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'Stop Giving Evil Characters Brown Skin'
- Thread starter Shaanyboi
- Start date
I mean, that's a bit hyperbolic if people are implying you hate brown people, but pictures posted here, both in game engine and in art, giving "princess" Zelda her pirate tan while in the dress show she does NOT look weird tanned after the reveal.
It's more about your argument being flawed.
Glitter and Gold
Banned
I like how "Gaf" is used dismissively in this thread by people on both sides of the argument lol
Gotdatmoney
Member
The onlu reason she would look weird if she had tan skin is because you don't want her to. It literally makes no sense why she becomes white. The dress makes no sense either but the dress isn't suppose to be a person
GAF has a problem of people from the game side and off topic thinking they're better than the other.
It's fascinating and weird.
How would she look weird, if she still possessed her tan as a princess? Think before you post.
You weren't too lazy to shit post, though. And now you're trying to find the logic in your dumbass statement, and you throw up, "because Zelda is white!"
What a joke.
yanipheonu
Member
... We do know people who have tans get their paler skin back when the tan is gone right?
Glitter and Gold
Banned
Does anyone saying this actually know anything about the concept of yin and yang beyond its black and white symbol?
A tan of years of being a pirate doesn't turn into princessy porcelain white in the span of time shown in Wind Waker.
petran79
Banned
She either lost a lot of blood or got pale from her new duties as a princess
Glitter and Gold
Banned
and then turns back immediately when she's done!!
Right? Are people just being intentionally obtuse here? This is some instant transformation, even with the sparkly lights shit.
https://youtu.be/YtaujzukqWQ?t=277
Sequels are irrelevant when Wind Waker and no Zelda game is really built with prolonged arcs like that in-mind.
If a movie comes out and features a terrible side character, but they become infinitely more interesting and better handled in a sequel? That doesn't erase that they were a terrible character to begin with. This is no different. Later iteration doesn't retcon previous problematic elements out of existence.
Salty Rice
Member
And thats exactly why she lost her tan in that magic moment.
They wanted show her real former self when she was the princess.
yanipheonu
Member
I mean we're dealing with dress-endowing makeup-giving magic here, so that point's kinda moot. I wouldn't expect the GameCube to have real time tanning changes.
Glitter and Gold
Banned
She was never a princess. She was a pirate and pirate's daughter her entire life I thought. Hyrule had been underwater for 4 generations by then
Zelda's character traits are "young, pretty, wise", maybe with a British accent. With the numerous incarnations of the character, there is nothing restricting her from being non-light skinned, or even white. (or even old, depending on the story)
Her Link to the Past sprite, though incongruent with the official artwork, is not light skinned. But it's obvious she's Zelda because... that's what everyone calls her in the game.
Nor would a tanned Zelda in a royal outfit be unrecognizable:
Turns out she doesn't look so weird after all lol
Another part about the Tetra/Zelda stuff is that the transformation actually hurts the player's investment in the character. You play the whole game with Tetra as a big supporting character. Suddenly, the Tetra you know is gone and the typical version of Zelda takes her place. How is any investment you had in Tetra supposed to just be transplanted to this Zelda? It literally hurts the character development all for the sake of keeping Zelda pearly white.
She already is wearing the dress. But in order to sell her beautiful royal self, they had to give her lighter skin? Again, why? A tan covers "her real self?"
Gotdatmoney
Member
We do know that isn't relevant to what happened in Wind Waker right?
How is she not her "real former self" if she has her tan? When a friend goes on a trip with a light of sunlight and come back tanned, are they not their "real former self" to you?
Right? It's incredibly immersion breaking.
And people think this is unnecessary and really weird to have her magically turn off and on her tan, that's what is being discussed here.
Just like the OP video criticises how evil power suddenly gives Ryu and Ken dark skin.
The subtle implication that the pure princess hailed by the goddess to bear the power to vanquish evil can't have a tan is what bothers people.
SilverLunar
Member
What does Tetra has to do with the thread title and content?? Jumping from the first page to last is such a major change.
Maybe it was just a separate Zelda model that the developers forgot to tan.
So what if it was irrelevant? She rejected being a princess in the same actual Wind Water and stayed as Tetra in the end.
Maybe it was just a separate Zelda model that the developers forgot to tan.
What is this scenario? There is a big generational gap between her "past self" and being Tetra in the current story of the game.
ScientificPizza
Banned
like *why* are people willing to defend things to the death to avoid having their views challenged?
Good point.
But those are direct sequels to Wind Waker and they even do what the king asked them to do, become the new hope for the world and establish a new kingdom. The second game even takes place right after they left from Outset Island at the end of the first game.
But I concede.
This is correct. She followed in her mother's footsteps in being a pirate. Tetra's mother passed away early and left Tetra orphaned so she knows nothing about kingdoms or princesses.
Salty Rice
Member
Its a magic reveal of a person from another time.
Zelda from the time before world was under water.
Its not just Tetra in a dress. Thats why i think it would weird.
When she goes back she has the tan again because its not the exact same person.
Funyarinpa
Member
I think this is my take on it. Symbolism of darkness and light goes beyond races, and while it's very easy for a developer to convey a racist message with this, I think that it's morally justifiable for a developer to use change in color (including skin color) to depict good and evil in a character.
That said, if you do use direct change in skin color, I think you should also pay attention to clarifying that black is connotated, as a color, with evil- and of course assure that you represent races of darker skin if you want to definitively avoid accidentally portraying potentially racist subtext (although I think the former measure is far more crucial here).
yanipheonu
Member
To be fair, a tan is, by definition, a temporary and environmental darkening of the skin via the sun's rays. It sorta does cover her "real skin".
People seem to be treating a tan like an actual permanent skin colour, which is pretty off-point.
