People of color in Wesnoth

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Midnight_Carnival
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by Midnight_Carnival »

fabi wrote:
Midnight_Carnival wrote:Ok, as someone of mixed african and european ancestory (not sure if I'm dark enough to be included) I personally would be offended by having "people of colour" included purely for the sake of somebody somewhere showing off how pollitically correct they can be.
I feel the same, but having no "poc" ancestors (as far as I know).
(as said, what about asian?)
And native American people? Bushman? Hispanics?
We would end up introducing a lot new portraits and plot changes (which are mostly already done by now),
just recoloring them would be silly and not enough.

Wesnoth's characters tend to be very one-dimensional, either being pure evil or pure heroes in most cases.
In order to avoid the suspicion we would need to have the same amount of evil/good characters on each of the different "races".
This restrain makes it hard to develop a good plot explaining why a certain character is at his place in the story.

Still the new Khalifate faction is a good opportunity to introduce some none European looking characters.

Sorry if I used any term that isn't considered political correct.
you're black enough for me bro. Even if you have only pale ancestors you can still think of yourself as my <racially insensitive or offensive term>

-Ok, my dear Gambit. I am a dis-everything person, you may refer to me as disCarnival if you so choose. I also think that the conclusion you drew as to what my conclusion was is not supported by what I had to say. My point summariesed and put in small simple words, for people who don't quite get it: IT COMES DOWN TO SPRITES! IF SOMEONE DRAWS A SPRITE A FEW SHADES DARKER, NOBODY HAS A RIGHT TO OBJECT. IF YOU WANT TO REDRAW THE SPRITES JUST SO THAT US NOT SO PALE KIDS DON'T FEEL LEFT OUT, I FIND THAT ANNOYING. :annoyed:
And I'd find it annoying if you were seven shades darker than me and still had whip marks on your back too! In LOtR series, the only darker people are described as "savage" on on the side of Sauron, doesn't make the books "wrong" as far as me and most other <OOh, what do I say to not come across as a racist here??? [more dis-stuff]> people of similar skin tone to me who have read it think.
It's just the context, darker skin occours more frequently in hot climates, Wesnoth is mostly cold. You want those guys to freeze?

As for exploring fantasy racial tensions, a great man once said:
now the star-bellied sneeches had bellies with stars
and the plain-bellied sneeches had none upon thars...
Sorry, but you can't legislate equality, you can only allow it and hope for the best, unpleasant people will always find a way to opress others no matter how carefully you try to deny it.
Wesnoth is not racist.
-if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
...apparenly we can't go with it or something.
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by Andrettin »

fabi wrote: And native American people? Bushman? Hispanics?
Well, Hispanic is a cultural term, since there are people with all kinds of colors in Spanish America. The racial term for what you are probably thinking of is Mestizo/Métis/Caboclo.

That being said, I don't see what the harm would be of adding characters of different colors to the human society which already exists in Wesnoth. I don't think it has anything to do with "being politically correct" - but rather, since the human society in Wesnoth represents the entire human species, then it should also include the many variations within our species.
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by revansurik »

Midnight_Carnival wrote:
Ok, as someone of mixed african and european ancestory (not sure if I'm dark enough to be included) I personally would be offended by having "people of colour" included purely for the sake of somebody somewhere showing off how pollitically correct they can be.
I don't see this inclusion as 'political correctness' (which to me is little different from hipocrisy). I just think it'd be nice to include different ethnicities because the Wesnoth public comes from various backgrounds; and, like it or not, people in general relate to the characters in a story ethnically too. For instance, see the Earthsea series, a fantasy story that has many dark-sinned characters; its author, Ursula Le Guin, once said that she used to receive letters from fans who appreciated reading a story of that genre that included (main) characters of their ethnicity too, unlike so many other major fantasy works (such as LotR and Chronicles of Narnia.
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by wolkenwand »

I think its okay to include other ethnicity in wesnoth, but it must done with careful. what i mean is, lets say there will be a black skinned character, then udeniably this will become some sort of representative character. thus this character background must tailored carefully, or else it can leave a bad taste. the bad example: "from south of wesnoth there are wesfolk descendant village, the people in there are black skinned. they are worshipping their lich lord and tend to do sadistic thing to the captured wesnothian citizen". the good example: "in south of wesnoth there are another country with black skinned people, they have benevolent leaders and become good ally of wesnoth" then it will good representative, the player will be happy that their "representative " is a good one. let alone the bad guy is the orc and undead :) for the sake of equality.

for notes my tone is neutral, i dont mind if there will be poc or not. and sorry for my english, i hope its understandable.
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by Gambit »

IF YOU WANT TO REDRAW THE SPRITES JUST SO THAT US NOT SO PALE KIDS DON'T FEEL LEFT OUT, I FIND THAT ANNOYING.
Why do you find it annoying?

