266 réponses à ce sujet

[Steelcan]

I don't think the issue here is "Political Correctness gone out of control" I think the "problem" if you want to say it is one, is that BioWare doesn't care about accurately representing medieval population demographics because they see no reason to focus on it.  This isn't Westeros or Middle Earth where there's a long history, complete genealogy, and a personal attache attached to each blade of grass that's rendered on screen. 

 

I don't think its fair to fault them for just saying screw it and throwing in a mishmash of ethnicities and races together given how very un-medieval Thedas really is.  Especially when so many of these characters are randomly generated.

[In Exile]

I don't think the issue here is "Political Correctness gone out of control" I think the "problem" if you want to say it is one, is that BioWare doesn't care about accurately representing medieval population demographics because they see no reason to focus on it.  This isn't Westeros or Middle Earth where there's a long history, complete genealogy, and a personal attache attached to each blade of grass that's rendered on screen. 

 

I don't think its fair to fault them for just saying screw it and throwing in a mishmash of ethnicities and races together given how very un-medieval Thedas really is.  Especially when so many of these characters are randomly generated.

 

The other thing is, I don't see why one would care about skin colour when culture is equally a mash-up. A JE-equivalent with all white characters would be unsavory, true, but for reasons other than there being an issue in the abstract with skin-colour and culture mash-ups. After all, that's bread and butter in sci-fi.

[Yumakooma]

lmao how can this make you feel disconcerted

[Steelcan]

The other thing is, I don't see why one would care about skin colour when culture is equally a mash-up. A JE-equivalent with all white characters would be unsavory, true, but for reasons other than there being an issue in the abstract with skin-colour and culture mash-ups. After all, that's bread and butter in sci-fi.

I think that BioWare's heavy handed analogies to real life Medieval polities is somewhat responsible for this.  Ferelden is not!England and we have specific ideas on what medieval England looked like.  The same goes for places like Orlais, we have an idea of what medieval France and when it doesn't match up there is a disconnect.

 

We aren't used to thinking of culture and skin color as completely independent of each other.  The only western Nations that have made some strides towards this still struggle heavily with racial issues.

[Deebo305]

News to me, and most likely a retcon since Tevinters were never mentioned as dark as that.

 

The game has never ventured to Tervinter thus it can't be considered a retcon

 

Seeing a handful of people doesn't define an entire race

[fhs33721]

OP apparently forgot to include sentences like "I'm not a racist, but......" and "I have black friends." in his original post.

A shame, since those would have firmly established that he is in fact just concerned about the lore and didn't make this thread for more unsavory reasons.

[PapaCharlie9]

OP apparently forgot to include sentences like "I'm not a racist, but......" and "I have black friends." in his original post.
A shame, since those would have firmly established that he is in fact just concerned about the lore and didn't make this thread for more unsavory reasons.

 
No, that pretty much guarantees that the next sentence is going to be racist. Some real tweets, collected by @YesYoureRacist:
 

I am not racist but , damn tired of people criticizing the culture that built the greatest country on earth because it happened to be white.

 

I'm not racist but why do #blackpeople come to uk and think they are owed something

 

I am not a racist, but I am a racist lover. Be proud of your white race country and culture.

 

Im not racist but O(bama) is and has a war on whites/everyone who is not black and has shown his bias for years 

 

I'm not racist but I H8 Mexicans they need to ship the a.. back on the other side of the border

 

There's a simpler way to make a post that isn't racist -- don't put racist stuff in it.

[Giantdeathrobot]

I don't think the issue here is "Political Correctness gone out of control" I think the "problem" if you want to say it is one, is that BioWare doesn't care about accurately representing medieval population demographics because they see no reason to focus on it.  This isn't Westeros or Middle Earth where there's a long history, complete genealogy, and a personal attache attached to each blade of grass that's rendered on screen. 

 

I don't think its fair to fault them for just saying screw it and throwing in a mishmash of ethnicities and races together given how very un-medieval Thedas really is.  Especially when so many of these characters are randomly generated.

 

The thing is medieval Europe wasn't universally white at all.

