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[Boycott Bioware]

Just imagine if you are visiting Qunari community, you saw Sten and call "Sten!!", everyone is looking at you...

How they identify themselves that way?

Sten : You are a fool Sten
Sten : No, I am not
Sten : Yes you are
Sten : What are you two arguing about?
Sten : Sten call me a fool
Sten : Yeah, i call Sten a fool, but not you Sten
Sten : Sten, please stop calling Sten a fool
Sten : Okay

[Iakus]

David Gaider wrote...

They call them Qunari. Everyone calls them Qunari. They call the Tal-Vashoth Qunari (which annoys Tal-Vashoth, but they wouldn't expect any more from foreigners than Sten does).

If they encounter an elf who's part of the Qun, first they'd call them an "elf". Maybe they'd say "elven follower of the Qun" if they knew that. If they heard them call themselves "Qunari" they'd wrinkle their noses in confusion, and maybe amend that to "elven Qunari".

It is not that difficult to wrap your head around, surely. Either way, these are all in-game terms. As I said, if you wish to use "kossith" out of game, that's fine-- but it is an out-of-game term only. It is not proper usage.

I imagine calling a Tal Vashoth "Qunari" would annoy a Qunari even more

But anyway, it seems to me that Qunari see people in three broad categories:

Qunari:  Anyone who submits to the Qun
Vashoth "Gray Ones" those who have rejected the Qun (Tal Vashoth being a more violent brand of them)
Bas:  "Things" Outsiders.  THose ignorant of the Qun.

Racial identifiers are purely secondary and are in fact largely irrelevant to them.

Would this be accurate?

Edit:  And of course to humans, elves, and dwarves, a qunari's a qunari:  big scary-looking ox-man so of course they're all qunari

Modifié par iakus, 30 septembre 2013 - 05:57 .

[Nefla]

Can't we just stick with "the murderous hoard to the north?"

Seriously though it's not that confusing. I feel like people insisting on using "Kossith" are just being hipsters. If a white person is born in China they are Chinese but that's not what people expect when you say "he's Chinese" it's not impossible to understand white + born in china. Just like it's not difficult to understand Qunari race vs Qunari religion. You need to type one whole extra word...

[Versus Omnibus]

I'll just stick with Ox people.

[Han Shot First]

BeadyEyedTater wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

It's confusing because that's exactly what it is. That's what the Qunari are by design. 

Ooooh, I get it. The confusion is appropriate. I'm still calling them horned-folk, though.

Horned-folk sounds very poltically correct.

I prefer Horny Qunari because its funnier.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Chari wrote...

It's just... it is a race.

It's a race, and it's a religion.  And the two groups don't overlap perfectly.  Some members of the race don't belong to the religion, and some members of the religion don't belong to the race.  And the two groups are labelled using exactly the same word.

Surely you can think of a real world example (substituting ethnicity for race) that does the same thing.  I certainly can.

[Trolldrool]

I imagine whatever Kossith used to mean in the past, it's probably synonymous with barbaric, primitive or unenlightened today to the few qunari who know the history of the word. Something like; Those of our ancestors who lived before the Qun and died in ignorance.

I think the biggest reason we get confused is because we keep imagining scenarios where identifying individuals by their species would be necessary. Like say a big city fire in Qunandar with evidence and witnesses implying arson. In Ferelden or Orlais or Tevinter, whomever were sent to investigate would probably ask the witnesses if the arsonist looked like a human, elf or dwarf.

So we expect that whoever would investigate arson in Qunandar would ask the witnesses if it was a qunari, elf, human or dwarf. Would they instead ask if the perpetrator had horns? Ask for a height that would imply either human or elf or even shorter for dwarf? Considering it could be Tal-Vashoth (which could be any species), but also Tevinter infiltrators (which might more likely be humans).

[Former_Fiend]

David Gaider wrote...

The difficulty here is that the Qunari do not have a single word they use for their race. They have many words they use as identifiers. Overall it is simply "Qunari"-- which encompasses all followers of the Qun, which as far as they're concerned is everyone worth mentioning. And as far as people in the rest of Thedas are concerned, that is their racial name.

If there's a need to separate the Qunari who aren't members of their race, and "viddathari" isn't considered useful, an adjective is added (like "elven Qunari"). For members of their race which aren't followers of the Qun, it's "Tal-Vashoth".

Is this confusing? To some people who like having a handy identifier it is, but the Qunari aren't really interested in arranging their names to make things convenient for other cultures. Their names are exact classifications, and are incredibly important to them-- even Sten doesn't tell you the name that he uses among the Qunari. If you'll recall, he says that Sten is the name you may use because it'll be easier for you.

In that vein, if fans wish to use "kossith" as a racial identifier, you're free to do so. It's an old name for the Qunari, but one they no longer accept-- in-game, that is. So we'll never use it in the game, but if it makes it handier for you out of the game, by all means use it. Since it's not something we mention in the game, however, don't be surprised if few people know what the heck you're talking about. As I've mentioned before, the only time I get irritated is when hardcore fans scold people on the "proper" use of the word when the only proper use is the in-world one-- or when particular pedantic fans moan about how the lack of a proper racial name is confusing (and thus an error in the lore) when that's exactly what it's designed to be.

