The new Mogstation items represent a painful period for Koreans, please read.

[Gailla]

SE has been deliberately showing that imperialism and the practices involved are evil through this game. They place the actions of imperialism on villainous Garlemald, and while they seem to want audiences to understand how that happens they also want there to be no mistake that the actions are horrific. They also have been examining how occupied people are impacted on multiple levels too, from homes to families and friends to cultures to individual traumas and on. Not everyone comes out of that at all, never mind emerging strong. That's part of why Fordola got examined the way she was and why we saw the initial behavior of Namai.

I think this is an important thing to point out (and everything you said, really, so I'm proud of you for speaking up.) especially because if SE's ultimate goal is education and they proceed to frame Garleans in this way.
However, as vehement as I am on this forum, I do not see myself as an authority for educating or explaining or even paving expectations... But it would be nice to hear the desires of the Korean fanbase as well as SE's intentions. If the Chinese were wronged similarly as Korea, but willingly accepting the outfit as an exclusive to their servers, maybe there's more context we're missing in America here?

Alas, I could be being forcibly optimistic :x

[Jaywalker]

They were used as domestic school uniforms, google taisho era school uniform.

Thanks for mentioning!

I do think that defangs the inclusion a lot. It's still a tough point because the clothes were specifically forced on people against their will as policy in occupied countries imo (making a different connotation from "general people wore these clothes at the time their government was doing X bad policy") but I am willing to bet this is why SE went China-exclusive initially. Occupation was really bad there too so they'd be able to gauge some reaction from reception in China. They were probably testing how offended some of the people who would be most justified in feeling that way are. Can probably infer Chinese outrage wasn't massive.

Maybe it would help to have a more traditional Korean glamour in mog station too, to offer an alternative?

I think this is an important thing to point out (and everything you said, really, so I'm proud of you for speaking up.) especially because if SE's ultimate goal is education and they proceed to frame Garleans in this way.

Awwww, seriously thank you!!! I was really nervous about that post because again, hot button issue.

One of the other fandoms I've been in has basically made it off-limits to show any discussion at all of topics like this. An easy comparative example would be examining women being hurt or scared, even when it is clearly supposed to invite empathy and horror on the victim's behalf. I've also personally seen cases where that lack of exploration resulted in people actually dismissing victims and enabling predators, because they couldn't understand a predator is still a predator and their actions remain evil even when they are sometimes sad or funny or nice to others. And when I say "predator" I'm not talking stuff like "hugged me when I wasn't into it". Full-on illegal, hospitalizing behavior. Gotta be able to show that the perpetrator and victim are both humans and that the humanity of the perpetrator doesn't negate the humanity and suffering of the victim. Project to a national scale, you end up in an even more complicated situation because countries are made up of millions of people and those experiences range a lot.

Creators have been harassed, blacklisted, and essentially pressured to withdraw their work for daring to show dark subjects like this. From how they handled the narrative in Stormblood, my sense is SE seems to consider this an important topic and I'd rather they explore than not. This specific glamour issue I think there might have been oversight or just uncertainty on whether it would carry stigma since it was also being used in Japan at the time. Like I said, Japan itself doesn't always know the full history as experienced by occupied nations.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Thanks for mentioning!

I do think that defangs the inclusion a lot. It's still a tough point because the clothes were specifically forced on people against their will as policy in occupied countries imo (making a different connotation from "general people wore these clothes at the time their government was doing X bad policy") but I am willing to bet this is why SE went China-exclusive initially. Occupation was really bad there too so they'd be able to gauge some reaction from reception in China. They were probably testing how offended some of the people who would be most justified in feeling that way are. Can probably infer Chinese outrage wasn't massive.

Maybe it would help to have a more traditional Korean glamour in mog station too, to offer an alternative?

We have lots of those already. Most of the outfits on the mogstation are either Korean or Chinese themed.

[Shougun]

a request for an explanation as well as the understanding of the fanbase.

If this dress was exclusively occupation wear then I suppose SE is doing something very weird, but if this is just old school wear (that they also happened to impose onto other countries, along with other issues of course) then I don't think SE needs to apologize for their inclusion of their own culture's old school wear. But that is not to say I think people have to be happy to see outfits that they associate poorly, I can empathize a bit of the political and social torment it may generate.

