The way Morgott in Elden Ring refers to the player as "Tarnished", and specifically the way he uses the inflection of the word, is more effective at imparting in-universe hatred towards a specific group than anything David Cage has ever written.
Unfortunately, it takes quite a bit of lore sifting and vati videos to understand WHY everyone can tell you are tarnished. It is the eyes. They are saying you don't have their golden eyes. Admittedly, this could be viewed as a late in life deformity, since the eyes show your connection to the tree and its order. So you went color blind and everyone hates you because you can't see yellow any more. Now the misbegotten. Those guys are full on racism/deformity from birth. And the society does enslave the misbegotten. So when we get there, them killing and breaking everything? That is a slave rebellion. And it isn't like they are enslaved and mistreated because they are inherently a problem. All the Crucible stuff was from the era when everyone thought having babies with dragon parts was sick. You even see them peacefully praying to later saints.
David Cage be like "remember, show don't tell" and then put the androids in the back of the bus, in the android section, and held the camera on them for long enough that the androids themselves started getting uncomfortable.
If we are talking about poorly executed anti racist themes in games in CoD WWII there's a scene where a black soldier joins your squad causing one of your guys to ask "What's one of THEM doing with us?" this is then immediately forgotten for the rest of the mission and at the end of the battle he says "nvm I'm not racist anymore lol" and this is never acknowledged again.
"Welcome to Revachol" gets a lot of totally deserved credit, but, "So...what kinda music do you listen to nowadays?" is an A+ demonstration that _it's not just the bad guys._ Your Harry can be 168% the most 'supportive white friend, thanks video games' dude, but if you catch him in a bad enough brainfart, he still might say something cringe. It's so good at sidestepping 'I can't be racist, racists all look like monsters' and might catch the audience going, 'Oh...lol shit I did that once'
Disco Elysium basically says that all racism is internalized. It’s probably even inside all of us. But when left unchecked, you basically end up like Ruud Kroeneker.
@@Null_Experis Not necessarily. Assuming that somebody's good at math just because of their race sounds like a compliment, for example, but it assumes that they have less individuality than a 'regular' person and can be typecast. Fetishizing somebody because of their race sounds like a compliment, but often comes from a history of human trafficking. Only acknowledging frothing, obvious hatred leaves us with a huge blind spot, when it comes with being respectful and considerate to others. It's like saying that stepping on someone's toes can't be hurtful because it's not done with hatred.
The only issue with 'don't write X if you suck at writing X' is that nobody who is bad realizes they suck, and the people who are good oft times think they suck. So the people who could actually write nuanced takes on X end up not writing them, meanwhile Ken Lavine just goes and does whatever he wants because he doesn't give a shit.
I think that's just the risk of trying anything nuanced. You're trying to make a statement about a subject that humans have been discussing and studying since we comprehended social sciences. There is no way you're going to have the perfect method to break your idea down and you're going to miss or gloss over important points. You also have biases that will blind you and the overall story that you have to make compelling is going to take your focus. Sadly, even after that you have to deal with the fact that your audience carries the responsibility of being able to understand what you were trying to say. Lots of people ignore or misinterpret what they watch or play. What if they just don't agree with your point? Are they wrong or you wrong? Now this is just another debate.
I’m an amateur writer who has yet to manage to publish a book (bucket list goal is to get one out even if it doesn’t do well) I’ve realized my strengths and weaknesses and I’m not sure depicting racism is a strength of mine and honestly I’m scared to try. That’s an all or nothing thing and if you aren’t good at it, then it drags the whole story down
I will correct Pat on something here about the Bioshock Infinite lottery scene as someone who played that game fairly recently. The lottery winner gets to throw the FIRST baseball. The intent is still for the crowd as a whole to baseball them to death. And then right after that scene ends, the game backs down SO FUCKING HARD on racism in the narrative and it's never even REMOTELY bad again until the Vox Populi just start murdering every white person they can find. That game's writing is a fucking mess.
@@TheBAGman17 Yeah, I agree. The thing is just... when the inciting incident of your game's plot is the player stopping a hatecrime involving a crowd of 40 people and then the entire rest of the game NEVER acknowledges racism outside of the most simple and sanitized ways possible, it feels weird. That scene shouldn't have been there if they weren't prepared to lean in at least a little harder.
No matter how subtle or overt you are about it the people who need to understand the message the most are the ones most likely to blow it off or not apply it to real life
yes a klansmen isn't going to change his ways because of a video game, true. it's not about reaching them it's about affecting the ancillary people surrounding such people. they can have an influence.
I feel like it’s more about teaching those in the middle, like the kid of a klansman or someone who generally agrees racism is bad but might tolerate it if they see it in real life. I agree that those who are in deep are very unlikely to change their minds especially the older they get but while it’s a slow approach teaching the next generation about the mistakes of the past and present is effective.
You'd be suprised how being exposed to horrible things that others have to deal with changes even bad people. There are tons of diaries during the civil war or once hardened pro slavery soldiers who had a change of heart once they actually saw what slaves were going though.
You're onto the fact that the people consuming the product are part of the issue. You could craft a narrative with either subtle or overt messaging, but people can still just look at the surface and completely miss the point by ignorance or choice.
Are you kidding me wakka is literally on the cusp of screaming "filthy al bhed!" to damn near having a mental break down after finding about yuna and its the funniest shit in the whole game xD
@@joedatius If you are referring to nobody else in Wakka's world having problem his racism against the Al Bhed, I don't recall anyone calling him out for it. Probably has to do with the setting.
@@kyero8724 The Al Bhed weren't Scientologists, just scientists. And if I remember right the Al Bhed used machina because they were incapable of using magic, a common trait of fictional races. It's not a massive stretch to link discrimination based on religion to racism.
I got the impression with the Bioshock Infinite lottery scene that winning it only means throwing the first. That you’ll be starting the stoning/lynching. Not throwing the ball won’t prevent it from happening, but it will almost definitely make you a target too. Of course, it’s still cowardly and depends entirely on the implications of what would happen next, because what actually happens is completely unrelated to your choice. So it’s extremely easy to interpret the situation more charitably. Because the people deciding what would be in the game were cowards. And of course none of this takes away from the fact that this scene is as bad as it’s willing to get and there’s really not many other depictions of racism in the game, so it’s pretty much the whole basis by which Booker would decide to help the Vox Populi. Which the Booker you play as doesn’t actually do. He has to be coerced. And then instead of actually helping he just runs away to an alternate universe where he already helped, because the writers found a whole new way to coward out.
"BioShock Infinite got into quantum mechanics so it didn't have to talk about racism" is the most spicy and correct take I have read all day, well played.
@@NocturneJester Oh, absolutely. The game's story and mechanics are super unfocused and all-over-the-place, which is a hallmark of a long, rough, awkward development.
@@tomisabum Like 30 minutes long, playing happy kirby BGM all through it while featuring clips such as ONLY WHITE CAN UNLOCK EASY MODE FOR BLACK, RifeRine, and Wakka's Final Solution
The meme of “look at the cool robot fights” is too accurate for how some people engage with books, movies, games, etc. Guarantee you that someone could stare you dead in the eyes and tell you “disco Elysium isn’t political” while totally believing it.
Disco Elysium isn't really political though. Politics in the story of DE is mostly used as a lens to focus on how Harry copes with both the world, and his refusal to get over his ex dumping him, and all of the political stances you can take reflect that. No matter whether you choose to be a commie, a fash, a ultra or a centrist, his take on all of them is extremely surface level at best and grossly misunderstanding it 90% of the time. They are all just another method he uses to cope with his ex dumping him. Focusing on the politics in DE is like saying that DE is really about solving the murder. They're both just set dressing to further study and dissect Harry's character.
@@marcoruby7699 that’s politics. Most people do not understand what the “beliefs” they hold really entail especially if you zoom out from a personal perspective. Surface level ideas are what many people view the entire political stance from, it has nothing to do with ramifications of a country/city/etc adopting those ideals. Wasn’t arguing that politics are the focus but it is a part of the game. There’s many aspects to media and few are ever as simple as “___ is such and such”. Tackling ideologies, racism, sexism, war, civil unrest, etc are political topics. They do not necessarily have anything to do with the real world counterparts but are still political conversations that could be held. Anyways the whole initial comment is just pointing out that some Gundam fans “miss” or “ignore” the obvious politics in the show. Not to argue the framing of different parts of Disco Elysium
@@marcoruby7699 Harrys entire state of being is a reflection of the world around him. The game is both about this fucked up little guy and the fucked up world he's living in, there is no seperating the two.
In ES: Morrowind, fictional racial slurs are thrown at your character, for being an outsider, even if you pick the dark elf. However, your character is the reincarnation of a famous person the main bad guy likes and if you pick the dark elf you get invites from sleeper agents saying the main bad guy wants to chat about you joining. If you don't pick a dark elf, they will tell you to leave now!
Playing a naked argonian with a spear, levitating to telvanni wizards and poking them to death was the most cathartic racism revenge porn I've ever had in a video game.
@@SonnyFRST Elder Scrolls games are fun to meme about, I don't think it's worth giving them a proper analysis. Wether it's "how many ports will Skyrim have?", "Hey you, you're finally awake", hillarious abusing of mechanics and AI, buggy terrain and well, bugs in general. The moment you try to look at them legitimately, it gets boring.
@@Bone8380 I'll admit that I've never played an Elder Scrolls game myself, only looked at footage and people talk about it, so my view is biased of course, but I don't hear good things either. So this is something where your experience might have more ground than mine.
Didnt expect Woolie to mention Sine Mora lol! Rascism in FF10 is more a character motif. Thats a huge difference to DE. Wakka is a Yevonite and hates the Al-Bhed for their use of machina, and because of his brothers death. Thats why he turns around so quickly. He isnt running around saying how round eyes are better then spiral eyes.
Hey comment gang, who wants to see me talk about racism in RWBY of all things? For no particular reason, I had cast myself into a RWBY deep dive, and unconsciously found myself slightly intrigued by how different writers in different pieces of RWBY media handle racism, considering that discrimination against Faunus is (and CONTINUES to be) a pivotal world plot point. Fans have correctly pointed out that the ONE time it is brought to the forefront with a major character is in Vol.1, where Weiss being openly racist against Faunus is what causes tension between her and Blake to reach a boiling point, but is for some reason completely forgotten by the end of the episode as Weiss was apparently cured of her racism off-screen in less than 12 hours. There are lots of pieces in the RWBY lore that specifically point out the Schnee Dust Company's contribution towards Faunus exploitation, but since Weiss is a central character, it feels like the writers needed to VERY QUICKLY sanitize her of such an awful character trait. It gets even weirder in _(I can't believe I read through all of this)_ the RWBY x Justice League crossover comic, where Justice League superheroes are reimagined as Hunters/Huntresses in the world of Remnant. In Weiss's chapter, she's attending a hoity-toity bourgeoisie party held by the Company when she meets a teenage Bruce Wayne (Weiss in this comic is for some reason easily lovestruck and kinda boy-crazy???). It is revealed later that Bruce is a bat-eared Faunus (get it? Because he's a literal Bat Man?), and for some reason in this ENTIRE party of upper crust 1-percenters, only _one_ particularly angry guy is upset that there's a Faunus in the mansion. Not only does Weiss jump to Bruce's defense, but also her father Jacques Schnee, who himself is ACTIVELY COMPLICIT in Faunus exploitation and discrimination, is shown to be sympathetic towards Bruce and judgemental of the angry racist man. And just when I was about to write off RWBY racism as neutered and sanitized, then comes RWBY: Ice Queendom, which does a complete 180 by being ENTIRELY ABOUT WEISS BEING RACIST. Ice Queendom is a sort of in-betweequel set in the interim between Vol. 1 and 2, _sort of_ addressing that part in Vol.1 where Weiss gets cured of her racism off screen. The majority of the show takes place inside a nightmare dreamscape in Weiss's mind, where she has fashioned herself as a totalitarian dictator that has exiled all Faunus from her perfect utopia (Faunus in Weiss's dreamscape are also depicted as being indistinguishable from Grimm monsters, which... YIKES). In fact, Ice Queendom is probably my new favorite piece of RWBY fiction specifically because they didn't shy away from the fact that these characters have some serious _serious_ critical flaws, and the premise of the show allows them to really deep dive into them.
The mention of David Cage’s handling of sensitive topics made me think of my FAVORITE part of the old SBFP LP of Detroit: Become Human: Markus’ first chapter, when he and the androids have to get in the back of the empty bus. Woolie loses his shit, and Pat shouting “GeT iN dA bAcK Of Da BuS” still makes me crack up.
I always feel a bit weird that I wish Skyrim had way WAY more racism in it. My first playthrough was as a Khajit because I heard the holds didn't like them going into the main cities, so I figured I would have to either do a quest, or talk my way in, or sneak in to do business. And at the first hold I was delighted that my news about a dragon attack was an excuse for them to just let me in the city. I was so dissapointed when it never became an issue from that point on aside from some taunts from bandits.
I don't think khajits are allowed in any city in Skyrim. But it never affects the main character or their companions if they are one. I think the only khajit inside a city is j'zarrgo and I think the only reason he was let in was because he was a mage. Well he technically hangs out in the college and not the town so he might not count.
Pretty sure singular khajiits are allowed, just not the whole caravan. Could be racism or the city shopkeepers not wanting additional competition leading potential customers away. Or both.
only problem is instead of Wakka apologizing to the 15-year-old girl he almost made cry, he apologizes to... her father. for some reason. her father probably didn't even realize he was prejudiced against the Al Bhed.
@@BloomPlays He was trying to apologize to the leader of all Al Bhed, in a room full of them, that he was stupid and not thinking. Because it was less about that one insensitive comment, and more that he spent several years blaming the group for everything wrong in his life.
