159 réponses à ce sujet

[The Six Path of Pain]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

The Six Path of Pain wrote...

Honestly does it really matter? As far as i'm concerned in Thedas your not considered a different race unless you have pointy ears,are really short,or are really tall and possibly have horns on your head.
P.S. There's also the Fex but we have no idea what they look like. /:

Must suck being a human midget, always getting called a dwarf and told to go sod back to orzammar.

Ha,that was a good one.  But you get my point.

[Angrywolves]

Hey I like being tiresome slimgrin .
As far as I'm concerned fast jimmy put that puppy to bed.

[In Exile]

Darth Brotarian wrote...
So all of that goes on, but there's absolutely no racism in thedas over it?

There's lots of racism in Thedas.

Like, for some reason everyone is racist as hell to everything that looks even slightly different from them, like elves and dwarves, but when it comes to humans we're all in some weird 90's cartoon one world one people harmony?

Why would humans see "colour" as a relevant criteria if they're not brought up in a culture where colour is what makes one an outsider? IRL, 100 years ago "white" meant things like "not Irish" and "not Italian". According to certain insanely racist groups, "white" means things like "not from Eastern Europe". 

There's no reason to discriminate against in-group humans when the out-group is physically different "races" like elves or dwarves. 

[slimgrin]

The Six Path of Pain wrote...

Honestly does it really matter?

No, it doesn't. The IP belongs to Bioware, not the BSN.

[OLDIRTYBARON]

greengoron89 wrote...

OLDIRTYBARON wrote...

You should check your privilege since I am an Indian (feather) who has been ostensibly held back by white privilege for my entire life! [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/bandit.png[/smilie]

No.

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Our world is quite unnatural. Technology has allowed in decades what basic geography has prevented for millenia. Our current racial state, a "rainbow" of ethnicities in industrialized nations, is very much non-sustainable, from a biological point of view. Racial features will gradually become a thing of the past if the current trends and activities continue for the next 500 years.

What physical features we have or don't have in the future is up-in-the-air, but our ideas about race aren't related to physical features per se, they're just a nice and easy shorthand for a whole host of offensive beliefs that we hold. Anyway, that's not relevant, because:

Given that humans have been in Thedas for closer to 5,000 years, then it makes perfect biological sense that most would look quite similar. Arguably, given the barriers to fast travel, it would actually make sense for Thedas to have MORE racial diversity in 1,000 years from the game's current point in time than we would see in our real world in 1,000 more years in time. 

In a world where 60% of the population exists because of, literally, fantasy, saying that it's "biological sense" for humans to look alike is silly. It makes no biological sense to (i) have dragons (ii) have magic (iii) have elves (iv) have dwarves (v) have darkspawn (vi) have abominations (vii) have dwarf-human children, (viii) have elf-human children, (viii) have qunari... 

We could go on. The appeal to biology is just non-functional because the entire setting exists by taking everything we know about biology and ignoring it. 

[Cainhurst Crow]

sandalisthemaker wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

In Exile wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

If you want to make your character "asian" in the game, I guess you could. But I don't understand the argument of the others in this thread for wanting asian featured characters, but without wanting any sort of interesting backstory or lore behind them.

The correct argument would be to drop this underlying racist idea that in a mystical fantasy world All Humans Are White and accept that every fantasy race has the same distribution of skintones and facial features that our own world has IRL. 

So all of that goes on, but there's absolutely no racism in thedas over it? Like, for some reason everyone is racist as hell to everything that looks even slightly different from them, like elves and dwarves, but when it comes to humans we're all in some weird 90's cartoon one world one people harmony?

I don't buy it. Thedas isn't some utopia, there would be racist as **** people discrimination against dark skinned rivians and any other nationality and race that wasn't like them, and vice versa.

So.... you want human-human racism then?

