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[Mockingword]

So, the fact that not everything is explained means that everything DOESN'T need to be explained? 

Is Dragon Age your first experience with fiction?

[Fast Jimmy]

dude i think a lot of travel has existed in our world for a few thousand years and different races still exist
 
the majority of asia is obviously non-white (because let's face it europe is a subcontinent like india. really) but white people exist. Genetics are weird and countries have arbitrary borders that still enforce marriage within that border, which leads to a lack of homogenization between countries.

No, travel to this degree has not existed for thousands of years. And, in cases where travel did apply, you see a blending of the races.

Italians, Greeks and Spainiards are all much darker skinned than other European counterparts. This is because of their proximity to African and Arabian neighbors. Similarly, after decades of red hair being a recessive trait bred in relative isolation in areas like England and Ireland, the trait itself is at risk of becoming "extinct" in one hundred years.

Today, you can take your entire family and move them across the globe for less than most people make in a year. That has never happened in the course of human history. And we will begin seeing the effects of such a fluid culture across our genetics in the centuries and millenia to come.

[AkiKishi]

Is Dragon Age your first experience with fiction?

 

Just because something is fiction does not mean it does not have it's own integrity. All good fictions do. It's what makes them believable even though they don't exist.

[Fast Jimmy]

So why should there be Asians in Thedas?

Boom goes the dynamite.

[Mockingword]

So why should there be Asians in Thedas?

Having Asian-looking characters would make some players very happy. Seems like a good enough reason to me.

 

Why should there not be? The only reason that any detractors have been able to provide is that someone would have to write an extra paragraph to "justify" their existence.

 

What a terrible hardship for BioWare staff to bear.

[Nefla]

Indians/South Asians are technically Cauasian with a darker skintone. But they are not also "white with a tan".

In the antiquated sense of the word, yes. They don't look white, Isabella does.

[Boss Fog]

Is Dragon Age your first experience with fiction?

Obviously not, I just find it confusing why you think certain things within the context of a story don't need to be explained simply because other things that are typically taken for granted aren't.  There are forces of nature at work within Dragon Age that don't have immediate explanations because they don't need them.    Bioware doesn't need to explain whether or not everything within the world of Thedas is made up of atoms, and that all living things have or don't have cellular structure.  

 

Knowing where a group of people who are obviously not native to a specific area is a whole other ball game because it potentially points out an uncharted or as of yet to be revealed location of the map.  It also makes characters within the story question their origins as well.  If a group of Asian looking people just showed up in Orlais and no one knew where they came from or where they were from and no one even bothered to ask; that's just ridiculous.

[Mockingword]

Just because something is fiction does not mean it does not have it's own integrity. All good fictions do. It's what makes them believable even though they don't exist.

Swing and a miss.

 

There's not a single fiction in the entire goddamn world that provides "lore justification" for everything in it. In fact, most of the content of any given work of fiction goes unjustified.

 

By your logic, no fictional work has any integrity.

 

But integrity has nothing to do with my point, and supplying new information doesn't damage the integrity of a fictional world. Or do you seriously think Thedas is the only continent on its planet, and that any additions to the map will be series-ruining retcons?

[Ianamus]

I don't see the point. Dragon Age already has so many different ethinicities, races and nationalities to deal with. It should focus on expanding and developing the ones it already has, not throwing more onto the heap.

[ladyoflate]

In the antiquated sense of the word, yes. They don't look white, Isabella does.

 

No, she doesn't. the existence of 'white Isabela' mods can pretty much prove that if you need semantics, but no she doesn't look white because she isn't white. Mariah Carey 'looks white' but she's still a black woman. There's this whole thing that used to happen because of more ingrained systematic racism called 'white passing' and it doesn't mean the people who did it were white just because they 'looked white' if people expected them to be white.

[Mockingword]

Obviously not, I just find it confusing why you think certain things within the context of a story don't need to be explained simply because other things that are typically taken for granted aren't.  There are forces of nature at work within Dragon Age that don't have immediate explanations because they don't need them.    Bioware doesn't need to explain whether or not everything within the world of Thedas is made up of atoms, and that all living things have or don't have cellular structure.  

