Hasbro's Risk and its focus on Europe


Risk is a board game that allows its players to control certain parts of the world and fight other players via game pieces for control of different regions. This is a fun strategy game that I myself have played several times. Something that I never took into consideration, though was the Euro-centricity throughout the entire game. It is known or can be assumed that the game is inspired by some of the themes in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The most direct relation that is important is the constant fighting for ownership and control over the land and people in different regions, with the goal to take over the world.

The map for the game is just a regular map of the world but dividing the continents sans Antarctica into 42 regions. We can already begin to see the game placing a focus on European areas with the number of armies each continent gets. South America get two and Africa gets three, while North America and Europe both get 5. Asia tops it off at 7, but that is because of its land mass. Europe is way smaller than Africa and should have less regions/armies in comparison. This puts Europe on a pedestal already and creates more difficulty for someone to take land from Europe if someone already has the region. Now, of course that means there are more regions in that area to conquer, but it is still rather unfair for the other much larger countries, especially since the game is a game and not really portraying the idea that its based of off population or any other statistic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r7T60r4f3c

This focus on Europe definitely has to do with when and where it was made (France, Europe 1957), but as the game progressed and began to draw from Tolkien, there is no doubt that the Euro-centricity in his work crept its way into that of the games. This is because it allows habits of whiteness and; therefore, makes it normal that Europe was the center of all things in the middle ages. In a chapter by Helen Young, she explains that although, Tolkien doesn’t exactly recreate a modern European map to place Middle Earth, but it does lay in the corresponding part of the globe that Europe is on and it is of similar size (Young 29). This is just more evidence that Tolkien drew from the idea of Europe being the “center” of the world.

http://sun.menloschool.org/~dspence/arda/maps/maps_evol.html


With this, it can be pretty well understood that the game, although maybe even not intentionally, put a major focus and reward in Europe by allowing the region to have more armies despite its smaller size. It can also be understood that since the game does seem to take ideas from Tolkien’s Arda, it probably took some of the Euro-centricity with it and created another misinterpretation of the middle ages to allow justification of a whiter, more Europe centered medieval.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Polygenesis in The Silmarillion

Image
How authors portray the world in their own stories can give us great insight on how they perceived the real world that was around them. It can also help give current readers an explanation or reasoning as to why the authors made certain choices in their writing. An instance of this occurs in J.R. Tolkien’s novels, where current day scholars and fans are trying to understand the use of certain racial stereotypes of characters in his novels. An example of this is the polygenesis theory. Polygenesis theory describes the origin of different races as independent/non-related species. The polygenesis theory has shaped folklore and modern day racial dynamics, which of course echoes into some of our favorite author’s works. It creates a hierarchical society where one ‘species’ dominates over the others. This can clearly be seen in The Silmarillion where each of the species have different origins and creators. Their hierarchal status and racial characteristics are dependent on who
Read more

The Khajiit and their tale we've all seen before (Elder Scrolls)

Image
Without getting too much into the thick of it (yet), the Khajiit are the cat-like inhabitants of Tamriel (continent of which the game takes place) of in the Elder Scrolls game series.  They are 1 of 10 characters types you can choose from, and in-game are given the advantage of having a stronger sneak stat in the beginning of the game than other characters.  In  Skyrim , they are also given bonuses to ranged and one-handed weapons.  Purrfect for a thief! However, these traits, while useful to the player, do little other than paint the Khajiit in a light as anything other than scoundrels and liars, making them subject to much (MUCH) of the racial prejudice in Tamriel. In order to show just how far racial oppression and the Habits of Whiteness extends extend in Tamriel, we can begin by viewing how the Khajiit arrived in their homeland of Elsweyr. Helen Young points out that "[while] twenty-first century fantasy has begun to critique colonialism, imperialism, and their legacies..
Read more

Independent Desires and Loyalty

When it comes to characters that have made influencing decisions, its due to their willingness to follow their own desires and have their loyalty to their superiors tested that they are able to make these decisions at all. This can include consequence that could result in demolishing or enhancing their internal desire for a different outcome. Fiction includes this aspect presumably to give more perspectives to a situation especially when issues arises. For example, we can take a look at the backstory of Aulë, the Smith of Arda and creator of the dwarves, than compare this to other powerful myths and stories such as those in Greek mythology and Christian scripture. The story of Aulë begins with his reluctance to wait for the creation of the perfect children of Iluvatar, ones directly envisioned by the first deity of Arda, Iluvatar. So of his own devices he created the dwarves. Like children, they obeyed his command and only acted upon his wishes. However, when he meet with Iluvatar ,
Read more