642 réponses à ce sujet

[billy the squid]

Silfren wrote...

TommyServo wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Or stupid people like over analysing it and taking offence on behalf of people who aren't offended. They did the same thing with Lord of The Rings claiming it was an allegory for WW2. Which is about as stupid as your point.

I can only speak for myself, but recognizing that historically, high fantasy is Eurocentric and overwhelmingly white (by white (usually male) authors, with white principally male) characters, for an assumed white (usually male) audience), and realizing that that's a product of a culture that's internalized and normalized it's racism isn't actually the same as me being offended. It's just me being observant.

But apparently we're supposed to keep our observations to ourselves.  Daring to publicize them means we're just offended.

Oh you can make observations, just don't be offended when you get derided for being daft. 

[Gileadan]

Silfren wrote...

LoTR as an allegory for WW2 is stupid???  

Dude, do you actually know anything about J.R.R. Tolkien, the man?  Like the fact he was IN WW2 and it directly affected his writing?

Yes, it is stupid. Utterly so.

The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dûr would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.

Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Foreword.

There. Right from the horse's mouth.

Modifié par Gileadan, 01 juillet 2013 - 05:51 .

[Silfren]

billy the squid wrote...

TommyServo wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Or stupid people like over analysing it and taking offence on behalf of people who aren't offended. They did the same thing with Lord of The Rings claiming it was an allegory for WW2. Which is about as stupid as your point.

I can only speak for myself, but recognizing that historically, high fantasy is Eurocentric and overwhelmingly white (by white (usually male) authors, with white characters, for an assumed white audience), and realizing that that's a product of a culture that's internalized and normalized it's racism isn't actually the same as me being offended. It's just me being observant.

On the other hand, one of the reasons this forum is here is to advocate for what we want in the games. So.

A fantasy story written for young people by a Professor of Anglo Saxon mythology and English at Oxford University. in the first half of the 20th Century, shockingly has the hall marks of the culture and man which wrote it. Calling that racist is stupid. 

I can begin implying racism in almost anything I choose to as well.

Sure it has the hallmarks of the culture and the man that wrote it.  This does not preclude racism being present in his works. 

To pick at another example, Birth of a Nation ALSO contains the hallmarks of the culture and the man who created it. 
None of those things make it any less racist.

[Ziggeh]

Gileadan wrote...

There. Right from the horse's mouth.

This is mostly a discussion about privilege, but he was hardly likely to cop to it now, was he?

[Silfren]

Jayne126 wrote...

Silfren wrote...
I'm not saying that Bioware is peopled by a group of KKK members.

It boggles my mind how you even come to that comparison.

Maybe you should read my post again?

[Iakus]

Silfren wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Or stupid people like over analysing it and taking offence on behalf of people who aren't offended. They did the same thing with Lord of The Rings claiming it was an allegory for WW2. Which is about as stupid as your point.

LoTR as an allegory for WW2 is stupid??? 

Dude, do you actually know anything about J.R.R. Tolkien, the man?  Like the fact he was IN WW2 and it directly affected his writing?

Actually, no.

First, Tolkien was in WWI.  Not WWII. 

Second,while his experiencese there helped him convey the horror of war (such asdescribing the Dead Marshes)  he did not use it as an allegory for LoTR.  In fact, he had a strong distaste fro allegory in general.

[billy the squid]

Silfren wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

TommyServo wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Or stupid people like over analysing it and taking offence on behalf of people who aren't offended. They did the same thing with Lord of The Rings claiming it was an allegory for WW2. Which is about as stupid as your point.

I can only speak for myself, but recognizing that historically, high fantasy is Eurocentric and overwhelmingly white (by white (usually male) authors, with white characters, for an assumed white audience), and realizing that that's a product of a culture that's internalized and normalized it's racism isn't actually the same as me being offended. It's just me being observant.

On the other hand, one of the reasons this forum is here is to advocate for what we want in the games. So.

A fantasy story written for young people by a Professor of Anglo Saxon mythology and English at Oxford University. in the first half of the 20th Century, shockingly has the hall marks of the culture and man which wrote it. Calling that racist is stupid. 

I can begin implying racism in almost anything I choose to as well.

Sure it has the hallmarks of the culture and the man that wrote it.  This does not preclude racism being present in his works. 

