One thing I have to give Blizzard is that their characters are excellent entry points into cultures. I fell head over heels for Lifeweaver; his design, his gameplay, his voice, his accent, his personality, his ass, everything. And that lead me to looking up what his Thai voice lines meant in English, which lead me to looking into Thailand's culture, which lead to me spending hours upon hours researching the history of Thailand and its people. I knew literally nothing about Thailand before Blizzard gave me Weavesnatcher and now it's on my bucket list of places I want to see before I die.
I think it'd be really nice to see a French Quebecois, since we typically have beef with English people (which I find incredibly stupid), like Widowmaker's voiceline "Ugh, Americans...". It'd make for funny banter, as well as interesting dynamics with the rest of the cast.
I genuinely think it's a colossal missed opportunity that nobody ever tries to do a Quebecois character in a game like this, *especially* alongside an Anglophone Canadian hero. There's so much potential there and it's such a shame that it never materializes.
@@GarnetDust24The one example i can think of is the iteration of the DC Supervillain Plastique in Harley Quinn Like her comics counterpart she’s a Quebecois terrorist who’s part of Task Force X but mainly shows up to blow up (because she’s an explosives expert) (and she dies in the same episode she’s introduced)
@@TheViveros Buck from R6 Siege is the only character i know that is from Quebec, makes sense since Ubisoft Montreal is the head studio working on Siege, though due to the nature of the game it doesn't really translate much into him as a character ingame
as a brazilian, i can say the same about Lucio. Brazil is also so diverse we have our own stereotypes , even inside the same region, but i whink there are more countries and places that would be awsome to see. What you said about references about the culture, i feel some heroes dont even have that( I cant remember a single cultural reference Lucio says, even when he speaks protuguese are things like "thanks","hi" and "amazing")
Lucio didn't speak *any* Portuguese until they patched in those voice lines like two years after launch. I was thrilled because I love Lucio and felt that was conspicuously missing, but you can definitely still feel the seams of him not being built as a Brazilian character from the ground up. :c
@@strongrudder nothing against the actual voice actor, but almost every character have a bit of accent in their English voice lines and i think only Lucio have an accent speak his own and i feel that a lot more when i hear the English versions instead of the portuguese
@@lelis1324 mano, daria tranquilamente pra adaptar um heroi br com quase qualquer tema BR, desde um cangaceiro futurista todo diferenciado e oroentado ao seu tema até simplesmente um personagem mais "padrão" porém com referências culturais de sua região, mas eu acho muuuuito improvavel de rolar. Eu lembro de ter pensado numas ideias, tipo um suporte q usa uma besta ou um dps com uma sniper sem scope
the fact that lucio is a DJ from a favela in Rio de Janeiro and there is absolutely no reference to carioca funk beats on his music is nearly offensive LOL.
It's nice to have a Canadian perspective on Sojourn. You bring to the table a lot of points that I had felt toward Sombra as a Mexican. Similar to Canada, Mexico is a collage of cultures and people. In fact, Sombra looks more like someone from the center of the republic than the north or the south. Being the south more jungle like environment, the north arid environment and the center having plains, swamps and lagoons. In fact the Cowboy culture of the US is a great contribution from the migrants from the North of Mexico. Even the word Buckaroo is a deformation of the Spanish word "Vaquero". PS, all my friends say I look a lot like Cassidy 😂
I think you brought up a good point with how Canada is often depicted by American media. Speaking as a Canadian (in Toronto, no less), I've always found it funny when a Canadian character is depicted with this swelling sense of national pride, sporting red and white and leaving maple leafs everywhere they go. I had always thought that it was just a low-effort way to show off that a character is Canadian, but you've really made me consider that the relationship between our national identity is just different from an American's. Whenever I visit the states I always comment on the sheer volume of flags I see, and I think it really stands out in comparison to literally anywhere in Canada, where you'd find, like, maybe two, even in the most die-hard nationalistic rural Canadian towns.
It was nice to get a glimpse into the complexities of Canadian history and culture. Also as an East Europeans I relate strongly to never being represented in any major media ever. Especially not in a good light. Like I am low-key, high-key mad that all the European heroes except for Zarya come from wealthy Western/Northern European backgrounds. And I know getting more European heroes wouldn' be fair when eg. Africa and Asia are still so under represented.
