thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
DISCLAIMER: Please let's try to keep the conversation civil on this. I really don't want to see any equally stupid anti-diversity/representation takes ITT or trying to shift blame to the groups bigoted ResetERA posters say they're "speaking up for", or that the IGN interviewer tried pushing in their question WRT the topic.
Trust me, most of the people in these groups (of which I would fall into if I were dumb enough to let phenotypical features or skin tone absolutely define me, the way many on places like Reset seem to) used like chess pieces on this culture war game board, do NOT give a s#*t about the "representation" those like the interviewer or ResetERA are making seem must be legally required, let alone are offended over some perceived lack of said representation.
Also, I generally try to stay OUT of this culture war BS these days. Too many awful people on both sides, honestly. I like to consider myself a "born-again Neutral" in that respect. However, I can see fake outrage and BS agendas for what they are and this just happens to be a case where one particular side is trying to do it, so I want to speak up about such.
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So IGN recently did an interview with (among other) Naoki Yoshida, Producer for FF XVI and, in true Western games media fashion, not only made a pivot to suddenly ask about diversity out of nowhere, but black diversity in particular (the reason some of these people do this is because they feel if they can get a good answer on this one, it "opens the door" for other types of representation. It's the trojan horse approach, essentially). IGN asked the following...
Keep in mind, this game is clearly set in and inspired by Medieval European folklore, which is practically, predominantly white. Yoshida's quite respectful response is the following:
A very, very respectable answer that doesn't antagonize the stupidity of the source asking the opening question, doesn't dismiss the questions of those who may be wondering about lack of particular diversity, but also shows a creator willing to stay true to their artistic vision and faithful to their inspiration and, yes, again the vast majority of medieval European lore is overwhelmingly white, JUST like how the vast majority of lore from African countries is overwhelmingly black, or the vast majority of lore/myths from Asian countries are overwhelmingly Asian, etc. But somehow, this doesn't seem to compute with IGN's interviewer, I guess they failed to learn about any of this.
It's okay though, because ResetERA has the outrage covered for him! I mean, just look at these gems...
User: Izanagi89
Conflation, how does it work?
User: Ashodin
See, told you this is usually how it goes. These kind of pushes usually start with asking about black people & POC, but that is just the Trojan Horse to get to what is really desired. A tactic almost as old as time itself.
User: L Thammy
Yes, nothing says "peak hot take" like running to a generic Wikipedia entry blurb to try contesting the creator's own actual words from an interview. Great tactic xD.
User: SpottieO
Basically, he's saying that because Josh Sawyer has an Ethiopian character in his game, because his game features the Council of Constance, which did historically have Ethiopians present from time to time.
But that's just the thing: from time to time. And let's be real here; not in large numbers, certainly not where they made up the majority of its members. That...that kinda matters.
User: Kalentan
So Europe wasn't overwhelmingly white during the periods many of the fables and myths most fantasy works are based on (at least partially), were made? Wat? What are we doing here?
Icing on the cake is they think they have a grasp of actual history in this regard. Child, just stop.
And these were all just dumb takes on the first page! All of this to say, Yoshi P's response was nothing wrong, hostile, dismissive, or offensive, yet ResetERA are of course pissed anyway simply because he didn't tout the same generic answers many others do, or doesn't appear remorseful in not having a supposed enough diversity in the game. Nor should he be remorseful, honestly.
Going by the mentality of ResetERA, every single work of a game, in every genre, should have some kind of diversity representation, and some amount constituting "major roles". This is the bean counter approach, the business suit approach. The irony is, they believe they are being progressive when all they are doing is emulating the same hardline, tyrannical demands style of corporate and government figures, and time and time again, it's ACTUAL creatives who are negatively affected.
To me, real progressivism is in letting people, among other things, create the kinds of works THEY want to create. If some arbitrary representation or whatnot is achieved, fine. But if not, that doesn't suddenly make those creators bigoted. With the tone and rhetoric people like those in this ResetERA thread use, though, you'd think that were actually the case. Of course, they are never honest enough to outright admit such a thing if you were to ask them directly.