 

Knowing where a group of people who are obviously not native to a specific area is a whole other ball game because it potentially points out an uncharted or as of yet to be revealed location of the map.

BioWare doesn't have to explain anything at all, unless it is directly relevant to the actual plot at hand.

 

How would it be "obvious" that an Asian-like group of people was "not native" to Thedas? White humans aren't native to Thedas, as the lore reveals. Was that obvious? Did you scour the codex, looking for an explanation for their presence?

[Fast Jimmy]

There's the silk road and such. The way he worded his post made it sound like if any POC population existed outside of Rivain, suddenly white people disappear. Which is demonstrably not a thing.

That's not what I said (or at least not what I intended).

I said for their to exist people of color, there needs to be a segregated source where their gene pool of physical traits originated from. If the entire island of Rivain were to sink in a flash and all of its inhabitants scattered equally across of Thedas and assuming no social stigma exists for people marrying Rivani, then within a few centuries (certainly within a millenia) there would be no People of Color, while the average Thedosian would likely be darker skinned than they are today.

Since we know that the races and their relative physical appearances have remained the same over thousands of years, we know that travel and subsequent coupling of different people is the exception to the rule, not the norm. This does not reflect our lives today in the real world, as we are in a state of unparalleled flux of what constitutes any given country's population due to the appearance of wide spread and inexpensive mass travel. To make a fictional world conform to our real world current state of affairs would also be fine... but only if such a world hasn't already been built and established. Now that it has, it becomes a little more difficult (although far from impossible) to introduce such elements.

[AkiKishi]

Swing and a miss.

 

There's not a single fiction in the entire goddamn world that provides "lore justification" for everything in it. In fact, most of the content of any given work of fiction goes unjustified.

 

By your logic, no fictional work has any integrity.

 

But integrity has nothing to do with my point, and supplying new information doesn't damage the integrity of a fictional world. Or do you seriously think Thedas is the only continent on its planet, and that any additions to the map will be series-ruining retcons?

 

Want to field some examples? They have to be games of course, not novels.

 

Which kind of goes back to the point i made about the lore being the LAW and you never waver on that. Once you do, you are open to exactly the sort of thing you are proposing and you don't have a defence. 

[happy_daiz]

Having Asian-looking characters would make some players very happy. Seems like a good enough reason to me.
 
Why should there not be? The only reason that any detractors have been able to provide is that someone would have to write an extra paragraph to "justify" their existence.
 
What a terrible hardship for BioWare staff to bear.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be. I was applying your own logic on the main point of this thread, and posing the question back to you.

If the argument for adding something is because it would "make some players very happy", then I suppose BW should take note of every single player idea and gripe, and make it happen. No matter the cost, or the conflict with the game lore. Just do it because it makes people happy. (This was sarcasm).

I really don't see a way to add this, without conflicting with established lore. Unless an island appears out of nowhere, ala Shivering Isles in Oblivion, it seems impossible to justify.

And I fail to see how a codex entry for something this big - I mean, it would be a completely new race to Thedas - would do it justice.

[Boss Fog]

BioWare doesn't have to explain anything at all, unless it is directly relevant to the actual plot at hand.

 

How would it be "obvious" that an Asian-like group of people was "not native" to Thedas? White humans aren't native to Thedas, as the lore reveals. Was that obvious? Did you scour the codex, looking for an explanation for their presence?

No I didn't scour the Codex because it was made abundantly clear to me that wherever these people were from, many of them shared common physical characteristics and that they have decided to settle in what is called Thedas.  That is where they currently are and where they have been for a long time.  If another group of people dressed entirely differently, speaking a different language and wearing very distinct looking attire showed up all of the sudden and none of the characters knew of them or where they hailed from; then I would question where they came from.

[Mockingword]

Want to field some examples? They have to be games of course, not novels.

 

Which kind of goes back to the point i made about the lore being the LAW and you never waver on that. Once you do, you are open to exactly the sort of thing you are proposing and you don't have a defence. 