If I remember correctly FE path of radiance has the main characters learning that the term they use for beast people is a normalised slur at a quarter of the game
@@The5lacker well, Ike does fight against the evil empire and slavery, but along the way he has to ally himself to people who are not very into one or the other His boyfriend does a wakka and becomes less racist at the end
The Radiance duology is stupid for racism. One chapter a slave-trading rich guy is trying to buy a kidnapped bird-man against his will because he "admires beauty", then (if the situation is right) you later have the option to _recruit_ that very same slave-trading bird-man buying guy (his dialogue actually shows him forcing his way onto the team to protect the pretty bird people)... and the Main Protagonist can see this and quickly asks him to fuck off and go back to the enemy side. (This request is ignored).
Pat's really overstating the racist consequences in Skyrim. One or two bits of different dialogue from NPCs that don't matter is not some mind-blowing consideration. It's not like Ulfric will refuse to do business with you if your a lizard or a cat, you don't get refused service from businesses or harassed by guards, and you don't even have to fight super racist NPCs as far as I'm aware of. He's talking like it's the racism in Arcanum or something.
Absolutely not. The best one is "Mayfly" from Warhammer. Its an Elven slur for humans, because Mayflies only last a day, and Elves don't age. That, or 40K's Aeldari slur for humans, "Mon'Keigh". Literally all Friezas.
I got more hardcore depictions of racism in an African-American History class in community college than in all of BioShock Infinite. Shit was weak. This video is a very well-put way of describing a good axiom: If you're going to tackle a heavy topic (Bigotry, war, trauma, etc) you need to either go all-in or don't bother. Do not disrespect the people affected by this thing by trivializing it in your story.
I think this is similar to something Stanley Kubrick once said or something he alluded to. He was trying to make a film.about the Holocaust and i think he was doing so much research and everything that he became a full on depressive wreck for a while, because Stanley Kubrick always went super hard with his research And in the end he didn't make the film for two reasons, one was cause Schindler's list came out and he thought it was great And the other reason was cause he thought the only way to actually do the Holocaust justice was to make a completely unwatchable film, it would need to be so disgusting and depressing and just nightmarish that no one would ever actually want to watch it
Felt the same way when I played mafia 3. In cutscenes they play it up but outside of that it's just gonna be the racism on the radio and enemies sometimes calling you the nword (not that often which is kinda wild since you're a black man running around shooting a them with a gun)
I think that's the thing that frustrates me a lot about the Call of Duty Modern Warfare reboot entries. They talk a big game about how they try to paint every party as morally gray and state how they get their hands dirty so the world doesn't have to. Despite all of that, your team is always in the right, America is never framed as potentially in the wrong (and when an American soldier IS in the wrong, he's usually a traitor and depicted as the obvious bad guy) and the terrorists you fight have no sympathetic points or much depth to them, so you never feel bad about killing them. Nothing you do is really questionable, the worst it gets is threatning the child in an interrogation. The worse things about this is that Spec Ops: The Line pulled off everything that those games claim to be about, and it did it a decade prior.
@@leithaziz2716 I've rewatched Spec Ops: The Line recently and it made me think that it really didn't handle those themes well after all. It's not a story about war or the people who suffer because of it, it's mostly concerned with the player and why we play games. It just exploits all of that war imagery for the sake of a (pretty standard) twist and some meta-commentary about games. It throws war crimes and horrors at you and makes you wade through corpses over and over but it's just an aesthetic, shock value. "Feel like a hero yet?" is such a smug phrase that I would not expect to find in a story that is seriously concerned with showing the horrors of war. The jist of it is that its meta elements make the way it shows real tragedies seem very icky to me. But whatever, I like that it at least tries to tackle those themes. And I'm definitely not saying COD is doing it well either
@@leithaziz2716 Oh, for sure, with regards to CoD. Because it wouldn't be an ActiBlizzard game without claiming to be progressive and thoughtful by applying the most surface-level, corporate, "Look-at-us-aren't-we-woke" take on it. Not to mention that actually being genuinely thoughtful and critical of America would probably be too much thinking for CoD's main audience to handle. It does make me wonder if Infinite's take is as santitized as it is because of the writers being unwilling to go through with it, or because Take-Two execs demanded it.
My favorite example of fucking up racism in your story is RWBY with the Faunus (just people with animal traits). They're heavily discriminated against and stated to openly be used as slaves in the Artic kingdom of Atlas. The only group that's fighting for their rights and against the slavery they experience in Atlas, the White Fang. So naturally, they're portrayed as universally evil besides it's former member who left because they were appalled by the White Fang using violence to end the enslavement of their entire race. One of them being Blake, one of the main characters of the entire series and one of our only constant access to the Faunus viewpoint. Also, they change it's leader, Adam Taurus from a vicious, Machiavellian terrorist to ALSO be Blake's abusive ex boyfriend who starts to only want to kill Blake and her new girlfriend Yang. Sure he was permanently maimed and partially blinded because he dared to get into a political argument with his coworker, but he wants to keep beating his girlfriend. Just in case you thought one of the White Fang might actually be sympathetic. To add insult to injury, as soon as they actually get to Atlas, not only do they completely drop the slavery plot point, but they mostly drop the racism period. Instead now, the Faunus dust miners might be being paid less than human miners, but it's not clear. There's even a Faunus on the elite taskforce of the Atlesian military.
From what I heard Rooster Teeth (or whoever more specifically runs RWBY) dropped the Faunus racism/slavery plot because they realized how badly they did that plot.
And then it got worse in the Arrowfell game when Team RWBY fights to defeat the game's big bad... A Union Leader. Because why would people who constantly die in the dust mines need representation or rights? This is AFTER we found out about how RT treats their workers, so maybe they are writing what they know.
My favorite version of RWBY's racism backdown is in the RWBY x Justice League crossover comic (don't read it; it is not good). In this one, Justice League heroes are reimagined as hunters and huntresses born and raised in the world of Remnant. Weiss's chapter takes place at the Schnee estate where they're holding some hoity-toity bourgeoisie party for business moguls, and Weiss meets Bruce Wayne. It's later revealed that Bruce is a bat-eared Faunus, and despite being surrounded by a bunch of one-percenters who THRIVE on Faunus exploitation and slavery, there's only ONE ornery fellow who is upset that there's a Faunus in the mansion. Not only does Weiss immediately jump to Bruce's defense, but her father Jacques Schnee, who himself is COMPLICIT in Faunus exploitation and discrimination, is also sympathetic towards Bruce and is wagging his finger at the bad racist man. You know what piece of RWBY fiction I actually really liked? RWBY: Ice Queendom, in which the ENTIRE plot revolves around Weiss being a racist. If RT RWBY is too cowardly to ever address the racism that they themselves wrote into the story, Ice Queendom chooses to double down on it and make it the central conflict, and it's like smashing you on the nose with a sledgehammer. Nightmare Weiss fashions herself like a totalitarian dictator where she has banished all Faunus from her perfect utopia; the Faunus White Fang terrorists coincidentally are indistinguishable from Grimm monsters. It's AGGRESSIVELY on-the-nose about it, and also goes some ways to explain how Weiss was cured of her racism between Vol 1 and 2.
Hell even season one of Genlock is all over the place in tone and with its depictions of religious bigotry. Season 2 is actually fucking solid and explores some really interesting and some really depressing concepts but that's also after HBO took control so yeah
@@abadidea5984 Ice Queendom in general tried so hard to actually make something out of RWBY's setting with what can best be described as no budget, even by RWBY standards. I admire it for that and for trying to give the characters flaws to explore. That DC shit however was the most transparently "Let's do this to make a shitzillion dollars" move on the planet. It's so awful.
I often think about how 'all over the place' the racism is in Mass Effect. Like, Ashley is a huge space racist, but it's not like that ever stops you from achieving your goals. Tali, on the other hand, hates the Geth, as Quarians are wont to do, and this can, in fact, hamper you from achieving your goals in Mass Effect 2, provided you do not have enough Paragon/Renegade score. Then there's that Volus in the citadel who accuses a Quarian of stealing his credit chit and the C-Sec officer who just doesn't care and is probably as racist towards the Volus as he is to the 'migrant fleet vagrant'. I think the best thing about Mass Effect going, "look at this racist thing" is that, in nearly every instance of it, you, as the player, can interject in different ways. Like imagine if in FFX, you, as Tidus, could be like, "Hey, racism isn't cool, Wakka!" in your dumb Tidus voice.
I feel like you simply can't use Disco Elysium as proof positive of ANYTHING because that game was created by a team of wizards channeling the outer void
Skyrim really ISN'T a good example The Stormcloaks don't actually care that much, just about Skyrim being separate from the empire due to the White-Tower Concordat The only racism you really see is when A HOMELESSMAN MAN and AN UNEMPLOYED DRUNK shittalk a Dunmer woman The segregation the Dunmer face in Windhelm is purely due to the fact that after the Red Year, there was a MASSIVE influx of Dunmer refugees, and the Jarl of Windhelm at the time was the only person willing to take them in in ALL of Skyrim - like, yea, it is a ghetto, but they're not FORCED to live there, and the entire hold of Eastmarch is the second poorest part of Skyrim after Winterhold so they can't really... fix anything The Argonians you would think are being segregated even harder, but multiple characters (and the lore) say that if the Argonians and Dunmer were allowed to live in the city at the same time, they would fucking murder each other, because of what happened directly after the Red Year General Tullius is actually a much better example of an over racist, because he outright hates the Nords and says so multiple times And the "Um, Stormcloaks racist?" argument makes even less sense when you find out that there is an Altmeri alchemist, stall owner, and a whole-ass Altmer-only thieves guild (competitor, not the actual thieves guild) living in or near Windhelm. Why would the Stormcloaks tolerate members of the race that outlawed Talos worship, aka the whole reason they're rebelling in the first place, in THEIR capital city? And, like, the Khajiit aren't allowed to enter ANY city, not just the Stormcloak ones Know what's a better example? Morrowind The Dunmer in Morrowind are so racist, they will be racist against you even if you're a Dunmer, purely because you weren't born on Vvardenfell. They even have their own slur for outlanders. As part of the main quest, when trying to ally with the Ashlander tribes, you buy a slave. You don't free the slave. You give her to a guy to fuck I mean, one of the factions, even though it's also the most meritocratic, still keeps slaves (although they aren't picky in what race they enslave) So, why is everyone a dickhead to Dunmer in Skyrim? Because they are the second biggest assholes on Tamriel, right after the Thalmor (who literally are just Elf SS. and also extremely underbaked as a in-lore faction, at least in Skyrim)
Dark Elves aren't forced to live in the GQ no, but where else are they meant to go that they can actually afford? And the Argonians aren't even allowed to live in Windhelm, having to live in a bunkhouse in the wall that leads straight to the docks, it's a pretty shitty spot to live in.
@@SvarogAristaeusAllen Morrowind just makes way more sense as THE racism game in TES, because it's actually everywhere, and isn't a weird bandaid that's there to give you any reason not to join the rebels
@@MB-sq7yn The Argonians aren't allowed to enter Windhelm for their own protection, because Dunmer would actually, literally, for real for real, murder them and use them to make rugs. The dunmer living there aren't, like, descendants of the people fleeing Morrowind. They WERE the people fleeing Morrowind due to the Red Year AND the hordes of Argonians murdering, raping and pillaging the southern half of the country - maybe they're holding a little teeny tiny bit of a grudge And the Dunmer could actually just go to any other city and find a job there, because Skyrim portrays travel as no big deal. Or buy a house in Windhelm itself, because an unemployed drunk who spends all his time drinking and shouting at Dunmer has his own house. Or all those people who seemingly don't do anything in Whiterun and have their own house. Like, being a farmhand is enough to buy your own house. Well, not any other city, since Solitude is literally just rich people and 1 union mandated homeless man
@@Hegataro Windhelm still has law enforcement to stop the poor and impoverished Dunmer from doing crimes you know. And yeah that drunk has a house, he also likely had generational property and wealth passed onto him like most locals, cant really say the same for refugees.
I'm reminded of the "Frogurt" bit from the Policenauts LP, where Woolie and Pat discuss the same thing. It's not so much the word as the inflection when making your fantasy racism, and make sure the fantasy word is faaaaar away from any real term. Like a frozen dessert.
I always loved the comment from TeamFourStar that "anything can be a slur if you say it the right way." To this day I always love to respond to similar conversations by coopting their example of "those god dammed *nice people*!"
Woolie and Matt's playthrough of FFX and all the Wakka grand wizard talk was one of my favorite bits of all time. I legit almost peed myself. Hey Braddah. I'm just saying...
Actually really loved this clip, kinda nice when you guys have a bit of discourse that you know is really going to tilt *someone* but also it might go towards getting some other people to start thinking about what they consume or do their day-to-day.
Mentally trying to figure out, after years of "the monsters are actually people too" stories, where the extremely recent Kamen Rider Black Sun that explicitly uses the iconography AND irl references to the ACTUAL BLACK PANTHERS to critique a corrupt not-Shinzo Abe exploiting "Kaijin" while letting hate groups literally incite police to shoot them at protests...that suits pretty wild
11:22 being an argonian (the only race I’ve ever played as) you only get (obvious) but not particularly malicious remarks Mainly stuff like “what do you want, lizard?” Never “hey you fucking gecko, come here so we can make some alligator shoes!”
I don't know about shoes, but some of the bandits either threaten to make a belt out of your tail if you're an argonian or a rug out of your skin if you're khajiit.
Bioshock Infinite: They had to make the Vox into psychos, same as they had to have Killmonger kick a puppy. Because if they didn't, the bad guys would have been the good guys.
I don't agree that racism either needs to be all or none in media portrayals. Racism takes on a whole spectrum of actions ranging from subtle to overt. Sometimes good people hold racist ideologies but don't act upon them to their full extent (i.e. Grandpa locks his car when driving past black people but he doesn't go out and willy-nilly assault them). Sometimes people outwardly show kindness or neutrality toward minorities but secretly engage in heinous acts toward them.
