45 réponses à ce sujet

[Nightdragon8]

English is a bit confusing in this...example, do we consider ourselves as human race or human being?

 

If we consider ourselves as human race, are there any other "race" named differently? I mean in real life not in the game. So i say "we are human race" as if there is other race named differently

 

If we say "we are human being" of course there are other beings not called "human"

*sigh* honestly its an outdated term, its from a time when people considered people of different color a different "race" of people, when in fact we are all homosapiens. we are one "race" of people, where at least in DA universe, it makes sense in that there are different races... while I think Dwarves and Humans maybe be more closely related, if not just short humans, but in the Lore, considering there disconnect to the fade, you can make a case in that they are a competly different race.

 

When we are talking about IRL people, in reality no there are not "races" only different colors of people, which at most has more of a connection to mutations due to envromental conditions than to anything else.

[themegdalene]

One of the reasons there is a lack of diversity as far as skin color within the races is because the previous engines weren't good with skin tones. People still talk about Isabella not being a POC in DAO, and then being exotic looking in the second. They've commented that their should be more skin color variation due to the Frostbite engine.

As someone said before, DA focuses on the differences between elves, dwarves and Qunari.

[fdgvdddvdfdfbdfb]

I wasn't actually talking about skin colour. Human phenotypes are so much more interesting than how tan you are.

[phantomrachie]

I wasn't actually talking about skin colour. Human phenotypes are so much more interesting than how tan you are.

 

that maybe true but you did original say race rather than phenotype and in your original question you referred to white people which has lead people to assume you are talking about skin colour.

 

Racial characteristics are largely physical and behavioural (depending of course on how you define a race)and realistically speaking people can't discuss most of the differences between human phenotypes because you can't see most of them, for example blood type is a phenotype but we can't discuss blood type in Thedas because we can't see it and we don't know if it even exists.

[themegdalene]

Okay but If we're talking about race and the possibility of racism within a specific species - like race between different groups if elves - then we are talking about phenotypes. I'm well aware that genotypes for skin is complex, but racism is about what you see. I imagine that elves that spend more time in Rivaini probably have a more varied skin color, especially city elves who are abused, but we haven't had a chance to really see. They are treated like second class citizens because they are elves not because they are a certain skin type.

And like I said before, a large factor in diversity in race was the engine, where it does come down to the "tan-nes" if skin. It's a video game after all and they aren't real people. I'm sure that maybe somewhere we haven't been could have more Chinese features, but they wouldn't be called Chinese. Just like we call them Fereldans and not British.

[CybAnt1]

AFAICT, skin color variation exists within Thedas, it's physically implemented through the character creator. 

 

It's just not something people pay a lot of attention to, as opposed to being a dwarf or elf or qunari instead of a human, or being Orlesian instead of Fereldan (those are ethnicities.) The dwarves have their caste system, but it's not based on phenotype. The Qunari have their Qun system but it also seems to ignore it, though there is gender-differentiation. All the elves seem to note is whether you were born in an Alienage or wander free in the wilds (Dalish). 

 

The darkest-skinned humans appear to live in Rivain, and are sorta like the Moors of Europe, although there's no (at the moment) apparent equivalence. 

 

There are, to date, no "Asiatic" looking people, with the epicanthic eye fold, etc. 

 

There are many scholarly works, BTW, bringing this back to real world history, which would argue that in the Middle Ages, skin color was not really that much of an issue, and that the invention of (human) race as we understand it today really would require a) the acceptance of modern ideas of genetics, heredity, and biology (even if they've been misapplied as Stephen Jay Gould argues) and b.) Atlantic/New World slavery and colonialism. 

 

The idea that different groups might be inferior or superior to each other based on skin color, unfortunately, appears to be a post-Enlightenment notion. 

[Nuloen]

are there chinese dwarves. and is there ever any racism for the other species? Come to think of it I don't think I've even seen any humans being racist in dragon age hey? And they're totally cool with homosexual relations and women in power too. Truly such a pc age they live in. Should be called PC age instead of dragon age

They are racist
ElfXhuman

But discrimination can be seen more in religions and nations
So more than racist they are fanatics and nacist

[Lebanese Dude]

The biggest irony here is that OP is confusing skin color with cultural identity.

You can be Asian without an eye fold. It not a requirement to be Asian.

