287 réponses à ce sujet

[Mockingword]

What if the limit of someone's acceptance is radically altered changes to the lore and setting to appease to a vocal, if you'll pardon the expression, minority?

Then that person needs to get over themselves. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the genre of Fantasy knows that new information can come at any time. As it is, the people of Thedas are woefully ignorant about many things, not least of which is the lands beyond their borders.

 

"Lore" is not the same thing as "fact", and the two terms should not be used as if they are interchangeable. The "lore" of Thedas consists mostly of rumours and myths. Even the "factual" stuff is filtered through the bias of whichever character happens to be writing about it.

 

But since people of various shades and hues have been present in Thedas since the very first game, nothing about the setting would be changing at all if BioWare were to increase representation of them.

[Nyeredzi]

Can you show me where it's been said that the Rivaini are the "black people" of Thedas?  I've never seen that.  I've seen a BUNCH of people post on the forum about how the Rivaini are black, but all I've seen officially is a group of dark-skinned people of Rivaini descent in the game.  So, I'm not following your logic that dark-skinned = black given that there are many, many ethnic groups that have dark skin and are not black.

 

Isabela and Duncan look more Middle Eastern than black, to me.  And Vivienne, who is black, hasn't been confirmed as Rivaini.

David Gaider-- 

 

There are indeed black people in Thedas-- the Rivaini have skin tones ranging from dark tan to ebony. You'll find them scattered in various places. As to whether or not we would ever have a party member who was Rivaini, we'll see. I don't think we would include it just for the sake of including it. As a character concept, representation of a real-world ethnic group is pretty weak if that's all it is.

Insofar as someone not liking the fact that Thedas is (very loosely) based on medieval Europe-- well that's nice, but we like it just fine.

[Han Shot First]

The thing is that the "it has to make sense" argument can be and IS used specifically to exclude diversity.  It falls directly under the category of "IT WOULDN'T BE HISTORICALLY ACCURATE OMG."  Otherwise, I would agree with you, but I just can't get behind a line of reasoning that is specifically trotted out to defend the lack of diversity.  

 

I think you are making the mistake of assuming that people who prefer it to mirror our own world, are arguing for a lack of diversity in the characters. That isn't necessarily the case.

 

I'm all for a diverse cast of characters. I just also prefer that they also have diverse ethnic, cultural or national origins. Giving them diverse origins helps to expands the lore and the world.

 

It also helps to suspend disbelief. That may sound like an odd statement about a universe where dragons and magic exist, but that is kind of the point. Magic and dragons don't exist in our world, but humans do. Because humans are familiar I expect them to not to be radically different from us, and having skin color be something inherited at random or inherited similarly to hair color, would be as jarring as a reveal that humans in Thedas hatch from eggs.

[Mockingword]

I agree. It still doesn't make it my business to tell other writers what to do with their own stories.

Christ. Let's just throw out the entire business of literary criticism, then.

[daveliam]

David Gaider

 

There are indeed black people in Thedas-- the Rivaini have skin tones ranging from dark tan to ebony. You'll find them scattered in various places. As to whether or not we would ever have a party member who was Rivaini, we'll see. I don't think we would include it just for the sake of including it. As a character concept, representation of a real-world ethnic group is pretty weak if that's all it is.

Insofar as someone not liking the fact that Thedas is (very loosely) based on medieval Europe-- well that's nice, but we like it just fine.

 

That's helpful.  Thanks for providing that. 

 

However, I'm still not sure why that would mean that you have a problem with Isabela and Duncan's features.  What this message is saying is that Rivaini are found all over Thedas and have diverse looks.  So why, again, would you recommend removing the Rivaini altogether just because you don't think they look African?

[Silfren]

I don't see how historical accuracy is in any way relevant in a story set in a fantasy world. It's internal consistency that is being discussed here, or so I thought.

 

I would agree with that.  My point, though, was that historical accuracy is precisely one of the chief arguments against diversity in the first place.  You might be concerned with internal consistency, but most people don't use that argument against a diverse fantasy world; they insist that because said fantasy is drawn from real world cultures, regardless of however loosely, that is the reason why diversity should not exist.  