 

Indeed, especially in southern countries like Italy, most of the population was very probably tanned because they spent much of their time in the beating sun working. Even moreso on the Iberic peninsula, given the wide variety of difference ethnicities that settled there over the years. The nobility and clergy usually spent more time indoors, and were thus proportionally whiter overall, and these are the people who actually wrote the history books and represented their society via art, but that doesn't mean it really was 100% representative. They were the proverbial 1% of their society, hell look today at the average governmental cabinet or higher-ups of almost any large corporation and they are disproportionately populated by white men. Doesn't mean their respective population is that white.

 

Add to that the fact that Tevinter is a vast Empire, and that they once held dominion over all of Thedas, and the variety of skin tones makes perfect sense. They don't need to justify any non-white complexion, and vice-versa. In fact, it's probably more accurate to portray medieval Europe as a fairly diverse (albeit white-dominated, obviously) place than as a completely homogenous canvas of white people and almost nothing else, like some other fantasy series.

[Aulis Vaara]

I agree, Bioware is superimposing American racial politics onto Thedas, which is complete nonsense. Thedas is not the US, it is a lot more like medieval and/or renaissance Europe without equivalent African and Asian continents.

I have no problem with having black characters, but where the hell are these people coming from? Don't just throw **** in to throw **** in. That feels artificial and stupid.

I'd much rather see a black culture landing on the shores of Thedas than all of sudden retconning black people in. Especially when said retconned characters are horrible people. *cough*Vivienne*cough*

Note that there ARE in fact many races in Thedas with various skin colors, like the Chasind, the Rivaini, etc. Just no actually black characters. But apparently that's not diverse enough. And apparently having elves and dwarves and qunari is not diverse enough either. Nor is having room for many ideas and ideologies. No, apparently, not having black people is a serious lack of diversity and adding that skin color, even if it adds no depth, no ideas, no culture is enough to fill your diversity quota. I find that kind of sad.

[fhs33721]

 
No, that pretty much guarantees that the next sentence is going to be racist.

Yes thanks, I am very aware of this. I was just being highly sarcastic in my last post.

[nightscrawl]

The thing is medieval Europe wasn't universally white at all.

 
Steelcan addressed that in his next post with [emphasis added],

I think that BioWare's heavy handed analogies to real life Medieval polities is somewhat responsible for this.  Ferelden is not!England and we have specific ideas on what medieval England looked like.  The same goes for places like Orlais, we have an idea of what medieval France and when it doesn't match up there is a disconnect.
 
We aren't used to thinking of culture and skin color as completely independent of each other.  The only western Nations that have made some strides towards this still struggle heavily with racial issues.

 
This is sadly the case that people in general have certain ideas and concepts of what people looked like, acted like, did, said, and so on in those eras, most of which has been perpetuated by Hollywood. I mean, pretty much every film or television version of Ancient Rome has them played by majority white actors with English accents. It shouldn't be this way, I agree wholeheartedly, but that is the way it is.

[Steelcan]

The thing is medieval Europe wasn't universally white at all.

 

Indeed, especially in southern countries like Italy, most of the population was very probably tanned because they spent much of their time in the beating sun working. Even moreso on the Iberic peninsula, given the wide variety of difference ethnicities that settled there over the years. The nobility and clergy usually spent more time indoors, and were thus proportionally whiter overall, and these are the people who actually wrote the history books and represented their society via art, but that doesn't mean it really was 100% representative. They were the proverbial 1% of their society, hell look today at the average governmental cabinet or higher-ups of almost any large corporation and they are disproportionately populated by white men. Doesn't mean their respective population is that white.

 

Add to that the fact that Tevinter is a vast Empire, and that they once held dominion over all of Thedas, and the variety of skin tones makes perfect sense. They don't need to justify any non-white complexion, and vice-versa. In fact, it's probably more accurate to portray medieval Europe as a fairly diverse (albeit white-dominated, obviously) place than as a completely homogenous canvas of white people and almost nothing else, like some other fantasy series.

well I think there's a bit of a difference between tanned white people and people of color.  Italy and Greece and Spain for example do have much darker complexions even without tans than the Irish or Norwegians.

 

But I still think the issue is expectations vs what we get compounded by a lack of interest in BioWare's part on conforming to those expectations.

[AresKeith]

News to me, and most likely a retcon since Tevinters were never mentioned as dark as that.

 

You say these words but don't understand what they mean

[nightscrawl]

well I think there's a bit of a difference between tanned white people and people of color. Italy and Greece and Spain for example do have much darker complexions even without tans than the Irish or Norwegians.

