Completely disagree with the community's opinion on Red Dead. The idea that native Americans have to ALWAYS be the good guys and can NEVER be portrayed as bad guys is just stupid. As a First Nations, I don't find their depiction in Red Dead Redemption 1 as bad, in fact. I find it pretty damn good. It shows people that not all natives were constant victims, unwilling to fend for themselves. But instead, as men who were tired with how they were being treated and decided to break away from their lives on the reservation. The idea that ALL native Americans were a peaceable people IS a stereotype and I'm glad Rockstar didn't follow the trend. As for the VA for Charles being a white dude, that's just stupid nitpicking. In Red Dead Redemption 1, the characters Nastas and Enepay are literally voiced by the same VA as Dutch and John and nobody is batting an eye to that fact. They aren't doing fucking black face or red face up in here, like c'mon
I tried to give the Horizon games a fair chance, fully explored & 100% completed both, including DLCs, & after all that I have to come to the conclusion that the series is abjectly anti-indigenous and pro-settler under the guise of portraying an "eco" technocratic utopia as "true" "civilization" in contrast to Native practices. Many people said that making Aloy, the protagonist, Native American would've fixed the issues, but after playing through the story I realized that simply making Aloy racially accurate to her location & the local culture doesn't change the core issue: the deep-seeded anti-indigenoua ideology of Aloy & the narrative itself. I will simplify the background of thr story for conciseness (& bc the conflicts before the games' events & of all 3 games are essentially the same): Much like the real world, the Horizon world's technocratic capitalist settlers destroyed the environment & killed off Native peoples & their land stewardship practices, until either coming close to or actually causing the extinction of ALL life on Earth. And the games take place after benevolent technocratic settlers saved the day and built an Artificial Intelligence supertech-powered terraforming network (named GAIA) that can suck up the resources of the land and "reset" the Earth by replanting the flora and artificially gestating animals and humans as a "second chance at life to do better than the Old Ones". The "Old Ones" however, only refer to settlers. The indigenous of the "Old World" (21st century) are never even mentioned in the games because the writers consider Natives to be extinct and unimportant. This the ideology that permeates the entire game's writing, including the protagonist herself. Aloy herself is a literal genetic clone of a white settler 21st century woman who dedicates her life to being like her predecessor, Elisabet Sobeck. GAIA, the AI terraforming system, is even created by Sobeck and considers this white settler to br her mother despite her(GAIA's) avatar being made in the shape of an indigenous Black woman. Critics have mentioned that the Horizon games use anti-Native tropes of calling indigenous peoples "savage/backward/primitive/barbaric/superstitious/etc", but not many mention that this is the ideology of Aloy! Aloy herself is anti-indigenous and consistently looks down on the tribal people around her and belittles them for their culture (Cultures that are blatantly modeled after real world Native cultures!!!) Some of Horizon's defenders claim that Aloy is indigenous herself because of thr worldbuilding, but this is WRONG. Aloy is UNIQUELY presented as the ONLY non-indigenous woman in the entire world! Not only is she the clone of a white settler, she is specifically raised outside of her tribe (the Nora) & doesn't consider herself to be part of that tribe. Instead, Aloy mostly raised herself after stumbling across the doomsday bunker of a bunch of FAROtech workers & obtained the "Focus" hightech device that Aloy bases all of her "superior" intellect & abilities & her self-separation from the "superstitious tribal people" on. (CONTEXT: Faro is the name of the Jeff Bezos/Elon Musk figure who caused the extinction of all life in thr Horizon world. Yes, Aloy's primary sense of Identity is based on wielding the devices of the settler warprofiteering capitalist who destroyed the world. This FAROtech device is treated as European-style Enlightenment throughout the 2nd game as it gets shared) And this isn't even mentioning which tribe in particular gets the MOST demonized in the games, the Nora, the tribe Aloy rejects for being too "primitive". The Nora purposefully have the closest culture to actual Native Americans, and somehow- in a game where settler-caused climate extinction is a major recurring threat -the Nora's beliefs on land stewardship & preserving nature are not presented favorably, it is presented as their "backwardness" for not chopping down their forests for fuel like "civilized" people do. I could really go on and on about how indigenous practices & cultures get demonized in the games, because the examples are endless. But the frustrating thing is how pertinent the story of climate collapse is to our real world, snd yet these games look down on the real world practices that preserve the environment. Instead, the games' thesis is that eco-settler-tech is the solution to everything and their literal (white settler) savior in AI-Blackface. Aloy, the genetic-clone of the white settler who created the AI-savior, makes it her mission to go out into the tribes are try to "educate" some of them out of their "primitive" ways in order to save thr world from climate collapse. That is not am exaggeration. The 