Anyway, I just wanted to go over how stupid all this controversy over his answer is. And I say this as someone who's a supposed "person of color" because one thing I've always noticed, is people like those on ResetERA who try getting offended on our behalf, more or less treat us like a statistic unless we lick their ideological taint and co-sign on their misplaced outrage. We don't need you to speak for us, or be outraged on our behalf. Believe it or not, a good many can actually form full sentences, form thoughts of our own, and articulate well enough to speak for ourselves. Shocking, I know
.
It's also just this idiotic denseness to historical reality that displays their own ignorance so profusely. Yes, lots of medieval fantasy may have fantastical creatures that in themselves don't exist like dragons, but those fantastical dragons are INSPIRED by animals that were actually VERY common in the countries the works come from. Same goes for werewolves, wyvern, etc. No matter how grand or high-level the fantasy was, it was ALWAYS grounded in the local reality, and the local reality for many of the fables these ideas come from was nothing like the global world we live in today, nor does it mean those fables, works, or the elements they use are inherently racist simply because they aren't ethnically diverse.
If you look at almost any classical East Asian, Native American, Middle Eastern, Sub-Saharan African, or Latin American fables, myths etc., they will ALSO have a preponderance of fantastical creatures inspired by the regional wildlife, and VERY homogenous peoples reflective of the majority populations of their societies. This is normal, it's called reality, and those works are not inherently racist or bigoted for simply representing the scope of their local realities through fantasy. Neither are the various European myths or fables that dominate that style of fantasy, but ResetERA seem to want to force a fake narrative in that case because, well, they're bigoted.
Again, I'm not even white, but I am tired of seeing the intellectual dishonesty a lot of people like in that FF XVI thread on Reset, forcibly use in order to try drumming up outrage. And it says a lot about the interviewer at IGN who even asked Yoshida this question in particular, which was purposefully loaded and IMO, not even genuine. A real interviewer who understands anything about history, artistic liberty & freedom, would have rather asked Yoshida if we'll ever get a Final Fantasy entry based on fantastical Middle Eastern, African, Latin American, or Asian myths & fables? Or heck, if we'll ever see a JRPG from Square-Enix based on one of those cultures and their myths. Because this may surprise the bigots on ResetERA, but there are actually a LOT of really neat myths, fables & legends from these cultures, such as Yoruba mythology (Nigeria), and Piasa Bird (Native American) that could serve as basis for games of their own.
Not that it's Yoshida or Square-Enix's responsibility to make such games, but I think a more respectful question regarding diversity & representation to them in this interview would have been along those lines, not phrasing the question on the expectation that FF XVI in particular must be more diverse because of reasons. But yeah, that's all I wanted to really say about the lame outrage over this segment of the interview. Some people ask me why I troll ResetERA profiles, or pull posts from over there to ridicule and criticize here. Well because on ResetERA, you can't have a genuine conversation with actual differences in opinion if your opinion runs counter to the groupthink that mods & even Admin there want to push, meaning even if you are not being toxic or bigoted, simply appearing more factually correct than them will likely catch you a ban. Using actual comedy and being flagrantly ridiculous to provide satire on some of the worst hot-takes from otherwise obvious console warriors & shills on that forum, will get you labeled as an aggressor, and banned, simply for pointing out the truth in a comedically outlandish fashion.
However, considering the sway Reset seems to have among gaming media types and content creators, it's rather concerning. The forum's already shown it isn't above orchestrating targeted agendas at various people (it's even outright doxxed people in the past), being hypocritical about what games to discuss vs. not (i.e banning Harry Potter discussion because of some viewpoints of the series creator, yet openly allowing threads for ABK games to keep rolling out despite the laundry list of toxic workplace incidents from various employees that have come out from several of their studios. AKA you punish the majority for the thoughts of a single person in one instance, but don't punish the majority for the actions of a group of people in the other instance? Where's the consistency?), and is very likely compromised in terms of funding sources (I won't get too much into that here, but I have some thoughts).
