Character Creation Has A Race Problem

[Joven]

Rarely. The hair one was from nearly three years ago, and we've had... I want to say two gear design contests and one housing contest since then? Also a screenshot contest.

You would think they would hold one a few months before every patch since that's when the new hair is usually added

[Iscah]

Taoism, from the glamour. Angels and devils, Christianity.

Unless they talk about those things in ways that clearly link them to their real-world origins, they exist in the game world, and it makes more sense to "explain them" as such. Otherwise everything in the game that also exists in the real world is a real-world reference!

I'll admit, naming the "Taoist" set seems like a direct reference, although you could theorise that the same philosophy exists in-world (just replace 'China' with Doma or Nagxia or wherever they want to set it).

The angel and demon sets are, to our perspective, based on stylised figures from Christianity, but that doesn't necessarily require the in-world creator of the costume to be aware of those concepts. Maybe there's a parallel concept somewhere in Eorzean religion, or maybe someone just said "hey, wouldn't it be cool to make a coat with giant bird wings on it?"

In any case, since they only exist as cash shop items, I don't feel like they necessarily even exist in game lore.

EDIT TO ADD: Having remembered that, of course, demons (ie. voidsent) do exist in-world, I went looking in the lorebook bestiary to see if there were any that particularly looked like the glamour designs. There's the Blackguard encountered in the Void Ark (a feather-winged knight) and also for the angelic side of things, the enchanted statue Kuribu, guardian of Amdapor. So records of the Amdapor-Mhach "War of the Magi" could serve as game-world inspiration for the costumes.

[image]

Yes, that's Kugane. In Hingashi. What's this Japan you're talking about? Nobody there has heard of it.

[Anatha]

Racism is real.

The game lacks diversity along real world racial lines.

The character creator is not discriminatory.


All of these things are 100% indisputably true, as well as have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

The only real "race" in this game is anime. That eternally ambiguous wholly subjective canvas on which people are welcome to project their own idea of what it is and isn't.


That being said, it might be nice to have a wider range of hairstyles, for the sake of people who don't want anime hair on their anime kitties.

[Enla]

Yes, that's Kugane. In Hingashi. What's this Japan you're talking about? Nobody there has heard of it.

This. While think you'd be hard pressed not to link Kugane itself to Bakumatsu-Meiji era Japan with it's Shinsengumi analogue in the Sekiseigumi, closed port, and Meiji inspired building aesthetics in the diplomatic quarter - at the end of the day it's /not/ Japan. Japan never had airships. Japan never managed to keep it's autonomy in only having one port open and the rest of the country closed. Nor did it have turtle and fish people running around and causing a ruckus either. Kugane, Doma, and the Steppe all follow the self same tradition this MMO has of taking inspiration from other places and using it to influence the design of set pieces with inspiration from Japan, China, and Tibet as well as Mongolia on frank display. Yet that inspiration doesn't mean that they are precise analogues, anymore than Ul'dah is an analogue for the Middle East or Ishgard for Europe.

Just because some of the references are more overt does not mean that the lore that differentiates those places is any less important to consider. Especially since Final Fantasy has a history of taking real world places, mythology, and many more things and twisting it to suit it's purposes for the narrative and making it something entirely new.

[Magic-Mal]

So can we have African but not actually African hairstyles and features to reference Africa? Doesn't break any more rules than the Ao Dai.

[FeliAiko]

A dark-skinned Miqo with features prominently characteristic of PoC would not be a "black person". Same way that Kugane is not Japan despite obviously incorporating elements of Japan's aesthetic into its makeup.

Luna's initial point was to challenge and mock the flawed argument that the former wouldn't fit in a fantasy game but the latter is okay even though both cases would be drawn/inspired by real world elements.

[Iscah]

I've been saying the whole time though - if there is an Africa-equivalent in the game world like there is a Japan-equivalent, yes there would be African-equivalent people living there. I have no problem with that, but we are yet to actually see that such a place exists.

Also, if it does, any Hyurans there are probably dark-skinned Midlanders-or-Highlanders. Therefore, they do not have features outside of those available in the character creator, even if their real-world equivalents do. Would that be a bad thing if they were included but didn't have the "true range" of possible facial features?

[Ruru_Nayu]

>Fantasy game
>Was remade in 2013

Like damn, it's supposed to be a different world... It's why the planet is called Hydaelyn and not Earth.
Can't people just enjoy the story without thinking about all theese nonesense things like "It's racist that..." or "It's sexist because..."
It's a game and games are meant to be played to have fun!

[Magic-Mal]

I've been saying the whole time though - if there is an Africa-equivalent in the game world like there is a Japan-equivalent, yes there would be African-equivalent people living there. I have no problem with that, but we are yet to actually see that such a place exists.

Also, if it does, any Hyurans there are probably dark-skinned Midlanders-or-Highlanders. Therefore, they do not have features outside of those available in the character creator, even if their real-world equivalents do. Would that be a bad thing if they were included but didn't have the "true range" of possible facial features?

But we need to know or see where they come from to have the facial features or hair? I mean we got the first look of an Au Ra in 2.55 and were actually able to play Au Ra when Heavenward came out. Then 3 years later we finally saw where Au Ra come from. Before that, Au Ra pretty just appeared out of nowhere and were walking around like it was nothing. But only because the devs decided to make it so.

When it comes down to it, the devs can give the options and choose to say they come from anywhere they please.

I mean they invented Ivalice now. Now we can apparently have Vieras, Bangaas, and Seeq... suddenly.

[FeliAiko]

If SE wanted to go the extra mile and add an Africa region equivalent in Eorzea (even though that's not what people are asking for) then that would be their perogative. The notion that it has to be there first as some sort of precondition just to get extra facial options in a fantasy game (where lore can be easily changed and updated to explain new additions that wasn't there prior), however, is absurd.