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God of War Ragnarok Writer Champions Angrboda as Part of "Our own spin" on Norse mythology
- Thread starter Lunatic_Gamer
- Start date
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betrayal
Banned
Don't know if he's trolling, but the tweet sums up today's society very well.
It doesn't matter if you yourself are black, gay, asian, trans, whatever. You are a racist and homohpobe, although it is never about skin color, gender or sexual orientation, but pandering.
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I don't see any inconsistencies with Kratos. See my edit to the post you quoted.
I kinda still think he looks greek though. Which is what the lore says. He just looks very tanned. Which would be natural. Do you have any source on thay? I'd be curious, but I'm not gonna dig out my PS2 to find out, heh.
Nickolaidas
Member
It's not inconsistent at all.
Removing white male pop culture icons and replacing them with other races and genders is ok.
Removing pop culture icon of non-white race and replacing it with a straight white male is not ok.
Just two rules.
Lanrutcon
Member
I'm willing to give the game the benefit of the doubt.
I'm sure the race of black giants will feature in the game, and dispel any notions of tokenism. They've probably put a lot of effort into her backstory, that of her people and how it fits into the setting. This will probably be a refreshing new take on what is really a very played out setting. I wonder what they're called? what their realm is like? I'm excited to learn all these things and so much more, both leading up to the game's release and prominently in the game itself.
GoW:R, bring on that new spin. My body is ready.
I'm sure the race of black giants will feature in the game, and dispel any notions of tokenism. They've probably put a lot of effort into her backstory, that of her people and how it fits into the setting. This will probably be a refreshing new take on what is really a very played out setting. I wonder what they're called? what their realm is like? I'm excited to learn all these things and so much more, both leading up to the game's release and prominently in the game itself.
GoW:R, bring on that new spin. My body is ready.
MudoSkills
Volcano High Alumnus (Cum Laude)
Kratos has olive skin, he wasn't ever black. Not the first time I've seen people say this, I find it bizarre.
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Theres near literally no actual descriptions of many characters physical appearance in norse mythology. Even the whole tattoos thing is something not in the original mythos.
So we dont know who is black, white, green, bleue, purple or whatever.
What did Jotun look like?
OsirisBlack
Banned
It’s done all the time in reverse as well passion of the Christ, gods of Egypt, the Ten Commandments there are a million more recent examples but let’s not act like this hasn’t been going on in Hollywood forever. The last samurai, the Great Wall the list is pretty infinite.
Dr. Suchong
Member
It seems to me that in the infancy of promoting diversity, any attempt to have a poc in a significant role in film/video games/ t.v is, for a time, going to been seen by the more cynical among us as "Tokenised" or "Pandering"
How do we tell which offerings offer real sincerity to the cause, and which are shamelessly trying to score points?
How do we tell which offerings offer real sincerity to the cause, and which are shamelessly trying to score points?
OsirisBlack
Banned
Imagine Moses Muhammad allah and Jesus not being white and looking like they are described in the source material.
FunkMiller
Gold Member
If it makes sense within the confines of the story being told: sincere.
If it’s crowbarred into an existing narrative for no good story reason, or is put into a new narrative with no good reason: pandering wokeness.
The worst thing about this thread is that no one knows how her skin colour reflects her race and background within the fiction of God Of War, so all the whiners in here just come across as massive racist idiots.
It’s literally “I don’t like black people in this game I don’t know the story of yet” and it’s fucking pathetic.
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Anything from monsters to vixens.
My problem isn't with color. It's that they take other, well known ethnicities and insert them into places they don't naturally occur, at least without some explanation.
Here's what I think they should do instead. Cook up their own ethnicities. Like the drow. Makes no sense their skin is black due to them always being in the dark and therefore their skin should be pale, but it still works.
Create something else. Other hues, other facial features. Design something new. They do it all the time, their job is to be creative.
