Astrid Fornhoff
Perpetual Depressant
- Location
- 1632 Revello Drive, Sunnydale California
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yes, it does, and yes, it does. I wasn't trying to discount that either.
Cliches you can't stand
- Thread starter Mithras
- Start date
Yes, it does, and yes, it does. I wasn't trying to discount that either.
Maybe there are no "brown people", or none anywhere near where the setting is. It's not Earth, there is no Africa any more than there is a Europe.
Which is another problem with the whole idea; even if they included black or brown people, they would not be our black or brown people but an entirely unrelated group that has a superficial resemblance. Just as the white people aren't our white people.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So why can't the entire cast of the Witcher be Darkskinned? Why do they look like Caucasians? Why can't their be dark-skinned people
No reason? They could have been talking lizards and the story could still work; it's not Earth.
...Now I'm imagining a version of the Witcher series where everyone is an Argonian from the Elder Scrolls setting.
FortePlus
The THRILL from Green Hill
- Location
- Toronto
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Probably because they didn't feel like it. And they don't need to have dark skinned people.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
I mean, it was in fact written by a white-skinned person who comes from a society that is well over 90% white-skinned. People will in fact write their experiences, and there nothing wrong with that.
Ser_Serendipity
Building Character
The Witcher doesn't take place on Earth, but its humans are explicitly from Earth. Dimensional migrants.
Well, that actually serves as a good explanation for why there aren't any dark skinned people; none were among the migrants, or there were few enough that their ancestry leaves no visible mark. Such a situation would be akin to an island colonized by the descendants of a marooned ship.
- Location
- The Old Dominion
From what I gathered the or at least the local groups of elves as well as vampires, ghouls and other some beings are also from other worlds from what I gathered with the both the original elven home world and human home world supposedly suffering some sort of doom though I sort wouldn't be surprised if the ancient human home world didn't actually suffer some sort of doom as the elves claimed and the humans were were just fleeing to various worlds to get away from the Aen Elle.
Astrid Fornhoff
Perpetual Depressant
- Location
- 1632 Revello Drive, Sunnydale California
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Having never read the books or played the sequel it's a Yikes as shit moment if the humanlings fled Earthica and only the pale fucks made it out.
FortePlus
The THRILL from Green Hill
- Location
- Toronto
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is the part that I feel gets lost in all of these discussions about character diversity, if it's even explained at all over saying "you're racist for not having black people in your fiction" or something similar to be ~provocative~. If an event takes place over a large number of areas or involves the entire world in some way, it's a super bad look to just have 'white' people or have a cast that is mostly 'white' people by volume. Earth coalitions or government agencies that are supposedly like the super UN or whatever should have diversity in them and attempt to represent as many types of people as possible. (If you make it a plot point that the majority of leadership is white for reasons, then you can get away with that too.)
On the other hand, I'm not going to be terribly concerned over racial balance and dynamics while watching say, The Godfather. Because that story takes place in a specific, contained setting.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
If it is your standard magical portal somewhere, rather than, I dunno, an organized evacuation effort, that only the local people around that portal would make the transition is kinda what you expect.
Of course, I don't know the Witcher backstory. Are we speaking here of a "future lost" scenario, where a future Earth meets its doom, or a migration that happened back when in human pre-history?
- Location
- The Old Dominion
From what I gathered its mentioned in witcher's lore that there are multiple worlds inhabited by humans which apparently suffer slave raids by the Aen Elle who sort of geocoded the local humans on whatever world they invaded and settled on after the elven world's doom to the point they supposedly made of mountains of bones out of the local humans.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
The dimensional migrants weren't an invasion force to the Witcher world - they were involuntarily pulled through by various unstable rifts thousands of years ago, when the last convergence happened.
And while we can't be certain of it events later implied that far. far more who passed through the rifts did not survive the experience than the ones that did.
Those events also are where the monsters came from. Effectively the multiverse in witcher is unstable and when certain conditions are met rifts begin tearing between worlds. But they don't last and you can't really predict where they will open or not. This causes all kinds of havoc.
And the multiverse is dying. And some of the elves are aware of this - their homeworld is next on the chopping block and no matter how hard they hold it back they are failing. They very desperately want a way out. But as I just said the rifts are natural and largely uncontrollable. And while they can be predicted the paths through them are... well in witcher three you end up taking a short jaunt through them. Even Geralt nearly dies multiple times on that trip. They are... far more often a path to certain death, not salvation.
The plot of witcher three is largely fueled by one group of these elves that believe by using the power of a certain bloodline they can force a stable rift open long enough to evacuate their world. They are right, probably. It just also happens to be incredibly short-sighted, since that same bloodline is the only thing that might actually end the multiverse-ending event. And absuing it for their purposes would not be survivable for it's only living member.
And while we can't be certain of it events later implied that far. far more who passed through the rifts did not survive the experience than the ones that did.
Those events also are where the monsters came from. Effectively the multiverse in witcher is unstable and when certain conditions are met rifts begin tearing between worlds. But they don't last and you can't really predict where they will open or not. This causes all kinds of havoc.
And the multiverse is dying. And some of the elves are aware of this - their homeworld is next on the chopping block and no matter how hard they hold it back they are failing. They very desperately want a way out. But as I just said the rifts are natural and largely uncontrollable. And while they can be predicted the paths through them are... well in witcher three you end up taking a short jaunt through them. Even Geralt nearly dies multiple times on that trip. They are... far more often a path to certain death, not salvation.
The plot of witcher three is largely fueled by one group of these elves that believe by using the power of a certain bloodline they can force a stable rift open long enough to evacuate their world. They are right, probably. It just also happens to be incredibly short-sighted, since that same bloodline is the only thing that might actually end the multiverse-ending event. And absuing it for their purposes would not be survivable for it's only living member.