Yeah. "We have records of one in a thousand real life Bad People kicking puppies, so every fictional depiction of said Bad People should either kick puppies or not be a depiction," is a pretty out there perspective.
So idk if I'm the only one who thought this but Pat talking about bioshock infinite made me think about Mafia 3. I remember reading game magazines about how the dev team wanted to make white people feel what it was like to be black in the 1960s. I remembered hearing about interrupting a slave auction (maybe it didn't repulse me as much as it did in my mind because its just a bunch nps who look like theyre straight out of that eric andre skit where he dressed as a slave at a civil war reenactment. Maybe its because it started at a supermarket or because I dont think ive ever been less scared of a depiction of the kkk) and that the police would hassle you on the street. Then I played it. There's that laughably bad disclaimer at the start of the game and other than hearing the nword constantly or hearing about brutal racism in cut scenes it was the most sanitized depiction of 1960s Louisiana. A lot of it does come down to very rigid ai but damn I don't remember ever really feeling genuinely uncomfortable or shocked. It was like watching a less racist Quentin Tarantino movie.
I dont think we played the same game. I remember walking into stores and they call the cops cause its segregated and I'm black. I had people call the cops on me because I was black in a rich neighbourhood. And I had a cop turn instantly hostile and shoot me in the back for "suspicious behaviour" while I was blatantly unarmed and picking up collectables. Amd yes, the slave auction is real, you do go to one where black people are literally being sold as slaves by a criminal organization.
Pat: "The "Lottery" wasn't that bad of a depiction of racism in Bioshock" The actual Lottery in Bioshock: An interracial tied up and partially stripped couple are brought on stage with depictions of monkeys with big red lips are plastered behind them and the player is given a baseball to throw at the defenseless couple for the "First" throw. Pat I..... I think that's pretty bad and blatant.
The problem with it is that by starting off with a big spectacle out in the open, that everyone is revelling in, you're setting the bar for how racism presents itself in that society. Then when the rest of the game, all the racism is mostly implied or symbolic, hidden away so that the white people don't have to see ugliness, it makes it seem like there isn't a hidden layer, because you saw how they do it, they do it in the open
This conversation reminds me of Van Zieks from Great Ace Attorney, a character who is overall a fairly decent person but unapologetically racist toward the Japanese (or Nipponese, as he is so fond of calling them.)
I definitely subscribe to the idea that no topic should be off limits, but if you put it in, then there should be a point. - FFX does this by demonstrating the bigotry early on, but giving you only a small shred of context that gets wider as you play, so that the player understands the underlying history of institutions and scapegoating that led to where we are now. X-2 is also there... but is more unfortunate. It really only deals partially how people are adjusting to casual Al Bhed, and feels a little too light with regards to the Ronso's actually attempting to wipe out the Guado entirely. - Tales of Symphonia is rather interesting in how it utilizes its -isms, by not only making it a core part of the villain's motivation and global politics, but also having the arc of one of the protagonist's be that they BECOME BIGOTED. Your mileage may vary on what you take away from it, but I definitely do think the game had something to say about the way that such a mentality affects people along the generations. - The Dragon Age games as well have seen people profiled by their race, culture, or even just being born able to cast spells. Society and Politics are so sectarian that practically no negotiations can seem to go by without massive concessions by one side out of spite for the other, and the game makes it clear that this is something that you just plain cannot fix. The best you can hope for is establishing policies that lay the foundation for a better future, but that is the genuine best you can do. Im not speaking to the overt quality of any of these examples, but I did want to highlight the fact that they took the topic and, be it subtlety or overtly, wove these tensions into the story as a major factor. Either it was a cornerstone element of why the world turned out the way it was, or it is a function of the world that is actively impeding progress, and in either case has to be confronted to proceed.
The problem isn't that both don't exist, it's that Bioshock in this example is giving us one and telling us it's the other. Edit: To be clear, I don't think the writing team had much of a choice in the matter. They probably got away with as much as the publisher would let them get away with given the scale of the game. That much money being on the line makes people skittish about not reaching the broadest audience possible, so things get sanitized down as far as they can.
@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat I know you wanna go brazy with the circlejerking, but just in case you don't get it..."Black lives matter" doesn't imply that everyone else's doesn't. If you and @Sonamyfan875 see it that way to the point of sucking wakka's theoretical shmeat over it, then that's definitely a you problem.
The thing with Bioshock Infinite is that they basically were given waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much freedom in the development time and the game is an amalgam of a bunch of half baked ideas they thought was cool but had to cut time on cause they had a dozen other cool ideas they were working on before they realized they actually had to make the game. The reality sadly is Bioshock Infinite doesn't actually care about racism or race relations like... at all. The core of the story is the dimension hopping personal relationship with Booker and Elizabeth. The racism is literally just set dressing for white girls Elizabeths story.
Yeah I mean if anything Elizabeth should have been black or mixed. It would have explained for example why he locked her away and never let anyone see her. It would have been a great source of irony about how this racist city is built not only on non-white labor but also relies on her for its future. It would have ruined all the "cute" scenes of her revelling in the world before being disillusioned which is a bonus.
I mean, all videogames have been trying to catch up to the standard of racism set by Arcanum. You can't top it, you simply can't. I'm not saying we HAVE TO gas the gnomes but...entertain the possibility for me.
To be fair to bioshock infinite it was who gets to throw the base ball. It’s who gets to throw the FIRST baseball. So the couple was going to get baseballed to death. What’s crazy is the game never gets anywhere close to this level of racism again.
I think it'd be cool to see a setting where it appears, from a surface level perspective, to be sanitized and quaint and have the player discover the very opposite after digging even a little bit.
Racism in media I feel is less about presentation and more about confrontation/reaction, in a sense that it doesn't matter what is shown it matters how it's addressed. Unfortunately when racism is addressed in media it rarely portrays the greater issues involved with the effects of bigotry like unbalanced power dynamics, systemic problems, or the internalization of personal biases rarely being discussed. Usually it only really confronts whatever racist ideology it presents as being "mean" and something we shouldn't do from a moral perspective rather then addressing either it's long term effects. Taking the examples from the videos of skyrim, bioshock infinite, disco, and FF10 we get a scope of problem when media decides to take on racism as a subject. For skyrim it falls into the same problem as most fantasy series where the racism is more a seasoning that just goes with it. You can't really address or challenge it, at best you can somewhat side with the oppressed but even your best efforts might get you labled as "one of the good ones" if you so happen to be playing a non-nord. For bioshock infinite, they don't really do anything, it's nothing more centrist masturbation that says "Yes racism is probably bad but if you want to fix it do so in a honorable way. Also no I'm not going to tell you what to do, how to do it, or even help you unless it benefits me somehow. Be a martyr to inspire a white woman or something, idk... Here's the most overused quote from Martin Luther King that "certain people" have been using as a "get out of racism" free card for the last 50 some-odd years." Disco is probably the best as it allows for direct confrontation but it's more about cathartic punishment then actually addressing the issues as a whole. When measure head wakes up after being kicked in the head he'll still be a racist, when the lucky racist gets robbed he'll still be a racist, when the "welcome to revashol" guy gets threatened he'll still be a racist. It's still the "don't be racist it's mean" angle but it at least allows for a deeper dive into the affects. FF10 isn't much different. It sort of has all three of the previous games issues wrapped up into one. Wakka's racism is rarely addressed by anyone except rikku and everyone else just seems to accept it as his personality. The equvilent to the racist relative you have over the holiday. He eventually gets some karmic justice when its shown his religion is a lie and the entire ideology his racism is based on was wrong but the game never addresses that, he just sort of stops being overt. I don't really have a conclusion per-say, the reoccurring issue with addressing these hard topics is not a problem exclusive to gaming and seeing certain creators pat themselves on the back for "talking about racism" gets old real fast. Most I can say is any topic brought up with sufficient enough weight should be met with sufficient enough effort.
I agree and I think why this deeper dive is largely avoided is because it takes a lot of research and introspection that most people aren’t willing to do. Maybe it’s because a lot of people are ignorant to just how ingrained it is in society or maybe it’s because it makes people uncomfortable? Which is kind of ironic because if it makes the creator uncomfortable to first delve into than it can certainly pull that reaction from the audience and really make them think more than, “Wow, racism bad.”
Oooooo boy, we're getting one of _those_ clips again. Lemme get my Super Bunnysocks out. EDIT: Huh.Surprisingly, my Super Bunnysocks came out for naught. How sad. But yeah, I also don't think there's one solution that fits all cases here, anymore than there's any one solution to any subject in media. Kind of weird to ask if there is one, come to think of it.
@@ArcCaravan like H.P. Lovecraft. Yeah he probably didn't FULLY grow out of his awful racism, but he got better towards the end of his life and considering letters written by him, he felt big cringe reading some of his older stories I know he's not a character, but still, even more reason that people should actually try and be more nuanced in regards to him (I know it's ironic cause he didn't have the most nuanced views himself)
Hmm I think my brain went harder than the game maybe. I thought the beginning of Bioshock was a stoning with baseballs and the raffle for the first ball in killing them, but I guess that isn't explicitly said.
i recommend you listening to Kojima's podcast. There's a episode where he talks about rumors and when eventually the talks about rumors around him came through he says that a silent hill game made by him will never happen
Be aware the lottery prize in Bioshock Infinite the prize was FIRST THROW. So yeah they were implying the community was going to stone that interracial couple. That’s the only acknowledgment I’m giving to Irrational actually grappling with the subject matter before wussing out to say a populist uprising would be equally as bad as systemic chattel slavery.
1:30 Well here is the thing. When you make a character that supposed to be racist and it is acknowleged as a bad trait you also need to remember that they are also a human (or a scentient creature since games can be in fantasy or sci-fi realms). If you forget this and make them comicly evil/bad than people will just roll their eyes on it and say "well here is the message" especialy in 2022. You need to come up for a reason as well why they hold this belife and see their perspective. After all for someone to have this world view SOMETHING had to happen.
i mentioned this in another comment. j Just saying "this bad" and pointing fingers does nothing but reinforce whatever you believe in. The Racist will shut down and rant about the woke crowd on twitter and the Anti racist will applaud and scream "racism is no more". The discussion must happen outside the media
@@ricardomiles2957 And the people in the midle just get a lesser experience with this. As in a badly written part of the game (hopefully it's not the back bone of the whole narrative If it is badly done.)
Hopefully if a plot does try to show the perspective of a racist or remind us they're also human (or human adjacent in fictional settings) it doesn't accidentally justify it somehow.
@@ArcCaravan To be fair with American writers that's usualy the bigest issue. There are many times where they undermine theire message acidentaly. Miles Morales Thor for example.
@@tailedgates9 Basically how I remember it too. It's been a long time...was he ever confronted about his racism? I know that when Rikku comes along he eventually starts to slowly change his views but was he ever called out over it? Because my memory of it is very similar to yours. I just viewed him as whacky Wakka being a dumb bro. Or if he's not called out on it...does he ever reflect on it? Or have any deep regrets about how he acted? I'm tempted to replay just to really get a gauge on it.
In Bioshock the point of the lottery was that the winner got the FIRST throw, not the only throw. It was a public stoning with baseballs instead of rocks because they're iconic to America. Last I checked stoning is still pretty fucking horrific.
Remember savaati? From the Skyrim mission diplomatic immunity? Has a great job cooking for the extremely wealthy. Is high on moon sugar. I seem to remember quite a few khajiit traders being fuzzy on the concept of ownership. Nobody in Skyrim seemed to have a problem with argonians.
Racism can and should be subtle in media because otherwise you're exclusively training people to identify racism with overt acts of discrimination, rather than more subtle, normalized forms of it. Measure Head is on the extreme end for Disco Elysium, but something great that game's depiction of racism does is make the emergence of racial conflict in dialogue totally natural and (sometimes) difficult to see or predict. Since the game as a whole trains you to be weary with characters' motivations, the game also trusts the players to question these characters and tackle their underlying thoughts. It's effective as shit.
But on the other end DE also has Gary the Cryptofascist, who worms and squeems around the topic. If you don't do Everarts quest and go into Gary's place, he's hard to pin down as "The lucky Racist".
The problem there is, it ends up going over people's heads and then people take offense when you point out how the characters they liked are racist. Hell, Ashley in Mass Effect and Ingrid from Fire Emblem weren't even subtle, but fans will fight like hell to justify their prejudice as reasonable.
@@jupiterofthemonkeyii5569 Mass Effect's universe actually does operate on racist logic, though. Every sapient alien species has one personality, one unified government, one central culture. Every alien civilization is a monolith, and every individual alien is defined by their relationship to their respective monolith. And every alien relates to every other alien as a monolith, including humans. Which is a behaviour that forms the foundation of racist thought. Whites are a monolith, Blacks are a monolith, Asians are a monolith, Jews are a monolith. And all of history can be neatly described as a contest between all of these races, like a fucking 4X game. In reality that's nonsense, and anyone who thinks otherwise is misinformed *at best.* But in Mass Effect, it's not nonsense. It's literally how the world works. And so when characters like Ashley start being bigots, of course shitheads defend them. Because THEY'RE NOT WRONG. AND THAT'S AWFUL.
I mean, it's still pretty damn easy to bludgeon someone to death with baseballs, and I think what they were going for is people being killed by like one of the most American objects ever. At least I THINK that's what they were going for.
Pat should replay the skyrim civil war as a stormcloak dark elf bc that doesn't happen lmao. There are racist townspeople in windhelm but the leadership never has prejudice. General tullius straight-up hates nords for real though and has tons of lines abt it
@@gwotkid But i didn't delete it, its very clearly still there. Also what? dark elves are real history now? and what am i rewriting exactly. I said Nords are racist?
