Naming Fictional Landscapes: Orientalism in Far Cry 4
Class
Article
Graduation Year
2018
College
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department
History Department
Faculty Mentor
Ravi Gupta
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Abstract
Fictional landscapes have captured generations of imaginations. Typically modeled on real world places, these landscapes provide contexts to the stories they appear in by embedding the associations the audience has with the real world landscapes into the plot of the story. This allows the creators of narratives to set the scene more easily than if they had attempted to place their stories in locations that are not connected to the real world. This is particularly true in video games, where interactive landscapes have become a major draw for their audience. Far Cry 4 is one such game. An open world game, set in a fictional country named Kyrat, it uses stereotypes of Himalayan states, notably Nepal, Bhutan, and the Indian border region, to evoke a sense of orientalist mystique. This project considers the hundreds of individually named locations that are scattered across the fictional landscape, and how they use language, geography, and orientalist stereotypes to invoke a specific sense of place, which, although it cannot be named as specifically relating to one real world location, can be said to be conditioned by orientalist assumptions about Himalayan states. Further, this project argues that this engagement with oriental stereotypes is an essential part of the games appeal to its largely western, educated, young and male audience.
Location
North Atrium
Start Date
4-13-2017 1:30 PM
End Date
4-13-2017 2:45 PM
Naming Fictional Landscapes: Orientalism in Far Cry 4
North Atrium
Fictional landscapes have captured generations of imaginations. Typically modeled on real world places, these landscapes provide contexts to the stories they appear in by embedding the associations the audience has with the real world landscapes into the plot of the story. This allows the creators of narratives to set the scene more easily than if they had attempted to place their stories in locations that are not connected to the real world. This is particularly true in video games, where interactive landscapes have become a major draw for their audience. Far Cry 4 is one such game. An open world game, set in a fictional country named Kyrat, it uses stereotypes of Himalayan states, notably Nepal, Bhutan, and the Indian border region, to evoke a sense of orientalist mystique. This project considers the hundreds of individually named locations that are scattered across the fictional landscape, and how they use language, geography, and orientalist stereotypes to invoke a specific sense of place, which, although it cannot be named as specifically relating to one real world location, can be said to be conditioned by orientalist assumptions about Himalayan states. Further, this project argues that this engagement with oriental stereotypes is an essential part of the games appeal to its largely western, educated, young and male audience.