(04-17-2015, 03:21 AM)Ryoko Wrote:(04-17-2015, 02:29 AM)Seriphyn Wrote: But I feel it is better to admit that "I just want to play x race with x class" and own it rather than trying to bend the game world to make your character more authentic.
I feel like a lot of folks are unreasonably stubborn on their own preconceptions about the lore, though. The whole Ala'Mhigo thing proves that. Square Enix itself did everything possible to demonstrate that Ala'Mhigo is a racially diverse state with Miqo'te, Roegadyn, Lalafells, and maybe even Elezen. Not just as token minorities either, but as significant portions of the population. Yet we still have this idea persisting among the community that Ala'Mhigans are exclusively Highlanders. So now I'm wondering, if Ishgard opens up and we find a bunch of lalafells inside, are people just going to pretend they don't exist? I don't think it's likely to happen, but I think you get my point.
Speaking of which, I've been roaming around Coerthas, as I tend to do, and tonight I was paying particularly close attention to the NPC dialogue. And I realized something. Â
Why does everyone think Ishgardians are racist?Â
I couldn't find one NPC that made any reference to race. They didn't dislike me because I was a Miqo'te. They disliked me because I wasn't a local. "Oh, another adventurer," "Do not dare question our ways, unbeliever", things like that. Never once was my race brought up. Am I missing something here? Can somebody explain to me why Ishgard is seen as racist? Because, to me, it seems like they just dislike foreigners. They don't really give two shits about what you look like.Â
Now, Gridanians on the other hand, those are some racist bastards. Always shit-talking Duskwights and whatnot...
I brought this up a few pages ago, so you're not the only one veering into that wavelength
(04-16-2015, 10:12 AM)Milly Wrote: I just had a thought. Is it ever explicitly stated that that Ishgardians are natively Elezen and don't like, or natively include, Miqo'te and/or Lalafell...? Because I don't personally remember race ever being brought up in regards to any of the nations, not even for Gridania.
Instead what's stated is they don't like 'outsiders' and it seems as a player base we've made an assumption that that means 'race' when actually... it just means people who aren't from Ishgard/Gridania. It doesn't matter if you're Elezen, Roe, Hyur if you're not from Ishgard they don't like you. Are we just concluding that there's no Miqo'te Ishgardians because we've not had it confirmed yet?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have the best memory, I just get a feeling there's some assumption about race discrimination (as I mentioned earlier in the thread this is more common in other games such as XI) when, as far as I recall, race is rarely if ever brought up as being an issue. It's one of the things I like about this game.
I, personally, feel it's just people's expectations. In other games, there is commonly 'racist' themes (For example in FFXI, the confrontation between Galka/Hyurs and the attitude of Elvaan) in real life we have to deal with racism. So there seems to be some assumptions and jumping to conclusions going on. Whereas, the reality of the in game world is race/racism appears (to the best of my knowledge) never to be an issue... it possibly doesn't even exist as a concept? They just seem to care about where you 'hail' from. I can't recall any NPC dialogue changing because I'm a Lalafell or some such.