As a Canadian myself, you have put what it means to be Canadian vs American in perfect form. When you mentioned about how everyone believes Canada is America lite, I remarked to myself that’s probably because most people(or at least myself) know more about American History then Canadian History. Low and behold 8 minutes later you mention exactly that. The melting pot vs mosaic analogy was not only perfect, but once you said that unlocked memories of textbooks from school as well. Genuinely an incredible video and so nice to hear someone put (some of) the cultural differences between Canada and USA into words
I love the added touch of your model's background being a glorious white and red for this video. I also think it's a crying shame that the US doesn't teach more about Canada. Not just because they're our border friendo, but because there's quite a stark amount of parallels in the histories of our two nations (although those parallels might be why it's not taught, because godforbid we -think- about our history critically for two seconds). I didn't know most of the history lesson in this video, and that was nice to learn. The parallels were so interesting for me to learn about, because they were story beats we kinda went through a few decades before y'all did. Sorta continues the notion that history has a bad habit of repeating itself, and all that.
This argument is also valid for Australians, far too much of video game culture see us as genuine wastelanders, I would love to have an Australian character that wasn't a straight up psycho or “must be outback nature character”
This argument could probably be applied to most nations on Earth. Like, I'm a Ukrainian and even thinking about "Ukrainian representation" makes me uncertain of how that would even look like. There sure as hell ain't the "Ukrainian Boy / Girl", I don't think, even though even our own media will bend over backwards to try and smoosh it all together into some singular "Ukrainian identity". But it also does, paradoxically exist, even as some incorporeal being - a ghost, if you will? The history of the USSR and its fall in particular is where this whole thing gets pretty messy. These sentiments, I imagine, are shared by any people who live in the post-USSR states - there's this lingering feeling of a unified identity that was in both parts imposed and then ripped away from the totality of all these peoples, all these nations, in the wake of that having the political landscape of each one scratch their own heads regarding the single question of "who we even are now?". I guess point being - the histories of so many countries are so vastly, incomprehensibly complex that it may very well be absurd to even try consolidating it all into this "representative" figure, whether that be Canada, Australia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Venezuela, Vietnam or Cape Verde. I'd like to eventually see more characters in such narratives who don't have to be straddled with either explicitly or implicitly "representing" anything, however impossible that may feel in our globalized media market and the variety of yikesy history it carries.
I like how you keep having rivalries with every Illari and Sombra you faced as Sojourn. Regardless, as a Black American I really enjoyed this video going into depth about your country and your thoughts regarding Sojourn and representation as a whole, alongside the unique circumstances within Canada, and I learned quite a bunch, and it was a nice branch off from your past video about representation- which I think you did, or did not, unsure. Also, an Inuit hero would be fucking awesome. Also, your thumbnail game is really improving.
I do love hearing about the Canadian cultural landscape considering just how little I actually get to grasp of it from media in the 'States. However the whole "we're not a melting pot, we're a mosaic" thing has always irked me since I first heard it, as it just seems like a slogan pushed by the liberal party to say "Look, see how *not* like America we are? Even our multiculturalism is cooler!" even though when you look at it first hand, basically any instance of a multicultural community is more of a "mosaic" than a "melting pot", the States just happen to be described that way because some bloke wrote it down probably 100 years ago and everyone decided it was good enough for the tourism brochure.
I feel like it's kind of a given that no one hero can represent an entire country completely, or even an entire province, but that's just something we all have to deal with until more heroes representing more people are released.
You're right, that was a dumb error on my part. I don't know why I reverted to that pronunciation in this video, but mig-maw is definitely the pronunciation I should've used.
I agree but I’d like to apply that also to Germany. Reinhardt is amazing but he is basically a bavarian and that’s it the part he basically try’s to represent but most of Germany isn’t that way I would love another German from northern Germany
I’m happy this video is finally out! I find this topic to be super cool, sojourn is my favorite overwatch character so I love any videos regarding her. That aside, I really do find the topic of this video cool. I was actually talking to one of my friends about sojourn, she doesn’t play overwatch but she is Canadian, she’s also from Toronto just like sojourn so she enjoyed discussing her character with me. I might send her this video once I’m done watching myself :D
As one of your southern neighbors across the border, I learned a lot. Both about Canada and how to think about characters who represent other countries. It's definitely one of those things that you don't tend to think about until it's pointed out. Anyways, another enjoyable deep dive. I always love it when you answer a question by pointing out how the question is flawed and pointing out the real question.
Thank you for making this video! As a Canadian who has lived abroad for most of his life I've never felt too connected to Canada's culture or history and this video has inspired me to look deeper into Canada's past and present.