Okay, rant over. Just needed to air that out.
Trust me, most of the people in these groups (of which I would fall into if I were dumb enough to let phenotypical features or skin tone absolutely define me, the way many on places like Reset seem to) used like chess pieces on this culture war game board, do NOT give a s#*t about the "representation" those like the interviewer or ResetERA are making seem must be legally required, let alone are offended over some perceived lack of said representation.
Also, I generally try to stay OUT of this culture war BS these days. Too many awful people on both sides, honestly. I like to consider myself a "born-again Neutral" in that respect. However, I can see fake outrage and BS agendas for what they are and this just happens to be a case where one particular side is trying to do it, so I want to speak up about such.
====================================================================================================================================
So IGN recently did an interview with (among other) Naoki Yoshida, Producer for FF XVI and, in true Western games media fashion, not only made a pivot to suddenly ask about diversity out of nowhere, but black diversity in particular (the reason some of these people do this is because they feel if they can get a good answer on this one, it "opens the door" for other types of representation. It's the trojan horse approach, essentially). IGN asked the following...
Keep in mind, this game is clearly set in and inspired by Medieval European folklore, which is practically, predominantly white. Yoshida's quite respectful response is the following:
A very, very respectable answer that doesn't antagonize the stupidity of the source asking the opening question, doesn't dismiss the questions of those who may be wondering about lack of particular diversity, but also shows a creator willing to stay true to their artistic vision and faithful to their inspiration and, yes, again the vast majority of medieval European lore is overwhelmingly white, JUST like how the vast majority of lore from African countries is overwhelmingly black, or the vast majority of lore/myths from Asian countries are overwhelmingly Asian, etc. But somehow, this doesn't seem to compute with IGN's interviewer, I guess they failed to learn about any of this.
It's okay though, because ResetERA has the outrage covered for him! I mean, just look at these gems...
User: Izanagi89
I always hate these kinds of reasonings especially when your game has giant dragon summons and Chocobos. But POC is just too far
Conflation, how does it work?
User: Ashodin
See, told you this is usually how it goes. These kind of pushes usually start with asking about black people & POC, but that is just the Trojan Horse to get to what is really desired. A tactic almost as old as time itself.
User: L Thammy
Yes, nothing says "peak hot take" like running to a generic Wikipedia entry blurb to try contesting the creator's own actual words from an interview. Great tactic xD.
User: SpottieO
Basically, he's saying that because Josh Sawyer has an Ethiopian character in his game, because his game features the Council of Constance, which did historically have Ethiopians present from time to time.
But that's just the thing: from time to time. And let's be real here; not in large numbers, certainly not where they made up the majority of its members. That...that kinda matters.
User: Kalentan
So Europe wasn't overwhelmingly white during the periods many of the fables and myths most fantasy works are based on (at least partially), were made? Wat? What are we doing here?
Icing on the cake is they think they have a grasp of actual history in this regard. Child, just stop.
And these were all just dumb takes on the first page! All of this to say, Yoshi P's response was nothing wrong, hostile, dismissive, or offensive, yet ResetERA are of course pissed anyway simply because he didn't tout the same generic answers many others do, or doesn't appear remorseful in not having a supposed enough diversity in the game. Nor should he be remorseful, honestly.
Going by the mentality of ResetERA, every single work of a game, in every genre, should have some kind of diversity representation, and some amount constituting "major roles". This is the bean counter approach, the business suit approach. The irony is, they believe they are being progressive when all they are doing is emulating the same hardline, tyrannical demands style of corporate and government figures, and time and time again, it's ACTUAL creatives who are negatively affected.
To me, real progressivism is in letting people, among other things, create the kinds of works THEY want to create. If some arbitrary representation or whatnot is achieved, fine. But if not, that doesn't suddenly make those creators bigoted. With the tone and rhetoric people like those in this ResetERA thread use, though, you'd think that were actually the case. Of course, they are never honest enough to outright admit such a thing if you were to ask them directly.