As a Lebanese person, I have to admit I have major identity issues.
Our culture is a mix of Arab, Oriental, and European. I have olive skin but that doesn't exist in official forms however. I am sometimes Caucasian, sometimes Indo-European, sometimes Phoenician, sometimes Mediterranean, sometimes Middle Eastern, sometimes Arab. My native language is officially Arabic but nobody here actually speaks it. We speak a language derived from Aramaic and Canaanite to today's Arabic Turkish French Armenian and now English etc..
So nowadays I just refer to myself as all of this, much to people's confusion people's (especially my American friends).
Does is matter? no.

I don't understand why you are trying to pigeon hole every person in Thedas into a certain culture and attempting to organize them into real-life human subcultures and "races".

Whatever dwarves elves Qunari humans are, they are how they are because that is simply how they were made. If I decided to make a fantasy setting and decided to make everyone purple skinned, would I be racist? Not really sure why it should matter.

If you are just pointing out that all the races in Thedas are all versions of humans, I want to point out that they are actually humanoids with very different cultures and histories. That's what makes them different and unique. Not their skin color and r number of limbs they possess.

[Navasha]

Scientifically speaking..  racism is basically the leftover inherited behavioral traits from our animal progenitor species.    Our species builds family units instinctively, which is largely why we still label ourselves in every expanding layers.    We are the Smiths, Bostonians, Italians, Africans, etc.    We identify more easily with similarities and separate from differences when making these distinctions.   

 

If you throw 4 random people into a room (2 from Boston and 2 from Los Angeles) they will INITIALLY gravitate toward seeking similarities with one another.   Either the 2 Bostonians will find common ground, or perhaps based on gender or skin color.    Its part of the self-preservation instinct.   The more alike, the more similar background, the greater percentage that they will be less of a threat. 

 

On Earth, this tends to manifest as 'racism' just because we only have humans.   Skin color or languages/dialects will often be the first visible signs that individuals may have common backgrounds or interests.  

 

In a fantasy world like Thedas, where the different races have MUCH more visible differences, skin color is likely to be a much lower priority when determining groupings.   It would be like differing hair colors to us.   So I wouldn't expect a lot of interspecies 'racism' in Thedas.   There are other real 'races' in the world that are much different from their own.   

 

Finding common groups for protection based on shared similarities is (unfortunately) just part of human nature.    If you put 20 white heterosexual men all in a room all wearing the same clothes, same color hair, same physical builds..   they will still separate into smaller groups.   It will take them longer because they will have to actively seek out similarities and differences in background history, but they will still form smaller groups.   Visible differences are just largely the first and easiest step.

 

Over time, those visible clues fade in relevance as a group develops its own shared experience.    If we here on Earth are ever discovered by or discover an extraterrestrial species, you will be amazed at how quickly skin color will seem a trivial thing by every human on Earth.

[fdgvdddvdfdfbdfb]

Scientifically speaking..  racism is basically the leftover inherited behavioral traits from our animal progenitor species.    Our species builds family units instinctively, which is largely why we still label ourselves in every expanding layers.    We are the Smiths, Bostonians, Italians, Africans, etc.    We identify more easily with similarities and separate from differences when making these distinctions.   

 

If you throw 4 random people into a room (2 from Boston and 2 from Los Angeles) they will INITIALLY gravitate toward seeking similarities with one another.   Either the 2 Bostonians will find common ground, or perhaps based on gender or skin color.    Its part of the self-preservation instinct.   The more alike, the more similar background, the greater percentage that they will be less of a threat. 

 

On Earth, this tends to manifest as 'racism' just because we only have humans.   Skin color or languages/dialects will often be the first visible signs that individuals may have common backgrounds or interests.  

 

In a fantasy world like Thedas, where the different races have MUCH more visible differences, skin color is likely to be a much lower priority when determining groupings.   It would be like differing hair colors to us.   So I wouldn't expect a lot of interspecies 'racism' in Thedas.   There are other real 'races' in the world that are much different from their own.   

 

Finding common groups for protection based on shared similarities is (unfortunately) just part of human nature.    If you put 20 white heterosexual men all in a room all wearing the same clothes, same color hair, same physical builds..   they will still separate into smaller groups.   It will take them longer because they will have to actively seek out similarities and differences in background history, but they will still form smaller groups.   Visible differences are just largely the first and easiest step.

 

Over time, those visible clues fade in relevance as a group develops its own shared experience.    If we here on Earth are ever discovered by or discover an extraterrestrial species, you will be amazed at how quickly skin color will seem a trivial thing by every human on Earth.

First intelligent post.