Would "oxman" and 'giant" count as racial slurs against them?

[General TSAR]

Oxmen.

[CuriousArtemis]

Just reading the dev responses... thanks, DG, that really does explain things

Can't wait to design and play a qunari inquisitor! 8D

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

Qistina wrote...

Just imagine if you are visiting Qunari community, you saw Sten and call "Sten!!", everyone is looking at you...

How they identify themselves that way?

Sten : You are a fool Sten
Sten : No, I am not
Sten : Yes you are
Sten : What are you two arguing about?
Sten : Sten call me a fool
Sten : Yeah, i call Sten a fool, but not you Sten
Sten : Sten, please stop calling Sten a fool
Sten : Okay

If I remember correctly, they identify themselves and each other by seniority or weapon of choice in such a circumstance.

[Nefla]

Filament wrote...

Nefla wrote...

Can't we just stick with "the murderous hoard to the north?"

Hoard of what? Not Donkey Kong's banana hoard, I hope! 

Hoard of people/warriors/etc...Its one of the dialogue options you can choose in DA:O when explaining to a looter in Sten's quest what Qunari are. 

[Nefla]

The Wolf Man wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

 or when particular pedantic fans moan about how the lack of a proper racial name is confusing (and thus an error in the lore) when that's exactly what it's designed to be.

 

Wow. Rude. OP was just trying to make sense of things. You explained it perfectly - until this remark... 

Credibility fail.

(Where exactly is the professionalism among Bioware?) 

Suck it up princess.

[Heimdall]

The Wolf Man wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

 or when particular pedantic fans moan about how the lack of a proper racial name is confusing (and thus an error in the lore) when that's exactly what it's designed to be.

 

Wow. Rude. OP was just trying to make sense of things. You explained it perfectly - until this remark... 

Credibility fail.

(Where exactly is the professionalism among Bioware?) 

He's just fed up.  People have been going on about this off and on for months.

[Heimdall]

Nefla wrote...

Filament wrote...

Nefla wrote...

Can't we just stick with "the murderous hoard to the north?"

Hoard of what? Not Donkey Kong's banana hoard, I hope! 

Hoard of people/warriors/etc...Its one of the dialogue options you can choose in DA:O when explaining to a looter in Sten's quest what Qunari are. 

Horde is the word you're looking for.

[Dean_the_Young]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Chari wrote...

It's just... it is a race.

It's a race, and it's a religion.  And the two groups don't overlap perfectly.  Some members of the race don't belong to the religion, and some members of the religion don't belong to the race.  And the two groups are labelled using exactly the same word.

Surely you can think of a real world example (substituting ethnicity for race) that does the same thing.  I certainly can.

And nationality-race. Most of Europe and Asia, easily.

'English.' 'German.' 'French.' 'Russian.' 'Chinese.' 'Korean.'

[Dean_the_Young]

The Wolf Man wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

 or when particular pedantic fans moan about how the lack of a proper racial name is confusing (and thus an error in the lore) when that's exactly what it's designed to be.

 

Wow. Rude. OP was just trying to make sense of things. You explained it perfectly - until this remark... 

Credibility fail.

(Where exactly is the professionalism among Bioware?) 

It would be rude if it weren't apprioriate and correct in context. And if what you quoted were specifically directed at the OP.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Nefla wrote...

Seriously though it's not that confusing. I feel like people insisting on using "Kossith" are just being hipsters. If a white person is born in China they are Chinese but that's not what people expect when you say "he's Chinese" it's not impossible to understand white + born in china. Just like it's not difficult to understand Qunari race vs Qunari religion. You need to type one whole extra word...

As a concept it's not confusing, no. But it's natural for people to want a word to refer to the actual species. They want to be correct, and they don't want to have to feel like it's necessary to fiddlefart around with differentiating between the ones who follow the qun, the ones who stopped following the qun, the ones who haven't heard of the qun, the ones who follow the qun but are of a different species, and anything else I've missed.

A collective word for the species, be it Kossith or oxman or anything else, is a convenience when fans get down to discussing lore. If everyone understands what it refers to it prevents confusion when you say something like "Tallis is qunari."

If such a term doesn't exist in Thedas or Bioware, so be it, but it's a useful thing for fans to have sometimes so everyone's on the same page.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

It's a race, and it's a religion.  And the two groups don't overlap perfectly.  Some members of the race don't belong to the religion, and some members of the religion don't belong to the race.  And the two groups are labelled using exactly the same word.

Surely you can think of a real world example (substituting ethnicity for race) that does the same thing.  I certainly can.

Definitely.  In one case, I actually only learned of the distinction in the past few months, actually.

[Boycott Bioware]

Riverdaleswhiteflash wrote...
If I remember correctly, they identify themselves and each other by seniority or weapon of choice in such a circumstance.

Sten : I found this weapon, i wonder who it's belong to?
Sten : It belong to Sten
Sten : Which Sten?
Sten : Oh both of you found it, that weapon belong to me
Sten : Who are you?
Sten : Sten, of the Beresad
Sten : We are all Sten of the Beresad!

Modifié par Qistina, 01 octobre 2013 - 06:07 .