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Assassin's Creed: Origin's Depiction of Cleopatra
- Thread starter Harlequin
- Start date
MugiwaraCole
Member
1. Her being white wasn't the point of that. Black historical figures are routinely represented as white, so I'm pleasantly shocked they went the opposite route here and made her black.
2. And, ehh. She was probably at least partially Egyptian, but, as you say, who cares?
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
They're really iffy on that actually. Some historical characters in the past have been based directly on what they looked like during the era and others were based on digital recreations of their actors.
sublimit
Banned
This is a stereotypical,block buster Hollywood-style depiction of ancient Egypt.I have no idea why you expected anything different from a game like Assassin's Creed that targets the average mainstream consumer masses.
And i don't say this to look down on the game.Actually it's the first AC that interests me in a long while (mostly due to the revamped combat system.)
Roufianos
Member
No they don't. Not even close.
CyberPunked
Member
I mean, it's a fictional game... it's not representing real stories or events.
Says it all.
Pretty much.
OP is good, much better than expected in term of structured argument. However AC:O's Cleopatra looks fine to me, way too fine than I expected it would be since I first click on this thread (can't load image on mobile). As a history buff myself, historical buff is a something very nice to be have, but I don't expect every game to adhere this rule that often. There is room for creativity to wiggle for, and even more room for marketing in AAA game like this.
Which is why I think your point on her face being made from modern standard of beauty fell flat. The game is made for modern audience, and it is not something that aim for historical accuracy to begin with (historical record already stated that the first assassin cults were shia extremist from the time of Seljuk Empire and The First-Two Crusade, not Hellenistic Egyptian Empire). You can see that from fiction that last long through ages that involved beautiful characters (whether they are man or woman), the description of what make them beautiful always changed. Fiction that made primarily for popular consumption will always adhere to this, and honestly? It's fine. What important is HOW Ubisoft handle Cleopatra herself since game that involved any historicity at one point will a gatepoint for people, young or old, to potentially take the historical side more seriously. It is the HOW that will set people expectation on the historicity aspect and eventually affect people judgement when they compare between the fiction and the history.
On a more kneejerky (or asshole, pick which you prefer) tone, I found it funny that people took historical accuracy on Cleopatra seriously but dismissed Kingdom Come: Deliverance refusal on giving gender option for the same reason. Not directed at you OP, since your argument is nice, only a point that I like to brought up.
People still believe Cleopatra as being black? I think it was settled already that her dynasty is Hellenistic in nature and it is almost certain that she's greek by descent? That her depiction as an Egyptian native was a result of exotic Orientalism?
Jesus Christ, people needs to know that Solomonic Dynasty of Ethiopian Empire was exist and that the whole of Africa wasn't all black in stupid, arbitrary American racial category.
(Before anyone accuse me, do fucking google Berbers and Mediterranean History, thanks)
Which is why I think your point on her face being made from modern standard of beauty fell flat. The game is made for modern audience, and it is not something that aim for historical accuracy to begin with (historical record already stated that the first assassin cults were shia extremist from the time of Seljuk Empire and The First-Two Crusade, not Hellenistic Egyptian Empire). You can see that from fiction that last long through ages that involved beautiful characters (whether they are man or woman), the description of what make them beautiful always changed. Fiction that made primarily for popular consumption will always adhere to this, and honestly? It's fine. What important is HOW Ubisoft handle Cleopatra herself since game that involved any historicity at one point will a gatepoint for people, young or old, to potentially take the historical side more seriously. It is the HOW that will set people expectation on the historicity aspect and eventually affect people judgement when they compare between the fiction and the history.
On a more kneejerky (or asshole, pick which you prefer) tone, I found it funny that people took historical accuracy on Cleopatra seriously but dismissed Kingdom Come: Deliverance refusal on giving gender option for the same reason. Not directed at you OP, since your argument is nice, only a point that I like to brought up.
People still believe Cleopatra as being black? I think it was settled already that her dynasty is Hellenistic in nature and it is almost certain that she's greek by descent? That her depiction as an Egyptian native was a result of exotic Orientalism?
Jesus Christ, people needs to know that Solomonic Dynasty of Ethiopian Empire was exist and that the whole of Africa wasn't all black in stupid, arbitrary American racial category.