All games. Not a single game anywhere provides "lore justification" for every object that exists within its universe.

 

"Lore" isn't LAW, especially not in Dragon Age. The lore of Thedas is comprised of myths, legends, rumours and ramblings written by fictional individuals whose work has been filtered through their own personal biases. Much of it is unsubstantiated, some of it is conflicting, certain pieces are clearly intended to be fictional within the context of the setting (stories within the story).

 

Put simply, it's all totally bogus.

[Fast Jimmy]

All games. Not a single game anywhere provides "lore justification" for every object that exists within its universe.

"Lore" isn't LAW, especially not in Dragon Age. The lore of Thedas is comprised of myths, legends, rumours and ramblings written by fictional individuals whose work has been filtered through their own personal biases. Much of it is unsubstantiated, some of it is conflicting, certain pieces are clearly intended to be fictional within the context of the setting (stories within the story).

Put simply, it's all totally bogus.

So... unless there are Codex entries explaining gravity, the need for living things to breathe air and the existence of human thought, then we can interchange all the characters in a story out for My Little Pony remakes? That's your argument?

[Mockingword]

I'm not saying there shouldn't be. I was applying your own logic on the main point of this thread, and posing the question back to you.

If the argument for adding something is because it would "make some players very happy", then I suppose BW should take note of every single player idea and gripe, and make it happen. No matter the cost, or the conflict with the game lore. Just do it because it makes people happy. (This was sarcasm).

I really don't see a way to add this, without conflicting with established lore. Unless an island appears out of nowhere, ala Shivering Isles in Oblivion, it seems impossible to justify.

And I fail to see how a codex entry for something this big - I mean, it would be a completely new race to Thedas - would do it justice.

Adding Asian-looking people would not conflict with game lore in the slightest, because there's nothing in the lore to state that they don't exist. And the lore is internally contradictory already, so who the **** cares?

 

And we already know that there are lands beyond Thedas, because the writers have told us so themselves. The continents are known, they have been named. Nothing is stopping any characters from these lands from popping over for a visit, except that the writers don't want them to.

 

As for cost, I find it extremely hard to believe that making an Asian NPC is any more expensive or time consuming than making a white one.

[happy_daiz]

Adding Asian-looking people would not conflict with game lore in the slightest, because there's nothing in the lore to state that they don't exist. And the lore is internally contradictory already, so who the **** cares?
 
And we already know that there are lands beyond Thedas, because the writers have told us so themselves. The continents are known, they have been named. Nothing is stopping any characters from these lands from popping over for a visit, except that the writers don't want them to.
 
As for cost, I find it extremely hard to believe that making an Asian NPC is any more expensive or time consuming than making a white one.

So you don't want an actual recognized (new) race of people; you just want Asian-looking NPCs?

 

Well that's an entirely different argument. Why are any of us arguing this?

[ladyoflate]

Want to field some examples? They have to be games of course, not novels.

 

Which kind of goes back to the point i made about the lore being the LAW and you never waver on that. Once you do, you are open to exactly the sort of thing you are proposing and you don't have a defence. 

 

Why not novels? Are novels not valid forms of fiction?

 

As for games exclusively, Things that are not explicitly justified by lore in Dragon Age:

-monogamous marriages by the Chantry. Andraste had two husbands, why not me?

-why is everyone so white dang

-elven hybrids not being elven. There's no non-meta lor to justify it, it's just a thing that happens

-mages using staffs. Why teach your controlled populace to use a polearm? They don't need one to do magic and it's not really an identifying marker, so what's the logic in that?

-why doesn't anyone seem to have a navy except the Qunari? We hear a lot about pirates, if the navies existed obviously we'd hear about them, so clearly they must not exist because we don't see or interact with naval officers in Amaranthine, just normal city guards. Despite dealing explicity with smugglers who travel by water. We do that a lot, actually. Yet still no watery police or military force.