It's fucking wild how much racism there is in Elder Scrolls. I mean a big part of Dagoth Ur getting so much support in Morrowind is him wanting to remove the empire and Outlanders. Then there's just everything in Windhelm in Skyrim, with the Argonians stuck on the docks and the Dunmer in a ghetto. Or the book called "Scourge of the Grey Quarter" which is just the author saying the Dunmer in Windhelm are lazy freeloaders who want a small pocket of Morrowind in an ancient Nord city, while the ones in Riften got jobs.
The surprising thing to me is that Skyrim is considered "heavy" in terms of how it delivers its racism. I've done playthroughs as Imperial, Breton, Dark Elf and Argonian, and the Stormcloaks have basically no difference in how they treat you based on race. The initial lines when meeting people will be a lot less welcoming, but because Bethesda didn't make racist alternate lines for literally everything like they would have needed to, that kind of reception dissipates almost entirely after the first meeting. Outside of the "designated racists" in Windhelm that are there to introduce you to Stormcloak racism, who are presented as blatantly horrible people regardless of player race, the game effectively paints the Stormcloaks by and large as open-minded and not traditionally racist in terms of spite or hate crimes, just xenophobic and wanting other races to keep to themselves. Which *is* a type of racism, but kinda feels like exactly the kind of "pulled punches" Pat was complaining about in Bioshock Infinite where the racism in Skyrim is portrayed as problematic, but "not that bad" compared to real historical standards. In contrast Skyrim portrays the Aldmeri Dominion and basically High Elven race as a whole as _incredibly_ racist, actively committing atrocities against the "lesser races" of literally everyone else and claiming dominion over the entire world as the "purest and most holy race, direct descendants of the gods themselves." The Empire utterly failed to defeat them, and in-game supporting Imperial rule over Skyrim instead of the Stormcloak rebellion means fighting for the High Elves to enslave all of Skyrim and slaughter anyone who holds Skyrim's historical cultural and ethnic practices, which... generally leads me to playing Stormcloak every time, because at least the Stormcloaks just have a NIMBY attitude to other races, rather than intent to enslave and wipe the cultural identity of everyone on the planet.
Yeah, the high elves whole schtick is being pissed off that they are part of any race whatsoever. Elder Scrolls to me was interesting because AllInAll’s Evangelidium series kind of shows just what lengths Aldmer are willing to go to in terms of their own sheer hatred of race. You also get to hear Michael Kirkbride sing Fly Me To The Moon.
No, supporting the empire means helping mankind to remain united, bide their time and recover their strengh for the inevitable second war against the Thalmor. The Empire hates the Thalmor. They are going to rebel and fight them back as soon as they are able to, and the Thalmor are fully aware of this. Helping the Stormcloak means dividing and weakening mankind, which is *exactly* what the Thalmor wants. Ulfric and the stomrcloaks are useful idiots for the Thalmor, this is something that is *explicitly* stated in the "Thalmor Dossier: Ulfric Stormcloak" document that can be found in-game lmao. Reposting because youtube auto-deleted my comment.
@@eusouocarameuirmao No, the Thalmor wanted the civil war to continue endlessly to weaken both sides. Either helping the Stormcloaks or the Empire to win the war screws with the Thalmor's plans either way, since the Empire will be stronger if they take Skyrim back and Skyrim as an independent state will be a major problem in the inevitable second war if they bolster their military enough to declare war on the Thalmor as well, similar to Germany's blunder going to war on the Eastern Front in the second world war
@@MattManDX1 My point is: If Ulfric and the Stormcloacks weren't such impatient morons there would be no civil war in the first place. Anyways, a reunited Empire probably has the better chance of winning the final battle against the Thalmor. "Divide and Conquer" is a famous strategy for a reason.
@@eusouocarameuirmao The Empire proved itself as utterly incapable of fending off the Dominion by losing the war in the first place and signing the White Gold Concordat to cut their losses. The fact that the might of the entire Legion at this point was unable to resist the strength of a force less than a fraction of its own size, being that AD's forces primarily consist of citizens of a _single_ province, while several other provinces were able to remain almost entirely unscathed by the Dominion's attempts at invasion due to not being overextended and dying like the Roman Empire, puts the Empire in a very, very bad position to have any faith they could fight back. Should Skyrim break free of the Empire, it would be joining several other provinces in fully resisting the Dominion's influence, and an alliance between those provinces _alone_ would likely be enough to push the Dominion out of the rest of Tamriel and back to Auridon. At this point, while the Empire may have technically been able to win the war if it had fought to the bitter end, the fact that it signed the Concordat has almost completely sealed its fate. Very few nations in history have managed to almost immediately remobilize and win a war against a foe that they willingly subjugated themselves to just to survive, and the Empire itself has lost massive amounts of fervour and support by allowing the Thalmor to wreak havok on its citizens and kill anyone who practices their religion. The Dominion is positioning itself as modern-day Ayleids to the rest of Tamriel, and the Empire has explicitly supported this in order to hold on to the last shreds of its power and legitimacy. Regardless of how practical of a choice signing the Concordat was for its citizens well being, the effect is that Imperial citizens everywhere have lost faith in the empire, in both its strength and its value for its citizens rights. As a result, I don't believe the Dominion has a chance of being defeated under the banner of the Empire. I think the only way they can be pushed out is by an alliance of independent provinces who aren't under the Dominion's thumb, because the Empire is in a place where it holds neither the position nor the fervour to actually fight back against the Dominion and win. A revolution _is_ feasible if the Dominion stretches _themselves_ too thin, and should the other provinces unite to push them out instead there would likely be a lot of political turmoil in deciding who should sit on the throne once the Imperial seat is reclaimed, but an alliance of united, independent provinces holds the best chance of taking back the Empire, especially with the last Dragonborn on the provinces' side, evoking the idea of Septim-era legitimacy and stability to the cause while being a monstrous force on the battlefield against AD.
Elves are slave owners in Skyrim. That's the whole point of the war. Elves said Nords couldn't have their religion, because the Elves want humans to recognize they are inferior. Why is Pat covering for slave owners?
Were the Dunmer refugees members of one of the Houses? The sort of people who likely owned slaves? Or were they just people who would like to not die from a volcanic eruption? And it wasn’t the Dunmer who had a problem with Talos, that was the Altmer. Specifically the Aldmeri Dominion. Two entirely different groups on literally opposite corners of the map.
Y'know what I hate in videogames? (and actually all fiction) Is "Grr! I hate because they are bad! They should go back to !" Sure, you definitely get real actual people who are that ham-fisted, but GENERALLY speaking most racist people will have a thousand different statements that in isolation can sound reasonable, but when put together the meaning becomes clear. Then when you come at them with "Are you a racist?" the answer is always "Of course not! I've got no problem with.." and they think that because they're not the kind to flatly say "I hate " it means they don't fit the definition of a racist. If you reduce racism and racist people down to the cartoon racist, it gives REAL people the impression that all they have to do is avoid being that. What should videogames do? They need to make it clear that the subtle jabs and the loud bold racist statements are _equivalent._ Just because you're not genocidal doesn't mean you're off the hook.
If you'd payed closer attention to how people are treated in Skyrim, the "for the nords" meme is actually not a good indicator, and the empire is by far the more racist faction. Pat you need to stop speaking from a place of authority on parts of games you vaguely remember and mostly know through osmosis
I think the best way a game can tackle racism as a concept would be to actively restrict the player from doing certain things based on their race. Like if in an RPG certain towns would not service you based on your race and no matter what level or gear you obtain, you won't be able to get around it without maybe a lot of money.
10:40 I hated that. It actually has an effect on gameplay. Besides, it’s a lot more complicated than just “black people have it harder” because society is complicated.
I actually love racism in Elder Scroll. I wish it was worse to be honest, to make the playable races more unique and fun to play. Arcanum is a rpg that I think did racism the best, as you can actually get locked out of some stuff, and dialogue gets harder or easier depending on your race.
They tried in Deus Ex Mankind Divided, with the "mechanical apartheid" and "clank" slur. And to the point people have augs and don't want anyone to know.
The weird bit about the stormcloaks is that I recall a random encounter with some who was explicitly imperial going to join them because he was mad about the whole banning of Talos worship and "I lived in Skyrim all my life, it's as much my home as any Nords"
“Wakka, why does your job class say grand wizard?”
“I like role playing Dungeons & Dragons.”
"Hey brudda, all lives matter. That's all I wanted to say."
"Front Towards Enemy"
THE RACE WAR STARTS NOW!!!
I thought Lulu was supposed to be the Wizard, hmmm.
The way Morgott in Elden Ring refers to the player as "Tarnished", and specifically the way he uses the inflection of the word, is more effective at imparting in-universe hatred towards a specific group than anything David Cage has ever written.
Unfortunately, it takes quite a bit of lore sifting and vati videos to understand WHY everyone can tell you are tarnished. It is the eyes. They are saying you don't have their golden eyes. Admittedly, this could be viewed as a late in life deformity, since the eyes show your connection to the tree and its order. So you went color blind and everyone hates you because you can't see yellow any more.
Now the misbegotten. Those guys are full on racism/deformity from birth. And the society does enslave the misbegotten. So when we get there, them killing and breaking everything? That is a slave rebellion. And it isn't like they are enslaved and mistreated because they are inherently a problem. All the Crucible stuff was from the era when everyone thought having babies with dragon parts was sick. You even see them peacefully praying to later saints.
David Cage be like "remember, show don't tell" and then put the androids in the back of the bus, in the android section, and held the camera on them for long enough that the androids themselves started getting uncomfortable.
My brains been conditioned over the past 10 years to associate racism with contagious woolie laughter
“Black face is AWESOME!!!!”
-woolie madden
@@Mr.Faust3 Pat meekly flailing his arms and going "nooo, stop" as Woolie cheers triumphantly for their Prime Minister's costuming enthusiasm
Fuck....me too
Except for very specific racism where all the Woolie laughter stops
THE RACE WAR STARTS NOW!!
"I never experienced that, therefore it can't be real" is heroic levels of ignorance.
So like Pat and Woolie when it comes to the effectiveness of React Streaming?
@@1wayroad935 I think seeing generally low effort succeed is just too painful for em
Korey Coleman manages to reach it in Every double toasted review he's ever done
That's been Pat's moto for a while now. Lol
@@1wayroad935 As a gamer, I think I know a thing or two about oppression! /s
I find it hard to believe that not a single person in L.A. Noire dropped a hard R, ESPECIALLY Roy Earle
If the writers were just a bit more courageous, Earle would’ve dropped hard R’s because he’s that much of a shithead
They do use the Soft R. But yeah I get what u mean
@@SwagBroPlays Wait is "Spanish for Black" Soft R?
If we are talking about poorly executed anti racist themes in games in CoD WWII there's a scene where a black soldier joins your squad causing one of your guys to ask "What's one of THEM doing with us?" this is then immediately forgotten for the rest of the mission and at the end of the battle he says "nvm I'm not racist anymore lol" and this is never acknowledged again.
This is a Michael bay movie waiting to happen
@@Mr.Faust3 This is the only CoD to depict the Holocaust too, so take that as you will.
@@kapkant6197 all you need is the overly sexualized love interest that may be under aged
Sounds like the writers forgot
@@Mr.Faust3 I guess the age of consent was different in a few states back in the 40’s 🤷♀️
After Woolie says “THE RACE WAR STARTS NOW!” Look at Wakka’s health the next time they get into combat
I'm too scared to. XD
@@tailedgates9 it's worth it if you know the meaning.
@@diegomedina9637 Is it the funny number?
@@Jay-ln1co Funny Race number.
"Welcome to Revachol" gets a lot of totally deserved credit, but, "So...what kinda music do you listen to nowadays?" is an A+ demonstration that _it's not just the bad guys._ Your Harry can be 168% the most 'supportive white friend, thanks video games' dude, but if you catch him in a bad enough brainfart, he still might say something cringe.
It's so good at sidestepping 'I can't be racist, racists all look like monsters' and might catch the audience going, 'Oh...lol shit I did that once'
Absolutely this. There's very few games out there that actually capture what societal racism looks like anywhere as well as those scenes
Disco Elysium basically says that all racism is internalized. It’s probably even inside all of us. But when left unchecked, you basically end up like Ruud Kroeneker.
“DANCE YOU YELLOW MONKEY FUCKER!!”
-Harry
Racism requires hate, not acknowledging differences.
@@Null_Experis Not necessarily. Assuming that somebody's good at math just because of their race sounds like a compliment, for example, but it assumes that they have less individuality than a 'regular' person and can be typecast. Fetishizing somebody because of their race sounds like a compliment, but often comes from a history of human trafficking.
Only acknowledging frothing, obvious hatred leaves us with a huge blind spot, when it comes with being respectful and considerate to others. It's like saying that stepping on someone's toes can't be hurtful because it's not done with hatred.
The only issue with 'don't write X if you suck at writing X' is that nobody who is bad realizes they suck, and the people who are good oft times think they suck. So the people who could actually write nuanced takes on X end up not writing them, meanwhile Ken Lavine just goes and does whatever he wants because he doesn't give a shit.
Yeah, Hacks are they way they are *because* in their brains, there's no way they're a Hack, their writing is gonna change the world, man.
I think that's just the risk of trying anything nuanced. You're trying to make a statement about a subject that humans have been discussing and studying since we comprehended social sciences. There is no way you're going to have the perfect method to break your idea down and you're going to miss or gloss over important points. You also have biases that will blind you and the overall story that you have to make compelling is going to take your focus.
Sadly, even after that you have to deal with the fact that your audience carries the responsibility of being able to understand what you were trying to say. Lots of people ignore or misinterpret what they watch or play. What if they just don't agree with your point? Are they wrong or you wrong? Now this is just another debate.
I’m an amateur writer who has yet to manage to publish a book (bucket list goal is to get one out even if it doesn’t do well) I’ve realized my strengths and weaknesses and I’m not sure depicting racism is a strength of mine and honestly I’m scared to try. That’s an all or nothing thing and if you aren’t good at it, then it drags the whole story down
Write whatever you want and do your due diligence on researching things outside your experience. Writing is hard work a lot of the time.