What's the point of creating an entire race of people with an entire distinct physical features to them, and have them just be like everyone else with no distinctness of their own? Bioware made rivian, for lack of a better term at the moment, black, but also gave rivian an entire culture all on it's own seperate from other thedasian countries. It's like how orlesians, fereldans, tevinters, and free marchers all have different cultures and societies, they aren't just "we are one people united and nobody bats an eye for us being what we are".

If they were to add an asain like nationality into the game, I want it to have equal treatment as all the other people of thedas have, where there are cultural, societal, and geographic traits that make it a unique and interesting place. I don't want it just thrown in and have no one have any sort of reaction to them at all, that makes for lousy roleplaying. And again, if you wanted it just for your pc, than make your pc asian looking and leave it at that. Don't demand a half-assed effort and call it good enough.

Even people of the free marches are racist towards fereldans, and they both look the same. Why are they hyper tolerant of a people who don't even look like them? Where is the logic? Where is the sense?

[Fast Jimmy]

sandalisthemaker wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Filament wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
But to say that everyone who choses an industry-familiar, fantasy European-esque setting is racist is a pretty large statement. That basically is calling a whole host of writers, directors and authors racist. 

K, where do I sign?

I just think it's a little convenient that he's kind of having it both ways. It's not medieval Europe, but it kinda is, and if it was, medieval Europe totally had black people so that's OK, but not Asians, except when it does. I understand there is probably a difference in degree, particularly around the mediterranean, without researching historical population records or whatever. But there is no mediterranean equivalent in Thedas separating not-Europe from not-Africa, because Thedas is not Europe, but black people just happen to be there anyway, because Europe totally did so that's OK.

Which apparently, according to you, would also imply disgusting self-segregation, but I think that's a bit of a silly train of thought anyway.

Well, that's fair that you have that opinion of the writing team (largely, Gaider himself, since he did the vast majority of the heavy lifting early on the world building process, so he could be said to have fashioned the "European-esque, white" Thedas). But I think that is a dfferent thread... "Bioware is racist because there are no Asians in Thedas." Not "There should be Asians in Thedas." I don't personally ascribe to that theory (again... Jade Empire says hello), but you are more than welcome to create a new thread that more clearly states the perceived problem issue.

I would also say that you could consider me going off the rails on that silly train, then. Because its basic genetics - races look alike because they have been breeding together for hudnreds, thousands and even TENS of thousands of years. If you were to mix people with different racial traits together for hundreds or thousands of years, they would cease being separate races merge into a new one, unless, of course, there is reproduction segregation going on... or the constant introduction of new races, as well. You'd need a large, robust population of new race roughly every couple hundred years to stem the tide of a 1,000 years of co-mingling. And even then... that would likely result in a roughyl equivalent number of integrated racial traits, not preservations of the original racial traits entirely.

Yes, it is fantasy. And yes, it is fiction. Bioware's fiction, in fact. So they can do whatever they please. But just like if they suddenly included airplanes or samurai swords out of the blue, or magic suddenly required a short wand and the incantation of silly words like "Expeliarmus" or "Tarantallegra" like some fictional lore does, changing the setting that has been established with no attempt at an explanation hurts the narrative. In my opinion and, apparently, in Bioware's.

So... make the Fex turn out to look Asian? Cool. No one's talked about what they look like and we haven't seen them in any visual media, so I'd be fine with it. Have an odd looking ship arrive on the coast, looking battle damaged and full of strange looking humans? Sign me up.

Turn random NPC's in the Orlesian market to suddenly represent every conceivable ethnicity in our real world with no real background of what's going on? Nope. That sounds like bad story telling and narrative consistency. 

Must you constantly lump Asian looking NPC's with bizarre, ridiculous, anomalous things, like airplanes in Thedas, or the "birdmen" in your other post.  It's very unbecoming.
Same thing with the boat full of "strange looking humans."

The Aztecs had pretty much the reaction of "Hey, those are some strange looking humans on those big wooden-floating things." I'm not implying any racial appearance is anymore "funny looking than another," it is simply the most common response the human psyche has when encountering a group that has an appearance different than the norms with which they were raised. Watching a two-year-old's reaciton to a person over 7 feet tall, or an albino, or someone who is speaking a different language will show you how human's are usually befuddled, confused and curious about an individual who looks or acts in a way with which they are not at all familiar with.

