Hindus Upset Over Asura's Wrath

[Mike Fang]

Hello Hinduism, welcome to the club, signed Christianity and Judaism.

Seriously, all forms of media have been taking liberties with religions for hundreds of year; books, plays, movies, tv shows, video games, comics, any way people can express their thoughts and opinions. Some are more accurate than others, some are more respectful than others. Personally I think some of the religions have to take more crap than others, but that's just me. The long and the short of it is I say that if criticism and jokes at its expense is something one religion or one school of theological thought has to endure, then they can ALL endure it.

 

[WanderingFool]

Okay. Asura's Wrath has us covered on Hinduism. Games like Dante's Inferno and Darksiders incorporate elements from Christianity. Prince of Persia takes at least a few superficial elements from Islam. Games have been borrowing from the ideas of Buddhist monks & Tao philosophy for years. Pokemon is essentially Shinto, and every robots-fighting-humanity story borrows from the Jewish folktale of the Rabbi's golem.

We need a game based off of Scientology if we want to be thorough on this.

Oh God no...

Also, should I be surprised? Writers and artists not understanding religions isnt a new development. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArtisticLicenseReligion] Any real lack of research into a subject, like religion, will result in, what is basically, you getting it wrong.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I kind of have to wonder if people bothered to read to the part where he said he would like to offer services as reference for Hinduism rather than saying video games should be banned or boycotted.

 

[yeah_so_no]

I see where they are coming from, but I call overreaction. Sure, they're messing around a bit.

Then again, see Okami. It took a bunch of Japanese mythology and said that most of it was really a wacky fun joke story. Susano-o was not a great warrior. He was a middle aged dude with a beer gut who told everyone that he was a great warrior.

Again, I see where they're coming from, but I wanna say "loosen up a bit."

The thing with bringing up Okami, though...Okami is a Japanese game created by Japanese devs based on Japanese mythology and geared towards a Japanese audience (yeah, it was translated, but the original target audience was Japanese) - that means every aspect is Japanese, and there's no cultural appropriation, which is where a lot of problems can lie.

 

[SD-Fiend]

I haven't played the game but i feel it does trivialize Hindu beliefs a bit, unless there is lots of (wait for it) attached to it otherwise it's a bunch of fancy names and patterns plastered everywhere

 

[Qitz]

I don't see how Religious mythos should be any different than any other one. They borrow stuff from it all the time. God of War borrows from a lot of Greek Mythos, so did Age of Mythology (obviously.)

Besides that, any story you make will be related to some religion SOMEWHERE. Religions been around a lot longer than Video Games so the chances of the two intersecting is improbable to avoid.

Also, just image I linked the "Offended" video because I'm too lazy to find it myself.

(Two left feet? Et Tu Captcha?)

 

[NeutralDrow]

Y'all are missing the important part.

Refreshingly, he did not threaten an international boycott of Capcom, Sony, Microsoft or anyone else; instead, he said that he or other Hindu scholars "would gladly provide genuine seekers from [the] videogames industry the resources they needed for their study and research regarding Hinduism."

I want someone to take them up on this offer.

Seriously, Hinduism is fascinating. I'd love to see a game made that gets the mythology right.

Hinduism is not monolithic and has no unified cosmogony.

I know. To me, that translates to a lot of meat on the bones, and you don't need a unified mythology to be consistent with whichever aspect you focus on.

Hell, non-mythologically, we've had games involving religious conflict between orthodoxy and heterodoxy...why not something on the original conflict between Vedic and Upanishadic devotees? Or something exploring the yogas? My only worry would be finding a company that could write something good based on this...

 

[ablac]

Of course people dont seem to understand that making a game that trivialies well respected dietys is going to piss people off. Its kind of like writing thug life on the chest of a crucified jesus in a monestary or depicting Muhammed in any way. Of course they are gonna be annoyed and maybe with justification.

 

[Anodos]

Makes sense. Reminds me of a game im making.


The Wrath of St. Paul

"You killed the Virgin Mary! Prepare for my HOLY GHOST ATTACK!"

PRESS X TO FIRE AT GABRIEL!

