Spieler Eins
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Kyle Hyde.
Because that's a real character. Badass, but not because the writers blatantly forced it that way.
I know a lot of people are just posting their favorite characters, but Joel and Nathan Drake are examples of "bad" white characters as far as the OP is concerned. You could change their race and literally nothing would change. Their whiteness is not a product of the needs of the story.
Anyway, I think that's the point of the OP, that minorities often have to justify their ethnicity/minority-ness in a way that white protagonists don't. People posting Joel and Nathan Drake are kind of proving that point. When you sit down and think about it, you realize that there really aren't that many characters that have to be white for any reason other than sales potential. It's pretty funny when you add that to conversations about how artistic The Last of Us is. But I digress.
John Marston and Professor Layton from the OP is a great example, and one I was going to use until I got to it in the OP itself.
Makes you wonder why, in every thread where the topic of diversity comes up, people say that minorities need to be justified in the story or gameplay.
That's the point of this thread: if minorities have to justify being a minority, then what are examples where a majority character's majority status is justified or central to the story or gameplay?
Pretty much all the responses I'm seeing aren't really addressing that question.
That's a great question, one I wish more people asked every time someone said that about minority characters.
+1
So for people saying that "it's hard to write characters that are minorities", what exactly makes them so hard to write?
Minorities skin color somehow makes them difficult? HOW?
An excuse implies there's something to be excused. There are reasons that writers of all race, creeds, and genders primarily write people that are like themselves.
Joel from The Last Of Us and Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy VIII for me are well done.
They were relateable characters with understandable emotional barriers due to traumatizing events. Granted, Joel's seems more understandable due tobut Squall was a child when his happened and we experience him right before he's entering adulthood. I didn't see them as characters that could easily be interchangable with someone else.losing his child
Yes, and there's no good reason for people not be able to do otherwise. The person I was replying to was attempting to validate the "people write what they know" justification.
Don't be obtuse. There are plenty of good reasons not to write about a minority you aren't intimately familiar with. Of course, there are plenty of good reasons to do the opposite as well, so long as you are prepared to get intimately familiar with the subject.
Lara Croft and Nathan Drake. They go into other peoples countries to take their stuff, and then act like the victim when they get attacked by the locals. And then in response slaughter them all mercilessly.
Use your imagination.
No, really.
Imagination doesn't give you any answers when you're trying to write about a real type of person that you're not intimately familiar with; it gives you a bunch of questions that you will realize you have to research to get the answers to.
A minority is more than a skin tone. There is culture and history. The less culture and history you are able to include, the more you are just reskinning or regendering a white male. Not what I consider representation.
A good author isn't interested in swapping the skin color on Joe Homebody and patting himself on the back for writing an authentic Indian-American. And if the race has absolutely no bearing on the story, a good author probably has better things to do than research Indian-Americans for no good reason. Go with what you know and tell the story you're actually interested in telling.
I know a lot of people are just posting their favorite characters, but Joel and Nathan Drake are examples of "bad" white characters as far as the OP is concerned. You could change their race and literally nothing would change. Their whiteness is not a product of the needs of the story.
Anyway, I think that's the point of the OP, that minorities often have to justify their ethnicity/minority-ness in a way that white protagonists don't. People posting Joel and Nathan Drake are kind of proving that point. When you sit down and think about it, you realize that there really aren't that many characters that have to be white for any reason other than sales potential. It's pretty funny when you add that to conversations about how artistic The Last of Us is. But I digress.
John Marston and Professor Layton from the OP is a great example, and one I was going to use until I got to it in the OP itself.
To be honest, I can't really fathom a white male done 'wrong'. I don't think it works when you break it down to an individual level.
I don't understand the bolded. Not trying to be a dick, I just literally don't understand what you are trying to say here.
If Joel wasn't white, would that change anything?
Also, isn't Squall Asian? I don't remember.
I'm not a Pacific Islander, not a boy either, never moved a day in my life, I hate sports since I suck at them and I can't invent anything except stories and I suck at maintenance. But what we have in common? I once had control issues. I wanted to give him something in common with me so he could speak to my person.
If I can do it, anyone can. No excuses.
Squall is white. I mean, it's not stated but I think it's fairly obvious he is. Rinoa isn't even asian, she's supposed to be european.
Oh, then it seems kind of contrary to what the OP was asking about. The OP wasn't just asking for white characters that happened to be good characters.My examples weren't about the fact they couldn't be another ethnicity but just they were well done characters who at least had a role and personality that mattered compared to something like say, Link who is speechless and could easily be female or another ethnicity.
Max Payne, especially in 3.
While he could ostensibly be the poster boy for the standard white, bald, male action hero/power fantasy, I see him as more of a subversion.