And while I doubt you're entirely alone, you are one of the first people I've talked to who isn't totally fed up with the ridiculous under-representation of people of color and women in popular culture (one of the few who isn't a white male, anyway); particularly in games as we lag far behind movies, television, music, books, and art.
It's just the context, darker skin occours more frequently in hot climates, Wesnoth is mostly cold. You want those guys to freeze?
Everyone in this thread likes to keep reminding me that Wesnoth is based in Europe. People of all races seem to be doing just fine there (apart from harassment by groups like the BNP :P) Amusingly though, "everyone in this thread" all seem to believe that medieval Europe was just a whole continent full of all white people who never traded, never had visitors from other places, and never allowed immigration either. And that Wesnoth should - along with the rest of the fantasy genre - perfectly emulate that continent of isolationist white people. Irdya can't have a single non-white human and Wesnoth can't allow any into their country!

(Hey wait a minute, weren't European countries historically anything but isolationist?)

Anyway, the white desert elves seem to have adapted nicely to their hot climate. I'm sure we can find some coats for the handful of non-white humans that are going to be added.
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by taptap »

revansurik wrote:
Midnight_Carnival wrote:
Ok, as someone of mixed african and european ancestory (not sure if I'm dark enough to be included) I personally would be offended by having "people of colour" included purely for the sake of somebody somewhere showing off how pollitically correct they can be.
I don't see this inclusion as 'political correctness' (which to me is little different from hipocrisy). I just think it'd be nice to include different ethnicities because the Wesnoth public comes from various backgrounds; and, like it or not, people in general relate to the characters in a story ethnically too. For instance, see the Earthsea series, a fantasy story that has many dark-sinned characters; its author, Ursula Le Guin, once said that she used to receive letters from fans who appreciated reading a story of that genre that included (main) characters of their ethnicity too, unlike so many other major fantasy works (such as LotR and Chronicles of Narnia.
I find it irritating that you apparently don't notice the main difference in the world building of Ursula Le Guin and derivative high fantasy - the absence of black/white morality and personified evil in the worlds of Ursula Le Guin. The core conflict in the Earthsea trilogy is all about that. In such a nuanced world there is place for more diversity in characters, but to add diversity for the good guys in a high-fantasy setting while keeping orcs, who are not only the personified evil but chock-full of racial stereotype smells like tokenism. If people take away a worrying political messages from fantasy it probably is due to the unashamed existence of inferior and / or outright bad races and the righteousness of the good people, who feel entitled to kill those bad people wherever they come across them not a lack of diversity among the genocidal heroes.
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tekelili
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by tekelili »

All footpads have the same hair color, and is not my hair color. I wonder why I never felt underrepresented among footpads. Maybe becuase I am able to understand difference of reality from an icon. Good luck to Wesnoth artists if they have to represent reality and are not allowed to use icons.
Be aware English is not my first language and I could have explained bad myself using wrong or just invented words.
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by revansurik »

I find it irritating that you apparently don't notice the main difference in the world building of Ursula Le Guin and derivative high fantasy - the absence of black/white morality and personified evil in the worlds of Ursula Le Guin. The core conflict in the Earthsea trilogy is all about that. In such a nuanced world there is place for more diversity in characters, but to add diversity for the good guys in a high-fantasy setting while keeping orcs, who are not only the personified evil but chock-full of racial stereotype smells like tokenism. If people take away a worrying political messages from fantasy it probably is due to the unashamed existence of inferior and / or outright bad races and the righteousness of the good people, who feel entitled to kill those bad people wherever they come across them not a lack of diversity among the genocidal heroes.
Sorry, but I fail to see the relationship between ethnic diversity and moral complexity. What prevents a more simplistic story from having characters from various backgrounds? As for the orcs... I'm aware that Tolkien's orcs are full of negative stereotypes, but I don't think Wesnoth's orcs are similar to them in that aspect: they're simply a very warlike and aggressive nation, and for this reason they're disliked by everyone else. I may have missed something there, but I don't see anything about 'our' orcs that relate them to any existing culture. Now, you say that having a diverse human faction in a world with evil orcs smells to tokenism, but having a light-skinned human faction while having evil orcs that are dark-skinned can smell to something far worse to some people (I don't include myself amongst these, though)...
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by Midnight_Carnival »

