were legit grapplers, boxers, jujitsu or karate experts. They could seriously hurt or kill a person if they wanted. Some of the most memorable wrestlers had a gimmick. Perhaps they were bad guys descended from German royalty, or perhaps they were savage men that came from parts unknown, in many instances those with gimmicks were considered heels or villains. Such was the case for Lawrence Robert Shreve. Or as he was known to his fans, Abdullah the Butcher.

 

Abdullah was actually Canadian but his character was sold as hailing from Sudan. It was a nation in North Africa that was right on the coast opposite the Arabian Peninsula. His costume consisted of the familiar baggy pants, sash and curled-toed boots that accompanied fighters from the Middle East. He also showed up wearing a keffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress which people sometimes mistakenly call a turban. People would often notice the deep grooves in his forehead. They were the residuals of a life of "blading" or cutting himself open so that he would bleed during a match. He would take chair shots to the head and get busted open so many times that all that was left was scar tissue on most of his forehead. He would sometimes entertain guests by sticking poker chips in his forehead, they wouldn't fall out when he leaned forward. Abdullah lived up to his "butcher" moniker and didn't wrestle as much as he would gouge at his opponents with a fork, nail or sword. The matches he took part in were guaranteed to be a gore-fest.

Not every wrestling match was a test of athletic prowess, or a chance to see holds traded between two genuine "shooters." Some of the matches were just ugly brawls featuring foreign objects, barbed wire, thumbtacks and broken glass. These bloody "death matches" helped build the reputation of an opponent and made them all the more fearsome. This was especially true if they could beat Abdullah. I talked about him, Arabian and fat characters on an earlier series about representation. He was just one of the actual people that influenced the development of fighting game and manga characters. The Middle Eastern fighter would evolve as technology did. When fighting games went to 3D some things changed and some things stayed the same. The Street Fighter series seemed to regress in this regard. Some returning characters stayed the same while some characters got a makeover and it was not always pretty.

Dhalsim changed greatly between titles. Gone was his bald head and shaven face. Now he sported a turban and beard. He retained his stretchy limbs and fire-based attacks yet now the studio made all of his animations greatly exaggerated. For his new super strike his belly would blow up to grotesque proportions before he spat out an enormous fireball. It was ugly and a return to the balloon attacks of Karnov and Maherl. These strange inflation gimmicks were never done in any 2D version of Street Fighter. The new development team thought it would be a good idea to go overboard with the animations now that they were in 3D. Not only did they redo his moves they also redid his look for the series. Dhalsim regressed to a design that was much older and more stereotypical of Indians.

The original concept art of the Indian fighter in Street Fighter II was known as the Great Tiger. He wore a turban and had mystical attacks. In an alternate version of the concept art he wore an elephant "Ganesha" mask and fought while standing on one foot. They were some demeaning designs. The creators working on Great Tiger went away from trope and ended up creating a fantastic character. The Sikh's were the religious group that believed hair was sacred. This was why they kept their beards and wrapped their long hair in turbans to begin with. Dhalsim humbled himself and shaved off his hair and wore rags. Most any other game studio would have made an Indian with a beard and a turban but Capcom in the late '80s and early '90s was a different studio. They knew how to challenge public perceptions and create an Indian that defied convention. He stood out among the cast and this was before players could even see his stretchy limbs or fire attacks.

Sadly the developers working on Street Fighter V chose to ignore the established look. They thought they could improve on the character. By going back to the old stereotypes they ended up weakening his look. Again, this decision was made on Yoshinori Ono's watch and he should ultimately be held accountable for the direction the series went in. Dhalsim was not the most recent South Asian character added to the lineup. Nor was he the first 3D fighter to represent the region. We will look at these pioneers in the next blog. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The Middle Eastern fighter, building a legacy, part 1...

When we look at fighting game characters, both the good or bad designs, we have to take them in context. Most fighting game characters represent more than a fighting art. They often represent a region of the world, and in some cases an entire culture. The majority of fighting game characters are East versus West, but more specifically Japanese versus USA designs. Some of these men and women were inspired by actual people but the majority were created from a number of sources. Films, comics, cartoons and television had done a lot to influence the creation of the biggest names. One region that was rarely discussed, even by me, was the Middle East. It had colored a few of the characters that appeared throughout gaming history. In order to understand the design, influence and even impact of the newer characters added to both Street Fighter and Tekken we have to look at them in context. We will start by going back in time, back to the Golden Age of Islam. Now I do not mean to offend my audience by discussing Islam during this era of heightened security and suspicion. I have talked about Buddhism, Shinto and other spiritual beliefs on my earlier posts regarding fighting game characters and their origins. I hope my readers can extend the same courtesy to the culture I am going to present.

The Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia for the most part, is a bridge of cultures and customs. It was a hub of commerce from North Africa to South Asia, there was tremendous influence in the region to the people, tribes, and traditions of the surrounding areas. From Russia, China and India to Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, there were some connective tissues that united this region of the world thanks to the Middle East. When it came to pop culture there were a few things that people knew of the area. It was rich in oil, had survived countless conflicts from internal and external forces and had remained culturally isolated for a good portion of its history. When it came time to present characters from this part of the world the writer, artists or producer often relied on trope. The majority looked at one specific point of reference The folk tales or ancient Arabia could be found in the book One Thousand and One Nights, sometimes printed as 1001 Arabian Nights.

It was a collection of myths from South Asia and the Middle East. There were stories of magicians, monsters, exotic locations, epic battles, great heroes and treacherous villains. Little by little the stories of various cultures, some which were riddles or short poems, would be added to the anthology. The character of Scheherazade would become the storyteller in the series. Just about every myth that people associated with the Middle East, including the tales of Sinbad and Aladdin had come from this book. The stories from 1001 Arabian Nights had the same romantic elements found in many western literature pieces. There were princes and princesses, dragons, magic and all sorts of fantastic elements. Some stories even were precursors to science fiction as they mentioned being able to travel to distant planets and having machines that appeared like robots and androids. It could actually be argued that some western myths were stolen from the Arabic tradition.



One of the earliest pieces of pop culture was an adaptation of Middle East story called the Thief of Bagdad. I have talked about Hollywood white washing characters before and having minorities cast as villains. When I was talking about F.A.N.G. I mentioned that the West created characters far more offensive than anything Capcom could do. When it came to the Middle East you could expect white actors to play the lead roles. It wasn't the white-washing that stuck with audiences as much as it was the stories. The fantasy created in this part of the world was amazing. Flying carpets, shape-changers and winged horses were visualized in film. They were early attempts at special effects and some of the illusions the pioneers created were well done. The hero of the films, Ahmed, would travel to some exotic locations, including active volcanoes and the bottom of the sea. The early effects artists had to figure out how to create the illusion of weightlessness and the early makeup artists had to create passable monsters for film. These characters and settings would be revisited again and again by Hollywood. Even great animated features like Disney's Aladdin and The Thief and the Cobbler had borrowed liberally from the Thief of Bagdad.

In doing so the studios were exposing countless generations in the USA as well as around the world to the Arabian myths. What was interesting was how benevolent Islam had been presented in these early pop culture pieces. If you ever get a chance please watch the 1924 version of the Thief of Bagdad. It is a silent film but the mythology is not changed to fit western tastes. Imam, the Holy Man that narrates the story and is seen at the beginning and end of the film quotes the Quran and gives praise to Allah. He appears several more times in the film guiding the hero Ahmed, as played by Douglas Fairbanks (who had attained a level of fame in his era that could be considered the equivalent of George Clooney+Brad Pitt+Johnny Depp). It would be almost impossible to film a movie like this today, especially with a big name white actor playing a Muslim. But that era was far different, and surprisingly very accepting of the tenants the film described. Imam was very warm and humble, almost Christ-like with his generosity and wisdom. He helped set Ahmed on the right path after being tortured and whipped by his royal captors. A warm religious figure, even from a different faith, would have gone over very well in turn of the century America. Sadly those days are gone and may never come again. Needless to say the early movies, whether in color or black and white created a world that fans wanted to dig into.

 

Other stories from the Arabian Nights would be adapted to the big screen. None were more popular or successful than the Sinbad films. Of course the characters were white washed as well but the settings and situations remained based strictly in Arabian fantasy. An effects artist named Ray Harryhausen helped create monsters that the heroes would do battle with. Whether it was a cyclops, medusa, skeleton warrior or kraken the films made the impossible look real. Haryrhausen would painstakingly hand animate tiny models and match them to the actors performances. There was no CGI in the early days of cinema so Harryhausen had to combine props, models and stop-motion animation in order to achieve a desired effect. Many of the sequences he animated withstood the test of time and set the bar for future visual effects artists to meet. Hollywood was doing a fantastic job of bringing the audience into the world of Arabian myth. Many young artists and designers around the world were growing up on these films. As entertainment formats changed some studios looked for ways of incorporating these myths into their own titles.