In terms of the "bird men" complaint, I was trying to think of fantastical creatures, in general. Did you have a problem with my "ten foot tall dwarves" comment? What if those dwarves had grey skin? And horns? Suddenly, we have a fantastical race... the Qunari. If the Qunari didn't exist in the lore already, though, and I had said "huge, tall horned giants with gray skin" as a racial comparison to humans with stereotypical Asian characteristics, would that have been as unbecoming?

[sandalisthemaker]

greengoron89 wrote...

On a continent of predominantly "white" and "black" humans, Asian-looking humans would be "strange."

Are you naturally that dense, or do you make an effort towards it?

And there are unfortunate implications to equating people who look like a real world race as strange, anomolous, not belonging. 

Are you too dense to see that?

[Cainhurst Crow]

In Exile wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...
So all of that goes on, but there's absolutely no racism in thedas over it?

There's lots of racism in Thedas.

Like, for some reason everyone is racist as hell to everything that looks even slightly different from them, like elves and dwarves, but when it comes to humans we're all in some weird 90's cartoon one world one people harmony?

Why would humans see "colour" as a relevant criteria if they're not brought up in a culture where colour is what makes one an outsider? IRL, 100 years ago "white" meant things like "not Irish" and "not Italian". According to certain insanely racist groups, "white" means things like "not from Eastern Europe". 

There's no reason to discriminate against in-group humans when the out-group is physically different "races" like elves or dwarves. 

Fereldans are racist towards orlesians.
People of the free marches hate fereldans.
People from orlais seem to hate fereldans.
Everyone is racist towards elves and dwarves and qunari, and they in turn are racist towards humans.

Why should that suddenly disappear when skin color or facial features come into play?

Modifié par Darth Brotarian, 13 septembre 2013 - 01:33 .

[Han Shot First]

In Exile wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...
So all of that goes on, but there's absolutely no racism in thedas over it?

There's lots of racism in Thedas.

Like, for some reason everyone is racist as hell to everything that looks even slightly different from them, like elves and dwarves, but when it comes to humans we're all in some weird 90's cartoon one world one people harmony?

Why would humans see "colour" as a relevant criteria if they're not brought up in a culture where colour is what makes one an outsider? IRL, 100 years ago "white" meant things like "not Irish" and "not Italian". According to certain insanely racist groups, "white" means things like "not from Eastern Europe". 

There's no reason to discriminate against in-group humans when the out-group is physically different "races" like elves or dwarves. 

The Roman Empire had some African emperors.

Racism based on skin tone arose in Europe as a consequence of the African slave trade during the 16th and 17th Centuries. Without a similar history, there is no reason why the light-skinned peoples of Thedas should look at dark skinned peoples and deem them 'lesser.'

[Maria Caliban]

ManchesterUnitedFan1 wrote...

....Humans all come from some place not even on the map, so there's no particular reason why Africans would be present but Asians wouldn't.

Yep.

[lady_v23]

greengoron89 wrote...

On a continent of predominantly "white" and "black" humans, Asian-looking humans would be "strange."

Are you naturally that dense, or do you make an effort towards it?

I'm assuming you're replying to me? 

Thedas, as far as we know mostly has white and black humans.  But why does that mean that there can't be at least one single Asian?? Because it's too strange? really? give me a break..

Modifié par lady_v23, 13 septembre 2013 - 01:43 .

[sandalisthemaker]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

sandalisthemaker wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

In Exile wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

If you want to make your character "asian" in the game, I guess you could. But I don't understand the argument of the others in this thread for wanting asian featured characters, but without wanting any sort of interesting backstory or lore behind them.

The correct argument would be to drop this underlying racist idea that in a mystical fantasy world All Humans Are White and accept that every fantasy race has the same distribution of skintones and facial features that our own world has IRL. 