For the record, I wouldn't want to see white people in that open world rpg about american natives that I'm hopelessly waiting for either. Or any other era they don't belong in. I didn't see Gods of Egypt due to the stupid casting, for example.
A lot of people in here go "ya'll are okay when it's whitewashing" but no, I'm really not.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Agreed, and they all have gotten criticized for "white washing" without being called racists. That is the point many here are making, me thinks.
I personally won't lose sleep over this, and will be playing the game to see how it all ties in, but lets not pretend there isn't two different standards in the meta conversations of pop culture and the current society with the loudest microphones at the moment when it comes to the
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Cyberpunkd
Gold Member
Because then African Americans who have never been to Africa will cry about game companies exploiting their ‘tribal heritage’.
CurtBizzy
Member
Huh ? Speak for yourself!
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Dr. Suchong
Member
Agreed.
Hopefully as the thread progresses, more will become enlightened.
Edit: "Enlightened" sounds a bit sniffy sorry.
I must admit, my knowledge of the GOW fiction probably ends at around GOW 3 and even that's a bit hazy.
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Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
What color were the vixens?
Rather ethnicities...since you are so sure it wasnt black.
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OsirisBlack
Banned
I do agree with some of this but the whole everything is black or black is being forced is a false narrative. Meanwhile every time I turn on the television their is some boy with two fathers or some girl with two mothers in every commercial. The loudest microphone is multi colored … in case you haven’t noticed
GreenAlien
Member
Who had that idea, apart from yourself?
imissweed
Banned
I
Just to give the middle finger to that guy and all the coastal elites at SSM i will be giving my business to eBay or gamestop and buying used so none of my 70 dollars funds these virtue signaling fart smelling assholes!!
I now officially hate SSM for disrespecting black people and making them the root of all evil. That's NOT how you do it boys and gals.
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Which Edda describes what Angrboda looks like or her ethnicity so I too can be upset that they have change her ethnicity for inclusivity's sake.
Good point, I guess we should just continue whitewashing egyptian gods while we're at it then, shall we?
I mean, do we really know what skin color they had?
I think this is an interesting subject worthy of discussion. You don't. You just wanna throw out questions you think are very clever, but really aren't, so I won't bother.
Bakkus
Member
If white people were present in an African , Asian or native american folklore setting, there would be outrage.
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Whitewash all the Egyptian gods if you want im not going to bitch about it.
They were deitys with dog, croc or bird like faces....id rather have a white or brown dog than a black one.
I do like Ravens so maybe we can keep Horus black?
Osiris might as well be green, his glyphs had him looking green
But the rest make them white as snow if need be.
P.S We have actual Hieroglyphs of Egyptians gods....not a bunch of books just talking about them without ever actually describing them.
So we have a good idea what they "supposedly" looked like.
ethomaz
Banned
GoW 2018 set Kratos as ᚠᚨᚱᛒᚨᚢᛏᛁ (Fárbauti) in Norse Mythology.
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Allnamestakenlol
Member
They wuz giants!
yurinka
Member
She looks good and would be a good fit for their next game if they move to Egiptian mithology, it's only that seems out of place in the Norse mithology and people it's getting tired of forced tokenism.
Being in the Norse mithology people would expect white blond/red/brown/black haired people, maybe someone with slighly darker skin tone. If they had black people there in the nordic bronze age or whenever they created this mythology it would be pretty rare. But well, it's only a fictional game, the devs obviously are free to do whatever they want with their game in the same way players are free to like or dislike it.
Business
Member
You are seriously suggesting Norse mythology doesn't explicitly describe the ethnicity of its pantheon and so we don't know with certainty if their human representation should be that of a European, African, Malayan or Aboriginal Australian, with all of them having a chance?
Phase
Member
I won't sugarcoat. If you haven't noticed, there is a trend going around the world at the moment of erasing white people's culture. This specific instance of pandering is only tangentially related (and unimportant on its own), but conforms to the ideological views being taught and pushed in every nook and cranny in our society (white guilt, etc.).
