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Steampunk Is Hard
Apr. 11th, 2015 07:50 amI'm planning on writing a steampunk-themed Zelgan fic, but...
Writing steampunk requires research. So much research.
And then there are other considerations.
I was thinking of writing Hyrule as steampunk and the Gerudo as solarpunk. Like, wouldn't it be cool if Hyrule continued on its course of market capitalism while the Gerudo, who were becoming increasingly marginalized, started digging around in the desert for resources and uncovered the traces of the hyper-technological civilization buried in the Lanayru Desert from Skyward Sword? The central conflict of my story would arise when the Gerudo are making baby steps towards terraforming the desert, but then the water they're getting from Hyrule is polluted, and so they want to claim partial territorial rights over Lake Hylia.
The main issue I'm butting up against is Orientalism, one of the real-world legacies of the Victorian Era. Europe's relationship with North Africa during the era we all imagine as the prime setting for steampunk was beyond fucked up, and I don't want to reproduce that sort of discourse on "the West" as technologically advanced and rational and "the East" as pre/post-technological and more focused on nature. I understand that one of the primary purposes of steampunk as a genre is to challenge grand narratives concerning progress and to emphasize small narratives that never made it into real-world history textbooks, but I'm afraid that I would be reifying Orientalist discourses by reproducing them, even if I were to then strike them down.
The other problem (and this is A VERY BIG PROBLEM) is that, as I'm mapping out the Gerudo society of my story, I'm watching Steven Universe, and I'm not able to separate the two in my head. Ganondorf being raised by the Gerudo is totally like Steven being raised by the Crystal Gems, and no one can convince me otherwise.
Writing steampunk requires research. So much research.
And then there are other considerations.
I was thinking of writing Hyrule as steampunk and the Gerudo as solarpunk. Like, wouldn't it be cool if Hyrule continued on its course of market capitalism while the Gerudo, who were becoming increasingly marginalized, started digging around in the desert for resources and uncovered the traces of the hyper-technological civilization buried in the Lanayru Desert from Skyward Sword? The central conflict of my story would arise when the Gerudo are making baby steps towards terraforming the desert, but then the water they're getting from Hyrule is polluted, and so they want to claim partial territorial rights over Lake Hylia.
The main issue I'm butting up against is Orientalism, one of the real-world legacies of the Victorian Era. Europe's relationship with North Africa during the era we all imagine as the prime setting for steampunk was beyond fucked up, and I don't want to reproduce that sort of discourse on "the West" as technologically advanced and rational and "the East" as pre/post-technological and more focused on nature. I understand that one of the primary purposes of steampunk as a genre is to challenge grand narratives concerning progress and to emphasize small narratives that never made it into real-world history textbooks, but I'm afraid that I would be reifying Orientalist discourses by reproducing them, even if I were to then strike them down.
The other problem (and this is A VERY BIG PROBLEM) is that, as I'm mapping out the Gerudo society of my story, I'm watching Steven Universe, and I'm not able to separate the two in my head. Ganondorf being raised by the Gerudo is totally like Steven being raised by the Crystal Gems, and no one can convince me otherwise.