So all of that goes on, but there's absolutely no racism in thedas over it? Like, for some reason everyone is racist as hell to everything that looks even slightly different from them, like elves and dwarves, but when it comes to humans we're all in some weird 90's cartoon one world one people harmony?

I don't buy it. Thedas isn't some utopia, there would be racist as **** people discrimination against dark skinned rivians and any other nationality and race that wasn't like them, and vice versa.

So.... you want human-human racism then?

What's the point of creating an entire race of people with an entire distinct physical features to them, and have them just be like everyone else with no distinctness of their own? Bioware made rivian, for lack of a better term at the moment, black, but also gave rivian an entire culture all on it's own seperate from other thedasian countries. It's like how orlesians, fereldans, tevinters, and free marchers all have different cultures and societies, they aren't just "we are one people united and nobody bats an eye for us being what we are".

If they were to add an asain like nationality into the game, I want it to have equal treatment as all the other people of thedas have, where there are cultural, societal, and geographic traits that make it a unique and interesting place. I don't want it just thrown in and have no one have any sort of reaction to them at all, that makes for lousy roleplaying. And again, if you wanted it just for your pc, than make your pc asian looking and leave it at that. Don't demand a half-assed effort and call it good enough.

Even people of the free marches are racist towards fereldans, and they both look the same. Why are they hyper tolerant of a people who don't even look like them? Where is the logic? Where is the sense?

So you indeed do want racism based on skin tone.
Troubling.
I'm not demanding anything. 

[Jorji Costava]

In my own humble view, it'd be great to have East Asian (or South Asian, for that matter) characters in Dragon Age. It's kinda frustrating to have a game like Dragon Age, which is so desperately trying to have something to say about racial and class inequality, fall into the "humans are white, other races are persons of color" trope.

Sure, it'd be nice to have some kind of plausible, in-universe explanation of why these characters are in the game when we've never seen or heard reference to them before in any Dragon Age game, but I don't think there's any particular pressure to make the explanation super-tight or anything. Retcons happen, and I tend to think that lore consistency and in-universe plausibility are overrated in terms of their effect on storytelling. If you had an East Asian-looking character that was super-interesting, with a clever backstory and a complex character arc, would it matter that much that the explanation of how he or she is here isn't all that great?

EDIT: Changed wording and paragraph formatting

Modifié par osbornep, 13 septembre 2013 - 01:45 .

[sandalisthemaker]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

Fereldans are racist towards orlesians.
People of the free marches hate fereldans.
People from orlais seem to hate fereldans.
Everyone is racist towards elves and dwarves and qunari, and they in turn are racist towards humans.

Why should that suddenly disappear when skin color or facial features come into play?

I somehow missed this.
Why don't you think about that for a second.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that racism based on skin tone has existed and still exists IRL.  Why on earth would Bioware be so utterly insensitive?  Why would you think that this would be okay for them to do?

[Fast Jimmy]

In Exile wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Our world is quite unnatural. Technology has allowed in decades what basic geography has prevented for millenia. Our current racial state, a "rainbow" of ethnicities in industrialized nations, is very much non-sustainable, from a biological point of view. Racial features will gradually become a thing of the past if the current trends and activities continue for the next 500 years.

What physical features we have or don't have in the future is up-in-the-air, but our ideas about race aren't related to physical features per se, they're just a nice and easy shorthand for a whole host of offensive beliefs that we hold.

Yet, this thread isn't asking for Asian influences, culture, idiosyncracies or references to history be present. The Real Life preconceptions of how race plays into behaviour and stereotype should have zero input on a fantasy setting. The request is strictly getting people to look like Real Life ethnic racial norms. Not "I want more characters to behave in a certain fashion" but simply "make characters who are exactly like everyone else, but just represent how people in Real Life look.

Anyway, that's not relevant, because:

Given that humans have been in Thedas for closer to 5,000 years, then it makes perfect biological sense that most would look quite similar. Arguably, given the barriers to fast travel, it would actually make sense for Thedas to have MORE racial diversity in 1,000 years from the game's current point in time than we would see in our real world in 1,000 more years in time. 