Anyway, I just wanted to go over how stupid all this controversy over his answer is. And I say this as someone who's a supposed "person of color" because one thing I've always noticed, is people like those on ResetERA who try getting offended on our behalf, more or less treat us like a statistic unless we lick their ideological taint and co-sign on their misplaced outrage. We don't need you to speak for us, or be outraged on our behalf. Believe it or not, a good many can actually form full sentences, form thoughts of our own, and articulate well enough to speak for ourselves. Shocking, I know
.It's also just this idiotic denseness to historical reality that displays their own ignorance so profusely. Yes, lots of medieval fantasy may have fantastical creatures that in themselves don't exist like dragons, but those fantastical dragons are INSPIRED by animals that were actually VERY common in the countries the works come from. Same goes for werewolves, wyvern, etc. No matter how grand or high-level the fantasy was, it was ALWAYS grounded in the local reality, and the local reality for many of the fables these ideas come from was nothing like the global world we live in today, nor does it mean those fables, works, or the elements they use are inherently racist simply because they aren't ethnically diverse.
If you look at almost any classical East Asian, Native American, Middle Eastern, Sub-Saharan African, or Latin American fables, myths etc., they will ALSO have a preponderance of fantastical creatures inspired by the regional wildlife, and VERY homogenous peoples reflective of the majority populations of their societies. This is normal, it's called reality, and those works are not inherently racist or bigoted for simply representing the scope of their local realities through fantasy. Neither are the various European myths or fables that dominate that style of fantasy, but ResetERA seem to want to force a fake narrative in that case because, well, they're bigoted.
Again, I'm not even white, but I am tired of seeing the intellectual dishonesty a lot of people like in that FF XVI thread on Reset, forcibly use in order to try drumming up outrage. And it says a lot about the interviewer at IGN who even asked Yoshida this question in particular, which was purposefully loaded and IMO, not even genuine. A real interviewer who understands anything about history, artistic liberty & freedom, would have rather asked Yoshida if we'll ever get a Final Fantasy entry based on fantastical Middle Eastern, African, Latin American, or Asian myths & fables? Or heck, if we'll ever see a JRPG from Square-Enix based on one of those cultures and their myths. Because this may surprise the bigots on ResetERA, but there are actually a LOT of really neat myths, fables & legends from these cultures, such as Yoruba mythology (Nigeria), and Piasa Bird (Native American) that could serve as basis for games of their own.
Not that it's Yoshida or Square-Enix's responsibility to make such games, but I think a more respectful question regarding diversity & representation to them in this interview would have been along those lines, not phrasing the question on the expectation that FF XVI in particular must be more diverse because of reasons. But yeah, that's all I wanted to really say about the lame outrage over this segment of the interview. Some people ask me why I troll ResetERA profiles, or pull posts from over there to ridicule and criticize here. Well because on ResetERA, you can't have a genuine conversation with actual differences in opinion if your opinion runs counter to the groupthink that mods & even Admin there want to push, meaning even if you are not being toxic or bigoted, simply appearing more factually correct than them will likely catch you a ban. Using actual comedy and being flagrantly ridiculous to provide satire on some of the worst hot-takes from otherwise obvious console warriors & shills on that forum, will get you labeled as an aggressor, and banned, simply for pointing out the truth in a comedically outlandish fashion.
However, considering the sway Reset seems to have among gaming media types and content creators, it's rather concerning. The forum's already shown it isn't above orchestrating targeted agendas at various people (it's even outright doxxed people in the past), being hypocritical about what games to discuss vs. not (i.e banning Harry Potter discussion because of some viewpoints of the series creator, yet openly allowing threads for ABK games to keep rolling out despite the laundry list of toxic workplace incidents from various employees that have come out from several of their studios. AKA you punish the majority for the thoughts of a single person in one instance, but don't punish the majority for the actions of a group of people in the other instance? Where's the consistency?), and is very likely compromised in terms of funding sources (I won't get too much into that here, but I have some thoughts).
Okay, rant over. Just needed to air that out.