Would that be an example of "He knows not he knows not"?
Albehd home blows up
Wakka:" Ah, fireworks. Aren't they beautiful"
I still can't handle that scene. XD
I mean, he was TRYING to comfort Riku, he was just really REALLY bad at it.
@@Canadish That's true, he tried. Lol
"HAPPY FESTIVAL FIREWORKS, YA?"
@@Canadish doesn't he also get shot down super hard right away like "dude, listen to what you just said" and he's like "oh. oooooooooh."
I will correct Pat on something here about the Bioshock Infinite lottery scene as someone who played that game fairly recently. The lottery winner gets to throw the FIRST baseball. The intent is still for the crowd as a whole to baseball them to death. And then right after that scene ends, the game backs down SO FUCKING HARD on racism in the narrative and it's never even REMOTELY bad again until the Vox Populi just start murdering every white person they can find. That game's writing is a fucking mess.
the issue is nobody wants to play a game filled with realistic hate crimes and the ones that do probably shouldn't.
@@TheBAGman17 Yeah, I agree. The thing is just... when the inciting incident of your game's plot is the player stopping a hatecrime involving a crowd of 40 people and then the entire rest of the game NEVER acknowledges racism outside of the most simple and sanitized ways possible, it feels weird. That scene shouldn't have been there if they weren't prepared to lean in at least a little harder.
@@TheBAGman17 Oh yeah, then why is Arcanum so good?
@@SeruraRenge11 To be fair not a lot of people know about Arcanum
@@SeruraRenge11 probably because its fictional racism which doesn't disturb people nearly as much.
No matter how subtle or overt you are about it the people who need to understand the message the most are the ones most likely to blow it off or not apply it to real life
yes a klansmen isn't going to change his ways because of a video game, true. it's not about reaching them it's about affecting the ancillary people surrounding such people. they can have an influence.
I feel like it’s more about teaching those in the middle, like the kid of a klansman or someone who generally agrees racism is bad but might tolerate it if they see it in real life. I agree that those who are in deep are very unlikely to change their minds especially the older they get but while it’s a slow approach teaching the next generation about the mistakes of the past and present is effective.
You'd be suprised how being exposed to horrible things that others have to deal with changes even bad people. There are tons of diaries during the civil war or once hardened pro slavery soldiers who had a change of heart once they actually saw what slaves were going though.
Blow it off? They embrace it as based and add these new ideas to their own racism.
You're onto the fact that the people consuming the product are part of the issue. You could craft a narrative with either subtle or overt messaging, but people can still just look at the surface and completely miss the point by ignorance or choice.
Remember kids to find someone who loves you as much as Wooile love's racism
Now, that's just impossible.
Unless I get isekai’d into a harem story as the protag, that just ain’t happening
Wooile and (Postman) Tap are my favorite robmance
@@yukaiyami "That time i got reincarnated as an Albhed"
“Better dead than Albed”- Wakka
Are you kidding me wakka is literally on the cusp of screaming "filthy al bhed!" to damn near having a mental break down after finding about yuna and its the funniest shit in the whole game xD
Also id say the only "both sidesing" is from wakka/yevons dogma of "its the al bheds fault".
I guess Wakka can be called subtle compared to Disco Elysium and how the latter are realistic racism while the former is about fantasy elements.
I think the dude was talking about the game as a whole and he's correct.
@@joedatius If you are referring to nobody else in Wakka's world having problem his racism against the Al Bhed, I don't recall anyone calling him out for it. Probably has to do with the setting.
@@kyero8724 The Al Bhed weren't Scientologists, just scientists. And if I remember right the Al Bhed used machina because they were incapable of using magic, a common trait of fictional races. It's not a massive stretch to link discrimination based on religion to racism.
I got the impression with the Bioshock Infinite lottery scene that winning it only means throwing the first. That you’ll be starting the stoning/lynching. Not throwing the ball won’t prevent it from happening, but it will almost definitely make you a target too.
Of course, it’s still cowardly and depends entirely on the implications of what would happen next, because what actually happens is completely unrelated to your choice.
So it’s extremely easy to interpret the situation more charitably. Because the people deciding what would be in the game were cowards.
And of course none of this takes away from the fact that this scene is as bad as it’s willing to get and there’s really not many other depictions of racism in the game, so it’s pretty much the whole basis by which Booker would decide to help the Vox Populi. Which the Booker you play as doesn’t actually do. He has to be coerced. And then instead of actually helping he just runs away to an alternate universe where he already helped, because the writers found a whole new way to coward out.
The universe hopping really kills any coherence that story had. (Also I love your avatar! The Missing is so good!)
"BioShock Infinite got into quantum mechanics so it didn't have to talk about racism" is the most spicy and correct take I have read all day, well played.
To be fair I wouldn't want to help the Vox Populi either, they're terrible people.
@@NocturneJester Oh, absolutely. The game's story and mechanics are super unfocused and all-over-the-place, which is a hallmark of a long, rough, awkward development.
You know if the game were better I’d almost give them credit for the meta-narrative of shiftless cowards writing Booker DeWitt as a shiftless coward.
At this point there needs to be a Woolie laughs at racism compilation
Allow me to direct your attention towards his 2nd channel ruclips.net/video/GF6j_gBVQrU/видео.html
REV UP THAT WOOLIE VS THE ALGORITHM CHANNEL
@@tomisabum Like 30 minutes long, playing happy kirby BGM all through it while featuring clips such as ONLY WHITE CAN UNLOCK EASY MODE FOR BLACK, RifeRine, and Wakka's Final Solution
The meme of “look at the cool robot fights” is too accurate for how some people engage with books, movies, games, etc. Guarantee you that someone could stare you dead in the eyes and tell you “disco Elysium isn’t political” while totally believing it.
Looking at you David Cage
@@johnrivers3813 "I makea de bots go to da back"
Disco Elysium isn't really political though. Politics in the story of DE is mostly used as a lens to focus on how Harry copes with both the world, and his refusal to get over his ex dumping him, and all of the political stances you can take reflect that. No matter whether you choose to be a commie, a fash, a ultra or a centrist, his take on all of them is extremely surface level at best and grossly misunderstanding it 90% of the time. They are all just another method he uses to cope with his ex dumping him. Focusing on the politics in DE is like saying that DE is really about solving the murder. They're both just set dressing to further study and dissect Harry's character.
@@marcoruby7699 that’s politics. Most people do not understand what the “beliefs” they hold really entail especially if you zoom out from a personal perspective. Surface level ideas are what many people view the entire political stance from, it has nothing to do with ramifications of a country/city/etc adopting those ideals.
Wasn’t arguing that politics are the focus but it is a part of the game. There’s many aspects to media and few are ever as simple as “___ is such and such”. Tackling ideologies, racism, sexism, war, civil unrest, etc are political topics. They do not necessarily have anything to do with the real world counterparts but are still political conversations that could be held.
Anyways the whole initial comment is just pointing out that some Gundam fans “miss” or “ignore” the obvious politics in the show. Not to argue the framing of different parts of Disco Elysium
@@marcoruby7699 Harrys entire state of being is a reflection of the world around him. The game is both about this fucked up little guy and the fucked up world he's living in, there is no seperating the two.
In ES: Morrowind, fictional racial slurs are thrown at your character, for being an outsider, even if you pick the dark elf. However, your character is the reincarnation of a famous person the main bad guy likes and if you pick the dark elf you get invites from sleeper agents saying the main bad guy wants to chat about you joining. If you don't pick a dark elf, they will tell you to leave now!
Well you get called an outsider even as a dunmer because you weren't born in Morrowind, ergo you're trash they can call slurs.
Playing a naked argonian with a spear, levitating to telvanni wizards and poking them to death was the most cathartic racism revenge porn I've ever had in a video game.
You N'Wah!
Dunmer had it coming honestly
I'd love just a full hour of Pat shitting on Bioshock Infinite
Or Woolie. Woolie would *love* it
I'd love an hour of Pat shitting on Elder Scrolls.
(either Skyrim or Online, I don't doubt theres shit to shit on the rest but I haven't played them)
@@SonnyFRST Elder Scrolls games are fun to meme about, I don't think it's worth giving them a proper analysis. Wether it's "how many ports will Skyrim have?", "Hey you, you're finally awake", hillarious abusing of mechanics and AI, buggy terrain and well, bugs in general. The moment you try to look at them legitimately, it gets boring.
It's difficult being a fan of Bioshock Infinite and Elder Scrolls.
@@Bone8380 I'll admit that I've never played an Elder Scrolls game myself, only looked at footage and people talk about it, so my view is biased of course, but I don't hear good things either. So this is something where your experience might have more ground than mine.
Didnt expect Woolie to mention Sine Mora lol!
Rascism in FF10 is more a character motif. Thats a huge difference to DE. Wakka is a Yevonite and hates the Al-Bhed for their use of machina, and because of his brothers death. Thats why he turns around so quickly. He isnt running around saying how round eyes are better then spiral eyes.
Hey comment gang, who wants to see me talk about racism in RWBY of all things?
For no particular reason, I had cast myself into a RWBY deep dive, and unconsciously found myself slightly intrigued by how different writers in different pieces of RWBY media handle racism, considering that discrimination against Faunus is (and CONTINUES to be) a pivotal world plot point. Fans have correctly pointed out that the ONE time it is brought to the forefront with a major character is in Vol.1, where Weiss being openly racist against Faunus is what causes tension between her and Blake to reach a boiling point, but is for some reason completely forgotten by the end of the episode as Weiss was apparently cured of her racism off-screen in less than 12 hours. There are lots of pieces in the RWBY lore that specifically point out the Schnee Dust Company's contribution towards Faunus exploitation, but since Weiss is a central character, it feels like the writers needed to VERY QUICKLY sanitize her of such an awful character trait.
It gets even weirder in _(I can't believe I read through all of this)_ the RWBY x Justice League crossover comic, where Justice League superheroes are reimagined as Hunters/Huntresses in the world of Remnant. In Weiss's chapter, she's attending a hoity-toity bourgeoisie party held by the Company when she meets a teenage Bruce Wayne (Weiss in this comic is for some reason easily lovestruck and kinda boy-crazy???). It is revealed later that Bruce is a bat-eared Faunus (get it? Because he's a literal Bat Man?), and for some reason in this ENTIRE party of upper crust 1-percenters, only _one_ particularly angry guy is upset that there's a Faunus in the mansion. Not only does Weiss jump to Bruce's defense, but also her father Jacques Schnee, who himself is ACTIVELY COMPLICIT in Faunus exploitation and discrimination, is shown to be sympathetic towards Bruce and judgemental of the angry racist man.
And just when I was about to write off RWBY racism as neutered and sanitized, then comes RWBY: Ice Queendom, which does a complete 180 by being ENTIRELY ABOUT WEISS BEING RACIST. Ice Queendom is a sort of in-betweequel set in the interim between Vol. 1 and 2, _sort of_ addressing that part in Vol.1 where Weiss gets cured of her racism off screen. The majority of the show takes place inside a nightmare dreamscape in Weiss's mind, where she has fashioned herself as a totalitarian dictator that has exiled all Faunus from her perfect utopia (Faunus in Weiss's dreamscape are also depicted as being indistinguishable from Grimm monsters, which... YIKES). In fact, Ice Queendom is probably my new favorite piece of RWBY fiction specifically because they didn't shy away from the fact that these characters have some serious _serious_ critical flaws, and the premise of the show allows them to really deep dive into them.
The mention of David Cage’s handling of sensitive topics made me think of my FAVORITE part of the old SBFP LP of Detroit: Become Human: Markus’ first chapter, when he and the androids have to get in the back of the empty bus. Woolie loses his shit, and Pat shouting “GeT iN dA bAcK Of Da BuS” still makes me crack up.
Matt's "It's like the fucking rack where you put your bike!" line lives rent free in my head
I always feel a bit weird that I wish Skyrim had way WAY more racism in it. My first playthrough was as a Khajit because I heard the holds didn't like them going into the main cities, so I figured I would have to either do a quest, or talk my way in, or sneak in to do business. And at the first hold I was delighted that my news about a dragon attack was an excuse for them to just let me in the city. I was so dissapointed when it never became an issue from that point on aside from some taunts from bandits.
I don't think khajits are allowed in any city in Skyrim. But it never affects the main character or their companions if they are one. I think the only khajit inside a city is j'zarrgo and I think the only reason he was let in was because he was a mage. Well he technically hangs out in the college and not the town so he might not count.
Dragonborn>Racism those are the rules.
That's why the Stormcloaks let in my half-elf.
That's been s
Skyrim's issue. Your race or alignment or level don't seem to influence the npcs around you.
Pretty sure singular khajiits are allowed, just not the whole caravan. Could be racism or the city shopkeepers not wanting additional competition leading potential customers away. Or both.
Well at the end of the day Wakka learns and becomes a better person and stops blaming others for his anger over his brother's death.
only problem is instead of Wakka apologizing to the 15-year-old girl he almost made cry, he apologizes to... her father. for some reason. her father probably didn't even realize he was prejudiced against the Al Bhed.
@@BloomPlays He was trying to apologize to the leader of all Al Bhed, in a room full of them, that he was stupid and not thinking. Because it was less about that one insensitive comment, and more that he spent several years blaming the group for everything wrong in his life.
If I remember correctly FE path of radiance has the main characters learning that the term they use for beast people is a normalised slur at a quarter of the game
That’s potentially veeeery interesting… depending on what the rest of the game is like.
@@The5lacker well, Ike does fight against the evil empire and slavery, but along the way he has to ally himself to people who are not very into one or the other
His boyfriend does a wakka and becomes less racist at the end
The Radiance duology is stupid for racism. One chapter a slave-trading rich guy is trying to buy a kidnapped bird-man against his will because he "admires beauty", then (if the situation is right) you later have the option to _recruit_ that very same slave-trading bird-man buying guy (his dialogue actually shows him forcing his way onto the team to protect the pretty bird people)... and the Main Protagonist can see this and quickly asks him to fuck off and go back to the enemy side. (This request is ignored).
