Final Fantasy 16

[Hawki]

While there is some truth to that, there is nothing wrong doing so, and it has many positives benefits to start learning or understanding different cultures better.

There's certainly nothing wrong with it inherently, especially if you're building a setting from the ground up. It does become stretched, however, when things start to become incongruent with the setting.

Since you've used Avatar (more on that in a bit), it would be very hard at this point in time to insert...I dunno, an Egyptian-themed civilization, the reason being that among the conceits of Avatar are that:

-The world is entirely mapped
-There's four key civilizations in the world, each with a real-world antecedent
-This state of affairs apparently lasted 10,000 years

It's not entirely impossible, provided you provide reasons for it (e.g. "in the year 2023 of the Avatar timeline, a small Egyptian-esque kingdom arose in the sands area but was lost to time"), but you've got your work cut out for you.

The Appropriation of Avatar - Harvard Political Review

American culture likes to identify its heroes and villains; Avatar the Last Airbender creators Koniezko and DiMartino are neither. For me, they are not “canceled.” But contrary to public worship, their work bears harm too.

harvardpolitics.com

It's too late in the evening (...fuck, it's morning, actually) to go through that, but everything in that article is basically what SE is doing with FFXVI. Heck, the majority of the FF series is Japanese developers nicking things from various cultures. Don't see that as an issue. Heck, I've already mentioned I write fantasy, cultural appropriation is my bread and butter.

It's not that different skin tones would be "alien" as much as "random". Like, there'd be no point to adding them one way or the other so why bother. While dragons, they're cool, they kidnap princesses and set fire to villages and share their heart with seemingly good princes who turn out to be shitheads and then pair up with scruffy knights in order to take down the princes and then become stars. They're voiced by Shean Connery!

You're all over the place there.

First, adding "who?" Don't bother answering, the "who" will always vary.

Second, references to Dragon Heart aside, as a general rule, different skin tones are still less farfetched than dragons, regardless of setting. Yes, back to Dragon Heart, you wouldn't see many non-European people in the IP, similar to why you wouldn't see too many European people in Raya and the Last Dragon, but either way, the dragons still have worldbuilding. If Raya turned up in Dragonheart, that would be "wait, that's pretty weird for the time period." If, alternatively, I'm watching Dragonheart with zero knowledge, and Draco suddenly swoops in, it's still "wait, dragons exist? Holy shit, this is interesting." Dragons, by their nature, require some kind of justification, or alternatively, be portrayed as so mundane that they don't (and even then, the mundanity is usually explained in of itself - see Discworld for instance).

It's not like people would be left with mouths agape at the sight of a black person, it's that it just wouldn't do anything for them one way or the other and would seem odd. Like if someone was wearing clown shoes in a non-KH setting for no reason. Not alien, we all know what clown shoes are, just odd and random. Its purpose indiscernible.

Well, yes, certain people in certain settings will seem odd, that's absolutely correct. But again, it's easier to justify one thing than the other.

And not "unbelievable", just "random". Basically the thinking is on a nation by nation basis. White americans, black americans, you're all just as bad. That's the thinking. Dragons have base in our own culture in some regard so there's stories about them you hear growing up, some christian-based, others ancient, but black people are just irrelevant conceptually so when someone goes out of their way to include them it doesn't make sense as to why they'd do that in a setting that's not in actual Africa or something.

Y'know, between the Avatar article celebrating "a world free of whiteness," and you saying "black people are just irrelevant conceptually," I can't say I like where this is going.

Look, I'm tired, so I'll just point out the obvious. Yes, dragons, as a cultural concept, are found in various cultures. Yes, if I write a dragon story based on Culture A, then most of the people in that story are probably going to be from Culture A, rather than Culture B. Dragonheart has Saxons, How to Train your Dragon has Vikings, Raya has various Asian cultures including China, Thailand, Cambodia, and so on. But even then, all those dragons will usually require a level of justification and worldbuilding that ethnicies don't inherently, because dragons aren't real. People are.

