this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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Lmao Civ 6 did the white pharoah meme (hexbear.net)
submitted 3 days ago by Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

For real why is he white with blue eyes lmao white-pharaoh

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[–] Muinteoir_Saoirse@hexbear.net 45 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

It's probably because in real life Ramesses II had red hair, and a lot of white people seem to have a hard time imagining someone with natural red hair having dark skin and eyes, even though that was sort of a big deal for Egyptians at the time.

That being said, fair skin and light coloured eyes are not an entirely uncommon trait for the area (North Africa and West Asia, Egypt's sphere of influence at the time). Not likely they were traits possessed by Ramesses, though a very questionable race science examination tried to assert he was a fair-skinned man of Amazigh (Berber) descent in the 70s, which is probably where they drew this idea of him from. Though they nailed his big beautiful nose.

Edit: On further inspection it sort of looks like they just made a beefier blue-eyed version of Yul Brynner from the Ten Commandments

[–] eyyImwalkin@hexbear.net 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

It's probably because in real life Ramesses II had red hair

Rihanna also has red hair

The red hair on Ramses was never investigated for dye. This is because Egypt is EXTREMELY secretive with its mummies. What we do know is that his paternal DNA was pure West African (Not even East or North African).

To give you an idea of how secretive Egypt is, there are only 3 published Ancient Egyptian genomes available to the public. (At least back in 2021, idk if more were made available recently)

We literally have more published genetic data from 40,000 year old China than we do from 4,000 year old ancient Egypt, filled to the brim with perfectly preserved mummies. We have almost 100 published genomes from 30,000 year old Northwest Eurasia. Only 3 from Egypt.

[–] Lemister@hexbear.net 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

In many african cultures they use red clay to colour their hair, like several people of nearby countries, which may have "inspired" ancient Egyptians.

[–] eyyImwalkin@hexbear.net 11 points 2 days ago

Definitely possible. He also may have been naturally red haired. Maybe even red haired and dark skinned. We'll never know until genomes are released under the supervision of international teams of scientists

[–] Muinteoir_Saoirse@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't care about DNA stuff, and to be honest there is a lot of weird race science wrapped up in people's obsession with DNA. Nor can DNA actually tell you how someone looked in real life; it is simply one of the many factors that go into someone's complexion and skin tone.

I gotta say though, there is something a bit uncomfortable about asserting that Egypt is being "secretive" with their cultural honoured and revered dead, when the history of "Egyptology" is the pillage and plunder of Egyptian history at the hands of white scientists seeking to build their own civilizational narrative.

No one owes western science unfettered access to their history or the right to assert western science as some objective truth-building endeavour.

[–] eyyImwalkin@hexbear.net 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I don't care about DNA stuff, and to be honest there is a lot of weird race science wrapped up in people's obsession with DNA.

that's how we got here, the left's (and liberals') extreme refusal to engage essentialist frameworks.
This shit could've been nipped in the bud 20 years ago by just factually stating that white people are mutts who were formed 4000 years ago and depigmented due to eating grain and milk. If you ignore it the problem doesn't go away, because people are naturally essentialist, but they're also racist and stupid as fuck, so they do fake essentialism like white pharoahs and QIn Shi Huang had blonde hair

Nor can DNA actually tell you how someone looked in real life

yea thats my point. But it can tell you origins and Ramses' Y-DNA was west African.

This is interesting and inherently political, because the existence of non-white and non-whiteadjacent people is inherently political, and them being in positions of power is even more political. To say that a Black person ruled over anybody in the past (or replace Black with dark skinned Indian) is an extremely political statement that upsets hundreds of millions of West-Eurasian-admixed people all over the world.

Okay but: Everything ever is whitecentric, this is a fact. And if everything ever is whitecentric, it also implies that huge swathes of things are Arab and Northwest-Indian centric due to their undeniable adjacency to whiteness under many different factors (skin tone, facial features, languages, actual genetic admixture, etc). AKA, West-Eurasian admixed peoples.

Egypt will not receive the fairest treatment from white scientists, but it will also not receive the worst treatment

no one owes western science

science is no more western than math is Indian. Less, even

Also this line of logical reasoning doesn't work so well when you realize modern Egypt moved entire temples to build a dam: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180409-egypts-exquisite-temples-that-had-to-be-moved

[–] insurgentrat@hexbear.net 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The hair on the corpse is red but it's unclear if that is a result of mummification iirc.

Egyptian dynasties came from all over the shop at various points, 3 millenial is an insane amount of time. And Egypt was the cultural and political hub for a long time but as you say Rameses probs didn't look like this. Kinda weird of them to do this.

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 17 points 2 days ago

I didn't know that.

[–] LupineTroubles@hexbear.net 12 points 2 days ago

They don't seem to care much for that. In real life Suleiman the Magnificent was a pale man with mostly light features but in CIV6 he is very much not that, they just go with the vibes of what representation of a civilization ought to look like most of the time, so this is a truly puzzling character design.

[–] Lemister@hexbear.net 6 points 2 days ago

There are enough irl red headed palestinians/syrians/turks for white people to imagine it.

[–] a_party_german@hexbear.net 20 points 2 days ago

[–] Lemister@hexbear.net 18 points 2 days ago

He looks more greek/levantine/southern italian than WASP.

[–] buh@hexbear.net 20 points 2 days ago

Yakub’s first prototype

[–] graymess@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago (3 children)

When the fuck? I've played Civ VI for years and don't remember white boy Ramses. They went nuts with leader DLC near the end, didn't they?

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

At least they gave us the goat

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago

I know nothing about Yongle other than I love his name. Hehehe Yongle

[–] EstraDoll@hexbear.net 12 points 2 days ago

He looked (well, probably from what we can guess someone from 4,000 years ago would look like) Egyptian back in Civ 4 so I have no idea how Firaxis made such a backslide on that one

also another win for the best civ game big-cool

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

yeah i thought egypt's ruler was baddy cleopatra

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 days ago

They made an even baddyer goth Cleopatra

[–] Fishroot@hexbear.net 11 points 2 days ago

Yassified Ramses

[–] Pisha@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago

Ramses Ii

[–] eyyImwalkin@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago

why is he white with blue eyes lmao

because all of white history, media, social media, and "vibes" is completely fake

EAIAC, so this tracks with the "we wuz" memes. If a mayo is talking assume the exact opposite

[–] Xenomorph@hexbear.net 6 points 2 days ago

Disney Pixar's Egypt!