How Could You Carry Out Anthropological Studies in a Fabricated Country?

By Sihan (Coco) Yang

I still remember the day when I saw a post stating: ‘Why are studies on Europeans from other parts of the world are rarely seen’.

To me, my curiosity towards the ‘Other’ came from Europe - and in that I do not suggest that there is an essentialized and singular European culture vibe. In the past years of my life, I have been engaging with many forms of expressing the fault term of Europe in literature, comics, pictures and games. Arknights, a mobile game released in China in 2019 profoundly influenced me, where my mistaken sense and de-romanticization intersects at a time when I am drowning to Anthropology.

In this piece, I will study a fabricated country——Leithanien in Arknights stories. By fabrication, I mean an entirely fictional country designed for the game’s narrative, worldbuilding, and gameplay. These countries often allow their developers to craft unique settings, political systems. I will also refer to a specific story piece—Zwilingtürme im Herbst.

The birth of Zwilingtürme im Herbst, I argue, is interactive. Its narrative is shaped not merely by the developers of Arknights but the gamers. The story centres on a riot that breaks out in Zwilingtürme, the capital city of Leithanien, over the attempt of the resurrection of the former ruler Herkunftshorn [1] by his supporters on a national day celebration to reveal the country’s past. Among what has been told in the story, Leithanien’s past is unrevealed since 2019 and what gamers having been leaving comments on what they are looking forward to seeing in Arknights in Weibo (Chinese social media, similar to Twitter) and Bilibili (Chinese video website, similar to YouTube) where Arknights official account releases new notices. So, this piece of story does not only include the step of world-building but replying and fulfilling gamers’ curiosity and speculation of how the story of Leithien would progress. The developers’ team thus becomes an ambiguous entity—deliberately opaque—because the storytelling process in games is designed to meet diverse commercial and creative demands rather than reflect an individual creator’s perspective. This opaqueness blurs the boundaries of authorship, making it difficult for gamers to attribute the narrative or its moral intentions to a singular person or voice.

First and foremost, I argue that Zwilingtürme im Herbst offers a possibility of seeing ‘West’ from an Eastern point of view through fetishization of history. Put narratively, through NGA discussion panel, a fan website of ACG works, gamers have acknowledged that the geographical area of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire serves as the inspiration of ‘Leithanien’, and its name consists of ‘Cisleithania’ and ‘Transleithania’ (two parts of territory of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire). Leithanien has a feudal system with dual emperors and nine electors (Küfursten), which references the electoral system in the Holy Roman Empire, where the emperor was elected through the decision of seven electors. Leithanien is rich and renowned in poetry, academia and music which dominate citizens’ lives and politics. It is notably the case that on their national day, people bring their personal instruments to play the national anthem (Güldenesgesatz) together in Zwilingtürme. These cultural and historical elements, both novel and distant from the ‘Chinese’ yet ‘modern’ realities of their everyday lives, captivated Arknights authors and gamers alike, shaping both their creative expression and reception of the game’s narrative. Such fetishization could perhaps be related to recent Melody Li’s idea that the portrayal of the West by the Eastern Bloc ‘re-orientation and re-definition of these geographical locales and relationships’ and resists the ‘traditional Self-Other dichotomy set up by Orientalists’(Li, 2021: 179). However, much like the selective interpretation of ‘Europe’ we see in Arknights, we must question which ‘West’ they actually perceive? Does the creation of imagined and fabricated countries serve to reify imagination, and if so, can imagination itself be classified as reality when the West is perceived through an incorrect and biased lens?

Lanscape of Zwilingtürme

If Zwilingtürme im Herbst is seen as an alternative digital reality of Austria and Germany, I would say it learns ‘much about the framework of their society’: its history, broad political systems and even stereotypes I have just discussed (Malinowski, 1921: 13). While to create a ‘digital copy’ of a real place is extremely hard, the design idea of Leithanien primarily relies on aesthetic and symbolic elements rather than engaging deeply with the complexities and diversity of people of the regions it draws inspiration from. Instead, the ‘collectivism’ the story shows could be a means of exploring some gamers’ desired alternative notions of personhood. I argue Yan’s argument on Chinese personhood permeates through the story. Yan emphasizes, the primary guiding principle of Chinese personhood is to ‘mutually recognise and prioritise the other party’s needs and feelings in social interactions.’ (Yan, 2017: 6) Contrarily, being self-centred is ‘always looked down upon as a vice.’ (Yan, 2017: 7) Several villain characters in Zwilingtürme im Herbst represent such personhood and were highly praised. The most representative one is Arturia Giallo[2], a foreign criminal seeking political protection under the Elector of Schton, who owns the ‘originium arts’[3] of amplifying people’s emotions. She is ethically polemical since she could reinforce one's negativity and even incite one's suicide intention. Such image of a villain, surprisingly, gains love from massive Arknights gamers, and they call her ‘Huainvren’ (evil woman). However, the shaping of this character lets these gamers down, as the authors explain that her aim was to release the bondage created by rationalism and social restrictions inside people’s hearts to create a world where people could feel and empathise with each other. Gamers are looking forward to a selfish, evil image of Arturia with pathetic passion to ‘challenge the conventional way of doing personhood’ (Yan, 2017: 11).