 

[Silvanus]

Its not that different skin tones would be "alien" as much as "random". Like, there'd be no point to adding them one way or the other so why bother. While dragons, they're cool, they kidnap princesses and set fire to villages and share their heart with seemingly good princes who turn out to be shitheads and then pair up with scruffy knights in order to take down the princes and then become stars. They're voiced by Shean Connery!


It's not like people would be left with mouths agape at the sight of a black person, it's that it just wouldn't do anything for them one way or the other and would seem odd. Like if someone was wearing clown shoes in a non-KH setting for no reason. Not alien, we all know what clown shoes are, just odd and random. Its purpose indiscernible.

It requires no more purpose or reason than homogeneity does. Complete homogeneity need not be the default, with extra justifications required for anything else.

Yeah basically everyone outside of some folks like me in the capital city would fit in that "rural community without internet and bad tv signal" growing up, so you have the right idea. And surely it has changed in the recent times, but people growing up with how it used to be bring with them the norms that such upbringing instilled in them.

This is absolute bollocks unless you travel to exceptionally isolated communities, or several centuries back. It's simply not the common experience and hasn't been for many, many decades in most countries. And even in past centuries, there would at least usually be awareness of other peoples and groups existing, making them far more believable and grounded than goddamn dragons.

And not "unbelievable", just "random". Basically the thinking is on a nation by nation basis. White americans, black americans, you're all just as bad. That's the thinking. Dragons have base in our own culture in some regard so there's stories about them you hear growing up, some christian-based, others ancient, but black people are just irrelevant conceptually so when someone goes out of their way to include them it doesn't make sense as to why they'd do that in a setting that's not in actual Africa or something.

Do demographics always need a specific reason to exist? Why?

If an old person appears in a game, are you going to complain that there's no reason for them to be old? If a blond-haired person appears, are you going to complain there's no conceptual reason for it?

 

[BrawlMan]

There's certainly nothing wrong with it inherently, especially if you're building a setting from the ground up. It does become stretched, however, when things start to become incongruent with the setting.

Since you've used Avatar (more on that in a bit), it would be very hard at this point in time to insert...I dunno, an Egyptian-themed civilization, the reason being that among the conceits of Avatar are that:

-The world is entirely mapped
-There's four key civilizations in the world, each with a real-world antecedent
-This state of affairs apparently lasted 10,000 years

It's not entirely impossible, provided you provide reasons for it (e.g. "in the year 2023 of the Avatar timeline, a small Egyptian-esque kingdom arose in the sands area but was lost to time"), but you've got your work cut out for you.

There is an episode in Season 3 where Aang and Zuko find the last dragon and find a hidden civilization in the Fire Nation that are Aztec/Mayan inspired. So there you go, there is a non-Asian culture right there.

It's too late in the evening (...fuck, it's morning, actually) to go through that, but everything in that article is basically what SE is doing with FFXVI. Heck, the majority of the FF series is Japanese developers nicking things from various cultures.

That's not the main issue nor point as I highlighted beforehand. We all know FF as a whole . Besides, I give leeway to most of the old FF games. Like I already stated FFXIV has dark-skinned characters, so it wouldn't been much of an issue in XVI's case. Especially if you're going to use an Arab nation were most people barely have a tan.

As for you being tired, now you know how I feel with last night in DIV Thread (still have not read your response, nor care to do so.), and when you kept pestering me over my opinions for the later sequels to Predator, Alien, and Terminator to a majority of them being shitty and wasting time. That said, I am not going to constantly hassle over this, and please get some rest.

Y'know, between the Avatar article celebrating "a world free of whiteness," and you saying "black people are just irrelevant conceptually," I can't say I like where this is going

Just so we're clear, in that article, Guo is criticizing and pointing out what's wrong with that statement. He's not celebrating it. All Guo did was call out NY Times, or whoever wrote that statemen as some ultimate virtue or celebration.