(Before anyone accuse me, do fucking google Berbers and Mediterranean History, thanks)
I never said that there was anything wrong with her ethnicity. I mean, she doesn't look all that Greek to me but, like I said, it's possible that Cleopatra was half-Egyptian so that's alright. What does look too Egyptian, though, is her outfit, her hair, her crown. And I'm somewhat confused by you not understanding what I mean when I say that they've "sexed her up" or "dolled her up" or whatever you want to call it as I've explained it quite specifically in the OP. It's not that the outfit is necessarily too skimpy or that she's got big breasts squeezed into a too tight top or whatever but that her face has been designed to be more sexually attractive to the average modern heterosexual male than a more historically accurate depiction would've been. It basically sends the message that a woman like Cleopatra could not have achieved the things she achieved through intelligence, wit or strategical brilliance alone but that she must've also been exceptionally physically attractive which somewhat diminishes her other qualities and ends up creating a somewhat unfortunate portrayal of an important female character (of course, this is me jumping the gun a bit as I haven't yet played the game so I can't really judge the game's portrayal of her in its entirety but you know, this is what she's going to look like in the game so it's fair for me to comment on that aspect of the portrayal). Of course, I doubt that that's Ubisoft's intention here, they're simply blindly following an established (but false) view of what Cleopatra looked like and who she was, it's just that that view originated at a time that was far more sexist and far less accepting of independent, powerful women so it would be nice if the mainstream media could start abandoning it already.
Which would be fine if it were indeed established that she was considered phyiscally beautiful during her time but as far as we know, it's likely that she wasn't. And like I said, if it were just the inaccurate face/physique or just the Egyptian outfit, I'd have said "fuck it" but both being wrong just bothers me. Probably mostly because I haven't found the last few AC games particularly fun to play so the main reason I'm excited for Origins is the setting/time period and the locations and figures associated with it so I'm just a bit more nitpicky when it comes to that stuff than the average player probably is. And, of course, it's a period I'm interested in and I'm somewhat familiar with it (though I'm by no means an expert, obviously) which, in cases like this is always going to be more a curse than anything else because popular media rarely get these things right. (Reminds me of the TV show Looking where the main character is supposed to be a level designer but it's quite clear that the people working on the show knew very little about actual game development so the fact that I was somewhat familiar with the subject and could spot all the mistakes and inaccuracies kind of ruined a good number of scenes for me
.)So yeah, I totally get that it's not going to be a big deal to some people and that's fine but I can't help but be bothered by it.
MagnetoWasRight
Member
There's an in-game canon reason for inaccuracies: It's all a simulation being run on whatever hardware and animus software version is available at the time, and the program will fill in holes on it's own. It's also how they explain why it feels like a video game and why you can do things out of order in some cases. It's all varying degrees of suspension of disbelief in the first place, so I think that's a good way to explain their way out of stuff like this.
Black Flag even had Abstergo dabbling with the in game world based on the response of focus groups!
Black Flag even had Abstergo dabbling with the in game world based on the response of focus groups!
Personally i Kinda agree with OP. I'm no history buff (in fact i'd say i'm quite ignorant to most history) but i'd prefer that games are as historical as possible as long as it doesn't "compromise" the expected gameplay.
For me if they had designed cleopatra closer to what we know of her it would make the game more believable AND different from the "mainstream egypts". IMO, It would have felt much more original going with historical looks then the "mainstream sexy babe".
For me if they had designed cleopatra closer to what we know of her it would make the game more believable AND different from the "mainstream egypts". IMO, It would have felt much more original going with historical looks then the "mainstream sexy babe".
JonnyDBrit
Member
Just to clarify since I'm not certain of the phrasing: You mean people did or didn't use 'historical accuracy' to excuse Kingdom Come: Deliverance's lack of choice in character gender?
I think they mean that the dev used it as an explanation for there not being a gender option and people got upset over that? I don't think I was there for that discussion (or if I was, I can't remember it) but that's how I'm reading it.
TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
She kinda looks like my mom when she was younger who is actually from Egyptian heritage so I don't see the problem other than the resemblance lol
But honestly what most people refer to as racially correct thesedays are very stereotypical, my mother is lightly olive skinned kinda like Gal Gadot and nothing like what people think is correct
And I'm as white as you can get yet people picture us as dark coloured skin when we are not.
Same with the Star Gate movie, multiple different races played as Egyptians yet only one was from anywhere near there and she was Light skinned.
Kinda reminds me of the Don't mess with the Zohan.