But I still think the issue is expectations vs what we get compounded by a lack of interest in BioWare's part on conforming to those expectations.

I don't know... I think you may be putting too much onus on Bioware. I find it likely, given the portrayal of medieval and semi-medieval settings in various entertainment, that people would have those expectations regardless of whether or not certain areas in Thedas were inspired by real-world locales.

[Steelcan]

 
This is sadly the case that people in general have certain ideas and concepts of what people looked like, acted like, did, said, and so on in those eras, most of which has been perpetuated by Hollywood. I mean, pretty much every film or television version of Ancient Rome has them played by majority white actors with English accents. It shouldn't be this way, I agree wholeheartedly, but that is the way it is.

Well unless we're gonna be really pedantic, the ancient Romans were white.  They were tanner than say the Brits or Scandinavians, but overall they were a paler bunch than most other Mediterranean groups like the Moors in Spain or Levantines and the accent thing is pretty much a non issue given the lack of any native Latin speakers (no Italian accents aren't Latin ones)

 

It becomes an issue when this happens to decidedly non-white groups such as the Ancient Egyptians (with exceptions for the Ptolemaic dynasty who were from what is now Bulgaria/northern Greece).

[Steelcan]

I don't know... I think you may be putting too much onus on Bioware. I find it likely, given the portrayal of medieval and semi-medieval settings in various entertainment, that people would have those expectations regardless of whether or not certain areas in Thedas were inspired by real-world locales.

no argument there

[thats1evildude]

yeah they look more tanned than dark complexioned imo

Well, with DAO's engine, tanned is as close as you get to black.

[AresKeith]

He does not look black. And that clearly could have been in early concept of how he'd look which they changed.

 

... I'm black and I'm that skin tone

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Duncan definitely looked black, the Tevinters look white to me in DAO.

[Heimdall]

... I'm black and I'm that skin tone

Isn't Duncan half Rivaini and half Ferelden in the lore?

[AresKeith]

Isn't Duncan half Rivaini and half Ferelden in the lore?

 

I think so, I don't remember 

[Gilli]

Isn't Duncan half Rivaini and half Ferelden in the lore?

 

I think so, I don't remember 

 

He was

 

Duncan was born in Highever but spent his childhood between Orlais and the Free Marches. His mother Tayana was from Rivain while his father Arryn was a Fereldan carpenter with Tevinter origins. After the death of his parents he was forced to become a thief to survive on the streets of Val Royeaux. [source]

 

[Biotic Apostate]

Isn't Duncan half Rivaini and half Ferelden in the lore?

According to WOT2, Duncan's father had Tevinter roots, and his mother was Rivaini.

[nightscrawl]

From the DAwiki...
 

Duncan was born in Highever but spent his childhood between Orlais and the Free Marches. His mother Tayana was from Rivain while his father Arryn was a Fereldan carpenter with Tevinter origins. After the death of his parents he was forced to become a thief to survive on the streets of Val Royeaux.

[edit]
Damn, by two people.

[Giantdeathrobot]

well I think there's a bit of a difference between tanned white people and people of color.  Italy and Greece and Spain for example do have much darker complexions even without tans than the Irish or Norwegians.

 

But I still think the issue is expectations vs what we get compounded by a lack of interest in BioWare's part on conforming to those expectations.

 

And I personally don't think Bioware has to conform to an expectation that every single medieval fantasy setting needs to be overwhelmingly white because the typical cliché is that medieval people were white as chalk. It's their setting, let them build it, quirks and all. Thedas's widespread sexual freedom is a far more egregious departure from reality than some people being tan/of color, but I still accept it as a characteristic of a fantasy setting that is built to resemble familiar societies, but not emulate them perfectly. It's why it's called fantasy, after all, and not a documentary.

 

To be clear, I don't think it's a bad thing to have nigh on everyone be white (like in The Witcher). It's a quirk of the setting and that's the end of that. But talks of realism don't really belong here unless it's really ridiculous, like if people who lived in a Saharian climate for thousands of years looked like Icelanders, or if people in fantasy Siberia have ebony skin. Or, well, the typical Hollywood shtick of Ancient Egyptians being played by Welsh actors who don't even bother to change their looks or accents.