“Avatar the Last Airbender” is my favorite show of all time, and I’m not alone. Water, Earth, Fire, Air: The Fire Nation wants to conquer the rest, and only the Avatar, a 12-year-old boy named Aang, can master all four elements and save the world. The show is so popular that it topped Netflix charts for nearly a week after its highly-anticipated May 2020 release — despite first debuting on Nickelodeon as a children’s cartoon 15 years ago. It is, apparently, so perfect that it’s also considered anti-racist: ATLA “Imagines a World Free of Whiteness,” announced a New York Times headline this month.

That’s interesting since two White guys created the show. Rhode Island School of Design graduates Bryan Koniezko and Michael Dante DiMartino teamed up in 2002 with the shared dream of directing something; Nickelodeon told them it was looking for “action and adventure, legend and lore.” Inspired by Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, Koniezko drew a “cyclops robot monkey,” a “bipedal polar bear,” and a “bald kid” — later becoming the characters Momo, Appa, and Aang. DiMartino had been watching a documentary about Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica; hence, their story began at the south pole.

None of this origin story sounds White-free to me. But then, DiMartino and Koniezko added a twist. “We were really into yoga when we started this show, which is probably why we wanted to do something that was Asian influenced,” Konietzko told The New York Times in 2005.

 

[Dreiko]

Do demographics always need a specific reason to exist? Why?

If an old person appears in a game, are you going to complain that there's no reason for them to be old? If a blond-haired person appears, are you going to complain there's no conceptual reason for it?

It depends on what the story is about. If it's set in an assisted living home, someone being old makes sense. If it's about a bunch of kids solving a ghost mystery or something and one of the main group is just some old guy who is not a grandparent or relative to the kids but just some random old guy they are friends with, and the story doesn't go on to explain this unique set of circumstances that lead to this contrivance convincingly enough but just doesn't even address it and moves on, then yeah it'd be odd.


As for blond people, if the setting is, say, in Japan, and the person isn't mixed race or a foreigner but purely japanese, and they are not a yankee (punk/thug) who painted their hair as a sign of rebelliousness, but just randomly happen to be naturally blond, sure, that'd be odd as hell.


Non-homogenous demographics need explaining because homogeneity is the default and not thinking that it is the default is an american concept. You can't reasonably expect foreign places to adopt it to the degree where they adapt their mass appeal media to reflect it as if it is significant.

Y'know, between the Avatar article celebrating "a world free of whiteness," and you saying "black people are just irrelevant conceptually," I can't say I like where this is going.

Look, I'm tired, so I'll just point out the obvious. Yes, dragons, as a cultural concept, are found in various cultures. Yes, if I write a dragon story based on Culture A, then most of the people in that story are probably going to be from Culture A, rather than Culture B. Dragonheart has Saxons, How to Train your Dragon has Vikings, Raya has various Asian cultures including China, Thailand, Cambodia, and so on. But even then, all those dragons will usually require a level of justification and worldbuilding that ethnicies don't inherently, because dragons aren't real. People are.

In the fictional setting, dragons are just as real as people are. When you consume media, you are asked to make-believe a world different from reality, where other things are real than in reality. If the setting of the world is "stereotypical arthurian fantasy" as we all collectively understand it, and then goes on to juxtapose dragons on top of it, dragons do in fact exist in that conceptual world. And usually, in good stories, you will see some form of an origin myth explaining why they exist. That some works don't explain it is in fact testament to the fact that all of the above is common knowledge to such a degree that it may feel cumbersome and needless to explain something that everyone coming into the story already understands. Though in my view a cool new origin myth never hurt anybody.

That is the standard that must be met by all other types of content not typically found in the arthurian myths if you wanna add em. You can't just plop in Jackie Chan and do no explaining and go about your day as he hits knights on the head with horse saddles and chamberpots.

Also I have to question how a thing made by two white guys can ever be free of the whiteness these people conceptualize, but alas that is a different can of worms. I'll just say that my most favorite things of all time have had no whiteness at all attached and were instead full of asianness (japaneseness in particular), so this may not be the "own" that some envision it as XD. Unlike them, normal folks just want a thing that they like, even if it doesn't contain your appearance and culture. It just has to also make sense in its own universe for it to be able to be liked.