 

Now the question is: Are German Shepards racist against Chihuahuas?

[Das Tentakel]

AFAICT, skin color variation exists within Thedas, it's physically implemented through the character creator. 
 
It's just not something people pay a lot of attention to, as opposed to being a dwarf or elf or qunari instead of a human, or being Orlesian instead of Fereldan (those are ethnicities.) The dwarves have their caste system, but it's not based on phenotype. The Qunari have their Qun system but it also seems to ignore it, though there is gender-differentiation. All the elves seem to note is whether you were born in an Alienage or wander free in the wilds (Dalish). 
 
The darkest-skinned humans appear to live in Rivain, and are sorta like the Moors of Europe, although there's no (at the moment) apparent equivalence. 
 
There are, to date, no "Asiatic" looking people, with the epicanthic eye fold, etc. 
 
There are many scholarly works, BTW, bringing this back to real world history, which would argue that in the Middle Ages, skin color was not really that much of an issue, and that the invention of (human) race as we understand it today really would require a) the acceptance of modern ideas of genetics, heredity, and biology (even if they've been misapplied as Stephen Jay Gould argues) and b.) Atlantic/New World slavery and colonialism. 
 
The idea that different groups might be inferior or superior to each other based on skin color, unfortunately, appears to be a post-Enlightenment notion.

Ethnic prejudice in a quasi-scientific cloak, aka racism, is certainly fairly modern. I once read that Apartheid in South Africa was the result of the influence of Dutch-trained dominees (pastors) who brought a form of 'modern' systematic racism to Boer culture in the 19th century. Not that the Boers were without ethnic prejudice to begin with (just like the Zulus or the English, for that matter).
Prejudice towards the outsider was and is very common though, usually cloaked in ethnic or religious terms, and would feel in many ways similar to popular forms of 'racism' in our world. Sometimes it is aimed against fellow countrymen from a particular region or province that are considered somewhat 'Other' ('Welshmen suck, Bavarians are not to be trusted, Limburgers are clannish Papists and 'too Belgian' or 'too German'), in most cases a particular ethnicity / nationality is subject to strong prejudice.

I have to say that I haven't seen much convincing evidence of this kind of (fairly universal) ethnic prejudice to exist in Thedas. It's pretty much 'Elves suck' and that's it, probably because it stands in for North American white racism. There's a bit of distrust towards members of 'evil' (Tevinter) and 'quasi-evil' (Orlais) nations and some moustache-twirling expressions of contempt towards Fereldens, servants and elderberry-eating hamsters, but that's it so far. Medieval and modern Europe - but also the rest of the world - had plenty of ethnic prejudice and bloody riots and massacres aimed against members of neighbouring / related peoples, even before the rise of modern nationalism.
Thedas either doesn't have it or, more likely, it didn't get much thought or attention.

[CybAnt1]

Prejudice towards the outsider was and is very common though, usually cloaked in ethnic or religious terms, and would feel in many ways similar to popular forms of 'racism' in our world. Sometimes it is aimed against fellow countrymen from a particular region or province that are considered somewhat 'Other' ('Welshmen suck, Bavarians are not to be trusted, Limburgers are clannish Papists and 'too Belgian' or 'too German'), in most cases a particular ethnicity / nationality is subject to strong prejudice.
 

 

Sure, I would argue the Albigensian Crusade was driven both by orthodox religious attitudes toward Catharism, and, to a lesser extent, the differences of culture between northern and southern France (the Languedoc/Provence). 

 

The "Saracen" was the outsider/enemy because of their religion and homeland, not their olive skin. 

 

You're right ethnocentrism is as old as the hills; the Chinese certainly thought Marco Polo was a barbarian, and promptly showed him how to make pasta. 

 

That people like and trust people more similar to themselves; has certainly been true, for a long time. The idea that the human race (singular) can be   broken up into sub races (like "Black," "White," and "Asiatic") and that they further can be differentiated beyond phenotype on the basis of other intellectual, moral, behavioral, or capable characteristics -- well, that's a new idea. Which dates to the 18th century. 

 

As to what we see in Dragon Age, well, it seems to me the biggest forces of conflict are:

 

1) "racism" in the sense that the humans don't like the elves, and only get along with the dwarves because they need something they provide (lyrium) and are not interested in moving underground, so they don't want their territory. 