2nd & (future) 3rd games' primary mission is ecotechnocratic-Evangelism. Aloy, the white savior protagonist, adamantly hates indigeneity. Even new technocratic capitalist billionaire villains appearing in the 2nd game (& *overtly* speaking of the tribal people with the *exact same* bigoted language that Aloy uses) failed to make Aloy question or self-reflect on why her views of tribal people were the exact same as the immortal 21 century colonizers she had to kill in the 2nd game. That's because the writers didn't include those anti indigenous qualities in the villains in order to critique anti indigeneity. They included them because the writers view anti indeigeneity as the natural order of the world. For the same reason why real world indigenous peoples of the 21st are NEVER mentioned at all in the games' stories, not even in the small lore texts in the open world. Horizon's writers operate from the POV that all indigenous people are already dead and only good for costume design inspo for making "scary" costume designs. (except for the largest tribe in the 2nd game which is literally based off the US Military & all of the "Native" terminology that tribe uses only exists because of the real world US Military's appropriation of Native culture. No, this is not sn exaggeration there's an entire tribe of JROTC kids calling themselves vaguely "Native" names lifted off of US military memorials)
For what it is worth I'm a native American myself brings me sadness knowing we're not taught about in schools or things that nature when I was in school we barely they barely even taught us about native Americans we had a class called Indian Ed that did teach us which was I'm thankful for that but I wish they taught more about native Americans and like regular classes but be honest truth is that's native Americans kind of fell to the wayside we're kind of forgotten it's very sad but hopefully we'll see a day where we are remembered finally even though we are not gone we are still here.
Currently writing my senior paper on this topic more broadly. Our ideas about representation are very similar and I appreciate this video for the new ideas!
Every character in MK is savage I don’t think they are trying to represent Natives as such. I hope they do not retire Nightwolf because there isn’t enough Native American based characters in gaming overall.
As a Lakota man and avid gamer, I find it funny how most game studios are hell bent on making sure every group of people are represented in video games, while overlooking one, first nations and indigenous. Rains falls is a example of good representation (Probably because he speak fluent Lakota in it lol😅). Im saddened that our people are vastly ignored by these gaming studios
to be honest the only video games that don't stereotype against the native Americans is the Turok games, Turok evolution is my favourite one and this land is my land game where you play as a native American and you have to reclaim your land from the white people in the game is another positive game for native Americans plus as well I happen to be a quarter native American myself
How is Nightwolf a bad representation for Natives? He has never been savage, in fact he's probably one of the more well mannered characters in the whole franchise, and he literally sacrificed himself for the greater good by killing one of the biggest threats, and what's wrong with his design? He looks like a badass, and literally nothing about his design or character is even offensive in the slightest
The native community has criticized him. He may not be seen as offensive to you or I, but many members of the communities in which the character represents, do find it to be so. So my opinion on the matter is irrelevant. This is a detailed video on just night wolf. ruclips.net/video/-uhLtaRy13A/видео.html
@@entercheatcode1844 in my personal opinion being Nehiyaw I never really found him to be offensive, however it’s pretty blatantly obvious that his whole character was devolved from stereotypes. I don’t mind the personality and honestly the spirit part of him isn’t too bad when you consider the universe the character takes part in, but the way he looks and acts in the earlier games especially just comes off as a stereotype ridden caricature. Personally he’s my favourite character to play as after Liu Kang but that doesn’t change that he seems so stereotypical that he’s going to shed a solemn tear everytime someone drops trash outside. Personally I hope they give the character a rebranding and take inspiration from Connor Kenway and Charles Smith (albeit as much as I love what Noshir Dalal did with Charles they need to cast an actual native in future roles)
The developers of horizon zero dawn implied that they did not think that some people would get angry, in conclusion they thought that there would be no people who are not racists like them, the whole game of horizon zereo dawn 2 is full of hints towards the native groups, I am not surprised by the developers who expressed their ideas of European superiority unconsciously in the game.
to be honest, mortal Kombat depict native American Savagery is a fair play. Because it is game about human savagery. All race there is a savage. There is Japanese who rip back bone, cowboy who blow bodies, Chinese guy who saw people in half. This is create dilemma, every representation always never truly accurate or there is no representation. This is create dilemma, that native Americans (some of them) ask some representation but don't realize it will never accurate. or if accurate to reality can be really truly offensive. (for example the mask).