Cutscene of crucifying gabriel

End of Chapter 3

 

[Mr C]

This guy's right, all faiths deserve respect.

Nope, absolutely not.

As a Viking descendent I was greatly offended by Too Human.

That's pretty petty. But it's fine: be offended all you like, write a song about it, paint a picture, whatever.

You don't have the right to not be offended.

As your name is 'flaming' jimmy, I assume you are fighting sarcasm with more sarcasm. I salute you sir! However you were correct: religion does not deserve my respect.

 

[Sandytimeman]

Religion is only a bad thing, it hold humanity back and causes untold misery and suffering. I say use more religions in more games.

Seriously if religions like Islam, Christianity, and Jewish faiths didn't exist their would probably be a lot more gay people alive right now.

Shit even the Dali Lama, his people were formerly a brutal government of their area that lashed out some horrendous living conditions and terrible torture on its own people. WORSE then the current Chinese government, but he has used religion to get people to think he is some kind of saint. I recommend watching "Penn & Tellers Bullshit!" Episode "Holy-er than Thou" for more details.

Religion only provides a way of control free from rational lines of thinking, which would be fine if they didn't hurt anyone. But they do.

 

[Arsen]

Don't videogames take artistic liberties with mythologies, faiths, and religions? Just because they don't "say it the way we want to" doesn't give me the right to demolish a product. Everyone who is less spoken for demands their voice to be heard, whether reasonable or not.

Like someone else said, if this was Christian it would be no big deal.
And John Milton's "Paradise Lost" is one of my favorite works ever created. And I am a prettttyyy conservative Christian per the US mentality.

I see no reason why this needs to rear it's ugly head.
Everyone wants universalistic respect in the form of forcing others to look at their opinions from a certain aspect. AKA: You HAVE to view [insert opinion here] from [insert the scale of respect here] and anything otherwise isn't cool.

It's not your right to decide how I view something, Mr. Universalistic Society....

 

[Corporal Yakob]

Well its pretty cool to see an offended religious individual offer his help on teaching people his faith, not threatening to burn anyone!

 

[synobal]

I don't understand why they are upset, their religion and all it's various deities and myths started because of people telling stories based upon what ever at the time was the core of the religion. There is actually a term for when this happens though I don't recall it off the top of my head but it basically tries to explain why and how new myths and dogma are added to a particular religion. That said I don't think we are going to see any asuras wrath additions to their mythology any time soon.

Anyone explain to me why this is offensive to them? Because honestly I don't get it, but perhaps I just have the wrong world view.

 

[Doom972]

This kind of thing happens to all major religions in all types of media. The game isn't marketed as an introduction to Hinduism, but just takes inspiration from its mythology.
In my opinion, faith is only sacred to those who share it, it's not sacred to everyone else.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Hinduism is the oldest and third-largest of the world's major religions, with an estimated one billion adherents around the world. Asura's Wrath [http://www.amazon.com/Asuras-Wrath-Playstation-3/dp/B003O6HLOK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331082930&sr=8-1] has a Metacritic score of 73, and is available now for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

LOL. I see what you did there.

Hinduism is the third largest relgion in the world...

BUT

Azura's Wrath has a Metacritic score of 73!
[sub][sub]Buy it now![/sub][/sub]

That's how I read it at least...

 

[TheDoctor455]

I'm not particularly religious, so I always find it odd that some people who are get so easily offended about it. By this I mean that there are things that I hold in high regard but I don't really care if other people dislike them or disrespect them. But it seems that people are especially touchy when it come to matters of belief.

This is because, for whatever reason...
our society has built up a giant wall of respect around religion...
which basically means (for most people apparently)...
that you just can't criticize or even talk about religion in a context
other than its native context. Why not? Because you're not. Is generally the only
reason offered.

Personally, I don't see why anyone thinks any aspect of their lives should be free from
critique or ridicule - politicians and political parties have to put up with both on a daily basis, same with most fields of study. So, I say, why shouldn't religion get used to the same treatment as well? Its only fair after all.

But, at least in this case, the "offended" party is responding to the issue more reasonably than most. Gotta give them credit for offering to provide research material rather than trying to censor the "offending" material.