 

As for internal consistency itself, if we actually lived in a world where diversity was not routinely dismissed as just being done for the sake of appeasement, was only ever a case of Devs using their game as a political platform, was nothing more than people being PC just because...I might agree with you.  But that's not the world we actually do live in: it's one in which media routinely and aggressively excludes people of color and perpetuates the narrative that only white people matter.  It's one in which diversity is spit on as a bad thing, an anti-historical thing.  In that context, I'll take diversity, regardless of whether it comes at the expense of internal consistency, or amounts to retconning.  

[Mathias]

If I want to be culturally enlightened, there's no smarter place to turn to than the BSN!

[Jedi Master of Orion]

OK, I definitely want to see more diversity in Thedas. But I want to see it by going to other places that are more culturally and ethnically diverse. I do not want it arbitrarily and uniformly imposed on all places the setting because fantasy means we don't need to justify anything at all.

 

What also bothers me about this debate is the implication that a given story about white people (or any other one race) must be an inherently bad notion. Were there any more black people in Jade Empire than there were in Dragon Age? The world of Avatar the Last Airbender appears to consist entirely of different Asian  ethnicities (and apparently one Indian). That doesn't mean the creators of the show were pretending that only asian people matter.

 

As a writer myself, I'm not even vaguely interested in reading or creating settings that are not diverse. And I don't do it out of any sense of "political correctness". I do it because we have enough lily-white carbon copies of Middle Earth already, and because other cultures have a mostly untapped wealth of awesome myths and folklore from which I can draw inspiration.

 

Simply put, it makes my work stand out, and it makes me a better writer. The fact that it is also the right thing to do is just a bonus.

 

Do you realise that you just said you would avoid a retcon, even if it made your work better?

 

Diversity and representation are not the point of any of my stories, but does it follow then that all the important characters must be white by default? If race doesn't matter to the story, then what does it matter if the protagonist happens to be something other than white?

 

Other writers are not obligated to want to write or read the same things as you. Stories aren't required to be diverse to be "better". Your tastes personally are not the standard of what is or is not interesting or what should be written.

[Mockingword]

Even when the end result is an improvement, retcon doesn't speak well of the writer or his/her story.

 

Your story sucking because you refused to change it isn't exactly a stellar display of authorial proficiency either.

[Nocte ad Mortem]

I don't understand why the "Don't tell Bioware what to do!" posts are even being acknowledged with a reply. If Bioware didn't want feedback on their games maybe they would, jeez, not make a forum specifically called "Feedback & Suggestions" and open it up to the general populous. Bioware doesn't have a problem with people suggesting changes, so maybe you should just speak for yourself and actually offer an opinion on the topic at hand.     

[Gwydden]

Christ. Let's just throw out the entire business of literary criticism, then.

If I ask ten random people on the street to tell me their opinion about my latest short story, I'd likely get wildly different opinions. If I managed to get ten professional critics to do it, their own opinions might be more homogeneous but they would still differ greatly, especially in the love/hate spectrum. Literary criticism is ultimately all about throwing out your own very subjective judgement of a piece of literature. While there is value in that, it still doesn't mean the one being criticized has to conform to what he/she is being told to do.

 

I like diversity in stories, including mine. I try to implement it as well as I can. I would recommend other writers to do the same, and I might not like it when they fall to the classic setup, but there is a difference between you should and you must, and if your story only has straight white males, that doesn't automatically make it a terrible one, even if it doesn't give it any points either.

[JadePrince]

Exactly what sort of groundwork does BioWare have to lay down in order for diversity in Thedas to "make sense" Why does a completely fictional setting need justification for diversity? Why can't it just be diverse from the start? Why can't it have always been diverse?

 

Do we seriously need to know the entire immigration history of Thedas? Because that sounds ****** boring. I don't care how the black people got there, I just want to kill some demons.

 

Agreed. If they can retcon the appearance of the Qunari so drastically without explanation (in-game anyway, I don't do the supplementary materials so forgive me if there's a novel somewhere that does explain it), I think we can all handle suddenly seeing a more diverse crowd of NPCs populating Thedas. I mean come ON. There's literally no reason to need to justify it. Just do it.