To pick at another example, Birth of a Nation ALSO contains the hallmarks of the culture and the man who created it. 
None of those things make it any less racist.

And the absurdity of that point is, I can begin implying racism into anything I choose by stripping any context from the piece. 

I submit that To Kill a Mocking Bird is racist because it portrays white society in America in a wholy negative light, discriminating against white society universally. 

^See, stupid isn't it. If we're going to play the absurdity game I can do exactly the same.

[Silfren]

billy the squid wrote...

Silfren wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Or stupid people like over analysing it and taking offence on behalf of people who aren't offended. They did the same thing with Lord of The Rings claiming it was an allegory for WW2. Which is about as stupid as your point.

LoTR as an allegory for WW2 is stupid??? 

Dude, do you actually know anything about J.R.R. Tolkien, the man?  Like the fact he was IN WW2 and it directly affected his writing?

Oh Really? You're an idiot. The man himself said in response to that claim.

"It is neither allegorical nor topical.... I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence."

I know very well what the man said.  I daresay I know a great deal more about Tolkien than you do, actually.  But what Tolkien intended is one thing; what comes across in his stories is quite another.  Literary critics have been reading allegory in his works since the day each was published, and they are not wrong in finding any.  But we already had the Authorial Intent discussion in another thread, and it was just as off-topic there as it is here. 

[Plaintiff]

Enigmatick wrote...
Then why on earth would any reasonable person take offense to it?

"If I didn't mean to offend you, then you have no right to be offended."

Since when did thoughtlessness and lack of self-awareness become acceptable excuses for saying or doing things that hurt others?

[Sylvianus]

Well, those who are in the process of complaining " BUT THE LORE ", have little legitimacy to do so and are really arising as ridiculous whiners.  Bioware has specifically said and repeated that if they are going to include more  people of color, it will always be while respecting and considering the setting. So I am uncertain what is being exactly argued here. If you can't accept that compromise, then I don't really think the issue is what you are claiming.

They do not want either tokenism, include people of color just for the sake of it, or only for reasons out of story. Those who support this idea are also going to be infortunately disappointed.

I absolutely agree that more people of color is a good thing as well, but it has to make sense and Bioware can't include all the colors and races in the game. This isn't their goal and it shouldn't. No more ' it's fantasy ' crap regardless of a lore thrown in the trash as the only justification to do something. Let's scrap that reason, please. 

Now, Ferelden is in the extreme south, at the border of the civilized world and at the periphery of the cultural center of the continent. How is it so difficult to believe that we could see more people of mixed cultures in the center of the continent, for example in big countries like Orlais or Tevinter ? Immigrants from the whole world, sons of immigrants, heirs of immigrants born into these Nations ?

Some people are completely devoid of imagination, it is a little scary to be honest.  It has never been said in the lore and within the story or demonstrated, or shown that the continent was entirely white. Or please give me some quotes.  Ferelden is a small country, the tree that could simply hide the forest. There could be like in the real world a few countries completely homogeneous like Ferelden was, and elsewhere more heterogeneous countries.

As for the complaint about a more customized PC based on certain features, Really ?  ? Didn't you know that these features were already included in DAII like for example asian traits ? It's already there, lol.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 01 juillet 2013 - 06:08 .

[Thiefy]

I really wish I could participate in this conversation more, except that with all these book titles and theories being thrown around I'm not actually sure what the subject is anymore or how it relates to more features being included in future dragon age games. will someone be so kind as to bring me up to speed on topic?

[Silfren]

iakus wrote...

Silfren wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Or stupid people like over analysing it and taking offence on behalf of people who aren't offended. They did the same thing with Lord of The Rings claiming it was an allegory for WW2. Which is about as stupid as your point.

LoTR as an allegory for WW2 is stupid??? 

Dude, do you actually know anything about J.R.R. Tolkien, the man?  Like the fact he was IN WW2 and it directly affected his writing?

Actually, no.

First, Tolkien was in WWI.  Not WWII. 

Second,while his experiencese there helped him convey the horror of war (such asdescribing the Dead Marshes)  he did not use it as an allegory for LoTR.  In fact, he had a strong distaste fro allegory in general.

Point about WW2.  My brain was registering those backwards.  That said, I could talk about Tolkien all day, especially about the question of allegory, because his works ARE seen as allegorical, whether he wrote them that way or not.  People have been reading allegory in his works from day one.  Whether they are right or wrong is a whole 'nother topic.  But as much as I'd love to go on talking about this, it is way off-topic and I'd like to get back to the slightly more important one.

