A PoC Scion please? There is so much untapped potential here.

[Amnmaat]

I can't believe I'm joining in on this troll thread again, but...

The fact that showing anyone non-white in the main storyline would be considered "having a token character" is sort of the core societal problem we have in the first place. The argument is always framed as "why do you need a non-white character?", and never as "why does this character need to be white?" 'White' is assumed to be the default state, and that you need a reason for a character to be anything else.

Which is sort of silly, but unconscious societal bias is a thing, and even people who mean well are subject to it. The 'default' or 'baseline' is straight, gender-conforming, and white; even when creating characters who deviate from that, it's usually because someone made a conscious effort to do so. When, really, creating a character shouldn't have a default; the range of humanity as a whole is a gloriously blob-like shape, where people fall on many points of the spectrum on a lot of different axes: skin color, gender identity, personality, etc. And stories would be far richer, I think, if we created characters throughout that entire spread just naturally, rather than picking one spot and insisting there needs to be a reason to deviate from that one little region of the whole map of people.

(And while you can argue that characters in the game—Viera, miqo'te, etc.—aren't always human, I'll point out that they're all presented in very human ways and very much as analogues to humanity, as opposed to some of the beast tribes like the Vath who have demonstrably different ways of thinking and interacting. Sometimes to such a degree that the playable races don't always understand them well.)

Do we need to force a new Scion character into existence who's darker-skinned, just for a bit of diversity? No, not really. That might well end up feeling contrived, I agree.

But if and when the story calls for a new Scion to be introduced, it might not be bad to not just default to having the character be another fair-skinned, light-haired protagonist. To ask, as it were, "Is there a reason this character needs to be white?" and, if not, maybe consider some variety. It's quite possible to make darker-skinned characters in this game's character system already, after all. *gestures towards her own character*

After all, the reason we end up with characters that feel like "token" characters is because they're the only one who's different; the way to not have it feel contrived is to have diversity and variety in a cast of characters naturally.

Not, mind you, that a troll thread on a forum is going to change any of that.

Yes, the more dark skin characters in the main story the better; I don't know why the hell people only ask for 1 more. Raubhan is easily one of the best characters in the game. It needs more like him.

[Nothv13]

Yes, the more dark skin characters in the main story the better; I don't know why the hell people only ask for 1 more. Raubhan is easily one of the best characters in the game. It needs more like him.

Yes he is, but it is not because of his skin color. He could be blue, green, red, white, yellow, or rainbow and he still be an awesome character.

[Amnmaat]

Yes he is, but it is not because of his skin color. He could be blue, green, red, white, yellow, or rainbow and he still be an awesome character.

His skin color and overall looks enhances how great he is, it's all a matter of perspective, everyone has one.

[Nothv13]

His skin color and overall looks enhances how great he is, it's all a matter of perspective, everyone has one.

I just find it odd when people equate the shallowest possible trait of someone as vital to their character.

[Amnmaat]

I just find it odd when people equate the shallowest possible trait of someone as vital to their character.

It's not a shallow trait at all. And if it is that shallow why do you have so much of a problem with it?

[Wilford111]

You make a good point, but in this situation we already have many characters of color (not white) in the game, like Raubahn for example.

Let's say the developers cave in to the requests and make a black scion. Well, that won't be enough, because why are there still mostly "white" characters? We need more colored (not white) scions because why should there be majority white (Asian that looks white, non specified because it doesn't matter to the Japanese) ones? We need to change it to at least half.

It'll keep going from there, you understand. It's never enough. You may call me projecting, or putting words in people's mouths, but this sort of thing has already happened in other forms of media and entertainment.

[Amnmaat]

You make a good point, but in this situation we already have many characters of color (not white) in the game, like Raubahn for example.

Let's say the developers cave in to the requests and make a black scion. Well, that won't be enough, because why are there still mostly "white" characters? We need more colored (not white) scions because why should there be majority white (Asian that looks white, non specified because it doesn't matter to the Japanese) ones? We need to change it to at least half.

It'll keep going from there, you understand. It's never enough. You may call me projecting, or putting words in people's mouths, but this sort of thing has already happened in other forms of media and entertainment.

If I breathe on you it sounds like you'd explode into pieces. The fact that you have a problem with race in other media says a whole lot about you and your character, might want to look into that.

So what if the whole XIV MSQ cast is all of a sudden dark skin? Why are you about to turn into a vauthry just because "there's too many" dark skin characters all of a sudden? No one here has a problem with the current msq cast being light skin, well not me anyway. But it sounds to me like adding more than just Raubhan would make you become the next mass shooter at a random walmart.

[Packetdancer]

Let's say the developers cave in to the requests and make a black scion. Well, that won't be enough, because why are there still mostly "white" characters? We need more colored (not white) scions because why should there be majority white (Asian that looks white, non specified because it doesn't matter to the Japanese) ones? We need to change it to at least half.

My point was more that representation should ideally be unconscious. People shouldn't have to ask where the gay folks, or the black folks, or anyone else are, because the world should feel diverse enough that the question never arises. Yes, it sucks that people have to consciously try for diversity and inclusion. It sucks that usually when they do try, it comes across as pandering or tokenizing something... or on some occasions, downright offensive in playing to cliche and stereotype.

The whole dang situation sucks.

But that's why I think it's better not to think "oh, well, this next character we make for this TV show/story/game/whatever should be <X> because we don't have enough of that"—which leads to forced token characters at best, and cliches that can be borderline offensive at worst—but rather "why does this character have to be straight, white, etc."

Think of Leverage. (Really, more people should; it's one of the best television shows ever made, and no one will convince me otherwise.) The character of Alec Hardison is, to put it mildly, a nerd. He plays video games. He makes Doctor Who and Star Trek references. He knows computers and tech inside and out, and he gets positively gleeful when you give him new shiny tech to play with. He's also unquestionably the most gentle and caring of the Leverage team.

He's also black.

The fact that Hardison is black isn't the most important part of his character, mind you; it's not his defining trait by any stretch of the imagination. He's not a character who was put in for representation because he was black; he's a character who, so far as I know, happens to be black because the best actor for the role was. And honestly, I think that makes him a far better character than if he was thrown in just for representation. Because it doesn't feel like they thought "Oh, we should make one of the characters black", but rather when Aldis Hodge auditioned for the character, they asked "Is there any reason this character should be white?" And the answer was no. So he was not.

Is the fact that Alec Hardison is black important to the storyline? Not usually, no. Is the fact that Alec Hardison is played by Aldis Hodge, who is black, important to some of the viewers? Yes, most definitely.

That sort of representation is, I think, far more natural and less forced.

So for my part, if I had my way, I wouldn't say "you need to make more black characters in the world" to the devs. I would say, "Next time you introduce a major character, just ask yourself if there's a reason they specifically need to be fair-skinned. And if not? Maybe consider a different shade." They need change nothing else about what they intend for the character.

Because I think everything is a little better off if we don't just assume every character is straight and white by default, and only deviate if we consciously decide we need to force something else in.

But, again, nothing we say on the English forum for a Japanese video game—much less in what we all agree started as a troll thread—is likely to impact the storytelling significantly. So it's sort of a moot point.