 

One of the great all-time video games was set in the ancient world . Prince of Persia debuted in 1989 and did a great job of capturing the spirit of mythical Arabia. There was a bad guy, a princess, a hero, some magic, exotic locations and sword fights. The PC game by Broderbund was a hit and eventually found its way on multiple systems, consoles and handhelds. It would receive sequels and reboots but thankfully always retained its location and theme. It was not the first game set in the ancient world and certainly not the last. The Arabian Nights mythology was the basis for several arcade games. The first major title was published by Atari. Arabian was released in 1983, it was actually developed by Sun Electronics. The game featured a digitized score made up of many classical music pieces. Each stage was introduced in the pages of a book, as if you were entering the actual Arabian Nights series. The hero in the game was a tiny figure that wore a turban and fought mythical monsters with his hands and sword. The mechanics of the game were ahead of their time. The prince could jump, crawl and climb throughout the maze-like stages. Most games were having problems figuring out how to do the most basic of controls. The original Mario Bros. was released the same year as Arabian and featured a character that could "only" jump. Granted Mario became a superstar and the prince disappeared into the footnotes of history. To be fair Arabian predicted the gameplay that would become a staple in every adventure title, and especially in the Prince of Persia.

 

The backdrop of ancient Arabia would be used in two rarely seen arcade titles. Taito unveiled Arabian Magic and Sega unveiled Arabian Fight both in the same year, 1992 to be precise. Both games were brawlers, the same format used in classic games like Double Dragon and Final Fight. Players could control one of multiple characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and have a go at the title alone or with a bunch of friends. Both games featured exotic locations, from sailing ships, to temples and even battles while riding atop flying carpets. Both games also featured multiple types of opponents, including assassins, soldiers and the undead. Both games even featured a magic system that allowed them to create more damage to their opponents than fists or weapons ever could. The magic system in Arabian Magic was much harder to use. Players could unlock a new "spell" only if they defeated the djinn or genie that acted as a boss character. Even if the player had a magic in their inventory they could only use it once. There was none of this three wishes stuff so players had to save their magic for when they truly needed it.

In Arabian Fight the characters could perform the magic attacks multiple times and recharge the system as well. Both games were rare in the arcade. Sega was showing off its new System 32 hardware, capable of presenting sprites that were much larger than the competition. Plus these sprites featured more colors and more frames of animation than the game engines used by other studios. The System 32 hardware was also capable of scaling sprites on the fly, displaying transparencies and other graphical effects that were put to use in creating visuals that hadn't been seen in any other arcade title. The Taito game was visually impressive as well. The amount of detail that was crammed into each level was amazing. Unfortunately the game seemed to lack polish. The animation was spotty in places and the control was not as tight as it could have been. Of all the Arabian themed games that had ever come out I think Arabian Magic was aesthetically once of the best. The character designs were superb, the costumes, stages, djinn and opponents were all well done and correct for the history they were representing. Arabian Fight was simply too animé in design and presentation. The characters looked like typical Japanese cartoon characters but dressed in costumes, rather than actual Arab, Indian, African or Asian figures.
 

One of the most interesting video game characters was based on Arabian storytelling traditions. Karnov appeared in his own arcade game in 1987. The title by Data East featured the fire-breathing strongman on an adventure in the ancient world. He fought dozens of mythical creatures, including griffons, gorgons (Medusa), mermaids and other fantastic beasts from Arab, Indian, Assyrian, Greek and Egyptian mythology. In the game players could unlock bombs, ladders, wings and other bonuses that would help Karnov complete his journey. Karnov was physically gifted, in addition to his strength and fire-breathing ability he could also swim like a fish and when equipped with a golden wing backpack he could fly. The developers created many wonderful stages highlighting the diverse gameplay features. The title was difficult in that it did not give you hints as to what type of item had to be used in order to reach the end of the stages. Many items were hidden throughout the levels and players were rewarded by exploring their surroundings. When I think of the design of classic adventure games and even some modern adventure games like God of War I see some traditions that were started in Karnov. Through his adventure the character would end up symbolizing the myth of the Arabian hero. He would be blessed with magical abilities that would be applied to other game characters across multiple genres.

 

The trademark of the character was his fire-breathing attack. He could spit fireballs or breath large clouds of flame. Each time he returned, whether it was a cameo character in Bad Dudes, or as a boss in the Fighter's History fighting series, he retained the ability to breathe fire. These things, these techniques were pulled partially from myth and partially from fact. In classical literature it was Indian and sometimes Arab characters that could breathe fire. These characters would come in handy when having to do battle with supernatural monsters. Yet there were people in the real world that were considered true "fire eaters." Street and circus performers were known for their ability to spit fire, juggle flaming chains, walk on fire and even eat hot coals without injuring themselves. Some of these performances were done by religious and military officials. What game designers did in Japan and the USA was sprinkle some basic understanding of a region and mix it with a liberal dose of fiction. I had talked about Indian characters and yoga as the inspiration for magical fighters on an earlier blog. Karnov may have been the first fire-breathing mystic in a game but it was Dhalsim from Street Fighter that became the most popular.

 

Game developers took the elements that made the Arabian characters memorable in the fantasy stories and began including them in various games. In many instances they were not far removed from the classic hero. Whether they worked in the game or not was subject to debate. In the next blog we will look at how Karnov began a questionable legacy. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!