She wasn't born with a tan guys. She's allowed to have a variable skin colour. Most humans do.
It's not hard to follow. It is the opposite side of the same coin. That is, representing evil by darkening them and lightening people to purify them.
Hmm, maybe the whole Tetra/Zelda issue is an example of how skin tone is used to symbolize social status or maybe the devs just forgot to change hex values on the skin shaders. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
The implication that "good power" (the triforce of wisdom blah blah blah) made Zelda lose her tan ties into the narrative in the same way as evil power making Ken and Ryu tanned.
Fascinating how retarded humans can be.
Since the dawn of time, "light and white" as been associated to "good, God, etc". And darkness associated with "bad, evil, etc". Its a very basic psychology thing that is both natural and sain anyways. What you guys/gals bring up in this thread is useless anecdotal evidence that most people can't even relate to and just shows how insecure, fake-persecuted or plain racist you are.
Since the dawn of time, "light and white" as been associated to "good, God, etc". And darkness associated with "bad, evil, etc". Its a very basic psychology thing that is both natural and sain anyways. What you guys/gals bring up in this thread is useless anecdotal evidence that most people can't even relate to and just shows how insecure, fake-persecuted or plain racist you are.
IrishNinja
Member
^^
if gaming didn't have a glaring problem with privilege & stuff like this, GG wouldn't have existed as the proto-alt right breeding ground that it was
if this post was any less self-aware it'd be protesting outside alamo drafthouse
ScientificPizza
Banned
Zelda is a good example of what is being discussed in the video in the OP, even if it's not for "evil". She's still a pirate which is an inherently villainous thing. And her reverting back to tanned Tetra just reinforces the point more. If the revelation of her being Zelda made her skin lighten through magic it should have remained that way even when she chose to go back to being a pirate. But it doesn't. This shows that they associate royalty with whiteness. Her skin changing colour adds nothing other than presenting the idea of this is how a princess *has* to look.
Very true. It feels like she transforms into a completely different character, instead of just changing outfits.
Here's a thing for you to ponder:
White being "good" and black being "bad" is a thing as old as time, but have you noticed "white people" are not literally white, they're more like "peach" and "Black people" are not literally black, but varying shades of brown?
Oh golly gee, i wonder what possible reason there could be for Caucasians to declare themselves "White" and the brown people "Black".
The whole idea is that she's still Tetra. She doesn't magically become someone else.
Because the other side of the coin is grievances with why a character needed to have whiter skin as part of her transformation to become more "pure", to become Zelda. Why couldn't she get the clothes and magic abilities, but keep the tan? As others have said, it's a really bad look.
The Bookerman
Member
It's not just the Skin tone.
it's the eyes and the hair for Evil Ryu. He looks like an erupting volcano, just like Akuma.
Violent Ken has Egg white hair and eyes.
He doesn't look like anything but a caucasian man.
Personally I don't see anything wrong with E.Ryu and V.Ken.
I think you're overthinking it.
I can see where the argument can be made, but honestly... This is like villain making 101, isn't it? It is basically as common as it gets that the "Good Characters" are bright while the "Evil Characters" are dark. Exceptions can easily be placed on if you wanted to disprove this, but for the longest time, this is what we have seen when someone turns "evil."
The problem is that all what happens is that their skin darkens at best, but it isn't like that they are going full "Black Face" when they turn evil. Not to mention that in most cases, we do see alot more characteristics when a character goes "Evil" than just darkened skin.
If we look at the Evil Ryu from Marvel vs Capcom Infinite: take note that besides "darkened skin," we see a change of hair color, glowing eyes, and that giant gapping hole in the chest. Hell, even if we used "USF4" Ryu, the hair color might still be the same, but we still have glowing eyes, the hole in his chest, and the aura around him to show "EVIL!"
We see that when characters turn evil, their whole persona goes literally darker in more ways than just skin color. Even in the case of using Cia from Hyrule warriors, how did she look before she turned evil again?
Yes, her skin darkened, but we see that in terms of "EVIL!" we see that her appearance changes rather drastically too. Credit to BlackChirri for the picture, and to quote their thoughts
Take it as you will, but in some ways, this could be seen as "overthinking it" since this is basically how the trope has been defined over the years.
The problem is that all what happens is that their skin darkens at best, but it isn't like that they are going full "Black Face" when they turn evil. Not to mention that in most cases, we do see alot more characteristics when a character goes "Evil" than just darkened skin.
If we look at the Evil Ryu from Marvel vs Capcom Infinite: take note that besides "darkened skin," we see a change of hair color, glowing eyes, and that giant gapping hole in the chest. Hell, even if we used "USF4" Ryu, the hair color might still be the same, but we still have glowing eyes, the hole in his chest, and the aura around him to show "EVIL!"
We see that when characters turn evil, their whole persona goes literally darker in more ways than just skin color. Even in the case of using Cia from Hyrule warriors, how did she look before she turned evil again?
Yes, her skin darkened, but we see that in terms of "EVIL!" we see that her appearance changes rather drastically too. Credit to BlackChirri for the picture, and to quote their thoughts
Take it as you will, but in some ways, this could be seen as "overthinking it" since this is basically how the trope has been defined over the years.
Yes ying is Mario, yang is Wario
Considering there are some differences between the in-game art and the key art, it's probably beneficial to compare in-game models and key art separately.
ScientificPizza
Banned
there having been a lot of people running in here and just throwing down their garbage opinions but yours might take the cake
good work. the cake is made of shit which is good because it seems like you need to replenish your supply after you just spewed all of yours out into your post
I don't understand why people keep bringing up the idea that dark = bad has been around for a long time. That's a reason for why the idea is so pervasive but not a reason why we should be accepting of it. Women were considered lesser and subservient to men for millenia, I assume you don't think we should just continue propagating that idea as well right?
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