Great video on this topic. Really does a good job into putting into perspective about how important proper representation is. I guess the only example where I guess don’t see it being harmful or further producing stereotypes is the horizon zero dawn example. Out of all the examples shown I think that one imo can be a bit out there in terms of misrepresentation. I always assumed horizon was inspired by the Bronze or Iron Age that happened around 6000 BC (at least that’s what I remember from my anthropology class in my junior year of college) taking back to euroasia and North African style of living. Then again I am not a native nor indigenous so I probably should keep my mouth shut on that one lol. What are your thoughts on that one? Would like to know.
I was conflicted in that one as well as it’s such a beloved franchise, but I can’t say what one group of people finds offensive. As their opinions on the matter holds more weight than anything I might feel on it. Now I know for a fact it wasn’t intended to be blatantly offensive portrayal and they did take some steps to try and avoid being culturally insensitive, and even responded to the criticism. Which I will link for you for fairness www.google.com/amp/s/www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2017/3/3/14809342/horizon-zero-dawn-native-criticisms-response
Greattt topic indeed, same goes for blacks and browns in general in video games, their either absent or portrayed badly, a good example is fighting games
How is Nightwolf bad?! When I played it for the first time I was like “HEY HE IS NATIVE LIKE ME”
It's bad because they see him as savage and it follows the narrative of colonialism crap brother. 😊
Completely disagree with the community's opinion on Red Dead. The idea that native Americans have to ALWAYS be the good guys and can NEVER be portrayed as bad guys is just stupid. As a First Nations, I don't find their depiction in Red Dead Redemption 1 as bad, in fact. I find it pretty damn good. It shows people that not all natives were constant victims, unwilling to fend for themselves. But instead, as men who were tired with how they were being treated and decided to break away from their lives on the reservation. The idea that ALL native Americans were a peaceable people IS a stereotype and I'm glad Rockstar didn't follow the trend.
As for the VA for Charles being a white dude, that's just stupid nitpicking. In Red Dead Redemption 1, the characters Nastas and Enepay are literally voiced by the same VA as Dutch and John and nobody is batting an eye to that fact. They aren't doing fucking black face or red face up in here, like c'mon
Thanks for sharing your insight and comments.
I completely agree with everything you said. I'm first nation as well.
I tried to give the Horizon games a fair chance, fully explored & 100% completed both, including DLCs, & after all that I have to come to the conclusion that the series is abjectly anti-indigenous and pro-settler under the guise of portraying an "eco" technocratic utopia as "true" "civilization" in contrast to Native practices.
Many people said that making Aloy, the protagonist, Native American would've fixed the issues, but after playing through the story I realized that simply making Aloy racially accurate to her location & the local culture doesn't change the core issue: the deep-seeded anti-indigenoua ideology of Aloy & the narrative itself.
I will simplify the background of thr story for conciseness (& bc the conflicts before the games' events & of all 3 games are essentially the same):
Much like the real world, the Horizon world's technocratic capitalist settlers destroyed the environment & killed off Native peoples & their land stewardship practices, until either coming close to or actually causing the extinction of ALL life on Earth.
And the games take place after benevolent technocratic settlers saved the day and built an Artificial Intelligence supertech-powered terraforming network (named GAIA) that can suck up the resources of the land and "reset" the Earth by replanting the flora and artificially gestating animals and humans as a "second chance at life to do better than the Old Ones".
The "Old Ones" however, only refer to settlers. The indigenous of the "Old World" (21st century) are never even mentioned in the games because the writers consider Natives to be extinct and unimportant.
This the ideology that permeates the entire game's writing, including the protagonist herself.
Aloy herself is a literal genetic clone of a white settler 21st century woman who dedicates her life to being like her predecessor, Elisabet Sobeck.
GAIA, the AI terraforming system, is even created by Sobeck and considers this white settler to br her mother despite her(GAIA's) avatar being made in the shape of an indigenous Black woman.
Critics have mentioned that the Horizon games use anti-Native tropes of calling indigenous peoples "savage/backward/primitive/barbaric/superstitious/etc", but not many mention that this is the ideology of Aloy! Aloy herself is anti-indigenous and consistently looks down on the tribal people around her and belittles them for their culture (Cultures that are blatantly modeled after real world Native cultures!!!)