@@The5lacker it's very ugly by today's standards, but still competes with three houses in my heart
@@conspiracypanda1200 yeah that bit was weird haha
Pat's really overstating the racist consequences in Skyrim. One or two bits of different dialogue from NPCs that don't matter is not some mind-blowing consideration. It's not like Ulfric will refuse to do business with you if your a lizard or a cat, you don't get refused service from businesses or harassed by guards, and you don't even have to fight super racist NPCs as far as I'm aware of. He's talking like it's the racism in Arcanum or something.
I'm not saying we HAVE TO gas the Gnomes...I'm just saying maybe take the option into consideration considering we learn it's all true.
@@SeruraRenge11 Being anti-gnome is not only acceptable, it's morally correct. Remove gnome ASAP
@@Katagara84 All evils in the world are committed or endorsed by Gnomes.
"Pat's really overstating..." you don't say?
You don't even need to build larger ovens.
"Kipt" has gotta be one of the all time greatest fantastical slurs ever
Lots of hard hitting consonants, very crunchy term
Also helps that the main character you hear it from can really throw it out with some serious venom
It does sound like an old word for the Japanese.
Any fictional slur can benefit from sounding vaguely Afrikaans
Absolutely not. The best one is "Mayfly" from Warhammer. Its an Elven slur for humans, because Mayflies only last a day, and Elves don't age.
That, or 40K's Aeldari slur for humans, "Mon'Keigh". Literally all Friezas.
I got more hardcore depictions of racism in an African-American History class in community college than in all of BioShock Infinite. Shit was weak.
This video is a very well-put way of describing a good axiom: If you're going to tackle a heavy topic (Bigotry, war, trauma, etc) you need to either go all-in or don't bother. Do not disrespect the people affected by this thing by trivializing it in your story.
I think this is similar to something Stanley Kubrick once said or something he alluded to.
He was trying to make a film.about the Holocaust and i think he was doing so much research and everything that he became a full on depressive wreck for a while, because Stanley Kubrick always went super hard with his research
And in the end he didn't make the film for two reasons, one was cause Schindler's list came out and he thought it was great
And the other reason was cause he thought the only way to actually do the Holocaust justice was to make a completely unwatchable film, it would need to be so disgusting and depressing and just nightmarish that no one would ever actually want to watch it
Felt the same way when I played mafia 3. In cutscenes they play it up but outside of that it's just gonna be the racism on the radio and enemies sometimes calling you the nword (not that often which is kinda wild since you're a black man running around shooting a them with a gun)
I think that's the thing that frustrates me a lot about the Call of Duty Modern Warfare reboot entries.
They talk a big game about how they try to paint every party as morally gray and state how they get their hands dirty so the world doesn't have to. Despite all of that, your team is always in the right, America is never framed as potentially in the wrong (and when an American soldier IS in the wrong, he's usually a traitor and depicted as the obvious bad guy) and the terrorists you fight have no sympathetic points or much depth to them, so you never feel bad about killing them. Nothing you do is really questionable, the worst it gets is threatning the child in an interrogation.
The worse things about this is that Spec Ops: The Line pulled off everything that those games claim to be about, and it did it a decade prior.
@@leithaziz2716 I've rewatched Spec Ops: The Line recently and it made me think that it really didn't handle those themes well after all. It's not a story about war or the people who suffer because of it, it's mostly concerned with the player and why we play games. It just exploits all of that war imagery for the sake of a (pretty standard) twist and some meta-commentary about games. It throws war crimes and horrors at you and makes you wade through corpses over and over but it's just an aesthetic, shock value. "Feel like a hero yet?" is such a smug phrase that I would not expect to find in a story that is seriously concerned with showing the horrors of war.
The jist of it is that its meta elements make the way it shows real tragedies seem very icky to me. But whatever, I like that it at least tries to tackle those themes. And I'm definitely not saying COD is doing it well either
@@leithaziz2716 Oh, for sure, with regards to CoD. Because it wouldn't be an ActiBlizzard game without claiming to be progressive and thoughtful by applying the most surface-level, corporate, "Look-at-us-aren't-we-woke" take on it. Not to mention that actually being genuinely thoughtful and critical of America would probably be too much thinking for CoD's main audience to handle.
It does make me wonder if Infinite's take is as santitized as it is because of the writers being unwilling to go through with it, or because Take-Two execs demanded it.
My favorite example of fucking up racism in your story is RWBY with the Faunus (just people with animal traits). They're heavily discriminated against and stated to openly be used as slaves in the Artic kingdom of Atlas. The only group that's fighting for their rights and against the slavery they experience in Atlas, the White Fang. So naturally, they're portrayed as universally evil besides it's former member who left because they were appalled by the White Fang using violence to end the enslavement of their entire race. One of them being Blake, one of the main characters of the entire series and one of our only constant access to the Faunus viewpoint. Also, they change it's leader, Adam Taurus from a vicious, Machiavellian terrorist to ALSO be Blake's abusive ex boyfriend who starts to only want to kill Blake and her new girlfriend Yang. Sure he was permanently maimed and partially blinded because he dared to get into a political argument with his coworker, but he wants to keep beating his girlfriend. Just in case you thought one of the White Fang might actually be sympathetic. To add insult to injury, as soon as they actually get to Atlas, not only do they completely drop the slavery plot point, but they mostly drop the racism period. Instead now, the Faunus dust miners might be being paid less than human miners, but it's not clear. There's even a Faunus on the elite taskforce of the Atlesian military.
From what I heard Rooster Teeth (or whoever more specifically runs RWBY) dropped the Faunus racism/slavery plot because they realized how badly they did that plot.
And then it got worse in the Arrowfell game when Team RWBY fights to defeat the game's big bad... A Union Leader. Because why would people who constantly die in the dust mines need representation or rights?
This is AFTER we found out about how RT treats their workers, so maybe they are writing what they know.
My favorite version of RWBY's racism backdown is in the RWBY x Justice League crossover comic (don't read it; it is not good). In this one, Justice League heroes are reimagined as hunters and huntresses born and raised in the world of Remnant. Weiss's chapter takes place at the Schnee estate where they're holding some hoity-toity bourgeoisie party for business moguls, and Weiss meets Bruce Wayne. It's later revealed that Bruce is a bat-eared Faunus, and despite being surrounded by a bunch of one-percenters who THRIVE on Faunus exploitation and slavery, there's only ONE ornery fellow who is upset that there's a Faunus in the mansion. Not only does Weiss immediately jump to Bruce's defense, but her father Jacques Schnee, who himself is COMPLICIT in Faunus exploitation and discrimination, is also sympathetic towards Bruce and is wagging his finger at the bad racist man.
You know what piece of RWBY fiction I actually really liked? RWBY: Ice Queendom, in which the ENTIRE plot revolves around Weiss being a racist. If RT RWBY is too cowardly to ever address the racism that they themselves wrote into the story, Ice Queendom chooses to double down on it and make it the central conflict, and it's like smashing you on the nose with a sledgehammer. Nightmare Weiss fashions herself like a totalitarian dictator where she has banished all Faunus from her perfect utopia; the Faunus White Fang terrorists coincidentally are indistinguishable from Grimm monsters. It's AGGRESSIVELY on-the-nose about it, and also goes some ways to explain how Weiss was cured of her racism between Vol 1 and 2.
Hell even season one of Genlock is all over the place in tone and with its depictions of religious bigotry. Season 2 is actually fucking solid and explores some really interesting and some really depressing concepts but that's also after HBO took control so yeah
@@abadidea5984 Ice Queendom in general tried so hard to actually make something out of RWBY's setting with what can best be described as no budget, even by RWBY standards. I admire it for that and for trying to give the characters flaws to explore. That DC shit however was the most transparently "Let's do this to make a shitzillion dollars" move on the planet. It's so awful.
I often think about how 'all over the place' the racism is in Mass Effect. Like, Ashley is a huge space racist, but it's not like that ever stops you from achieving your goals. Tali, on the other hand, hates the Geth, as Quarians are wont to do, and this can, in fact, hamper you from achieving your goals in Mass Effect 2, provided you do not have enough Paragon/Renegade score. Then there's that Volus in the citadel who accuses a Quarian of stealing his credit chit and the C-Sec officer who just doesn't care and is probably as racist towards the Volus as he is to the 'migrant fleet vagrant'. I think the best thing about Mass Effect going, "look at this racist thing" is that, in nearly every instance of it, you, as the player, can interject in different ways. Like imagine if in FFX, you, as Tidus, could be like, "Hey, racism isn't cool, Wakka!" in your dumb Tidus voice.
I wish I loved anything like Woolie loves racism.
Oh boy, this comment will certainly NEVER be taken out of context
@@ShinoAburame37 They have published podcast titles that are way worse.
@@OrbObserver Full Throated Hard R Deep Nut Wheelchair Miracle: Piss Bottle Dominance
@@inktoxicant Quit doxxing Woolies search history
I feel like you simply can't use Disco Elysium as proof positive of ANYTHING because that game was created by a team of wizards channeling the outer void
Skyrim really ISN'T a good example
The Stormcloaks don't actually care that much, just about Skyrim being separate from the empire due to the White-Tower Concordat
The only racism you really see is when A HOMELESSMAN MAN and AN UNEMPLOYED DRUNK shittalk a Dunmer woman
The segregation the Dunmer face in Windhelm is purely due to the fact that after the Red Year, there was a MASSIVE influx of Dunmer refugees, and the Jarl of Windhelm at the time was the only person willing to take them in in ALL of Skyrim - like, yea, it is a ghetto, but they're not FORCED to live there, and the entire hold of Eastmarch is the second poorest part of Skyrim after Winterhold so they can't really... fix anything
The Argonians you would think are being segregated even harder, but multiple characters (and the lore) say that if the Argonians and Dunmer were allowed to live in the city at the same time, they would fucking murder each other, because of what happened directly after the Red Year
General Tullius is actually a much better example of an over racist, because he outright hates the Nords and says so multiple times
And the "Um, Stormcloaks racist?" argument makes even less sense when you find out that there is an Altmeri alchemist, stall owner, and a whole-ass Altmer-only thieves guild (competitor, not the actual thieves guild) living in or near Windhelm. Why would the Stormcloaks tolerate members of the race that outlawed Talos worship, aka the whole reason they're rebelling in the first place, in THEIR capital city?
And, like, the Khajiit aren't allowed to enter ANY city, not just the Stormcloak ones
Know what's a better example? Morrowind
The Dunmer in Morrowind are so racist, they will be racist against you even if you're a Dunmer, purely because you weren't born on Vvardenfell. They even have their own slur for outlanders.
As part of the main quest, when trying to ally with the Ashlander tribes, you buy a slave. You don't free the slave. You give her to a guy to fuck
I mean, one of the factions, even though it's also the most meritocratic, still keeps slaves (although they aren't picky in what race they enslave)
So, why is everyone a dickhead to Dunmer in Skyrim? Because they are the second biggest assholes on Tamriel, right after the Thalmor (who literally are just Elf SS. and also extremely underbaked as a in-lore faction, at least in Skyrim)
Yeah Morrowind was the game I was thinking of when I submitted the question, I didn't expect them to default to skyrim
Dark Elves aren't forced to live in the GQ no, but where else are they meant to go that they can actually afford? And the Argonians aren't even allowed to live in Windhelm, having to live in a bunkhouse in the wall that leads straight to the docks, it's a pretty shitty spot to live in.
@@SvarogAristaeusAllen Morrowind just makes way more sense as THE racism game in TES, because it's actually everywhere, and isn't a weird bandaid that's there to give you any reason not to join the rebels
@@MB-sq7yn The Argonians aren't allowed to enter Windhelm for their own protection, because Dunmer would actually, literally, for real for real, murder them and use them to make rugs. The dunmer living there aren't, like, descendants of the people fleeing Morrowind. They WERE the people fleeing Morrowind due to the Red Year AND the hordes of Argonians murdering, raping and pillaging the southern half of the country - maybe they're holding a little teeny tiny bit of a grudge
And the Dunmer could actually just go to any other city and find a job there, because Skyrim portrays travel as no big deal. Or buy a house in Windhelm itself, because an unemployed drunk who spends all his time drinking and shouting at Dunmer has his own house. Or all those people who seemingly don't do anything in Whiterun and have their own house. Like, being a farmhand is enough to buy your own house.
Well, not any other city, since Solitude is literally just rich people and 1 union mandated homeless man
@@Hegataro Windhelm still has law enforcement to stop the poor and impoverished Dunmer from doing crimes you know.
And yeah that drunk has a house, he also likely had generational property and wealth passed onto him like most locals, cant really say the same for refugees.
I'm reminded of the "Frogurt" bit from the Policenauts LP, where Woolie and Pat discuss the same thing. It's not so much the word as the inflection when making your fantasy racism, and make sure the fantasy word is faaaaar away from any real term. Like a frozen dessert.
I always loved the comment from TeamFourStar that "anything can be a slur if you say it the right way."
To this day I always love to respond to similar conversations by coopting their example of "those god dammed *nice people*!"
@@GambeTamaI remember that from their Bloodborne playthrough Drunklestiltskin.
@@GambeTama "KOOPAS..."
The policenauts lp teaches you to laugh at woolies reddit beliefs
But it comes with free choice of topping!
Woolie and Matt's playthrough of FFX and all the Wakka grand wizard talk was one of my favorite bits of all time. I legit almost peed myself.
Hey Braddah. I'm just saying...
“Al bhed, All dead, it rhymes, bruddah!”
Actually really loved this clip, kinda nice when you guys have a bit of discourse that you know is really going to tilt *someone* but also it might go towards getting some other people to start thinking about what they consume or do their day-to-day.
At the end of the day, the internet just pretends to hate things
“Self awareness? Get outta here!”
"You can don't."