If this is old traditional wear then I think making SE apologize for this would be akin to making companies apologize for every single thing associated with their culture at each point they introduce their own culture. As unfortunately we have to face that everyone's culture is at some point or another drenched in horrible activity that we could legitimately associate with said item/culture and be annoyed or literally horrified that it had happened.

Something like if every time America introduced cowboys they had to make a long post on how cowboys have done wrong, and if we didn't apologize to everyone and do it dearly then we were bad for even dreaming to use the Cowboy motif. We are entering the territory of being halted at every corner because of legitimate past harm (I am not denying the true past horror).

To rephrase I'm not saying people are not allowed to be upset but request/requiring apology by association is opening up a nearly endless can of worms. Unless of course this outfit was directly created for that horrible event.. in which case I'd be very confused on why that would be done.. like if WoW found some slave specific outfit that no one else but slaves wore and then decided to put it up on the cash shop because they're off their rocker. Although I understand bringing this (OP edits included) up wasn't necessarily an iron fist "apologize or else", I respect that people wanted to bring up the history and how it may have affected them or their family.

That said if SE feels concerned they could perhaps make something distinctly Korean and share that with the world. It would be a soft sweetness if they posted it as an event to Koreans (or the world, I wouldn't mind getting something for free...) that was this short quest of explicitly Korean celebration and gear.

[Gailla]

To rephrase I'm not saying people are not allowed to be upset but request/requiring apology by association is opening up a nearly endless can of worms. Unless of course this outfit was directly created for that horrible event.. in which case I'd be very confused on why that would be done.. like if an WoW found some slaver specific outfit that no one else but slaves wore and then decided to put it up on the cash shop because they're off their rocker. Although I understand bringing this (OP) up wasn't necessarily an iron fist "apologize or else", I respect that people wanted to bring up the history and how it may have affected them or their family.

That said if SE feels concerned they could perhaps make something distinctly Korean and share that with the world. It would be a soft sweetness if they posted it as an event to Koreans (or the world, I wouldn't mind getting something for free...) that was this short quest of explicitly Korean celebration and gear.

I apologize if I sounded as though I was demanding an apology on behalf of the entire Korean fanbase, because that isnot what I was doing.
Ultimately, if I am reading you right, I wholly agree; It boils down to why the outfit is here, rather than if it is or isn't.

[dinnertime]

Occupation was really bad there too so they'd be able to gauge some reaction from reception in China. They were probably testing how offended some of the people who would be most justified in feeling that way are. Can probably infer Chinese outrage wasn't massive.

From what I've seen on Twitter (where most of this drama was happening), Chinese players didn't seem bothered by it, most even wanted it but of course this is just my observation.

I don't think all the countries that were affected were forced to wear them, either? Or that I don't remember. My country (that was also a victim) wasn't forced to wear them.

[Selova]

It's honestly fine. Just people making a mountain out of a molehill.

[EvalcieChevallier]

You are braver than I am- when the Native American set came out I was livid, and still am, but short of traveling to all 500 tribes reservations in the united states and 600 in Canada to get chiefs signatures on a letter to present to Yoshi P at a fan fest, I don't think SE will listen in my case.

[AxlStream]

You are braver than I am- when the Native American set came out I was livid, and still am, but short of traveling to all 500 tribes reservations in the united states and 600 in Canada to get chiefs signatures on a letter to present to Yoshi P at a fan fest, I don't think SE will listen in my case.

So were you offended when Pharah on OW got her Tomahawk and Totempole skins?

[Shougun]

I apologize if I sounded as though I was demanding an apology on behalf of the entire Korean fanbase, because that isnot what I was doing.
Ultimately, if I am reading you right, I wholly agree; It boils down to why the outfit is here, rather than if it is or isn't.

Ah no need to apologize but I'm glad you specified as well. History is dark so it's not surprising it can cause a lot of bumps, but we're all sort of connected in it.. so it's just one of those things that we could make ridiculously messy if we wanted.

Anyway I don't think I can word my feelings uniquely anymore (not your problem lol) so I'll probably be out of this thread now.

So long as this outfit isn't a celebration of a dark time I hope we can keep it and SE isn't sought out by people for their pound of flesh (if it was for example specifically made because it's old Japanese wear), but I also hope we can be polite to those that still hold the event close to the heart. I have a Korean friend that is older and so it's their mom rather than their grandmother who was affected.. and it's even closer to home and something that occasionally haunts their minds more often than they wish.