When you see people upset about similar issues, IMO it all stems from this push to erase/replace white people in practically everything. Why is it okay to replace all white people with POC? Why is it not okay to do the opposite? Agendas, agendas. Many are tired/annoyed/upset about it.
That's why whenever you see a new release and they make a point to show their "diversity" people roll their eyes. Companies don't care about diversity, they care about sales. It's just more virtue signaling.
When you see people upset about similar issues, IMO it all stems from this push to erase/replace white people in practically everything. Why is it okay to replace all white people with POC? Why is it not okay to do the opposite? Agendas, agendas. Many are tired/annoyed/upset about it.
That's why whenever you see a new release and they make a point to show their "diversity" people roll their eyes. Companies don't care about diversity, they care about sales. It's just more virtue signaling.
VanEs
Member
I don't fully agree with this. The Expanse (one of my favorite tv shows) is comprised of poc in significant roles and done right. It makes sense, and it respects the book as well. A clear example of diversity done well and all the better for it.
Anything looking ridiculously out of place would be pretty obvious. Book adaptations that do lazy race/gender swaps for no reason. Those sorta things set off alarms for me.
In the end it's nothing more than an annoyance, sure, but we should be able to express those annoyances and call them out.
CheeseCake
Member
So many clowns on here.
I wish the rumours about Atreus being gay were true...
The meltdown from the incels in this sub would be glorious
.
I wish the rumours about Atreus being gay were true...
The meltdown from the incels in this sub would be glorious
.
CheeseCake
Member
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strange headache
Banned
I think this has less to do with racism, but with Americans imposing yet again their societal problems onto foreign cultural heritages. Why should the Norse pantheon be any more diverse than let's say Wakanda or African mythology?
These tales came from a time before globalism and multiculturalism and are an intrinsic part of the common ancestry and traditions of different ethnic groups. As such, they are somewhat sacrosanct and should certainly not be abused for mere tokenism, virtue signaling and political messaging. Folklore transcends politics as it lets people identify with each other across partisan lines and should never be politicized like that. I am fine that these stories are updated to fit modern standards, but one should always be aware that doing so is a delicate task.
Changing the mere skin color of a mythological character for diversity's sake would imply that said mythology is deeply flawed and not diverse enough, when Norse mythology is brimming with so many different personalities and worldviews. What value does adding a skin color to these stories create? Does it enrich that particular mythology in any way? Not really, all it does is poison these timeless tales with trendy societal issues from the USA because that country is absolutely obsessed with race. Non-Americans are frikkin' tired of all this race bullcrap that amounts to absolutely f*ck all, except more division, unnecessary labels and stereotyped thinking.
It is such an americocentric perspective that many people from outside can only shake their heads at it in disbelief, but then to be also labeled a "racist" for simply refusing to let such narrow-minded hot button issues subvert one's cultural heritage that has nothing to do with America's current issues is simply beyond stupid. What's racist is thinking that the whole world is the same as America and that everybody else should view the world as Americans do and also share in their flimsy soup-du-jour moral principles that get dictated by their entertainment industry and social media.
Everybody in this thread, no matter which side they stand on concerning this controversy, have played many many games with protagonists from different ethical groups and cultural backgrounds. I'm sure all of us have played and enjoyed games with black/white/whatever protagonists and nobody had even the slightest issue with it. Simply dehumanizing the "other side" by lazily labeling them with all sorts of horrible things because you refuse to engage with them in an honest manner is exactly what racists would do.
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Companion Cube
Member
What is this horrible worldwide erasure of white people culture you speak of? You mean like how places stopped celebrating Columbus Day and instead celebrate Indigenous People's Day?
Kenpachii
Member
Lol the only racist is jaffe himself.
Anyway can't blame them for adding her for the simple fact to get woke crowd of there back and avoid bad reviews pushing by racist reviewers.
I sitll think she has deeper roots in the story with the solution for them moving into Egypt story wise.