- Patrick Boivin, 2022
Mentally trying to figure out, after years of "the monsters are actually people too" stories, where the extremely recent Kamen Rider Black Sun that explicitly uses the iconography AND irl references to the ACTUAL BLACK PANTHERS to critique a corrupt not-Shinzo Abe exploiting "Kaijin" while letting hate groups literally incite police to shoot them at protests...that suits pretty wild
11:22 being an argonian (the only race I’ve ever played as) you only get (obvious) but not particularly malicious remarks
Mainly stuff like “what do you want, lizard?”
Never “hey you fucking gecko, come here so we can make some alligator shoes!”
I don't know about shoes, but some of the bandits either threaten to make a belt out of your tail if you're an argonian or a rug out of your skin if you're khajiit.
Morrowind's rare voiced dialogue lines are filled with slurs just to sell the inhospitable nature of the region
Bioshock Infinite: They had to make the Vox into psychos, same as they had to have Killmonger kick a puppy.
Because if they didn't, the bad guys would have been the good guys.
I don't agree that racism either needs to be all or none in media portrayals. Racism takes on a whole spectrum of actions ranging from subtle to overt. Sometimes good people hold racist ideologies but don't act upon them to their full extent (i.e. Grandpa locks his car when driving past black people but he doesn't go out and willy-nilly assault them). Sometimes people outwardly show kindness or neutrality toward minorities but secretly engage in heinous acts toward them.
Yeah. "We have records of one in a thousand real life Bad People kicking puppies, so every fictional depiction of said Bad People should either kick puppies or not be a depiction," is a pretty out there perspective.
At the end of the day it's all about writing quality rather than the way it's approached.
...the way it's approached....is literally part of the writing quality. you can't separate them, tf?
Playing a Dark Elf in Skyrim and siding with the Stormcloaks is essentially roleplaying Samuel Jackson's character in Django.
So idk if I'm the only one who thought this but Pat talking about bioshock infinite made me think about Mafia 3. I remember reading game magazines about how the dev team wanted to make white people feel what it was like to be black in the 1960s. I remembered hearing about interrupting a slave auction (maybe it didn't repulse me as much as it did in my mind because its just a bunch nps who look like theyre straight out of that eric andre skit where he dressed as a slave at a civil war reenactment. Maybe its because it started at a supermarket or because I dont think ive ever been less scared of a depiction of the kkk) and that the police would hassle you on the street. Then I played it. There's that laughably bad disclaimer at the start of the game and other than hearing the nword constantly or hearing about brutal racism in cut scenes it was the most sanitized depiction of 1960s Louisiana. A lot of it does come down to very rigid ai but damn I don't remember ever really feeling genuinely uncomfortable or shocked. It was like watching a less racist Quentin Tarantino movie.
I dont think we played the same game.
I remember walking into stores and they call the cops cause its segregated and I'm black. I had people call the cops on me because I was black in a rich neighbourhood. And I had a cop turn instantly hostile and shoot me in the back for "suspicious behaviour" while I was blatantly unarmed and picking up collectables.
Amd yes, the slave auction is real, you do go to one where black people are literally being sold as slaves by a criminal organization.
Pat: "The "Lottery" wasn't that bad of a depiction of racism in Bioshock"
The actual Lottery in Bioshock: An interracial tied up and partially stripped couple are brought on stage with depictions of monkeys with big red lips are plastered behind them and the player is given a baseball to throw at the defenseless couple for the "First" throw.
Pat I..... I think that's pretty bad and blatant.
The problem with it is that by starting off with a big spectacle out in the open, that everyone is revelling in, you're setting the bar for how racism presents itself in that society.
Then when the rest of the game, all the racism is mostly implied or symbolic, hidden away so that the white people don't have to see ugliness, it makes it seem like there isn't a hidden layer, because you saw how they do it, they do it in the open
This conversation reminds me of Van Zieks from Great Ace Attorney, a character who is overall a fairly decent person but unapologetically racist toward the Japanese (or Nipponese, as he is so fond of calling them.)
I really want to hear what Pat thinks about the Star Trek TNG episode "The Outcast."
Similar levels of creative cowardice.
I definitely subscribe to the idea that no topic should be off limits, but if you put it in, then there should be a point.
- FFX does this by demonstrating the bigotry early on, but giving you only a small shred of context that gets wider as you play, so that the player understands the underlying history of institutions and scapegoating that led to where we are now. X-2 is also there... but is more unfortunate. It really only deals partially how people are adjusting to casual Al Bhed, and feels a little too light with regards to the Ronso's actually attempting to wipe out the Guado entirely.
- Tales of Symphonia is rather interesting in how it utilizes its -isms, by not only making it a core part of the villain's motivation and global politics, but also having the arc of one of the protagonist's be that they BECOME BIGOTED. Your mileage may vary on what you take away from it, but I definitely do think the game had something to say about the way that such a mentality affects people along the generations.
- The Dragon Age games as well have seen people profiled by their race, culture, or even just being born able to cast spells. Society and Politics are so sectarian that practically no negotiations can seem to go by without massive concessions by one side out of spite for the other, and the game makes it clear that this is something that you just plain cannot fix. The best you can hope for is establishing policies that lay the foundation for a better future, but that is the genuine best you can do.
Im not speaking to the overt quality of any of these examples, but I did want to highlight the fact that they took the topic and, be it subtlety or overtly, wove these tensions into the story as a major factor. Either it was a cornerstone element of why the world turned out the way it was, or it is a function of the world that is actively impeding progress, and in either case has to be confronted to proceed.
Give me both. Both exist, I've experienced both. Both are more realistic.
The problem isn't that both don't exist, it's that Bioshock in this example is giving us one and telling us it's the other.
Edit: To be clear, I don't think the writing team had much of a choice in the matter. They probably got away with as much as the publisher would let them get away with given the scale of the game. That much money being on the line makes people skittish about not reaching the broadest audience possible, so things get sanitized down as far as they can.
Wakka would unironically say "I just think it should be all lives matter, brudda"
So would I
Man it’s wild nobody responded to this yet
Also yeah totally
@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat I know you wanna go brazy with the circlejerking, but just in case you don't get it..."Black lives matter" doesn't imply that everyone else's doesn't. If you and @Sonamyfan875 see it that way to the point of sucking wakka's theoretical shmeat over it, then that's definitely a you problem.
The thing with Bioshock Infinite is that they basically were given waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much freedom in the development time and the game is an amalgam of a bunch of half baked ideas they thought was cool but had to cut time on cause they had a dozen other cool ideas they were working on before they realized they actually had to make the game.
The reality sadly is Bioshock Infinite doesn't actually care about racism or race relations like... at all. The core of the story is the dimension hopping personal relationship with Booker and Elizabeth. The racism is literally just set dressing for white girls Elizabeths story.
Yeah I mean if anything Elizabeth should have been black or mixed. It would have explained for example why he locked her away and never let anyone see her. It would have been a great source of irony about how this racist city is built not only on non-white labor but also relies on her for its future. It would have ruined all the "cute" scenes of her revelling in the world before being disillusioned which is a bonus.
12:15 lol
I mean, all videogames have been trying to catch up to the standard of racism set by Arcanum. You can't top it, you simply can't.
I'm not saying we HAVE TO gas the gnomes but...entertain the possibility for me.
Welp. Can't wait for 3 years when Woolie gets around to Lost Judgment and these two can talk about HS bullying again.
"subtle wakka racism" lol
Actually: Booker baseball lottery was the “first” throw.
To be fair to bioshock infinite it was who gets to throw the base ball. It’s who gets to throw the FIRST baseball. So the couple was going to get baseballed to death. What’s crazy is the game never gets anywhere close to this level of racism again.
10:20 That bit from the South Park game always makes me laugh
I think it'd be cool to see a setting where it appears, from a surface level perspective, to be sanitized and quaint and have the player discover the very opposite after digging even a little bit.
Racism in media I feel is less about presentation and more about confrontation/reaction, in a sense that it doesn't matter what is shown it matters how it's addressed. Unfortunately when racism is addressed in media it rarely portrays the greater issues involved with the effects of bigotry like unbalanced power dynamics, systemic problems, or the internalization of personal biases rarely being discussed. Usually it only really confronts whatever racist ideology it presents as being "mean" and something we shouldn't do from a moral perspective rather then addressing either it's long term effects. Taking the examples from the videos of skyrim, bioshock infinite, disco, and FF10 we get a scope of problem when media decides to take on racism as a subject.
For skyrim it falls into the same problem as most fantasy series where the racism is more a seasoning that just goes with it. You can't really address or challenge it, at best you can somewhat side with the oppressed but even your best efforts might get you labled as "one of the good ones" if you so happen to be playing a non-nord.
For bioshock infinite, they don't really do anything, it's nothing more centrist masturbation that says "Yes racism is probably bad but if you want to fix it do so in a honorable way. Also no I'm not going to tell you what to do, how to do it, or even help you unless it benefits me somehow. Be a martyr to inspire a white woman or something, idk... Here's the most overused quote from Martin Luther King that "certain people" have been using as a "get out of racism" free card for the last 50 some-odd years."
Disco is probably the best as it allows for direct confrontation but it's more about cathartic punishment then actually addressing the issues as a whole. When measure head wakes up after being kicked in the head he'll still be a racist, when the lucky racist gets robbed he'll still be a racist, when the "welcome to revashol" guy gets threatened he'll still be a racist. It's still the "don't be racist it's mean" angle but it at least allows for a deeper dive into the affects.
FF10 isn't much different. It sort of has all three of the previous games issues wrapped up into one. Wakka's racism is rarely addressed by anyone except rikku and everyone else just seems to accept it as his personality. The equvilent to the racist relative you have over the holiday. He eventually gets some karmic justice when its shown his religion is a lie and the entire ideology his racism is based on was wrong but the game never addresses that, he just sort of stops being overt.
I don't really have a conclusion per-say, the reoccurring issue with addressing these hard topics is not a problem exclusive to gaming and seeing certain creators pat themselves on the back for "talking about racism" gets old real fast. Most I can say is any topic brought up with sufficient enough weight should be met with sufficient enough effort.
I agree and I think why this deeper dive is largely avoided is because it takes a lot of research and introspection that most people aren’t willing to do. Maybe it’s because a lot of people are ignorant to just how ingrained it is in society or maybe it’s because it makes people uncomfortable? Which is kind of ironic because if it makes the creator uncomfortable to first delve into than it can certainly pull that reaction from the audience and really make them think more than, “Wow, racism bad.”
Oooooo boy, we're getting one of _those_ clips again. Lemme get my Super Bunnysocks out.
EDIT: Huh.Surprisingly, my Super Bunnysocks came out for naught. How sad. But yeah, I also don't think there's one solution that fits all cases here, anymore than there's any one solution to any subject in media. Kind of weird to ask if there is one, come to think of it.
Wakka learns to love them in the end come on.
And? Plenty of characters are remembered for flaws they grew out of.
@@ArcCaravan fuckin Barok from Great Ace Attorney for example
@@ArcCaravan like H.P. Lovecraft.
Yeah he probably didn't FULLY grow out of his awful racism, but he got better towards the end of his life and considering letters written by him, he felt big cringe reading some of his older stories
I know he's not a character, but still, even more reason that people should actually try and be more nuanced in regards to him
(I know it's ironic cause he didn't have the most nuanced views himself)
Hmm I think my brain went harder than the game maybe. I thought the beginning of Bioshock was a stoning with baseballs and the raffle for the first ball in killing them, but I guess that isn't explicitly said.
Maybe if Kojima, Del Toro and Jordan Peele team up they can take Silent Hill by force.
i recommend you listening to Kojima's podcast. There's a episode where he talks about rumors and when eventually the talks about rumors around him came through he says that a silent hill game made by him will never happen
@@ricardomiles2957 It's a joke.
Be aware the lottery prize in Bioshock Infinite the prize was FIRST THROW. So yeah they were implying the community was going to stone that interracial couple.
That’s the only acknowledgment I’m giving to Irrational actually grappling with the subject matter before wussing out to say a populist uprising would be equally as bad as systemic chattel slavery.
1:30 Well here is the thing. When you make a character that supposed to be racist and it is acknowleged as a bad trait you also need to remember that they are also a human (or a scentient creature since games can be in fantasy or sci-fi realms). If you forget this and make them comicly evil/bad than people will just roll their eyes on it and say "well here is the message" especialy in 2022.
You need to come up for a reason as well why they hold this belife and see their perspective. After all for someone to have this world view SOMETHING had to happen.
i mentioned this in another comment. j
Just saying "this bad" and pointing fingers does nothing but reinforce whatever you believe in. The Racist will shut down and rant about the woke crowd on twitter and the Anti racist will applaud and scream "racism is no more". The discussion must happen outside the media
@@ricardomiles2957
And the people in the midle just get a lesser experience with this. As in a badly written part of the game (hopefully it's not the back bone of the whole narrative If it is badly done.)
Hopefully if a plot does try to show the perspective of a racist or remind us they're also human (or human adjacent in fictional settings) it doesn't accidentally justify it somehow.
@@ArcCaravan To be fair with American writers that's usualy the bigest issue.
There are many times where they undermine theire message acidentaly. Miles Morales Thor for example.
@@richardduska1558 ah, i see you've presented an example. it doesn't seem particularly malicious, and honestly not all too untrue, but it's there.
Subtle huh ? Wakka literally calls them Greasemonkeys
“Those sandblasted greasemonkeys!”
Woolie: _Yeah!_
Subtle compared to Disco Elysium. Probably not helped by being fantasy racism.
As a kid, I just saw Wakka as wacky and a jerk at times. Now, I fucking lose it just thinking of the guy. XD His racism is legendary.
@@tailedgates9 Basically how I remember it too. It's been a long time...was he ever confronted about his racism? I know that when Rikku comes along he eventually starts to slowly change his views but was he ever called out over it? Because my memory of it is very similar to yours. I just viewed him as whacky Wakka being a dumb bro. Or if he's not called out on it...does he ever reflect on it? Or have any deep regrets about how he acted? I'm tempted to replay just to really get a gauge on it.
