measurehead

    • Barx [none/use name]
      ·
      6 hours ago

      Haha this is a fun discussion. In this response, if I don't quote something it probably means I agree.

      The Occident is continent roughly analgis to central Europe, but with ethnic subdivisions

      It has an Anglo subdivision (Vesper), a French/Belgian one (Sur La Clef), a Netherlands one (Oranje), and Germanic ones (Koenigstein, Gottwald) too! It's "the West". Occidental means "of the West"!

      Graad is a continent north of the Occident that is Eastern European inspired, also part of it is straight up called "YUGO-Graad", and I believe characters suggest that despite his name Harry is likely of Graad heritage.

      Hilariously, Graad is its own separate Isola, like a separate world almost. This mirrors the Western European division of itself from everyone else and how it thinks of them. Like the Zizek meme (RIP bozo) of the river dividing the good West from the uncivilized masses to the East. It is basically all of Eastern Europe. If Yugo-Graad is Yugoslavia, then Graad is Slavia, the land of Slavs.

      Samara I think is meant to be a Latin America/Pacific fusion thing that's been colonized a bunch.

      Safre has (at least) proper nouns with Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, and Indonesian analogs and a People's Republic of Samara. It also had an opium war from the Occident. They call Siifay an " apricot suzeraintu" (Banana Republic) so I do think there is some mixing of the Latin American experience in there. I think it at least corresponds to East and Southeast Asia minus Korea and Japan, who are the "Seolites". This roughly lines up with Westerners' differentiation between white Asians and brown Asians.

      Revachol is in Caillou which was a big ass island that was uninhabited until The Occident discovered it

      So the story goes! I think this may be a commentary on how genocided indigenous people are considered, in that they are not. The US is full of "untamed natural lands" settler mythologies.

      So, if this is all correct, this is like if Measurehead was a Samoan supremacist living in Philly, who was a member of a dockworkers union who goes on a rant at a half Polish cop about how inferior he is during a strike.

      Yes although I think he is black-coded with heritage from the Semenine Islands. DE has them practicing an analog of voodoo, of being forced to become sugar plantation producers, etc. He is Revacholian and his racism is an expression of his treatment in a very racist place and reading books about Aeropagites (sp?).