In a world where 60% of the population exists because of, literally, fantasy, saying that it's "biological sense" for humans to look alike is silly. It makes no biological sense to (i) have dragons (ii) have magic (iii) have elves (iv) have dwarves (v) have darkspawn (vi) have abominations (vii) have dwarf-human children, (viii) have elf-human children, (viii) have qunari... 

We could go on. The appeal to biology is just non-functional because the entire setting exists by taking everything we know about biology and ignoring it. 

I'd disagree. Biology is clearly affected by magic in a way we cannot truly quatify or explain - hence the fantasy - but we still know basic premises are true. Reproduction is handled by sexual activity. Said sexual activity is usually also accompanied by courtship and partnership through marriage. Reproduction between the different races - even the fantastical ones, like Elves and Dwarves - is possible and common. And the pairing of said different parents yields an offspring that blends the traits of both parents.

That's pretty simple, concrete knowledge that we've been given. I don't see how it is all a stretch of the current lore or our understanding of basic biology to assume that standard rules in terms of reproduction and the blending of physical traits still apply, despite the fantasy setting. So if a group of different appearing individuals did live together for centuries or more, they either mated along strict racial lines or there would be, at the least, a large portion of individuals with traits that reflected a mix of the two or more dominant physical appearance phenotypes.

The reason we don't see more Elven and Dwarven matings with humans is, clearly, racism. Which the lore states as fact and has a long history with. Yet it seems there is no existent racism against Rivanni, so one would naturally infer that humans have no problem with skin tone in their preconceived notions of race. But if there were Rivanni on every street corner in Thedas, or another race was introduced that had human traits that were outside of the Anglo-Saxon ones we see currently, it would be a matter of less than a thousand years before those traits were blended, etiher being incorporated into one race over another, or resulting in a population that exhibits a mix of both groups evenly, across the full distribution of the region. 

Again... it's fantasy, so a wizard can wave his hand and change this with magic, that's Bioware's prerogative... but I'd prefer they at least show the wizard waving their hand, rather than just change it overnight with zero explanation.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 13 septembre 2013 - 01:53 .

[Cainhurst Crow]

sandalisthemaker wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

Fereldans are racist towards orlesians.
People of the free marches hate fereldans.
People from orlais seem to hate fereldans.
Everyone is racist towards elves and dwarves and qunari, and they in turn are racist towards humans.

Why should that suddenly disappear when skin color or facial features come into play?

I somehow missed this.
Why don't you think about that for a second.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that racism based on skin tone has existed and still exists IRL.  Why on earth would Bioware be so utterly insensitive?  Why would you think that this would be okay for them to do?

You're trolling aren't you? I mean, seriously. You can't be this dense of a person. There's no way a rational, able to use a computer, human being can be this deaf to story telling.

So what makes racism for elves an okay story element for the games to explore, but not racism towards other humans? Why is it that exploring what it means to be part of a minority in a game in a mature and reasonable way, and not whitewhasing how people would act in the setting, suddenly this big taboo for games to touch?

But of couse I won't get an honest answer from you, just another trolling one, because it's entertaining to read.

[sandalisthemaker]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

In Exile wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Our world is quite unnatural. Technology has allowed in decades what basic geography has prevented for millenia. Our current racial state, a "rainbow" of ethnicities in industrialized nations, is very much non-sustainable, from a biological point of view. Racial features will gradually become a thing of the past if the current trends and activities continue for the next 500 years.

What physical features we have or don't have in the future is up-in-the-air, but our ideas about race aren't related to physical features per se, they're just a nice and easy shorthand for a whole host of offensive beliefs that we hold.

Yet, this thread isn't asking for Asian influences, culture, idiosyncracies or references to history be present. The Real Life preconceptions of how race plays into behaviour and stereotype should have zero input on a fantasy setting. The request is strictly getting people to look like Real Life ethnic racial norms. Not "I want more characters to behave in a certain fashion" but simply "make characters who are exactly like everyone else, but just represent how people in Real Life look.