Im honestly curious about peoples opinions from smaller countries that you know will NEVER get a character in game. My country, Serbia, or even any of the surrounding Balkan countries, will probably never be in the game or any similar games. Even if we got a character i seriously doubt it'd be good representation, so i cant say im even upset by it.
this was such an interesting watch! i'm northern european and my best friend is canadian & i always find it enjoyable to learn more, especially if it somehow relates to someone close to me. even if it's not all overwatch related hahaha great work ! love it
I thought there was something "off" about Sojourn and I'm not even Canadian, but I think it's as you mentioned the patriotic flavour she's the counterpart of Soldier for. It just never felt "Canadian" to me, since that's a very American thing, and like Blizzard was going for that stereotypical "American Lite" rather than a Canadian identity designed to be so from the start. They literally plastered maple leaves on her armband and designed an American Lite hero rather than anything that has more of a root to Canada. Obviously, with such a diverse background in identity, she could represent that more American counterpart of the country, but I think doesn't change that "off" flavour about her since she does end up just feeling like Soldier Lite as a consequence. It makes her less of an individual character and more of a character foil, which is unfortunate since she has such a cool design. Your observation of the depiction of Toronto talking about elections and plastering white and red everywhere is an interesting take, I never really considered that with other locations since places like Illios were very modelled after the real place and didn't focus on plastering Greek white and blue everywhere it possibly could, and Lijiang wasn't particularly patriotic either. Makes me wonder if any other maps other than campaign Toronto suffered from this "American depiction". Other than that, I think the video got a tad rambly when it was trying to explain the "all-Canadian hero" concept. Maybe it's just me, but I thought I got the main point about halfway through the segment and it could've been more concise. The content was still good, but I think an editor could've cut that part down just a bit. I think the part about the complicated relationship with a real "Canadian identity" was very good though! Perhaps they could've made an attempt that "less is more" with showing off Sojourn's Canadian identity, that way the audience could interpret if she was more "American Lite" or "aggressively Torontarian". In my case with Mei, I feel like she is Chinese, sure she's not an HKer like my family is, but her personality is one that I wouldn't find atypical of a slightly dorky Chinese science major who just likes cute things and saving the environment. But I think if they specifically told me she was meant to be Taiwanese Chinese rather than Mainland Chinese, I'd be looking for those subtle quirks that might signify the small culture differences between Taiwan and Mainland, and if they weren't there, and were instead some offhand generic thing like "croissants" I'd say she might not feel very Taiwanese. In that same idea though, and she might just end up feeling like "Mainland China Lite". As IMO Taiwan isn't as patriotic as Mainland China just like how Canada isn't as patriotic as the US.
To add to what you said about tracer. Similarly to how sojourn is only really identifiable as a torontonian, tracer is exclusively representing London and the surrounding area. The North or west of England are about as different from there as the other nations in the union. Tracer is, quite honestly, a terrible representative of Britain. Taking a much more nuanced approach even with the character still being from London would have made the rest of us brits feel a little less sour about her being the poster child of our country in the game.
14:45 at least in ON and QC, ive seen a bunch of maple leafs in logos and other stuff, like everywhere you look you can find a small leaf almost as an easter egg XD
Yeah, I visited Niagara falls and all the touristy areas have maple leaves as apostrophes and stuff. You described it well, it did feel like finding Easter eggs. I wonder if it's a cultural thing, or more for the tourists?
As a game developer I do kinda get why they don't make a bunch of Canadian characters for a small country when there is limited character slots to spare and a lot of countries to go around. But i do get that the country's states are basically their own country, like how the UK is designed. Definitely makes things complicated in regards to designing a character that represents the country thats for sure!
As a Québécois, I'll hold myself to just infodump about the complexity of what even being Québécois means, but I'll just add that I'd love to see a game where every characters are candians in their own ways ! I really think that not only having a Québécois character is an amazing idea ( I'm not bias, I swaer c; ) but also an amazing oportunity to show a light to the native's culture and struggles ! Just to say, more representation is always an amazing thing and I do feel that it is a missed oportunity that we are not doing it here and instead ship our talents to the US.
Riel mention! We love him here. Thank you for talking about the Metis so much. Tomorrow is Louis Riel day in Manitoba, and we have a week-long festival celebrating Metis culture in the cold. Riel is a topic of discussion this time of year and its amazing to me that his legacy changed within a mere generation from my parents being taught that he was a traitor to my generation being taught all that he did for our Province.