Some of Horizon's defenders claim that Aloy is indigenous herself because of thr worldbuilding, but this is WRONG.
Aloy is UNIQUELY presented as the ONLY non-indigenous woman in the entire world!
Not only is she the clone of a white settler, she is specifically raised outside of her tribe (the Nora) & doesn't consider herself to be part of that tribe.
Instead, Aloy mostly raised herself after stumbling across the doomsday bunker of a bunch of FAROtech workers & obtained the "Focus" hightech device that Aloy bases all of her "superior" intellect & abilities & her self-separation from the "superstitious tribal people" on.
(CONTEXT: Faro is the name of the Jeff Bezos/Elon Musk figure who caused the extinction of all life in thr Horizon world. Yes, Aloy's primary sense of Identity is based on wielding the devices of the settler warprofiteering capitalist who destroyed the world. This FAROtech device is treated as European-style Enlightenment throughout the 2nd game as it gets shared)
And this isn't even mentioning which tribe in particular gets the MOST demonized in the games, the Nora, the tribe Aloy rejects for being too "primitive".
The Nora purposefully have the closest culture to actual Native Americans, and somehow- in a game where settler-caused climate extinction is a major recurring threat -the Nora's beliefs on land stewardship & preserving nature are not presented favorably, it is presented as their "backwardness" for not chopping down their forests for fuel like "civilized" people do.
I could really go on and on about how indigenous practices & cultures get demonized in the games, because the examples are endless. But the frustrating thing is how pertinent the story of climate collapse is to our real world, snd yet these games look down on the real world practices that preserve the environment.
Instead, the games' thesis is that eco-settler-tech is the solution to everything and their literal (white settler) savior in AI-Blackface. Aloy, the genetic-clone of the white settler who created the AI-savior, makes it her mission to go out into the tribes are try to "educate" some of them out of their "primitive" ways in order to save thr world from climate collapse.
That is not am exaggeration. The 2nd & (future) 3rd games' primary mission is ecotechnocratic-Evangelism.
Aloy, the white savior protagonist, adamantly hates indigeneity. Even new technocratic capitalist billionaire villains appearing in the 2nd game (& *overtly* speaking of the tribal people with the *exact same* bigoted language that Aloy uses) failed to make Aloy question or self-reflect on why her views of tribal people were the exact same as the immortal 21 century colonizers she had to kill in the 2nd game.
That's because the writers didn't include those anti indigenous qualities in the villains in order to critique anti indigeneity. They included them because the writers view anti indeigeneity as the natural order of the world.
For the same reason why real world indigenous peoples of the 21st are NEVER mentioned at all in the games' stories, not even in the small lore texts in the open world.
Horizon's writers operate from the POV that all indigenous people are already dead and only good for costume design inspo for making "scary" costume designs.
(except for the largest tribe in the 2nd game which is literally based off the US Military & all of the "Native" terminology that tribe uses only exists because of the real world US Military's appropriation of Native culture. No, this is not sn exaggeration there's an entire tribe of JROTC kids calling themselves vaguely "Native" names lifted off of US military memorials)
Native American women getting systemically murdered: *I sleep*
Gabbie Petito gets murdered: **Redditors starts soyfacing in the millions**
For what it is worth I'm a native American myself brings me sadness knowing we're not taught about in schools or things that nature when I was in school we barely they barely even taught us about native Americans we had a class called Indian Ed that did teach us which was I'm thankful for that but I wish they taught more about native Americans and like regular classes but be honest truth is that's native Americans kind of fell to the wayside we're kind of forgotten it's very sad but hopefully we'll see a day where we are remembered finally even though we are not gone we are still here.
Just picked up Mulaka 🥰
Would love a follow up video with more recommendations on this
Currently writing my senior paper on this topic more broadly. Our ideas about representation are very similar and I appreciate this video for the new ideas!
Very interesting would be very curious to view your final product. I’m on Twitter under the same name @entercheatcode
Every character in MK is savage I don’t think they are trying to represent Natives as such. I hope they do not retire Nightwolf because there isn’t enough Native American based characters in gaming overall.