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Kamina
Golden Boy
Artistic choice and fantasy, blablabla…
It is still weird that a norse character is a dread-locked black person, and this is undoubtedly due to trying to get media woke points.
End of story.
Now we can accept this petty attempt for what it is, ignore it and enjoy the game when it comes, or we can whine about it and sour our own experience.
It is still weird that a norse character is a dread-locked black person, and this is undoubtedly due to trying to get media woke points.
End of story.
Now we can accept this petty attempt for what it is, ignore it and enjoy the game when it comes, or we can whine about it and sour our own experience.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Business
Member
Let's see, if it was really about racist people not wanting black people in videogames, well, we would have this thread for every videogame where there is a black guy. Do we have it? No. Ok, so probably not that.
What is it then?
Well maybe it's that people cares about the lore in their games. If you are setting a game in Norse mythology, by default you'll expect the pantheon to look white. Now of course, this is fantasy, the game creators can do whatever with their game, yes we all know and acknowledge that, yes Kratos is a fictional character they inserted in Greek mythology and now into Norse mythology, yes. But, there's an explanation for that in the previous games, and we buy it. So, instead of tweetting bs and calling people racist, I think it would be better if you go ahead and tell your audience that cares about your game, your lore and your franchise, why is this, how this character ended up here, maybe comes from another mythology just like Kratos, maybe whatever, you are the writer, if your story is decent maybe people will buy it (or at least say there will be one). Otherwise, people sees this and rolls their eyes because it just looks like an empty attempt to pander to the American public with your American view of what diversity is. People are not saying what the hell is this because the character is black, but because a priori it just doesn't fit the setting, in the same way as if I play a game with a 14th century Inca setting and their god looks Russian, even if I'm an Inca boy riding a flying unicorn llama in a fantasy world, the Russian looking god will look kinda out of place in the narrative and the writers better explain why is this.
What is it then?
Well maybe it's that people cares about the lore in their games. If you are setting a game in Norse mythology, by default you'll expect the pantheon to look white. Now of course, this is fantasy, the game creators can do whatever with their game, yes we all know and acknowledge that, yes Kratos is a fictional character they inserted in Greek mythology and now into Norse mythology, yes. But, there's an explanation for that in the previous games, and we buy it. So, instead of tweetting bs and calling people racist, I think it would be better if you go ahead and tell your audience that cares about your game, your lore and your franchise, why is this, how this character ended up here, maybe comes from another mythology just like Kratos, maybe whatever, you are the writer, if your story is decent maybe people will buy it (or at least say there will be one). Otherwise, people sees this and rolls their eyes because it just looks like an empty attempt to pander to the American public with your American view of what diversity is. People are not saying what the hell is this because the character is black, but because a priori it just doesn't fit the setting, in the same way as if I play a game with a 14th century Inca setting and their god looks Russian, even if I'm an Inca boy riding a flying unicorn llama in a fantasy world, the Russian looking god will look kinda out of place in the narrative and the writers better explain why is this.
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Dr. Suchong
Member
I must admit I am not aware of The Expanse, and it's good to know that such a show exists.
There just needs to be more genuine diversity obviously.
Then we can do away with this "Tokenism and "Pandering" rhetoric
Arcadialane
Member
If she was from the upper class of (ancient) Egypt shed be a lot lighter, think more middle eastern looking
Having somebody like Cleopatra would be kinda cool
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That is interesting, but I'm just really wondering where Fenris, Midgardsormr and Hel are in all of this. I mean, wasn't the wyrm in the first game? Angrboda gave birth to that thing, and it looks like it's been growing for years (it's quite large, even with it's fast growth), while she looks like she's a teenager.
How old was she when she was with Loki? Or is the some everyoung kinda thing?
I feel they could have waited a bit with that reveal. Too many questions, lol.
Decontamination Silo
Banned
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Thats a cool gif.
So:
Mate the moment they were offered even the thought:
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