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

[WhiteArchmage]

Except it really is. The known world is roughly laid out as Africa & Asia with Europe missing.



Check my atlas, lol, that's rich.

Your map is ignoring one (two, really) glaring flaw: Meracydia (and the Southern Isles). You're comparing a map of "The Three Great Continents" which are mostly north of the (Hydaelin-equivalent) Ecuador line, to a World map which includes countries North and South of said line. A true comparison would probably include Africa, but only the northernmost part that stops with Egypt, which is WAY above the Ecuador line.

[Jandor]

Your map is ignoring one (two, really) glaring flaw: Meracydia (and the Southern Isles). You're comparing a map of "The Three Great Continents" which are mostly north of the (Hydaelin-equivalent) Ecuador line, to a World map which includes countries North and South of said line. A true comparison would probably include Africa, but only the northernmost part that stops with Egypt, which is WAY above the Ecuador line.

If I'm comparing the Three Great Continents with Africa and Eurasia, why exactly would I cut most of Africa off? The three continents look like Africa and Asia, Eorzea looks like Africa, is where Africa would be, and fills a similar purpose in the setting to Africa. That's it, that's the point.

Some place somewhere to the south that has maybe a couple paragraphs of lore written about it doesn't really have any impact on that.

For the record, I physically can't include Meracydia, there isn't any map showing it.

[Seddrinth]

I know I'm responding to a troll thread but I have no problems with all the scions being white. We see PoC side characters already. Every story does not need a token just for the sake of having it.

[sarehptar]

This is a troll thread, I know, but it suddenly reminded me...

More concerning than a missing POC Scion: Why are the natives in the Blue Mage quest all white?

[Packetdancer]

I know I'm responding to a troll thread but I have no problems with all the scions being white. We see PoC side characters already. Every story does not need a token just for the sake of having it.

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.

[WhiteArchmage]

If I'm comparing the Three Great Continents with Africa and Eurasia, why exactly would I cut most of Africa off? The three continents look like Africa and Asia, Eorzea looks like Africa, is where Africa would be, and fills a similar purpose in the setting to Africa. That's it, that's the point.

Some place somewhere to the south that has maybe a couple paragraphs of lore written about it doesn't really have any impact on that.

For the record, I physically can't include Meracydia, there isn't any map showing it.

The point is, you're comparing The Three Great Continents to Africa and Eurasia. When it's just Eurasia. I would grant that Ul'dah (rather, Belah'dia) has some Egyptian influence, but that's mostly on an Alexander the Great's conquests (after all, the whole Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt was Greek). Actual Ul'Dah has Moroccan influence, which again, yes, African, but NORTHERN Africa; as in, Right on the other side of Gibraltar strait from Spain.

If you're trying to say that Eorzea = Africa (as far as landmasses go), it's dead wrong. For comparison's sake, this is what I mean with the Ecuador Line.




The weather patterns don't add up. For the comparison to make sense, Limsa is too far North to be Madagascar, Gridania is nowhere NEAR the climate and culture of Sudan, and Ul'dah is not at all like Congo (actually, even further South, Zambia or Zimbawe). And it would also put Coerthas in Morocco... even pre-Calamity, Coerthan culture and weather where much more Scandinavian than Moroccan. It's NOT where Africa would be, Eorzea is TOO FAR NORTH. THAT'S why Meracydia is relevant (as far as we know): it's further South, and mostly unexplored, with some tribes trading with Eorzea's alchemists for materials; the fact that we haven't seen it in-game is besides the point.

And Eorzea doesn't serve a similar purpose to Africa, either. If anything, 1.0 to 2.0 is based on the Greco-Persian Wars, although the Garlean Empire is based on Ancient Rome instead of the First Persian Empire. And it follows much more closely with said wars (A bunch of scattered City-States joining together to drive back an invading Imperial force, which led to the founding of the Delian League, i.e. a treaty between the Greek City States against Persia) than the conquests of Africa. That's why I said I'll grant Ul'dah as being part of NORTHERN Africa, but it's ignoring the REST of the Cultures there; especially as Northern Africa has a lot more influence from the Middle East, Greece, and Rome (they were, after all, their direct neighbors).

[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.

[Packetdancer]

The point is, you're comparing The Three Great Continents to Africa and Eurasia. When it's just Eurasia. I would grant that Ul'dah (rather, Belah'dia) has some Egyptian influence, but that's mostly on an Alexander the Great's conquests (after all, the whole Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt was Greek). Actual Ul'Dah has Moroccan influence, which again, yes, African, but NORTHERN Africa; as in, Right on the other side of Gibraltar strait from Spain.

I mean, also, as fun as it is to theorize on and debate about cultural and geographical inspiration used to create the various regions in-game—I enjoy it too, because worldbuilding is fun!—it's sort of tangential to anything else. Lots of fantasy world authors will take real geographies and flip them or mirror them or squash them or stretch them, because it gives you believable coastlines and archipelagos and whatnot. None of which necessarily has any bearing on what they put in those lands.

In a story I wrote, the map I made for the world had a continent and subcontinent that were literally Africa (mirrored along the vertical axis and rotated counterclockwise slightly) with Australia above it (also flipped and then shrunk) as a northwestern subcontinental neighbor. It gave me a continental coastline that felt 'real' rather than "I poured uncooked dry macaroni on a sheet of paper and then drew a line around where it all gathered" (which, to be fair, is actually a surprisingly effective way of building landmasses for fantasy-world maps), but the cultures inhabiting those landmasses (and indeed, the climate of those landmasses) had nothing to do with the real-world landmasses I took coastlines from.

So even if the rough shape of the Three Great Continents were based on the real-world map as inspiration—erase Europe to make the Northern Empty, squash the general shape down so it's all in one hemisphere, make Madagascar larger and flip what's now Vylbrand to the other side of Eorzea so it's off the western coast of Aldenard, etc.—none of that necessarily has any bearing on what those lands represent in the world they've created.

[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.