As a Lakota man and avid gamer, I find it funny how most game studios are hell bent on making sure every group of people are represented in video games, while overlooking one, first nations and indigenous. Rains falls is a example of good representation (Probably because he speak fluent Lakota in it lol😅). Im saddened that our people are vastly ignored by these gaming studios
As a indigenous person and gamer cool video on native american culture and teaching the people who are not native americans. 😊
The production value and Video quality deserves so much more recognition, great vid man
Thank you so much
@@entercheatcode1844 you are too sensitive.
All I got to say is the 1800’s northwest settings is BIG UNDERRATED
to be honest the only video games that don't stereotype against the native Americans is the Turok games, Turok evolution is my favourite one and this land is my land game where you play as a native American and you have to reclaim your land from the white people in the game is another positive game for native Americans plus as well I happen to be a quarter native American myself
Why are there no Native Americans in horizon zero dawn ?
@@adaminabeatasoroka8436 The developers games are racist
How is Nightwolf a bad representation for Natives? He has never been savage, in fact he's probably one of the more well mannered characters in the whole franchise, and he literally sacrificed himself for the greater good by killing one of the biggest threats, and what's wrong with his design? He looks like a badass, and literally nothing about his design or character is even offensive in the slightest
The native community has criticized him. He may not be seen as offensive to you or I, but many members of the communities in which the character represents, do find it to be so. So my opinion on the matter is irrelevant.
This is a detailed video on just night wolf.
ruclips.net/video/-uhLtaRy13A/видео.html
@@entercheatcode1844 in my personal opinion being Nehiyaw I never really found him to be offensive, however it’s pretty blatantly obvious that his whole character was devolved from stereotypes. I don’t mind the personality and honestly the spirit part of him isn’t too bad when you consider the universe the character takes part in, but the way he looks and acts in the earlier games especially just comes off as a stereotype ridden caricature. Personally he’s my favourite character to play as after Liu Kang but that doesn’t change that he seems so stereotypical that he’s going to shed a solemn tear everytime someone drops trash outside.
Personally I hope they give the character a rebranding and take inspiration from Connor Kenway and Charles Smith (albeit as much as I love what Noshir Dalal did with Charles they need to cast an actual native in future roles)
This is the most ignorant comment I’ve ever seen. This screams whitewashing
@@imDontaye this
The developers of horizon zero dawn implied that they did not think that some people would get angry, in conclusion they thought that there would be no people who are not racists like them, the whole game of horizon zereo dawn 2 is full of hints towards the native groups, I am not surprised by the developers who expressed their ideas of European superiority unconsciously in the game.
I’m confused ?
to be honest, mortal Kombat depict native American Savagery is a fair play. Because it is game about human savagery. All race there is a savage. There is Japanese who rip back bone, cowboy who blow bodies, Chinese guy who saw people in half.
This is create dilemma, every representation always never truly accurate or there is no representation. This is create dilemma, that native Americans (some of them) ask some representation but don't realize it will never accurate. or if accurate to reality can be really truly offensive. (for example the mask).
I wish Delsin ghad better representation, he's one of my favourite gaming characters
What about FF7 and the whole Red XIII/ Cosmo canyon arc in your opinion?
I love this whole part so dearly.
Take care.
Great video on this topic. Really does a good job into putting into perspective about how important proper representation is. I guess the only example where I guess don’t see it being harmful or further producing stereotypes is the horizon zero dawn example. Out of all the examples shown I think that one imo can be a bit out there in terms of misrepresentation. I always assumed horizon was inspired by the Bronze or Iron Age that happened around 6000 BC (at least that’s what I remember from my anthropology class in my junior year of college) taking back to euroasia and North African style of living. Then again I am not a native nor indigenous so I probably should keep my mouth shut on that one lol. What are your thoughts on that one? Would like to know.
I was conflicted in that one as well as it’s such a beloved franchise, but I can’t say what one group of people finds offensive. As their opinions on the matter holds more weight than anything I might feel on it. Now I know for a fact it wasn’t intended to be blatantly offensive portrayal and they did take some steps to try and avoid being culturally insensitive, and even responded to the criticism. Which I will link for you for fairness
www.google.com/amp/s/www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2017/3/3/14809342/horizon-zero-dawn-native-criticisms-response
Thank you for watching the video and leaving your thought provoking comments as well.
Some observations here are overexagerated in my opinion they are not much of a big deal
Appreciate your feedback I did rely on the opinions, words, and sentiments expressed by natives providing a commentary on these appearances.
cringe spam
🔥
Greattt topic indeed, same goes for blacks and browns in general in video games, their either absent or portrayed badly, a good example is fighting games
nice
: O