Modifié par Silfren, 01 juillet 2013 - 06:30 .

[FKA_Servo]

To bring it back on topic...

I think we actually don't have anything to worry about. At least in DA2, your character creation options were relatively unconstrained. Any issues with creating a character with a range of skintones (something they claimed was an issue in DA2) will presumably be fixed with this new engine.

And all things considered, they really do have good track record for listening to and implementing player feedback. Something as crucial as this - player character customization and diverse representation - won't go unnoticed.

Modifié par TommyServo, 01 juillet 2013 - 06:09 .

[Lennard Testarossa]

Silfren wrote...
privilege COMES FROM RACISM

No, it doesn't.

Silfren wrote...
I DO think that Thedas being so utterly whitewashed IS a product of racism

Do yo even know what "whitewashed" means?

[Thiefy]

Sylvianus wrote...
As for the complaint about a more customized PC based on certain features, Really ?  ? Didn't you know that these features were already included in DAII like for example asian traits ? It's already there, lol. 

 
I try to make Asian PCs and they always turn out white. Case in point, my avatar. The only time I've ever been able to "sucessfully" make an Asian PC is in TOR. By sucussful, I mean that I was satisfied with how she looked and other people could recognize her ethinicity without my having to say anything.

In anycase, people are just asking for an improvement on those features.

[Sylvianus]

Thief-of-Hearts wrote...

Sylvianus wrote...
As for the complaint about a more customized PC based on certain features, Really ?  ? Didn't you know that these features were already included in DAII like for example asian traits ? It's already there, lol. 

 
I try to make Asian PCs and they always turn out white. Case in point, my avatar. The only time I've ever been able to "sucessfully" make an Asian PC is in TOR. By sucussful, I mean that I was satisfied with how she looked and other people could recognize her ethinicity without my having to say anything.

In anycase, people are just asking for an improvement on those features.

Well, I agree that Bioware needs to improve those features, it wasn't exactly perfect.

[Plaintiff]

billy the squid wrote...

TommyServo wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Or stupid people like over analysing it and taking offence on behalf of people who aren't offended. They did the same thing with Lord of The Rings claiming it was an allegory for WW2. Which is about as stupid as your point.

I can only speak for myself, but recognizing that historically, high fantasy is Eurocentric and overwhelmingly white (by white (usually male) authors, with white characters, for an assumed white audience), and realizing that that's a product of a culture that's internalized and normalized it's racism isn't actually the same as me being offended. It's just me being observant.

On the other hand, one of the reasons this forum is here is to advocate for what we want in the games. So.

A fantasy story written for young people by a Professor of Anglo Saxon mythology and English at Oxford University. in the first half of the 20th Century, shockingly has the hall marks of the culture and man which wrote it. Calling that racist is stupid. 

I can begin implying racism in almost anything I choose to as well.

"Racism doesn't count if it comes from a racist time!"

[Plaintiff]

billy the squid wrote...
I submit that To Kill a Mocking Bird is racist because it portrays white society in America in a wholy negative light, discriminating against white society universally.

Maybe you should stick to arguing about books you've actually read.

[Silfren]

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

Silfren wrote...
privilege COMES FROM RACISM

No, it doesn't.

Silfren wrote...
I DO think that Thedas being so utterly whitewashed IS a product of racism

Do yo even know what "whitewashed" means?

Do you?  Do you even know what privilege is?

[BouncyFrag]

@ Dobby
Running into the Maker voiced by Morgan Freeman at the end of DA3 would be amazing. I imagine some sort of scene with Flemeth about to destroy the world, or something like that, and then you hear "I don't think so" in Freeman's dulcet tones.

[Gileadan]

Just out of interest... was it racism to include a character like Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom in Jade Empire?

[Hazegurl]

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

Do yo even know what "whitewashed" means?

The only whitewashing I've seen is what the Bioware ads did to Isabella for the DA2 promo work.  They literally washed the dark skin right off of her. lol!

[Volus Warlord]

Dobbysaurus wrote...

I'm all for more ethnic diversity as long as I can have Morgan Freeman as a LI.

Or if he turns out to be the Maker AND a LI. Even better!

Only if Samuel L Jackson can fight him in epic combat!