But honestly what most people refer to as racially correct thesedays are very stereotypical, my mother is lightly olive skinned kinda like Gal Gadot and nothing like what people think is correct
And I'm as white as you can get yet people picture us as dark coloured skin when we are not.
Same with the Star Gate movie, multiple different races played as Egyptians yet only one was from anywhere near there and she was Light skinned.
Kinda reminds me of the Don't mess with the Zohan.
SmoothRunningGun
Member
Nothing wrong with her being attractive. This is a game not a documentary.
I know this was probably not a serious question but I did do some searching and apparently, there's no historical source linking Cleopatra to milk baths. There are, however, ancient accounts of Emperor Nero's wife Poppaea Sabina bathing in donkey milk and ancient sources attributing all kinds of medical and cosmetic benefits to donkey milk. From what I've read, the story was probably only linked to Cleopatra after the 1930s when a film showed Poppaea taking one of her milk baths and, for some reason, people must have started assuming Cleopatra did the same thing.
Depends on which time of her life we're talking about. She was around 18 (I think) when she first met Caesar but she lived till age 39.
Cleopatra was half-Egyptian at most but this thread isn't reall about her ethnicity as that seems alright the way it is, just about her look specifically.
I'm a bit confused by the criticism.
Is it because Ubisoft tried to beautify her? Because the artistic rendition of what Cleopatra is "supposed" to look like is also quite beautiful in my opinion.
Ultimately, I think Ubisoft went with something the general public can recognize, and this Cleo they are using seems more in line with what the general public can recognize as Cleopatra.
Is it because Ubisoft tried to beautify her? Because the artistic rendition of what Cleopatra is "supposed" to look like is also quite beautiful in my opinion.
Ultimately, I think Ubisoft went with something the general public can recognize, and this Cleo they are using seems more in line with what the general public can recognize as Cleopatra.
TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Well if any Assassin Creed was historically correct with how they looked none one would be seen as attractive with the bad hygiene they had lol.
I never once mentioned her skin tone so I'm a bit confused by this reply. Her skin tone is perfectly fine considering that she may have had some Egyptian blood in her from her mother's side (or she may not have but the possibility exists). (Tanning, on the other hand probably wouldn't be a good explanation since we're talking about a time that long predates the modern tanning craze. She would've likely spent most of her time out of the sun - indoors or protected by sun canopies and the like.)
That's because you've been duped by mainstream media depictions of her. The criticism is two- or threefold, really.
1: They've made her more generically beautiful than she probably was.
2: She doesn't look anything like any of the contemporary depictions we have of her, not even remotely.
3. Her outfit, hairstyle, etc. looks Egyptian but she almost certainly would've worn Greek clothing most of the time and worn her hair in a Greek style.
Yeah, that's been brought up several times and it's a fair point. I still don't really agree with it but then I tend to be kind of nitpicky when it comes to this sort of stuff as everyone in this thread has probably noticed
.It's not the same but Jim Sterling made some good points in his Shelob video about video games too often designing female characters to appeal to a straight male audience and those points definitely apply here, as well. That's why I brought that up in the OP.
Hygiene was actually quite important to ancient Egyptians. Not entirely sure about how hygienic ancient Greeks were from a modern perspective, though. You probably have a point when we're talking some of the other entries in the series, though. Good thing we don't yet have smell-o-vision, I suppose
.Not you Op, other people are talking about It, but thx for your historical explanation.I never once mentioned her skin tone so I'm a bit confused by this reply. Her skin tone is perfectly fine considering that she may have had some Egyptian blood in her from her mother's side (or she may not have but the possibility exists). (Tanning, on the other hand probably wouldn't be a good explanation since we're talking about a time that long predates the modern tanning craze. She would've likely spent most of her time out of the sun - indoors or protected by sun canopies and the like.)
That's because you've been duped by mainstream media depictions of her. The criticism is two- or threefold, really.
1: They've made her more generically beautiful than she probably was.
2: She doesn't look anything like any of the contemporary depictions we have of her, not even remotely.
3. Her outfit, hairstyle, etc. looks Egyptian but she almost certainly would've worn Greek clothing most of the time and worn her hair in a Greek style.
Yeah, that's been brought up several times and it's a fair point. I still don't really agree with it but then I tend to be kind of nitpicky when it comes to this sort of stuff as everyone in this thread has probably noticed
NOTaStalk3r
Banned
i want a fun game to escape into. if you want realism go read some history books.
That's because you've been duped by mainstream media depictions of her. The criticism is two- or threefold, really.