I mean it's a real term that doesn't seem to have racial connotations (in real life), I guess
In Bioshock the point of the lottery was that the winner got the FIRST throw, not the only throw. It was a public stoning with baseballs instead of rocks because they're iconic to America. Last I checked stoning is still pretty fucking horrific.
Remember savaati? From the Skyrim mission diplomatic immunity? Has a great job cooking for the extremely wealthy. Is high on moon sugar. I seem to remember quite a few khajiit traders being fuzzy on the concept of ownership.
Nobody in Skyrim seemed to have a problem with argonians.
Racism can and should be subtle in media because otherwise you're exclusively training people to identify racism with overt acts of discrimination, rather than more subtle, normalized forms of it.
Measure Head is on the extreme end for Disco Elysium, but something great that game's depiction of racism does is make the emergence of racial conflict in dialogue totally natural and (sometimes) difficult to see or predict. Since the game as a whole trains you to be weary with characters' motivations, the game also trusts the players to question these characters and tackle their underlying thoughts. It's effective as shit.
But on the other end DE also has Gary the Cryptofascist, who worms and squeems around the topic. If you don't do Everarts quest and go into Gary's place, he's hard to pin down as "The lucky Racist".
The problem there is, it ends up going over people's heads and then people take offense when you point out how the characters they liked are racist. Hell, Ashley in Mass Effect and Ingrid from Fire Emblem weren't even subtle, but fans will fight like hell to justify their prejudice as reasonable.
@@jupiterofthemonkeyii5569 Mass Effect's universe actually does operate on racist logic, though. Every sapient alien species has one personality, one unified government, one central culture. Every alien civilization is a monolith, and every individual alien is defined by their relationship to their respective monolith.
And every alien relates to every other alien as a monolith, including humans. Which is a behaviour that forms the foundation of racist thought. Whites are a monolith, Blacks are a monolith, Asians are a monolith, Jews are a monolith. And all of history can be neatly described as a contest between all of these races, like a fucking 4X game.
In reality that's nonsense, and anyone who thinks otherwise is misinformed *at best.* But in Mass Effect, it's not nonsense. It's literally how the world works. And so when characters like Ashley start being bigots, of course shitheads defend them. Because THEY'RE NOT WRONG. AND THAT'S AWFUL.
@@jupiterofthemonkeyii5569 "The Batarians were like animals, and i slaughtered them like animals"
@@NEEDbacon That's the point. DE has a lot of NPCs you can be tricked into liking, but the fact that it's a detective game makes that a failure.
Tbf it was the FIRST baseball. But really they should've had them be stones, with all the implications. that'd be less sanitized.
Well I mean it was at a carnival/fair. So the baseball made sense because of the context.
If they wanted it to be as awful as real racism, everyone should've had stones and the lottery winner gets a glass ball full of fire ants.
I mean, it's still pretty damn easy to bludgeon someone to death with baseballs, and I think what they were going for is people being killed by like one of the most American objects ever. At least I THINK that's what they were going for.
Dragon Age origins also got this really right: the city elf story is just horrific, even more so playing as a female character
they had all this talk earnestly about racism and how it's handled good or bad and they don't bring up david cage at all
Pat should replay the skyrim civil war as a stormcloak dark elf bc that doesn't happen lmao. There are racist townspeople in windhelm but the leadership never has prejudice. General tullius straight-up hates nords for real though and has tons of lines abt it
Considering the nords are shits to literally everyone in that game, (minus the player)
Fuck em. All my homies elven as hell.
@@warlerker go to morrowind for literally three seconds and see how much dark elves love racism i dare you
@@gwotkid
>playing dark elves.
nah man, mage all the way. high elf.
@@warlerker rewriting history and deleting your reply is pretty altmer you're right
@@gwotkid But i didn't delete it, its very clearly still there. Also what? dark elves are real history now? and what am i rewriting exactly. I said Nords are racist?
It's fucking wild how much racism there is in Elder Scrolls. I mean a big part of Dagoth Ur getting so much support in Morrowind is him wanting to remove the empire and Outlanders.
Then there's just everything in Windhelm in Skyrim, with the Argonians stuck on the docks and the Dunmer in a ghetto. Or the book called "Scourge of the Grey Quarter" which is just the author saying the Dunmer in Windhelm are lazy freeloaders who want a small pocket of Morrowind in an ancient Nord city, while the ones in Riften got jobs.
I didn't notice until now, but congratulations to your 1000th CSB video.
Our glorius Grand Wizard eventually has a kid and that makes me worry. XD
He retired by then.
@@ArcCaravan I know, it's just funny to think about. Lol
the kid who he names Vidina... the Al Bhed word for future.
There is no racism in fiction that will ever hit quite like Morrowind racism.
Maybe Jordan Peele can teach Kojima how to make a movie lol.
The surprising thing to me is that Skyrim is considered "heavy" in terms of how it delivers its racism. I've done playthroughs as Imperial, Breton, Dark Elf and Argonian, and the Stormcloaks have basically no difference in how they treat you based on race. The initial lines when meeting people will be a lot less welcoming, but because Bethesda didn't make racist alternate lines for literally everything like they would have needed to, that kind of reception dissipates almost entirely after the first meeting. Outside of the "designated racists" in Windhelm that are there to introduce you to Stormcloak racism, who are presented as blatantly horrible people regardless of player race, the game effectively paints the Stormcloaks by and large as open-minded and not traditionally racist in terms of spite or hate crimes, just xenophobic and wanting other races to keep to themselves. Which *is* a type of racism, but kinda feels like exactly the kind of "pulled punches" Pat was complaining about in Bioshock Infinite where the racism in Skyrim is portrayed as problematic, but "not that bad" compared to real historical standards.
In contrast Skyrim portrays the Aldmeri Dominion and basically High Elven race as a whole as _incredibly_ racist, actively committing atrocities against the "lesser races" of literally everyone else and claiming dominion over the entire world as the "purest and most holy race, direct descendants of the gods themselves." The Empire utterly failed to defeat them, and in-game supporting Imperial rule over Skyrim instead of the Stormcloak rebellion means fighting for the High Elves to enslave all of Skyrim and slaughter anyone who holds Skyrim's historical cultural and ethnic practices, which... generally leads me to playing Stormcloak every time, because at least the Stormcloaks just have a NIMBY attitude to other races, rather than intent to enslave and wipe the cultural identity of everyone on the planet.
Yeah, the high elves whole schtick is being pissed off that they are part of any race whatsoever. Elder Scrolls to me was interesting because AllInAll’s Evangelidium series kind of shows just what lengths Aldmer are willing to go to in terms of their own sheer hatred of race. You also get to hear Michael Kirkbride sing Fly Me To The Moon.
No, supporting the empire means helping mankind to remain united, bide their time and recover their strengh for the inevitable second war against the Thalmor. The Empire hates the Thalmor. They are going to rebel and fight them back as soon as they are able to, and the Thalmor are fully aware of this.
Helping the Stormcloak means dividing and weakening mankind, which is *exactly* what the Thalmor wants. Ulfric and the stomrcloaks are useful idiots for the Thalmor, this is something that is *explicitly* stated in the "Thalmor Dossier: Ulfric Stormcloak" document that can be found in-game lmao.
Reposting because youtube auto-deleted my comment.
@@eusouocarameuirmao No, the Thalmor wanted the civil war to continue endlessly to weaken both sides.
Either helping the Stormcloaks or the Empire to win the war screws with the Thalmor's plans either way, since the Empire will be stronger if they take Skyrim back and Skyrim as an independent state will be a major problem in the inevitable second war if they bolster their military enough to declare war on the Thalmor as well, similar to Germany's blunder going to war on the Eastern Front in the second world war
@@MattManDX1 My point is: If Ulfric and the Stormcloacks weren't such impatient morons there would be no civil war in the first place.
Anyways, a reunited Empire probably has the better chance of winning the final battle against the Thalmor. "Divide and Conquer" is a famous strategy for a reason.
@@eusouocarameuirmao The Empire proved itself as utterly incapable of fending off the Dominion by losing the war in the first place and signing the White Gold Concordat to cut their losses. The fact that the might of the entire Legion at this point was unable to resist the strength of a force less than a fraction of its own size, being that AD's forces primarily consist of citizens of a _single_ province, while several other provinces were able to remain almost entirely unscathed by the Dominion's attempts at invasion due to not being overextended and dying like the Roman Empire, puts the Empire in a very, very bad position to have any faith they could fight back. Should Skyrim break free of the Empire, it would be joining several other provinces in fully resisting the Dominion's influence, and an alliance between those provinces _alone_ would likely be enough to push the Dominion out of the rest of Tamriel and back to Auridon.
At this point, while the Empire may have technically been able to win the war if it had fought to the bitter end, the fact that it signed the Concordat has almost completely sealed its fate. Very few nations in history have managed to almost immediately remobilize and win a war against a foe that they willingly subjugated themselves to just to survive, and the Empire itself has lost massive amounts of fervour and support by allowing the Thalmor to wreak havok on its citizens and kill anyone who practices their religion. The Dominion is positioning itself as modern-day Ayleids to the rest of Tamriel, and the Empire has explicitly supported this in order to hold on to the last shreds of its power and legitimacy. Regardless of how practical of a choice signing the Concordat was for its citizens well being, the effect is that Imperial citizens everywhere have lost faith in the empire, in both its strength and its value for its citizens rights.
As a result, I don't believe the Dominion has a chance of being defeated under the banner of the Empire. I think the only way they can be pushed out is by an alliance of independent provinces who aren't under the Dominion's thumb, because the Empire is in a place where it holds neither the position nor the fervour to actually fight back against the Dominion and win. A revolution _is_ feasible if the Dominion stretches _themselves_ too thin, and should the other provinces unite to push them out instead there would likely be a lot of political turmoil in deciding who should sit on the throne once the Imperial seat is reclaimed, but an alliance of united, independent provinces holds the best chance of taking back the Empire, especially with the last Dragonborn on the provinces' side, evoking the idea of Septim-era legitimacy and stability to the cause while being a monstrous force on the battlefield against AD.
My guess was they were literally going to stone the interracial couple in bioshock and booker just won the first toss.
Elves are slave owners in Skyrim. That's the whole point of the war. Elves said Nords couldn't have their religion, because the Elves want humans to recognize they are inferior. Why is Pat covering for slave owners?
And here's the "all other races are the same" poster
Always gotta be one
Were the Dunmer refugees members of one of the Houses? The sort of people who likely owned slaves? Or were they just people who would like to not die from a volcanic eruption? And it wasn’t the Dunmer who had a problem with Talos, that was the Altmer. Specifically the Aldmeri Dominion. Two entirely different groups on literally opposite corners of the map.
@@paytonkilmer1920 the high elves are the reason the Stormcloak rebellion started. That's why brought them up.
Y'know what I hate in videogames? (and actually all fiction) Is "Grr! I hate because they are bad! They should go back to !"
Sure, you definitely get real actual people who are that ham-fisted, but GENERALLY speaking most racist people will have a thousand different statements that in isolation can sound reasonable, but when put together the meaning becomes clear. Then when you come at them with "Are you a racist?" the answer is always "Of course not! I've got no problem with.." and they think that because they're not the kind to flatly say "I hate " it means they don't fit the definition of a racist.
If you reduce racism and racist people down to the cartoon racist, it gives REAL people the impression that all they have to do is avoid being that.
What should videogames do? They need to make it clear that the subtle jabs and the loud bold racist statements are _equivalent._ Just because you're not genocidal doesn't mean you're off the hook.
I thought the lottery in bioshock infinite was who threw the FIRST baseball, then leading to everyone else stoning them to death
If you'd payed closer attention to how people are treated in Skyrim, the "for the nords" meme is actually not a good indicator, and the empire is by far the more racist faction. Pat you need to stop speaking from a place of authority on parts of games you vaguely remember and mostly know through osmosis
I think the best way a game can tackle racism as a concept would be to actively restrict the player from doing certain things based on their race. Like if in an RPG certain towns would not service you based on your race and no matter what level or gear you obtain, you won't be able to get around it without maybe a lot of money.
10:40
I hated that. It actually has an effect on gameplay. Besides, it’s a lot more complicated than just “black people have it harder” because society is complicated.
Black people have it harder 4 sure
Any racism in a game's story that doesn't make you expect to see strange fruit probably isn't giving enough gravitas to the subject to have it at all
I actually love racism in Elder Scroll. I wish it was worse to be honest, to make the playable races more unique and fun to play.
Arcanum is a rpg that I think did racism the best, as you can actually get locked out of some stuff, and dialogue gets harder or easier depending on your race.
oh dude, there is SO MUCH racism and ethnic violence in elder scrolls it's crazy
i could go on talking about that stuff for hours
Welcome to revachol never occurred to me until I had a whole thing with that lorry driver
Overt is a personal preference,
Give me the hard *R* and roll it
Subtle wakka racism
They tried in Deus Ex Mankind Divided, with the "mechanical apartheid" and "clank" slur. And to the point people have augs and don't want anyone to know.
For some reason I am reminded of the lore behind all the viruses in the first [Prototype] game, never played the sequel.
The weird bit about the stormcloaks is that I recall a random encounter with some who was explicitly imperial going to join them because he was mad about the whole banning of Talos worship and "I lived in Skyrim all my life, it's as much my home as any Nords"
Looks like autocorrect snagged the title, changing Measurehead to Measure
Naruto's depiction of war, segregation and terrorism is one of the worst that I've ever seen in media
Elfen Lied. The entire plot _hinges_ on humanity’s inexplicable hatred towards candy haired catgirls.
@johnt.190 truly the roots of all evil.
If anyone tells you your depiction of racism is inaccurate, remind them what happened in World War 2.