2) clashes of religion (or ethos, since it's not clear the Qun is a religion per se), between Andrastianism and Qunarism ... with elvish and dwarven religion often being ignored by humans, though the humans do want to seem to bring the Chantry to them (see attempts to start Chantry chapter in Orzammar)

3) the different nationalities clearly don't get along; the one main national conflict we've seen is the distrust between Orlesians and Fereldans, it's why Loghain is doing what he's doing after all. 

 

And oh, yes, of course, the mage-templar/chantry conflict. 

[KainD]

do dwarves, elves, and qunari have races?

 

Or are they all just, short white people, sharp angled eared white people, and steroid abusing horned white people, respectively

 

So what makes a race is skin color? There is no such race as human right? 

[CybAnt1]

I would say the way modern humans divide each other up into "races" is based on two components of phenotype: skin color and facial features (hair color and shape, nasal shape, eye color and shape, etc.).

 

These do not encapsulate the realities of human genetic difference, which is why physical anthropologists prefer to use the term "haplogroup". At least if one wants to move from folk categories/constructs to scientific classifications. 

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Haplogroup

 

The term "race" in a fantasy game, or maybe even other RPG genres, really often refers to humanoids that can be much more biologically different from humans than our contemporaneous use of the word (for sub races of h.o.mo. sapiens sapiens), such as cat-people, lizard-people, or cow-people.

[Cainhurst Crow]

are there chinese dwarves. and is there ever any racism for the other species? Come to think of it I don't think I've even seen any humans being racist in dragon age hey? And they're totally cool with homosexual relations and women in power too. Truly such a pc age they live in. Should be called PC age instead of dragon age

 

The people of kirkwall seemed plenty racist against the people of fereldan, same with the fereldeans and the orlisians, and probably a whole host of others that we haven't seen expressed. Then there's the racism against elves, and dwarves, by the humans of all nations. The internal mechanics of dwarven society is more geared towards classism, in which casteless are seen as their own race unto themselves an unfit for holding work, being within the same areas as non-casteless, fighting, and only good to be killed or used as a semen depository. Dalish elves have an underlying racism towards humans and city elves, that has always been subtly present. The qunari hate everyone and everything that doesn't follow the qun and everyone else feels likewise.

 

Really if you're going to make a trollpost like this one, you could at least put some more effort into it then this.

[Lebanese Dude]

Honestly the word racism doesn't apply in Thedas like it does in the real world. Not sure why people are making a big fuss about it.

[Cainhurst Crow]

 

What it always means: a shield for bigoted loudmouths.

 

Plenty of prejudice exists in the Dragon Age setting. If the OP can't see that, he's an idiot.

 

lol, you are too funny.

 

PC in this case stands for politically correct, the agenda that seeks to promote it's own form of biases under the guise of making everything "safer" and more "friendly" to non-majority individuals such as racial or ethnic minorities, gender equality, sexuality tolerance, etc, yet always seeks to single out individuals and demand everyone treat them different rather then just say everyone needs to treat each other exactly the same.

 

Overall it's like a lot of things, it started with good intentions, was allowed to grow out of control, became corrupted by greedy individuals looking for easy ways to sue other people and get things tilted in their favor, and has become a mockery of the very principles it sought to champion during it's inception.

[Cainhurst Crow]

Can you actually name any examples of where "political correctness" has actually caused issues for yourself or the people around you? Can you name any examples where political correctness has caused problems for other people elsewhere without having to look up the details?

 

I can tell you how racism and sexism has impacted the people around me, but I'll be damned if I've ever heard of a friend or loved one complaining about how "political correctness" has adversely affected their life.

 

It's a sham. Political correctness gone mad might be a problem in a few isolated cases, but examples of where it actually IS a problem is dwarfed by the number of people actually complaining about it. As I said, it's a shield for loudmouths and a reliable soapbox for trolls like the OP, who don't know what the hell they're actually talking about.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2...d-kissing-girl/

 

Political correctness is little more then a meaningless mantra that resolves no problems and causes more harm then good. It's distracting from actual cases of discrimination, racism, sexism, etc, and instead trying to make every little thing into a problem, from holidays to sports to personal vacation photos, political correctness has gone after all them them while ignoring one of the biggest forms of discrimination in the workplace of all, the disproportional pay to work scale between individuals inside massive companies.

 

If they decided that someone having a calender in their cubicle is more pressing then that, then I don't see any sort of valid reason we should need political correctness at all. Considering the fact that people more or less respect eachother in this day and age to not need a third party to come in and penalize people for being human with one another and joking around.