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"They don't have to have dark skinned because (other world/etc.)" is Watsonian reasoning. Doylist, the writer just left them out when it'd be just as easy to include them, and the tendency to do so is an issue. If you live on earth odds are very, very high you know humans come in a lot of colors. If you do anything internationally, then you're aware there's going to be some variety in your audience.
And heck, the book's a book, it may not describe plenty of people, but there's always room for adaptations to represent. White = default's just kinda lazy.
It's worth noting that Humanity is literally the poorest species in multiple galaxies (who isn't under the control of a richer one), and only due to the friendly intervention of an ally did we avoid being placed under someone else's control, and often find ourselves at a disadvantage due to being the new kids on the block. So it's not just that we have a reaction to colonialism itself, but that the Five Galaxies society is a ladder, and we're as low as you can get while being independent.
There's both the philosophical objection, but humanity's objection also has a lot on the practical end. Reinforced by some of the callousness shown by elders seen throughout the book showing it's not just an us-problem, dapient species upgraded in ways they don't like to be more 'useful,' tales of multiple client-species uprisings in the past, most put down, some, depressingly, succeeding but just taking up the old system with them on top. Etc..
And heck, the book's a book, it may not describe plenty of people, but there's always room for adaptations to represent. White = default's just kinda lazy.
It's worth noting that Humanity is literally the poorest species in multiple galaxies (who isn't under the control of a richer one), and only due to the friendly intervention of an ally did we avoid being placed under someone else's control, and often find ourselves at a disadvantage due to being the new kids on the block. So it's not just that we have a reaction to colonialism itself, but that the Five Galaxies society is a ladder, and we're as low as you can get while being independent.
There's both the philosophical objection, but humanity's objection also has a lot on the practical end. Reinforced by some of the callousness shown by elders seen throughout the book showing it's not just an us-problem, dapient species upgraded in ways they don't like to be more 'useful,' tales of multiple client-species uprisings in the past, most put down, some, depressingly, succeeding but just taking up the old system with them on top. Etc..
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
I don't think this is a dogma. There is a certain rationale behind this.
"Dunno on the Moon" is a classic of Soviet children's literature. The short ones find a literal corporacracy inside the moon - everything is controlled by a big bredlam (nonsense + bedlam) consisting of monopolists.
Do not forget about the plot where cosmonauts from the future arrive on another planet, where humanoids live, but lagging behind in development for several centuries.
Dogma typically does; that doesn't make it not dogma. Especially in an authoritarian culture like the USSR.
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Oh - in any case, it is less dogmatic than the phrase "authoritarian culture" (because culture is in any case a supra-individual concept). Moreover, this is not the result of a party directive - several writers simply thought about how such a problem could be solved in the mainstream of Marxist philosophy. I looked at this issue - and came to the same conclusions.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
I don't think "our science fiction validates us" is a rationale so much as a rationalization.
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
I rather mean - "if our conclusions are correct, then there should be such a result"
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Thank you the lack of black people seems like something a 90s Polish author would do. But it's hilarious how much nerds contort to defend the lack of brown and black people in the Witcher. So only white people went through the Portals? Are they even from our world.
FortePlus
The THRILL from Green Hill
- Location
- Toronto
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nobody contorted to do anything. You literally ignored the other posts made just to do exactly what I warned against, a 2D characterization of what was happening.
Believe it or not there are members of minority groups that don't mind reading stories or consuming content where they're -not-broadly represented. There are even some who would rather not be tokenized with stereotypical cookie cutter portrayals that come about because an author wants to hit a diversity quota. It is in fact perfectly fine for a Polish author to write purely about Polish people or analogues of such, and not include a single character from any other culture. The problem yet again is when in the face of a global cataclysm the only survivors or featured characters are Caucasian or similar. And if that is the case here it is an issue.
Otherwise it would be nice if you stopped tearing the details out of the current discussion for a gotcha.
Believe it or not there are members of minority groups that don't mind reading stories or consuming content where they're -not-broadly represented. There are even some who would rather not be tokenized with stereotypical cookie cutter portrayals that come about because an author wants to hit a diversity quota. It is in fact perfectly fine for a Polish author to write purely about Polish people or analogues of such, and not include a single character from any other culture. The problem yet again is when in the face of a global cataclysm the only survivors or featured characters are Caucasian or similar. And if that is the case here it is an issue.
Otherwise it would be nice if you stopped tearing the details out of the current discussion for a gotcha.
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- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Why? Why is that an "issue"? Humans do come in a variety of colours, but that does not mean every book, every work of fiction, has to always include them all. That is a silly demand, with no real underlying causality even on the Doylist level, and indeed you offer no support for that position other than not doing so "is an issue". The Doylist reason is simply, as I have noted, that people write their lived experience, and in that regards, well, not every place is North America. Indeed, this single-minded focus on specifically dark-skinned people instead of also, say, East Asians, really does show that this is more about North American sensitivities in regards to race relations than anything else - sensitivities they then expect everyone else to follow as well.
And actually, if you write in Polish, you probably do not expect an international audience at all. The Witcher's success was a black swan event, a breakthrough event nobody could have foreseen.
If it is a single portal in, for example, Central Europe 2000 BCE, that is exactly what you'd expect.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
How did you become a conciliar? I guess SV isn't as progressive as I thought. And yes stories should include more then white people
- Location
- Somewhere
Whether a story is set in another world or not doesn't prevent people of color from being in it. Even fucking D&D knows that. Look at Dragonlance. Theros Ironfeld, the guy who goes from being a village blacksmith to forging the aformentioned lances, was black. Noone commented on this despite that because him being Ergothian (black) was simply not relevant.