1: They've made her more generically beautiful than she probably was.
2: She doesn't look anything like any of the contemporary depictions we have of her, not even remotely.
3. Her outfit, hairstyle, etc. looks Egyptian but she almost certainly would've worn Greek clothing most of the time and worn her hair in a Greek style.
Yeah, that's been brought up several times and it's a fair point. I still don't really agree with it but then I tend to be kind of nitpicky when it comes to this sort of stuff as everyone in this thread has probably noticed
It's not the same but Jim Sterling made some good points in his Shelob video about video games too often designing female characters to appeal to a straight male audience and those points definitely apply here, as well. That's why I brought that up in the OP.
I feel that some of this might be due to what that original leak from 4chan said when the game was still in development. That they wanted to go far back so they have more artistic and creative freedom.
I feel the closer the games got to modern day, the more accurate the depiction of their historical figures.
I also don't agree with people going "lul its just fiction". Assassins creed has never been about accuracy, but it has always tried to present itself authenticity. They make sure things are where they are supposed to be, people die and do events correlated at the exact time they did it in real life. Sure the fictional elements are in there, but they are usually used sparingly or in a way that feels fitting and credible to the story they want to tell (with the exception of Syndicate which was borderline Magic School Bus levels of ridiculousness)
For my opinions on their Cleo, I don't think its the same thing as Shelob because I don't think they are attempting to pander to males by making her attractive. I honestly think the version of Cleo they made is quite modest, and the artistic representation you shared of what she is supposed to look like is also beautiful. Its something I think they chose to adapt what is recognizable (and considering this board loves to parrot Jim's "Iconic" joke, you'd think people would get Ubi probably prioritized recognition over accuracy) Where as Shelob is literally "lets just make this spider into a sexy lady".
That artistic representation was only meant to give people an idea of what her clothing may have looked like. Like I mentioned in the OP, the face and figure are probably off in that painting, as well. And I also specifically said in that post you quoted that I agree that it's not the same thing as Shelob, I just think that some of the stuff Jim mentions in that video seems to apply to this, as well. But, of course, that somewhat depends on the specific rationale behind ACO's Cleopatra design which we cannot be sure of so whether it applies or not is up to interpretation, I guess.
Union Carbine
Member
I get that it's Hollywood or fiction or "just a game" but I get being disappointed by it. I always wish creators would do better in regards to these things when they can and, yeah, it's disappointing when they don't at all or as much as I'd like.
Because we're on a video game forum? It bothers me in those other cases as well but I wouldn't have opened a thread on NeoGaf about Liz Taylor, Leonor Varela or Angelina Jolie being too pretty to portray Cleopatra. (That being said, if I were to pick an actress for a Cleopatra film based just off of looks, it'd probably be Mayim Bialik. She's pretty so she'd have enough mainstream appeal but she's also got a few of Cleopatra's distinct features, especially the nose and the baby fat, and she's thin but still curvy and not super skinny which would also be a good fit.)
Basketball
Member
That makes zero sense. Most modern Egyptians don't know much more about ancient Egyptian history than people in other countries and many aren't even particularly interested in it/don't have a whole lot of respect for it. Which is understandable, seeing as there's a 2000 year gap between then and now and a good chunk of modern Egyptian culture was introduced by Arab and Ottoman invaders, it just also means that you can't necessarily trust modern Egyptian portrayals of ancient Egypt much more than you can modern Western portrayals of ancient Egypt. I think Ubisoft would be aware of that. Their in-house historians would be at the very least (but then they probably also know all of the things I've pointed out in the OP so it's likely to be more an issue of whoever was in charge of her design having priorities I wouldn't quite agree with - or not asking their historians for feedback).
I'd probably object if I cared for or was knowledgeable of US-American history
. Which goes back to sth I mentioned earlier - too much knowledge of a given subject matter can ruin your enjoyment of some pop media.Ryouji Gunblade
Member
No objections to ACIII's Charles Lee though? It's apparently waaay off.
Im greek.... Lol.
Lived all my life surrounded by Greeks, live in areas flooded with them....
I'm only disappointed there wasn't any focus on his love of the doggies
Jason Frost
Member
No, I was serious, so thanks for replying and taking your time to answer this.
ItsTheNew
I believe any game made before 1997 is "essentially cave man art."
Make him attractive too? Devs have enough issues with graphics aging rapidly when trying to go realistic. Make characters that don't look like ass Day 1 like Peebee/Sara in MEA.