[Gwydden]

Your story sucking because you refused to change it isn't exactly a stellar display of authorial proficiency either.

Sure. But if you can accomplish the same goal without having to retcon anything it would be much, much better to do so.

[Wulfram]

Real history is a useful touchstone as to what is plausible, given the level of Thedosian technology.  Of course it sets a pretty broad bound.

 

But it seems kind of narrow-minded to reject countless cultures through-out history because they fail to measure up to American standards of diversity

[Silfren]

What also bothers me about this debate is the implication that a given story about white people (or any other one race) must be an inherently bad notion. Were there any more black people in Jade Empire than there were in Dragon Age? The world of Avatar the Last Airbender appears to consist entirely of different Asian  ethnicities (and apparently one Indian). That doesn't mean the creators of the show were pretending that only asian people matter.

 

The whole Jade Empire argument doesn't really cut it when the entire discussion hinges on the fact of media that features stories predominantly or nearly-exclusively of white people.  It's an example of PoC *getting* representation, rather than being excluded.  

 

I am in no way saying that stories that are strictly about white people (or revolve mostly around) white people are inherently bad for that reason.  What I am saying is that such stories already saturate the market to the point where stories like Jade Empire are the exception, rather than being part of the norm, as they should be.  That is what is bad about it: stories told by and about white people dominate the market to the detriment of other stories.  

[Han Shot First]

I would agree with that.  My point, though, was that historical accuracy is precisely one of the chief arguments against diversity in the first place.  

 

Historical accuracy would be a fairly weak argument against diversity in Thedas, even ignoring that Thedas isn't medieval Europe. 

 

During various parts of the medieval era there were Moors in parts of Spain, Arabs in Sicily, Turks in Greece and parts the Balkans, and Mongols in Eastern Europe. There was at least one visit to Rome by Ethiopian Christians, and merchants and sailors from North Africa and the Middle East probably wouldn't have been an entirely rare sight in some Italian port cities.

 

On that note I'm all for expanding the lore of Thedas to include cultures that might be analogous to the Moors or Arabs or the Turks or the Mongols, in the same way that say, Orlais is roughly analogous to medieval France. I just prefer that if we are going to get a more diverse cast of characters, that its the result of the borders of the known world expanding.

[Nyeredzi]

That's helpful.  Thanks for providing that. 

 

However, I'm still not sure why that would mean that you have a problem with Isabela and Duncan's features.  What this message is saying is that Rivaini are found all over Thedas and have diverse looks.  So why, again, would you recommend removing the Rivaini altogether just because you don't think they look African?

Err why? Because Black people don't look like that (Like Isabella and Duncan). Calling them black is the same as lying to me. Hating our appearance

 

If you don't want real black people in your world, why don't you get rid of the idea, instead of transforming them into something that's wrong and unreal.........

 

Leave the signatures of our basic appearances alone. No black person naturally possesses long, flowing hair, with brownish color. That's one thing that the player themselves do in their character selection screen.

 

Turning everything into everything into you... is un-polite. I've seen it already done in mods, and even in "The World of Thedas- Volume One", but come on... 

[TKavatar]

Agreed. If they can retcon the appearance of the Qunari so drastically without explanation (in-game anyway, I don't do the supplementary materials so forgive me if there's a novel somewhere that does explain it), I think we can all handle suddenly seeing a more diverse crowd of NPCs populating Thedas. I mean come ON. There's literally no reason to need to justify it. Just do it.

Qunari were always meant to have horns, but the devs couldn't figure out how to make helmets fit with them in DAO so they made Sten a special hornless Qunari.

But yeah, Bioware is terrible at visual continuity. Just look at how they retconned the dragons in DAI for example. And I'm not buying their excuse that it's because of the engine change/technical difficulties this time, meshes aren't specific to engines.

[Silfren]

Black people don't look like that. Like Isabella and Duncan. Calling them black is the same as lying to me. Hating their appearance

 

If you don't want real black people in your world, why don't you get rid of the idea instead of transforming them into something that's wrong and unreal. Leave their appearance alone. No black person possesses long flowing, hair with brown color. That's one thing that the player character does in their character selection screen.