He's old, he's fat, he whines about everything, he's battling all kinds of addictions, is utterly self-absorbed and suffers from a bad case of the PTSD from murdering so many people over the course of three games. You don't look up to this guy. He's not a hero in any real sense, he's a charity case with a bad haircut and an even worse temper.
Just so you know, I've written stories about a main character who was a Pacific islander but moved to New York as a teenager with his parents. No accent, he was a basketball player and he hated inventing tools but he was awesome at it because he was a great handyman. He also had control issues that greatly impacted his life.
I'm not a Pacific Islander, not a boy either, never moved a day in my life, I hate sports since I suck at them and I can't invent anything except stories and I suck at maintenance. But what we have in common? I once had control issues. I wanted to give him something in common with me so he could speak to my person.
If I can do it, anyone can. No excuses.
I don't know, Rinoa looks pretty asian to me. I'm only bringing it up because I would imagine that many Japanese creators make their characters "asian" in their perspective but many in the west default them to "white" despite there not being evidence for it. It's an interesting situation.
Oh, then it seems kind of contrary to what the OP was asking about. The OP wasn't just asking for white characters that happened to be good characters.
yeah but what are the stakes here if you fuck it up? is someone going to boycott your book? will you be laughed out of your industry? will people blog about how racist you are? will your story tank and take the livelihoods of people you work with down with you?
Technically, the characters the OP is looking for are the ones that specifically do need to be white, to draw our attention to how many of them didn't need to be white. I think it's an interesting topic and do wish it had continued down that avenue. But between people repeatedly failing to understand that point and discussion like this, perhaps it isn't meant to be.Let's say you're fat. I ask why you're fat and you say you have low metabolism, don't exercise and eat poorly. That's all may be true, but those aren't a good reasons for you to stay fat.
You must not be aware of the people that are actively trying to defend not just say "this is probably why" white males being the default video game character because "people write what they know." That's the only explanation for you thinking this is me being obtuse.
Not only that, but the topic is video game characters and the white male characters the OP are referring to are the ones that never needed to be white. Plenty of white male American video game characters could be different skin colors or genders without affecting anything of note in the game.
If I fuck up my story, that's on me for being an inept writer, I'll just try harder next time.
I can't predict people or their behaviour, but what's to boycott?
Criticism fuels me to keep going. Laughter ain't shit. I'll laugh too if I royally fucked up. And then onto the next but I'm not resorting to generic dudebro because I'm scared.
What's racist about it? There's no stereotypes and the guy isn't trying to be white, black or anything, just live his life EXACTLY how he wants it, but has to learn the world doesn't work that way.
I doubt it. Tbh, I have the utmost confidence in my skills as a creator and writer that I'm sure everyone involved will be fine. However, there's no telling the future. But that said, I'm willing to go down for what I'm passionate about than to conform out of fear. I would hope those who work with me would feel the same.
Maybe it would be better if the thread title was along the lines of Video game characters that wouldn't make sense/work if they weren't a "white male"
yeah but what are the stakes here if you fuck it up? is someone going to boycott your book? will you be laughed out of your industry? will people blog about how racist you are? will your story tank and take the livelihoods of people you work with down with you?
Technically, the characters the OP is looking for are the ones that specifically do need to be white, to draw our attention to how many of them didn't need to be white. I think it's an interesting topic and do wish it had continued down that avenue. But between people repeatedly failing to understand that point and discussion like this, perhaps it isn't meant to be.
As to the rest, I am well aware of what people are trying to defend. I've said it before,
but it is unreasonable to think that white male writers in the videogame industry have some moral onus to differentiate themselves from the majority of other writers across the world and throughout history and occupy themselves with writing main characters that are not of their race and gender. That is not the norm in any major medium that I'm aware of. That is not to say I think it is bad for people to challenge themselves and write outside of their comfort zone, but if the story doesn't call for it I see absolutely no necessity for them to do so.
Maybe it would be better if the thread title was along the lines of Video game characters that wouldn't make sense/work if they weren't a "white male"
How often does any of what you described ever happen? Seems very rare to me. And when it does, the person usually did something so deliberately offensive, that the backlash is understandable. Terribly written minority characters are pretty common (e.g. Asian guy who's one-dimensionally techy or into martial arts/mysticism), and no one is losing a job over it. I say the risk of not simply writing about white dudes is minimal and worth it.
A minority is more than a skin tone. There is culture and history. The less culture and history you are able to include, the more you are just reskinning or regendering a white male. Not what I consider representation.
A good author isn't interested in swapping the skin color on Joe Homebody and patting himself on the back for writing an authentic Indian-American. And if the race has absolutely no bearing on the story, a good author probably has better things to do than research Indian-Americans for no good reason. Go with what you know and tell the story you're actually interested in telling.
