Is Space Pope a well known thing? Shot was definitely the weakest of my four (although, I am not throwing away my ... shot!). Figure is the strongest of sunrise's alternatives, IMO. I thought Da Vinci Code was about descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and some shadowy, Illuminati-style group, but I'm hazy on the details.
SPACE is hard to get to without an equatorial-ish launch site, and if you are in the USSR/Russia, you'd launch from somewhere in ... Kazakhstan, I think. (moderate)
SHARK fin soup may be eaten in China. (moderate ... by the way, please don't actually do this, it's both bad for the environment, and perhaps more to the point, it doesn't actually taste good)
EGYPT is next to Asia, and typically controls bits of it. (moderate, but I'm hesitant to choose this as it's a decent choice for Blue, and also it's not typically that much anyway, without looking it up I think the Fatimid caliphate controlled the most?)
ICE CREAM may have been invented in Asia. (weak; I think it's originally Persian, but I'm not sure about this without looking it up)
GAS fires from oil wells in the Middle East can be seen from space. (weak)
FIELD would be nice terrain for Mongol hordes to operate on. (weak)
Also, I don't know enough about Futurama to know if there's a Space Pope in it..
But there is definitely a Space Pope in A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's one of those works you've almost certainly seen multiple references to, even if you haven't read it; they're common in post-apocalyptic fiction. This connection is partly why East Asian commentary on post-apocalyptic fiction tends to see the setting as strongly Christian (the book is very Roman Catholic).
So I'm not sure how strongly we want to avoid SPACE either.
Asia four? We're gonna be reaching.
CHINA, obviously.
FIELD, for all the rice paddies and central steppes?
SPACE, as the largest continent? The cities and coasts might be crowded, but the vast expanse of Siberia, Central Asia, etc. is desolate.
WHIP, as a Civ reference, and because Asia has seen its fair share of cruel regimes?
CODE, for various traditional/legal/martial codes of conduct.
Yeah, I'm good with that. Apart from Russia, you have oil producers in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Point to GAS
Where next?
I don't like AMAZON or EGYPT as they are not in Asia, and the clue could have been tweaked so that it wasn't pointing against them.
I'm not convinced that SPACE is a Pope word (there are plenty of other options), so I'd go with that. It crossed all our minds.
Edit: Sorry, changed my mind! If GAS is red, then SPACE probably isn't, because CHINA/FIELD/GAS/SPACE can be clued more narrowly by something like Soviet 4.