 

[sXeth]

Looking at this for reference, thats idk, the rough equivalent of maybe Spain, France and Germany in size (that might even be generus, becuase a "duchy" is generally much smaller then a traditional country). I don't know if the game mentions any aspect of any other continents. (Final Fantasy, or videogame worlds in general, oft being sort of ludicrously tiny. FF7 had like 4 major cities and two countries in what was clearly indicated as the entire world, for instance)

Depending where you throw that landmass, you might expect some diversity, but to mesh up with an approximate real life medieval/feudal era, probably not. If you threw it in Canada (where it might be like, half the size of the country at best) in that corresponding time/tech level, you'd see nothing but Native Americans (who do have ethnic distinctiosn, but would all generally be visually similar in tone)

 

[Dreiko]

View attachment 9504

Looking at this for reference, thats idk, the rough equivalent of maybe Spain, France and Germany in size. I don't know if the game mentions any aspect of any other continents. (Final Fantasy, or videogame worlds in general, oft being sort of ludicrously tiny. FF7 had like 4 major cities and two countries in what was clearly indicated as the entire world, for instance)

Depending where you throw that landmass, you might expect some diversity, but to mesh up with an approximate real life medieval/feudal era, probably not. If you threw it in Canada (where it might be like, half the size of the country at best) in that corresponding time/tech level, you'd see nothing but Native Americans (who do have ethnic distinctiosn, but would all generally be visually similar in tone)

Yeah apparently there are other continents but they've not had contact in ages/millennia, Barnabas is said to be from an eastern continent, which conveniently happens to have katana (they had to find some way to add in the masamune haha) but it's all mixed with a whole lot of myth and superstition.


Honestly, the game could explore those other continents cause they have the enterprise ready and it was teased that it could be used to escape this continent if the blight spread too far. Maybe dlc one day.

 

[Silvanus]

It depends on what the story is about. If it's set in an assisted living home, someone being old makes sense. If it's about a bunch of kids solving a ghost mystery or something and one of the main group is just some old guy who is not a grandparent or relative to the kids but just some random old guy they are friends with, and the story doesn't go on to explain this unique set of circumstances that lead to this contrivance convincingly enough but just doesn't even address it and moves on, then yeah it'd be odd.


As for blond people, if the setting is, say, in Japan, and the person isn't mixed race or a foreigner but purely japanese, and they are not a yankee (punk/thug) who painted their hair as a sign of rebelliousness, but just randomly happen to be naturally blond, sure, that'd be odd as hell.

The setting has been established. A fantasy world, which may use a real-world analogue as a very loose template, but is not bound at all by the circumstances of that real world analogue.

Non-homogenous demographics need explaining because homogeneity is the default and not thinking that it is the default is an american concept. You can't reasonably expect foreign places to adopt it to the degree where they adapt their mass appeal media to reflect it as if it is significant.

As I said before: bollocks.

Complete homogeneity, to the point where you never even see someone who doesn't share your demographic, is exceptionally rare in developed societies now, and has been for decades-- and for some societies, centuries.

 

[Hawki]

There is an episode in Season 3 where Aang and Zuko find the last dragon and find a hidden civilization in the Fire Nation that are Aztec/Mayan inspired. So there you go, there is a non-Asian culture right there.

Yes, and it was hidden, as you said. There's only so many times you can play the hidden civilization card in the setting.

In the real world, numerous civilizations have risen and fallen over 10,000 years, but Avatar is an incredibly static world when you think about it.

In the fictional setting, dragons are just as real as people are. When you consume media, you are asked to make-believe a world different from reality, where other things are real than in reality. If the setting of the world is "stereotypical arthurian fantasy" as we all collectively understand it, and then goes on to juxtapose dragons on top of it, dragons do in fact exist in that conceptual world. And usually, in good stories, you will see some form of an origin myth explaining why they exist. That some works don't explain it is in fact testament to the fact that all of the above is common knowledge to such a degree that it may feel cumbersome and needless to explain something that everyone coming into the story already understands. Though in my view a cool new origin myth never hurt anybody.