You might be able to make that argument for anime, but when it comes to more realistic depictions of characters it doesn't work. Rinoa is probably the most asian looking character in FFVIII, but virtually everyone else looks white.I don't know, Rinoa looks pretty asian to me. I'm only bringing it up because I would imagine that many Japanese creators make their characters "asian" in their perspective but many in the west default them to "white" despite there not being evidence for it. It's an interesting situation.
Oh, then it seems kind of contrary to what the OP was asking about. The OP wasn't just asking for white characters that happened to be good characters.
You can be accused of racism for anything, I'm not saying there is anything in your particular scenario that is. I agree with you for the most part and I do wish for more diversity and risk in game storylines/characters but its easier to take risks when you have more personal agency in something. A book, sure, but a AAA game studio? If i was a white guy at a studio where if my game fails it takes the company down with it, there would be extra risks that I wouldn't want to go near. White main character plus standard video game tropes x y and z and done. easy to sell to the money men in the company or other companies. Not saying I like it but I can understand why it happens.
I would have to say Heavy Rain's main character, Ethan Mars, is a white guy done right.
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The reason being:
Recovering from one of his sons, Jason's death, gives us a psychological examination of the character in the game Heavy Rain. He couldn't bear to lose Shawn to the antics of the Origami Killer, who puts Ethan through so much.In fact when Ethan loses Shawn, combined with his agoraphobia, he commits suicide, because the mental state to him was he couldn't save his own sons, and is their killer.
I guess you have a point. I can't think of an instance.
But no one gives a shit about poorly written Asian guys in any context, not just gaming.
Like what? What do you possibly have to look up if you're writing about a character? Use YOUR imagination. It's your character. If you have no concept on the struggle minorities go thru, don't write about it. That shouldn't stop you from still being able to give them other background. What the hell are you implying? That every minority MUST be the same?
I'm different from an African American who's come here from Africa after growing up there. I was born here so I know nothing about the way of living in Africa outside of the news. They could tell you so much more than I because of that, and even I could learn from them. I'm just like a lot of Americans in that aspect, right?
That's because I AM an average American. I'm black. But the color of my skin doesn't define me, my story is different from the next person and theirs from mine. Pick which you find easier to work with.
Personally, I enjoy an opportunity to learn about others so I've got no problems asking people about their world and their perception of it. But if you find my average, boring American life easier to write, you're free to. It's realistic~ because I live it and many live similarly. But it's pretty lazy of you as a writer to take the easy route.
You have a good grasp on what the OP is asking, and I agree with the others points you've raised in the thread, but the example of Resident Evil 4 is a bit off base.I don't see what's so hard to understand.
Think of a white male character that fits into the game and role he was given because no one else could possibly replace him. He's that important for the story.
Example: Take RE4 for example. As much as I like Leon, if Luis had been the protagonist, it would have been more fitting. The entire setting is in a country full of Spanish speakers but we're sending in an American? Luis actually is Spanish. It makes more sense to send in someone to save Ashley who actually understands the language, doesn't it?
However, Luis doesn't fit this topic because he wasn't the main character, but the fact that Leon could have easily been replaced by him is a sign that Leon isn't a fitting white protagonist either (he could be easily replaced by anyone and nothing would change).
Had Luis been the main, he would be a great character for this thread. But unfortunately, he wasn't.
The goal is to find main white characters that are appropriate for their game and can't have their role replaced by just anyone.
An example would be if there was a game about a story of Vikings. I believe that would leave you with the possibility of a main character who is of Western European origin and therefore, not so easily replaced by any other ethnicity (or gender due to the customs).
I think you're going a bit overboard about how different some of us are. I'm black, descendant from slaves, and have no freaking idea what African country my ancestors were from. You are assuming some difference that isn't really there. Yeah, my family might have eaten a few different sides during Thanksgiving than your family, but on any given evening I'm sure my middle class family was doing regular American middle class shit. You don't need to do massive research to include a character that isn't a straight white man. Why are some of you making this seem so incredibly difficult? We're not aliens.I'm curious where you got the impression I am trying to say that all minorities are the same? I'm saying the complete opposite. They are different. They are so wildly different that the chances are you don't even understand how they can differ from each or what that even means. You need to understand what those differences can be and what implications of those difference are. What generation out of what country of Africa? Immigrated when, what type of food do they eat there and what might have been brought over. What religion might have existed in the family history, etc. etc. etc. That doesn't mean the character can't talk with an American standard mid-west accent, play golf, and practice Judaism, but there is still a history that needs to be researched because a believable character would know about their own history and doesn't grow up in a white-washed vacuum.
I'm going to leave the rest alone specifically not to be hostile or dismissive. What I will say is that I hope your continue to pursue your interest in writing a story and I hope that as you grow you come to realize the importance of researching and creating as believable of characters as you are able.
All this "Spanish people aren't white" talk is hurting my head. If ethnic Spaniards aren't white then ethnic French people aren't white either for example.
Does white mean "anglo-saxon" to some people on this board?