Anyway, that's not relevant, because:

Given that humans have been in Thedas for closer to 5,000 years, then it makes perfect biological sense that most would look quite similar. Arguably, given the barriers to fast travel, it would actually make sense for Thedas to have MORE racial diversity in 1,000 years from the game's current point in time than we would see in our real world in 1,000 more years in time. 

In a world where 60% of the population exists because of, literally, fantasy, saying that it's "biological sense" for humans to look alike is silly. It makes no biological sense to (i) have dragons (ii) have magic (iii) have elves (iv) have dwarves (v) have darkspawn (vi) have abominations (vii) have dwarf-human children, (viii) have elf-human children, (viii) have qunari... 

We could go on. The appeal to biology is just non-functional because the entire setting exists by taking everything we know about biology and ignoring it. 

I'd disagree. Biology is clearly affected by magic in a way we cannot truly quatify or explain - hence the fantasy - but we still know basic premises are true. Reproduction is handled by sexual activity. Said sexual activity is usually also accompanied by courtship and partnership through marriage. Reproduction between the different races - even the fantastical ones, like Elves and Dwarves - is possible and common. And the pairing of said different parents yields an offspring that blends the traits of both parents.

That's pretty simple, concrete knowledge that we've been given. I don't see how it is all a stretch of the current lore or our understanding of basic biology to assume that standard rules in terms of reproduction and the blending of physical traits still apply, despite the fantasy setting.

Basic biology doesn't exist in Thedas.
Human + Elf = Human

[Shadow Fox]

Palidane wrote...

Arcane Warrior Mage Hawke wrote...

greengoron89 wrote...
Europe - the region on which Thedas is based I might add - is made up predominantly of "whites", so yes... non-whites are the "other" (which you seem to see as a bad thing for some reason). It would be no different than seeing a non-Chinese person in China. They're the odd one out. That's a simple fact.

Just wanted to chime in there. You may resume your "minority" pity party.

Well Thedas isn't Europe.

Oh please. Enough of this circular argument. You want to know why Thedas is predominantly white? I'll tell you exactly why: because Bioware said so. Thedosian humans, besides Rivaini, are white. That's how it is. Now, some people take exception to this and launch on a huge Social Justice Crusade about minorities being marginalized in the media etc etc. And they have every right too. That doesn't, however, change the fact that everyone in mainland Thedas is white.

You can blame Bioware for designing the setting that way, but that ship has sailed. They're not going to retcon established lore to help somebodies Social Justice cause. If you want asians in Dragon Age, then look to find them on Par Vollen or on distant continents. But do not expect the Anderfels to suddenyl and inexplicably be asian-land.

Just was pointing out how stupid that excuse is.

[sandalisthemaker]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

sandalisthemaker wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

Fereldans are racist towards orlesians.
People of the free marches hate fereldans.
People from orlais seem to hate fereldans.
Everyone is racist towards elves and dwarves and qunari, and they in turn are racist towards humans.

Why should that suddenly disappear when skin color or facial features come into play?

I somehow missed this.
Why don't you think about that for a second.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that racism based on skin tone has existed and still exists IRL.  Why on earth would Bioware be so utterly insensitive?  Why would you think that this would be okay for them to do?

You're trolling aren't you? I mean, seriously. You can't be this dense of a person. There's no way a rational, able to use a computer, human being can be this deaf to story telling.

So what makes racism for elves an okay story element for the games to explore, but not racism towards other humans? Why is it that exploring what it means to be part of a minority in a game in a mature and reasonable way, and not whitewhasing how people would act in the setting, suddenly this big taboo for games to touch?

But of couse I won't get an honest answer from you, just another trolling one, because it's entertaining to read.

Um, I don't know....because elves don't exist in real life?
Racism toward elves is a way for Bioware to explore the concept of racism without offending people in the real world.