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People warring in the Wikipedia 'Yasuke' page over Assassin's Creed Shadows Protagonist

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Draugoth

Gold Member
In the aftermath of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Shadows reveal, the Wikipedia page for Yasuke has become a battleground with hundreds of edits being made and even insults.

For example, as is visible by viewing previous versions of the Wikipedia article for the man, a new paragraph was added (before it was promptly deleted, the article itself locked so people can't edit it) that read:

"It is important to note that despite popular myth and modern depictions there are no historical writings nor evidence that Yasuke was ever granted the rank or title of samurai, he was never given a fief nor referred to as one in any writings. Most of our knowledge of his life comes from these messages written by missionaries and locals."






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You can see people insulting each other

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3VKilrk.png


 
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LordOfChaos

Member
People get weird when a person of colour is portrayed in media and pretend it's about "accuracy". To the point of going and changing the guy's wiki once they discovered it was about a real person who really was black in real historical Japan lol. How many depictions have we had of some white guy being in a setting like that and becoming the centre of everything, to no response from these places?

Some people barely hide it. A decent part of gaf is no different.
 
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gokurho

Member
Assassin’s Creed: Shadows reveal, the Wikipedia page for Yasuke has become a battleground with hundreds of edits being made and even insults.

For example, as is visible by viewing previous versions of the Wikipedia article for the man, a new paragraph was added (before it was promptly deleted, the article itself locked so people can't edit it) that read:








GNtD4u2XcAAkCv0


You can see people insulting each other

qob2ufD.png


3VKilrk.png



In the "Ietada Diary," dated April 19, Tensho 10 (May 11, 1582), he is described as follows: "上様御ふち候、大うす(デウス)進上申候、くろ男御つれ候、身ハすみノコトク、タケハ六尺二分、名ハ弥助ト云 (He was carrying a black man who was given to him by a missionary, whom Nobunaga-sama said he gave as an ally. His body was like ink and he was about 1.82 meters tall). This was witnessed by Matsudaira Ietada, a vassal of Ieyasu, when Nobunaga passed through Tokugawa territory on his way back from the conquest of Koshu, where Yasuke had also served. The diary entry clearly states that Yasuke was not a servant or indentured servant, but a samurai with a stipend.
(translated by deepl)
Japanese wikipedia seems to describe him as a samurai based on primary sources.:messenger_grinning_sweat:
Did the editors of English Wikipedia read the Ietada Diary in its original text?
I am Japanese but cannot read the books of that time.
 

ReyBrujo

Member
Used to be admin at the English Wikipedia and dealing with fanboys and edit warring (which I posted about in the Japan vs Assassin thread) is relatively easy because they are focusing on a single article and you just lock it and be done with it. The thing is, by the time you arrive to the article it might have been going on for a good while and it's kind of hard to find the line where to revert to keep everyone happy. Reminds me when back in time the "iPhone" article was about a Linksys router and after Apple announced the iPhone Apple fanboys started changing the Linksys article to be be about the phone. I had to lock the article to cool everyone down.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
I bet a version of this person will be in Shogun s2 as well. Close enough in time and its a fictionalized retelling of 1600 Japan anyway, why not throw in as many stories from around that time as possible?

I think it is important to realize that almost ALL of our "historic personas" are based on semi-fictional distillations of the actual people. There is so little reliable and accurate evidence of people even just a few decades ago (hell, even NOW) much less CENTURIES ago and documented across cultures.

It's pretty common for media to glom on to a singular description of a person that gets amplified (female pirate, black samurai, etc) and turn it into an entire group of people as if they were common examples rather than virtually unique exceptions. The question is whether or not it will sell.
 

kiphalfton

Member
It literally doesn't even matter lol. The series actively prides itself on rewriting history anyway, if they want him to be a samurai, he'll be a samurai.
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People getting mad about one thing or another.

Even here it's getting really bad.

Pick and choose your battles, or you just look stupid.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
This is why Wikipedia is a horrible source of information.

If you're using Wiki to get your facts then you've already failed.
 

mdkirby

Gold Member
Whether or not he was officially considered a samurai or was little more than a servant/novelty is kinda beside the point.

He was a singular anomaly that Ubisoft went out of their way to select, so they could NOT choose a Japanese figure, and instead use a non Japanese black man as the protagonist. It’s hard to view it as not being in some respects “racist”, also breaking tradition from all past assassins creed games.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but the female ninja’s features also seem to be not overly Japanese, she has a sort of westernised Japanese look, or even Native American in the few snippets we’ve seen, like they’ve somewhat soften/homogenised her features.

The monetisation they are going for also seems pretty gross.

All that aside the game looks good, and I could see myself enjoying both characters and the story. I will almost certainly be buying/playing it at some point.

But yeah if it was set during the Aztec empire, and Ubisoft had specifically dug around historical records and folk tales to find a single brief tale of a white British guy, just so they could have a white guy be the main character instead of someone from the native culture, I’m pretty certain the general consensus would be to call it pretty racist, even if the myth/tale is pretty cool in isolation 🤷‍♂️.

Edit: damn I really want an assassins creed game set during the Aztec empire now.
 
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HisExcellency

Neo Member
Let's be honest, everyone knows why people have a problem with this character. And it ain't about realism in a series where the Pope was a sorcerer and Da Vinci made weapons and items for the main character like his own personal Q. And it's not about not being able to play as a Japanese person because there's two protagonists and one is Japanese.

We know why *some* people had a problem with Stellar Blade. So let's be honest and acknowledge why *some* people have a problem with this game.

It's the same people that are ok with Nathan Drake killing scores of people like he's John Wick, but have an issue when Nadene beats two fully grown men in a fist fight. Power fantasies are fine with some characters and not with others.

Honestly some of you that railed against IGN France and Resetera when it came to Eve are no better when it comes to this character. Suddenly no one cares about what the developers want.
 
No, Draugoth keeps the community informed with developing topics and news. I think it's quite unfair and a little disrespectful to suggest they fish for engagement. This is a separate topic to the other thread, and rightly deserves its own thread as a result.
I'd say it's about 70/30. There have been multiple accounts of multiple users here having to fact check his sources or him having to fix his titles.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
asscreed: we wuz samuriz and kangz!
and vikings too! :goog_relieved:

Which I find kinda silly but whatever. Nowadays it's all about representation it seems, although only for a selected few.

The OP fishes for engagement
Why would he do that? Can we exchange our reaction score for prizes or something?
 
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