History? Boring?

I used to think how boring history is... Until I know how to use it.

There's funny quotation I've always remembered: we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

I've been living my whole life in Indonesia and truthfully, I know nothing about Indonesian History. Not that I've never learn about it, it's just I never know how to enjoy history.

The Japanese, however, able to creatively twist what suppose to be horrible chapter in their history to amazingly acceptable pop culture. Thanks to Konami and Koei, I know more about Sengoku Jidai than I know about Indonesian Revolution war.

Similarly gruesome, the period of the three kingdoms in China was none other than brutal and violent. The population of China drastically shrunk from estimated 50 million to probably 16 million in the span of just over 100 years of continuous civil wars.

No thanks to John Woo with his interpretation of the battle of Red Cliff, we can see tremendous amount of action... while simply forgetting the number of people, military and civilians were killed during the period.

The creation of games and movies with high budget helps laymen to understand more about the history. Although the story depicted in the games and movies might not be entirely true, they already incite people to wanting to know more about the story.

When I played Samurai Warriors 2 in my PC, I was compelled to learn more about sengoku Jidai, the history, the politics, about Nobunaga Oda, betrayed by Akechi, followed by Toyotomi and suceeded by Tokugawa... The small players, Nagamasa Azai, Yukimura Sanada, Hanzo Hattori... albeit fantastically depicted in the games, the storyline and the character was based from the true story.

I guess I must learn more about Indonesia history then. Maybe I can ask Koei to make something like that but with Indonesian Character. How about "Pendekar Kerajaan" for a title? (D'uh... it's actually direct translation from dynasty warriors) Dunno, maybe we can get some story from era of Ken Arok, assassination of Tunggul Ametung and Mpu Gandring... And of course we can always make expansion set... "Pendekar Kerajaan: Majapahit"... featuring Hayam Wuruk and Gajah Mada. Heck, if they can make non-fighter such as Liu Bei become a fighting machine, or Oichi beat up Nobunaga's soldiers with a kendama, I guess there's nothing wrong to arm Ken Dedes or Kusumawardhani with some huge kitchen chopper or wielding dual sword like Ginchiyo Tachibana. (If you've played Samurai Warriors or Dynasty Warriors before, you know what I'm talking about)

I even got the title for the third sequels: "Pendekar Kerajaan: Rise of the Sultans"... cool or not?

If they do make something like that, I think Indonesian would want to learn more about History. If you read this post and still not interested in checking out more about Majapahit, then this idea could already be a history...

Just a thought...