*sigh*

 

Maybe certain groups of African-born persons with zero non-African heritage in their background don't look like that, but otherwise, no, your statement is utterly and completely false.

[Gwydden]

Historical accuracy would be a fairly weak argument against diversity in Thedas, even ignoring that Thedas isn't medieval Europe. 

 

During various parts of the medieval era there were Moors in parts of Spain, Arabs in Sicily, Turks in Greece and parts the Balkans, and Mongols in Eastern Europe. There was at least one visit to Rome by Ethiopian Christians, and merchants and sailors from North Africa and the Middle East probably wouldn't have been an entirely rare sight in some Italian port cities.

 

On that note I'm all for expanding the lore of Thedas to include cultures that might be analogous to the Moors or Arabs or the Turks or the Mongols, in the same way that say, Orlais is roughly analogous to medieval France. I just prefer that if we are going to get a more diverse cast of characters, that its the result of the borders of the known world expanding.

I would expect a hypothetical DA4 to be set in northern Thedas, after expending so much time in the south. That would be an excellent opportunity to present a cast that consists at least in half of non white.

[Nocte ad Mortem]

Agreed. If they can retcon the appearance of the Qunari so drastically without explanation (in-game anyway, I don't do the supplementary materials so forgive me if there's a novel somewhere that does explain it), I think we can all handle suddenly seeing a more diverse crowd of NPCs populating Thedas. I mean come ON. There's literally no reason to need to justify it. Just do it.

This is a good point. The Qunari and the elves have both gone through drastic changes between games. Just changing up human skin tones is much more subtle than the changes they've made to other races.

[Gwydden]

This is a good point. The Qunari and the elves have both gone through drastic changes between games. Just changing up human skin tones is much more subtle than the changes they've made to other races.

And much more controversial. Qunari and elves don't exist and never have.

[Mockingword]

Other writers are not obligated to want to write or read the same things as you. Stories aren't required to be diverse to be "better". Your tastes personally are not the standard of what is or is not interesting or what should be written.

Please, show me where I said other writers were in any way obligated to appeal to me.

 

No, stories aren't required to be diverse, but I am still allowed to critique them for a lack of diversity. Hell, I can critique them for any reason I damn well please

 

And for the love of god, just stop with the "obligation" nonsense. Not only is it already patently obvious to everyone with two braincells to rub together, it's not even a good argument.

 

"I'm not obligated to write x" Is the desperate cry of a person who can't come up with a legitimate defense of their artistic choices when questioned. 

 

No, authors are not obligated to write non-white characters, and nobody is saying that they are. We are simply asking why they apparently don't want to. "SO WHAT? I DON'T HAVE TO" is not a satisfactory answer.

[Nocte ad Mortem]

And much more controversial. Qunari and elves don't exist and never have.

Why does that objectively make a difference? Everything in Thedas is imaginary. Focusing on visual continuity only in certain areas is purely an issue of personal hang ups. It's literally no different in any practical sense.   

[JadePrince]

Qunari were always meant to have horns, but the devs couldn't figure out how to make helmets fit with them in DAO so they made Sten a special hornless Qunari.

But yeah, Bioware is terrible at visual continuity. Just look at how they retconned the dragons in DAI for example. And I'm not buying their excuse that it's because of the engine change/technical difficulties this time, meshes aren't specific to engines.

 

That's interesting. But it doesn't explain the group of Qunari you fight in one of those map encounters who ALL look like Sten. Clearly they weren't intending just one individual Qunari to look like that. It's not just the horns either, I mean, DA2's Qunari look COMPLETELY different. Unrecognizably different. My point is, the average player is not gonna know the behind the scenes story. They're just gonna play the second game and see that what we call a Qunari suddenly looks completely different. And if we, as players can handle that without pitching a fit, then it'd be pretty hypocritical to pitch a fit over Thedas suddenly seeming to have more POC characters running around. 

 

I'm just saying, Bioware doesn't HAVE to justify choices like this. Just like I don't need an explanation for them to change up their character models, I don't need to know why there's more diversity in this new game. I don't need reasons/explanations.