[Boss Fog]

Adding Asian-looking people would not conflict with game lore in the slightest, because there's nothing in the lore to state that they don't exist. And the lore is internally contradictory already, so who the **** cares?

 

And we already know that there are lands beyond Thedas, because the writers have told us so themselves. The continents are known, they have been named. Nothing is stopping any characters from these lands from popping over for a visit, except that the writers don't want them to.

 

As for cost, I find it extremely hard to believe that making an Asian NPC is any more expensive or time consuming than making a white one.

I actually agree with you on this.  The map of Thedas is pretty small by RL standards and all it would take is an expansion of the map to reveal more territory.  I have no problem accepting the notion that a foreign group of people came from lands beyond the borders of Thedas.  Why would anyone have trouble accepting that?  If you're trying to argue that there should be asian looking NPCs just because it will please certain people; that to me isn't legit.

[AkiKishi]

All games. Not a single game anywhere provides "lore justification" for every object that exists within its universe.

 

"Lore" isn't LAW, especially not in Dragon Age. The lore of Thedas is comprised of myths, legends, rumours and ramblings written by fictional individuals whose work has been filtered through their own personal biases. Much of it is unsubstantiated, some of it is conflicting, certain pieces are clearly intended to be fictional within the context of the setting (stories within the story).

 

Put simply, it's all totally bogus.

 

I learned to write worlds from two sources. The LoreMaster system and How to create worlds.Both of those enphasised how important it was that everything in the world made sense even if it was a magical world.

 

Even though in your world you have a the power of a god does not mean you just do things without reason. It's not whether you can do something, it's whether you should do something. 

 

The problem with Dragon Age is they have already bent the rule of lore.

[happy_daiz]

I actually agree with you on this.  The map of Thedas is pretty small by RL standards and all it would take is an expansion of the map to reveal more territory.  I have no problem accepting the notion that a foreign group of people came from lands beyond the borders of Thedas. 

 

As do I. I think most of us arguing the lore point had the issue with it being something added to Thedas itself. It's entirely conceivable that there would be other places outside of Thedas where these people could come from. It is, after all, just a continent; not the whole world.

 

Although...have we ever meet anyone from outside of Thedas, in-game? 

[Fast Jimmy]

Adding Asian-looking people would not conflict with game lore in the slightest, because there's nothing in the lore to state that they don't exist. And the lore is internally contradictory already, so who the **** cares?

And we already know that there are lands beyond Thedas, because the writers have told us so themselves. The continents are known, they have been named. Nothing is stopping any characters from these lands from popping over for a visit, except that the writers don't want them to.

As for cost, I find it extremely hard to believe that making an Asian NPC is any more expensive or time consuming than making a white one.

First off, no one mentioned anything about cost. It is doable - the character creator can make an Asian-esque PC, so you could make Asian NPCs without difficulty.

And secondly, you are double backing on yourself... YES. There are other continents that could be introduced. YES. We could be introduced to a new group of people who are from this distant land and who appear as Asian. YES. All of that would become AND NOT CONFLICT WITH THE LORE.

What you are saying is that lore does not matter, fiction is totally bogus unless it happens to conform to the ideas you want and that nothing should have to make any sense if any single potential consumer of the fiction might think something is nice.

THAT argument has zero weight. Yes, there could exist Asians. But NO, they should not be introduced in a way that contradicts lore entirely (like suddenly having all of Antiva be Asian despite us meeting and seeing multiple instances of these people looking more similar to Fereldens than anything).

[Mockingword]

So... unless there are Codex entries explaining gravity, the need for living things to breathe air and the existence of human thought, then we can interchange all the characters in a story out for My Little Pony remakes? That's your argument?

"We" can't interchange anything with anything, because we are not the writers, and I don't see what My Little Pony has to do with anything.

 

Certainly nothing is stopping David Gaider from having all the party members spontaneously turn into ponies. It wouldn't even be that farfetched. Shapeshifting is an established possibility in the canon of Thedas.

 

What I am saying, the only thing I am saying, is that fantasy worlds are not obligated to mimic the real world in any respect, and you shouldn't assume that they do.