That is the standard that must be met by all other types of content not typically found in the arthurian myths if you wanna add em. You can't just plop in Jackie Chan and do no explaining and go about your day as he hits knights on the head with horse saddles and chamberpots.

Are you talking about Arthurian fantasy literally, or Arthurian fantasy as a trope? If it's the former (as in, literally the Arthurian legend, which at best guess would be in the period post-Roman Empire and pre-Normans by my reckoning), then yes, a story set in Albion at that time would have a hard time explaining anyone from East Asia, or really, the majority of peoples on Earth.

If we're talking about Arthurian fantasy as a trope, then that still leaves you more wriggle room, if the setting is fictional. For instance, take Warhammer. Suppose I set a story in Bretonia (heavily influenced by Arthurian legend), with said story involving knights hunting down a dragon with the aid of a man from Cathay (not!China, in case you're wondering). I'd have to do the legwork to explain both the dragon (in that dragons aren't that common in Warhammer, and are usually a big deal whenever they show up), as well as the Cathayan, given how far apart the two countries are, not to mention that Cathay is isolationist. However, it would still be quite doable.

Again, really depends on the setting, but it's silly to suggest that dragons are inherently easier to swallow than people (no pun intended).

Also I have to question how a thing made by two white guys can ever be free of the whiteness these people conceptualize, but alas that is a different can of worms. I'll just say that my most favorite things of all time have had no whiteness at all attached and were instead full of asianness (japaneseness in particular), so this may not be the "own" that some envision it as XD. Unlike them, normal folks just want a thing that they like, even if it doesn't contain your appearance and culture. It just has to also make sense in its own universe for it to be able to be liked.

Well, everyone's going to fall back on what they know as a default - I don't think you need terms like "whiteness" or "Asianness" to represent that.

And yes, I actually agree that in-universe congruence is important, but I think congruence is more flexible than you're giving it credit for.

 

[BrawlMan]

Yes, and it was hidden, as you said. There's only so many times you can play the hidden civilization card in the setting.

Then there is the Water Tribe. They're more so based off of Polynesian, Native Americans, and Inuit, than anything Asian. The only thing Asian about them, is the architecture from the Northern Water Tribe Capital. Which uses a mix of Chinese, Venetian, and even Indian influence.

but Avatar is an incredibly static world when you think about it.

A 100 years war will do that to you.

 

[Hawki]

A 100 years war will do that to you.

More like the last 10,000 years - as in, the 10,000 years between Wan and Aang. 10,000 years ago in our world, agriculture had just got started. In Avatar, if you went back 10,000 years, you'd see humans leaving those giant turtles. Between then and the 100 Years War, comparatively little changes in the setting. Heck, Ba Sing Se is over 5000 years old by the time of the cartoon - as in, prior to that period, it's more or less the same city over five millennia.

It's certainly various events that have happened over that period, but very little that truly upsets the status quo.

 

[BrawlMan]

More like the last 10,000 years - as in, the 10,000 years between Wan and Aang. 10,000 years ago in our world, agriculture had just got started. In Avatar, if you went back 10,000 years, you'd see humans leaving those giant turtles. Between then and the 100 Years War, comparatively little changes in the setting. Heck, Ba Sing Se is over 5000 years old by the time of the cartoon - as in, prior to that period, it's more or less the same city over five millennia.

Yeah, I like to pretend that shit with Wan and Spirits never happened in LoK.

It's certainly various events that have happened over that period, but very little that truly upsets the status quo.

LoK Season 3 & 4 tried to fix that, buuuuttttttttt yeah...I didn't care much for how they were executed. I'm not even going to get into the comic sequels for LoK.

 

[Dreiko]

I must have missed the whole Turtle thing. Is that a thing on Kora? I've only seen the first season. I felt it ended on a good note. Not gotten around the others.

Yes, and it was hidden, as you said. There's only so many times you can play the hidden civilization card in the setting.

In the real world, numerous civilizations have risen and fallen over 10,000 years, but Avatar is an incredibly static world when you think about it.