I argue the concept of Alterity, or the recognition of the “Other,” is central to Zwilingtürme im Herbst.  The concept of alterity, as Spivak argues, is shaped by the forces of nationalism, internationalism, which create the distinctions of Otherness, where I tend to explore in Zwilingtürme im Herbst by analyzing its characters and storylines (Spavik, 2013:58). Nationalism is symbolized through the Güldenesgesatz, a music composed by the collective will of ten different regions to mark the unification of Leithanien as a nation following the invasion of Kazdel.[4] This resonates with Cohen’s idea that people become aware of their cultural and national identity when confronted with “other ways of doing things, or merely contradictions to their own culture” (Cohen, 1985:40). At the same time, internationalism in the story emerges through the character of Herkunftshorn, the former ruler of Leithanien. Despite his brutal reign, Herkunftshorn is portrayed as a unifying figure in his fight against the external threat of the Collapals, an existential danger to all of Terra.[5] Facing such a universal threat, the divisions between cultures and societies dissolve, and humanity becomes one larger “self,” erasing the importance of alterity. However, as Graeber points out, alterity remains a political principle that depends on defining who is “Other” and who is not (Grabaer, 2015:34). This dynamic interplay between alterity and unity reflects on the relationship between personhood and alterity in the story piece. While Herkunftshorn’s struggle against the Collapals symbolizes a collective self-transcendence, it also erases individual and cultural personhood by subordinating them to a grand narrative of survival. In this sense, Zwilingtürme im Herbst raises critical questions about how national and global identities shape personhood, and whether the erasure of alterity in moments of collective unity undermines the recognition of diverse individual and cultural expressions.

Arturia

Herkunftshorn

Yet among the gamers, I argue the ignorance of female gamers’ demands as Arknights developers often oppresses ‘multiple realities’ in terms of gender with the masculine laud of ‘culture’ as justification of Herkunftshorn’s polemical action. According to Ortner, ‘culture’ is gendered and refers to men’s assertion of ‘creativity externally, artificially, through the medium of technology and symbols.’ (Ortner, 1972:14) Before Zwilingtürme im Herbst is released, the image of Herkunftshorn is incomplete, the only thing known is that his brutal rule caused millions of deaths among Leithanien people as he used Oripathy[6] sufferers as ‘fuel’ to explore and gain power, but his aim of fighting against Collapals[7] was not explained during that time. As I noticed, people attracted to and obsessed with the early-stage character building of Herkunftshorn were reportedly mostly female. After revealing Herkunftshorn’s motivation of ‘being immoral’, a large part of the female gamers was disillusioned, they complained how they were disappointed by a ‘Bing’ (a buzzword means leaving an unsanwered question hanging) in QQ group chats where I was a member. While many of the ‘worshippers’ of Herkunftshorn in Arknights community were male and they call him the ‘Qin Shi Huang (the first emperor of the the first unified empire Qin in Chinese history) of Terra’ by analogizing his struggle between ‘Great Deeds’ and brutality to that of Qin Shi Huang. By this, Gamers claim that although these two emperors caused significant casualties and suffering among civilians, their actions are seen as “great” because they are framed as necessary sacrifices for the continuity of society. This perspective arises from a worldview where violence is perceived as the default mechanism for achieving justice and maintaining order for the greater good of humanity.

In the end, by crafting Leithanien as an imagined ‘West’ from an Eastern perspective, Arknights invites both developers and gamers to engage with fetishization, reinterpretation, and selective reconstruction of history. These dynamics blur the line between reality and imagination, challenging the traditional anthropological concept of studying only the ‘real.’ While the reception of characters like Herkunftshorn and Arturia Giallo illuminates how diverse perceptions of personhood, rooted in cultural ideals. These tensions are further shaped by gendered interpretations, where male and female gamers’ contrasting views reveal deeper dynamics of power. Zwilingtürme im Herbst underscores the value of examining digital and fictional worlds anthropologically. These places, though fabricated, create useful insights into cultural imagination and identity formation. By engaging with such worlds, we are inspired that the boundaries between the real and the imagined are fluid, providing endless opportunities for future anthropological inquiries.

Bibliography

Cohen, A. P. 2015. The symbolic construction of community. London: Routledge.

Gabriel, S. & B. Wilson 2021. Orientalism and reverse orientalism in literature and film: Beyond East and West. London; New York: Routledge, Taylor et Francis Group.

Graeber, D. 2015. Radical alterity is just another way of saying “reality”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 5, 1–41.

Malinowski, B. 1964. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. New York.

Ortner, S. B. 1972. Is female to male as nature is to culture? Feminist Studies 1, 5.

Spavik, C. 2013. Who claims alterity? An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization 57–72.

Yan, Y. 2017. Doing personhood in Chinese culture. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 35, 1–17.

[1] Herkunftshorn is the former ruler of Leithanien, a controversial and authoritarian figure who sought to unify the nation through absolute power and arcane mastery, ultimately overthrown and killed due to his brutal reign, yet whose lingering influence continues to shape Leithanien’s political struggles.

 [2] Arturia Giallo is a foreign criminal (from Laterano) seeking political asylum under the Elector of Schton, possessing the powerful Originium Art of amplifying people’s emotions, making her an ethically controversial figure capable of intensifying negativity and even inciting self-destruction.

[3] Originium in Arknights is a mysterious mineral originating from Catastrophes, serving as both a powerful energy source and the cause of Oripathy, while Originium Arts refers to the supernatural abilities harnessed through its manipulation, akin to magic but requiring innate aptitude or technological assistance.

[4] Kazdel, historically Teekaz, is a Terran country that once located around the region which encompasses the modern-day Bleached Wasteland but now being a miniature city-state in the wilderness bordering Siracusa, Ursus, and Yan.

[5] Terra is what the ‘world’ is called in Arknights worldview, a post-apocalyptic, technologically and magically advanced world plagued by catastrophic natural disasters and a highly contagious mineral-based disease called Oripathy, where various nations, inspired by real-world cultures, struggle for survival, power, and control.

 [6] Oripathy is a terminal and highly stigmatized disease caused by prolonged exposure to Originium, crystallizing within the body and granting infected individuals unique abilities while also gradually leading to their inevitable death.

[7] Collapals are mysterious and existential threats to Terra with unclear origin.