I find it irritating because I generally object to people taking offence on behalf of others.

Ok, let's throw away our skins and all be orcs for a moment... :mrgreen: people with speech impediments are under-represented in Wesnoth campaigns - so somebody says "Ok guys, we should include charcaters who lisp/stutter or randomly burst into profanities to make people who play Wesnoth and fit this profile feel more welcome!" as opposed to someone having writing a campaign with say a stuttering Drake etc... and then someone says "man I found that character irritating!" and someone else says "actually, there are a lot of people who speak like that, I don't think the character's portrayal was done offensively, leave Boggy alone" - am I just acting thick in an insincere way to pick a fight here, or can other's see my point?

Ok, now we're not green anymore right?
I get annoyed with the media of certain countries pushing attitudes -which may or may not work in that context- down the throats of others: where I'm from, there is a hell of a lot of coffee and not so much cream (I'm lucky to have gotten as much as I did!) - an attitude that some people are "minorities" and need to be included becasue of what 'your grand-pappy done to my grand-pappy' is kind of annoying for someone who doesn't live with those hangups.

I'm not against the proposal as such, I'm against what's behind it. If someone drew a darker-skinned spearman with negroid features for the art workshop and someone else said something to the effect of "you can't have a <racially insensitive or offensive term> with a spear" well then I guess I'd be posting something completely different and you'd all love me. But someone else saying "we must have more of this colour people to make it fair" well that rubs my fur up the wrong way.

I'll get to work on some topless Nubian beauties and pull the race card if anyone objects??? :lol2: :lol2: :roll: :augh:
...apparenly we can't go with it or something.
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by taptap »

am I just acting thick in an insincere way to pick a fight here, or can other's see my point?
I believe you want to pick a fight, but I can see your point :)
As for the orcs... I'm aware that Tolkien's orcs are full of negative stereotypes, but I don't think Wesnoth's orcs are similar to them in that aspect: they're simply a very warlike and aggressive nation, and for this reason they're disliked by everyone else.
Actually, I have much less problems with Tolkien, because orcs are evil, corrupted etc. in his stories. But making the whole setting more realistic and pretending them to be "simply warlike and aggressive" while in practice they remain the stooges, the unending evil horde rampaging the countryside taking tremendous losses each time but never changing their ways. In history "warlike and aggressive" nations either won their wars (that is why e.g. the Mongols were feared) or collapsed, but they weren't conveniently losing every single time and still kept coming again and again. Orcs in most Wesnoth campaigns are the cheap baddies, you are meant to beat them and it certainly strains my dispension of disbelief that anyone still considers them a threat. And look how it is played in Heir to the Throne: the Queen is bad, therefore the Queen has to hire orcs ... wouldn't the Queen be able to send human soldiers against a pretender whose only claim to legitimacy are the lies of an elderly mage and some elvish lords? Look, I am not complaining about this, I am fine with bland, stereotyped stories when the gameplay delivers, but it is hardly the appropriate setting for delivering diversity, sensitivity and multiculturalism.
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by Paulomat4 »

I agree with Midnight_Carnival.
You draws a wicked portrait of someone who is black, which is good and fits our style?
---> cool let's add it as portrait of a special mercenary or sailor from far away or i don't know merchant, or use it otherwise. But don't overdo it, just because of political correctness. No need to create alternative portraits somewhere, where it doesn't even make sense.
You have an entire faction where it makes sense for all the people to be black? (like living in the great desert in the south)
---> Sure thing, make them all black! :)

But to replace some perfectly good portraits just because of political correctness?
No, because it makes no sense :annoyed:

In my view including blacks just because of political correctness is the real discrimination. Adding them whenever it makes sense would be better i think.
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by revansurik »

Actually, I have much less problems with Tolkien, because orcs are evil, corrupted etc. in his stories. But making the whole setting more realistic and pretending them to be "simply warlike and aggressive" while in practice they remain the stooges, the unending evil horde rampaging the countryside taking tremendous losses each time but never changing their ways. In history "warlike and aggressive" nations either won their wars (that is why e.g. the Mongols were feared) or collapsed, but they weren't conveniently losing every single time and still kept coming again and again. Orcs in most Wesnoth campaigns are the cheap baddies, you are meant to beat them and it certainly strains my dispension of disbelief that anyone still considers them a threat. And look how it is played in Heir to the Throne: the Queen is bad, therefore the Queen has to hire orcs ... wouldn't the Queen be able to send human soldiers against a pretender whose only claim to legitimacy are the lies of an elderly mage and some elvish lords? Look, I am not complaining about this, I am fine with bland, stereotyped stories when the gameplay delivers, but it is hardly the appropriate setting for delivering diversity, sensitivity and multiculturalism.
Sorry again, but I still don't understand howthe orcs being mostly villains prevent the humans of Wesnoth from being ethnically diverse. Orcs are not an organized host, they're generally isolated bands that use to prey on each other and on everyone else, and they're _always_ harassing everyone else, causing loss of life on every new season; is it so difficult to understand why everyone hates them? Ah, yes, in HttT they're used to intensify Asheviere's villainy, but then again, HttT was Wesnoth's first campaign, created before any faction had much depth, and with the (possibly) heaviest influence of LotR, where the orcs are synonym of evil.
In my view including blacks just because of political correctness is the real discrimination. Adding them whenever it makes sense would be better i think.
But why does it have to be blacks? Why not Central Asians, South Asians, North Africans (Berbers) or Native Americans?



Also, I'd like to point out that Wesnothians, being the heirs of both Islefolk and Wesfolk, are of mixed heritage already, so having them as a multi-ethnic nation would be fitting and wouldn't need to go against canon.
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by Paulomat4 »

But why does it have to be blacks? Why not Central Asians, South Asians, North Africans (Berbers) or Native Americans?
I sure meant them too :)
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Re: People of color in Wesnoth

Post by Gambit »

No need to create alternative portraits somewhere, where it doesn't even make sense
So... white humans make sense. Non-white humans don't make sense.
Got it.
But to replace some perfectly good portraits just because of political correctness?
The portraits in question have not been drawn yet - white or otherwise. The suggestion is to select a few of them to be people of color when they do get drawn.
In my view including blacks just because of political correctness is the real discrimination.
Haha. Wow. I'm sorry, but you have a really messed up view of discrimination.




This thread is mind-mindbogglingly circular. It's been three weeks of me answering like... the same four things over and over and over and over.
  1. Wesnoth is based in medieval Europe and we all know that was nothing but white folks. (Six times!)
    False.
  2. White people just make sense to me, but anyone else needs three pages of explanation. (Three times)
    Nonsense.
  3. Why are you making the artists waste all this extra time creating new portraits? (Three times)
    The portraits are already being redrawn.
  4. I don't think the team can do this in a way that isn't racist. (Five times)
    Have a little more faith in them.
  5. Adding a handful of non-white portraits to this one game doesn't solve all racism forever, so we shouldn't bother. (Two times)
    With this attitude, we'll be better in no time!
  6. This is just meaningless political correctness! And also, that's bad... because... for some reason. (Five times)
    K.

It's almost as if half of you didn't bother to read the entire thread. I know that can't be it because that'd be against the Posting Guidelines, so I'll assume there's some other reason for this strange behavior.

You know, I'm not entirely sure why I've kept this thread open so long. Jetrel was on board from day one. I guess I got hopeful that in the writer's forum there'd be more discussion about possible lore and origin stories, and less absurd attempts to rationalize keeping Wesnoth 100% pure white. The men of Wesnoth. The dwarves. The elves. The outlaws. The necromancers.

Nope. They all have to be white apparently. Because it "makes sense". And changing it would just be silly political correctness.

Every character in the whole game who isn't a monster, orc, troll, wose, or goblin.

Every.

single.

one of them.

Locked.
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