Are you talking about Arthurian fantasy literally, or Arthurian fantasy as a trope? If it's the former (as in, literally the Arthurian legend, which at best guess would be in the period post-Roman Empire and pre-Normans by my reckoning), then yes, a story set in Albion at that time would have a hard time explaining anyone from East Asia, or really, the majority of peoples on Earth.

If we're talking about Arthurian fantasy as a trope, then that still leaves you more wriggle room, if the setting is fictional. For instance, take Warhammer. Suppose I set a story in Bretonia (heavily influenced by Arthurian legend), with said story involving knights hunting down a dragon with the aid of a man from Cathay (not!China, in case you're wondering). I'd have to do the legwork to explain both the dragon (in that dragons aren't that common in Warhammer, and are usually a big deal whenever they show up), as well as the Cathayan, given how far apart the two countries are, not to mention that Cathay is isolationist. However, it would still be quite doable.

Again, really depends on the setting, but it's silly to suggest that dragons are inherently easier to swallow than people (no pun intended).



Well, everyone's going to fall back on what they know as a default - I don't think you need terms like "whiteness" or "Asianness" to represent that.

And yes, I actually agree that in-universe congruence is important, but I think congruence is more flexible than you're giving it credit for.

Came across this image on gfaqs and it reminded me of our discussion XD.

People know what a car is, they seem them every day, it's still odd to have one in a story that typically wouldn't contain it.

 

[Bedinsis]

Question about the game: Final Fantasy titles have varied a fair bit whether they lean towards the fantasy genre or the sci-fi genre from a literary point of view; where would you say XVI leans?

 

[Dreiko]

Question about the game: Final Fantasy titles have varied a fair bit whether they lean towards the fantasy genre or the sci-fi genre from a literary point of view; where would you say XVI leans?

100% fantasy, this is like ff1-level basic fantasy world.

 

[bluegate]

I must have missed the whole Turtle thing. Is that a thing on Kora? I've only seen the first season. I felt it ended on a good note. Not gotten around the others.

Came across this image on gfaqs and it reminded me of our discussion XD.

People know what a car is, they seem them every day, it's still odd to have one in a story that typically wouldn't contain it.

You'd bring up being an attack helicopter with a straight face when talking about genders, wouldn't you?

Edit: Fuck me... I told myself I'd stay out of this mess

 

[Dreiko]

You'd bring up being an attack helicopter with a straight face when talking about genders, wouldn't you?

Edit: Fuck me... I told myself I'd stay out of this mess

No, but I would bring up my total belief in being a T-rex when I was around 7 thanks to Jurassic Park having had just come out, and that I am grateful that my folks didn't entertain my childish fancy by allowing me to identify as a therian like some kids do nowadays, but clarified that I was very much a human.


I did the whole shebang for a while too, eating without using my arms, roaring at poor neighborhood dogs. Was fun! But alas, I accepted reality at some point and grew out of it.

 

[sXeth]

Question about the game: Final Fantasy titles have varied a fair bit whether they lean towards the fantasy genre or the sci-fi genre from a literary point of view; where would you say XVI leans?

Literally probably the most fantasy of all the main entries to date lol. Castles, dukes, etc. Not an alien in sight. Not even the classic standard of an airship.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Literally probably the most fantasy of all the main entries to date lol. Castles, dukes, etc. Not an alien in sight. Not even the classic standard of an airship.

This might be the first ff game without even a robot.

I guess there are those ancient golem things that can be called robots i guess but it has a much different feel that previous sci fi elements.

 

[sXeth]

This might be the first ff game without even a robot.

I guess there are those ancient golem things that can be called robots i guess but it has a much different feel that previous sci fi elements.

While I checked out of early on, I think the next least techy would be 12? Then probably 6.

Almost all of the rest them have some mixture of space tech/robo tech/etc

 

[CriticalGaming]

While I checked out of early on, I think the next least techy would be 12? Then probably 6.

Almost all of the rest them have some mixture of space tech/robo tech/etc

6 literally starts with you pioleting robot mech suits lol

And 12 is filled with crazy ships and flying motorcycles.