What's up with this forum and the Byzantine Empire?
- Thread starter Teshuvah
- Start date
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
Short answer: The Ottomans are Muslim, Turkic and thus foreign to most people here. The Byzantines are the continuation of the Roman Empire with a Greek and Christian flavor.
I have no idea. Byzantine romanticism just seems to be virulent around here. Mind you, many of the Byzantine TLs are pretty good or simply excellent.
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Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
Well they're better than they were a few years ago. I just wish people stopped using Manzikert as a POD. It's too cliche now.
Ah this is so true. Manzikert is to Byzantine TLs what Sea Lion is to Nazi Victory TLs.
Maybe it's easier to find translated English language sources and texts on Byzantine history than that of the Ottomans? I mean, those TLs don't research themselves.
Maybe it's just because the Byzantines just strike the balance between coolness, getting shat on by historyness and massive opportunities for altering the whole world that this board loves. Everyone loves an underdog and they were for 500 years but they kept plugging along, also as a board about AH.com it's much easier to get a radically different world with a minor Byzantine PoD than with a minor Yuba PoD.
I was under the impression we liked the Ottomans too, although lurking long enough to remember AHP and Hashasheen might have something to do with that. I personally don't have much love for the Byzantines, but greatly respect the Golden Age (And more generally premodern) era Muslim world, including the Ottomans.
Wolfpaw
Banned
I'm in it for the cool name. "Byzantine" sounds mysterious and imperial. Ottoman? You put your feet up on those things.
And though I am a Byzantophile, I have absolutely no problem acknowledging that the Ottomans were an improvement in almost every way.
Kaiphranos
Donor
I'm in it for the cool name. "Byzantine" sounds mysterious and imperial. Ottoman? You put your feet up on those things.
Both of these seem like excellent points to me.
And for what it's worth, I feel like this board is pro-Ottoman as well... just perhaps not quite as much as it is pro-Byzantine.
I'm in it for the cool name. "Byzantine" sounds mysterious and imperial. Ottoman? You put your feet up on those things.
And though I am a Byzantophile, I have absolutely no problem acknowledging that the Ottomans were an improvement in almost every way.
Speaking as a Byzantophile, I'll concede that the Ottomans were worthy "heirs", but "better in almost every way"? What?
Maybe for Jews and probably for (Sunni) Muslims, but . . .
Note, this is comparing their good days. Obviously the Ottoman Empire was better than the 15th century ghost of a ghost of a ghost.
I don't quite understand why some people have such a grievance against those who are fond of the Byzantines. There's no persecution, just bizarre misunderstanding.
I'm fond of the Byzantines. I'm equally fond of the Ottomans.
They (the Ottomans) are like a Muslim version of the Byzantines, but without the West-East mixture that makes Byzantium so delightfully . . . exotic is so unPC, but it'll do.
Something unlike any other European state, while still being within the European world.
Well, when it comes to glory, and massive amounts of power, the Ottomans are your Empire, if you count the Byzantines as Byzantine, not as Roman.
Ottomans are small fry compared to say, the Roman Empire in 115 AD, which the Byzantines are a natural continuation of.
I don't think people dislike Byzantines per se, I just think that most non-Byzantinophiles (such as myself) are merely mildly bemused and puzzled over the matter.
There are definitely Byzantine haters - jkay, for instance.