Quote Originally Posted by CuteBucket View Post
It is rather fascinating that by stripping the people of Tural of any meaningful political history and conflict, it actually feels more racist to me than how the people of the rest of the game have been depicted. Flawed histories and leaders with stains on their records and political upheaval and turmoil in the recent past? That nuance is reserved for the people of Othard and Aldenard and Ilsabard, not Tural. One single (two-headed) guy solved all of their major problems 80 years ago, convinced two tribes to stop enslaving other people by just asking nicely, and then everything has been happy and idyllic for everyone except this one single town of Mamool Ja ever since, and we fixed all their problems in the story anyway so now they're fine and happy too. Contrast this with the history of any other nation in the game world.

There's this phenomena where a person or organization can become so averse to accusations of racism and cultural appropriation that they bend over backwards and go out of their way to never do anything that could possibly offend any group, but by doing so, it comes off as weird and infantalizing to everyone else. Like they're trying SO HARD not to be offensive that it actually wraps back around and becomes offensive again. And it's all the more jarring here, because FFXIV has never previously shied away from showing other cultures that are clearly inspired and influenced by real world cultures as places with rich histories and flawed people and leaders. But something happened in going to Fantasy Americas where all of a sudden we can't show any of the cultures here being mean to each other.

Because as we all know, historically before colonization, all of the nations of the Americas got along super well and were best friends and never fought with or conquered each other or made any empires! /s
South American here, you're basically completely right. Seeing cultures inspired in part by certain *mesoamerican* empires and a few particular people being portrayed as lovey-dovey peace-loving hippies is uh.

Boy, it's special, I'll tell you that.