It would be great if a french speaking canadian was added. Then maybe a french speaking new orleans character. Just so baptiste and widow could all have a chat with no one fully understanding each other because of the dialects
I absolutely love Lucio, but he (and every brazilian representation really) and up having the same problem, Brasil is a vast and multicultural country so everything boils down to the most famous/steroidal: Rio de Janeiro, carnaval and football. Which is just a micro portion of all cultures in the land
Almost every Brazilian fighting game character is either a capoeira practicioner (Eddy Gordo, Richard Meyer, Christie Monteiro) or some sort of jungle-person (Blanka (though he isnt even Brazilian by birth i dont think?), Liza from Kaiser Knuckle, Rila from Breakers). some exceptions I can think of though are Sean Matsuda from Street Fighter, Marco Rodrigues from Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and Nelson from KOF
Im a Torontonian (GTA technically) and sojourn feels like an American that moved to Canada 5 years ago and says they are Canadian... I wish Lucio was our Canadian hero
I think Métis revolutionist descendant is genuinely such a cool idea and could fit right in with the theme of ow. Also, as I fellow Canadian, I too understand the pain of colouring in Nunavut 😢.
As a Swiss person I am kinda upset that Mercy speaks Standard German rather than Swiss German, the language we actually speak in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland (French, Italian and Romansh would be the other national languages). We generally do not speak Standard German unless forced at school or due to somebody not understanding it :/ [add-on: like they could have had her say "thank you" as "merci vilmal" as we do in Swiss German, showing off the French-language influences on Swiss German + depending on the dialect it would sound really similar to Mercy]
I'd be interested to hear your take on Letterkenny, even if it's a bit outside of the scope on your channel currently. I'm an American and I got most of my Canadian education from that show(and now, your channel), and although they do in include characters that are Native, Quebecois, Australian, Irish, and American, the purpose of that show is obviously not education. I also would not be mad at all if this channel turned into a film, television, and other media analysis channel, but that's your path to follow and I'll be subscribed either way.
Thank you so much for saying that, I really appreciate it! On the topic of Letterkenny, I think they're great ngl. Their skit with the hockey boys who took their sisters out on a date is permanently etched into my brain because of how close to home it hits lmao
Its always so unnecessarily exciting when canada shows up in media Its like "omg I know that place!!!!!! They acknowledged our existence!!!!!" Shout out to celeste
Ugh it's exactly the same with Reinhardt and Germany. Our soldiers & patriots are not heroes, they were Nazis. Applying this American style patriotism to Germany comes across as extremely tone deaf and honestly borderline offensive.
It's also a thing with Mercy. She's swiss german, but what about the 3 other language groups in the country? It's a very small countries, but there's quite different cultures between french- german- italian- and romanche- speaking swiss.
I've never played Overwatch, but this video was neat. And finding out that not only has a second Canadian character been added in the time since this video was made, but they're from the Maritimes as well was cool. Like, let's goooooo, Atlantic Canadian representation in a game I haven't played and probably never will regardless.
As a canadian I want to see a canadian lumberjack-inspired hero wearing plaid. I know it doesn't really fit OW's standards for humor but I would really like it.
What's the part of Sojourn that makes her Canadian enough to realize she'a from Toronto? If it wasn't for her accent and her jacket, I'd probably not rven realize she's Canadian.
in terms of Canadian fighting game characters, there's Wolf Hawkfield from Virtua Fighter who's a pro wrestler of First Nations descent, technically Wolverine thanks to Marvel vs. Capcom, Sasquatch from Darkstalkers (who's really more of a yeti tbh), amnesiac oil platform worker Rig from Dead or Alive, and King of Fighters's Maxima who is a kickass cyborg. There's also Abigail from Final Fight/Street Fighter, but we don't talk about him (he's not a racist caricature or anything I just hate his character design)
I’ll need to do more research, but I suspect that nobody invited her out for a rip so she feels like it’s stupid. She has called Pharah ten-ply on the basketball court, though. I’m confident about that.
I feel like I would find Kiriko a more interesting character if she was from a different part of Japan than the Shimadas. She could be Okinawan/Ryukyuan (not the same but Okinawa is part of Ryukyu) or even Ainu (the indigenous people of northern Japan, primarily Hokkaido; the predominant Japanese culture is to basically pretend they don't exist because part of Japanese nationalism often involves pride in a perceived ethnic homogeneity). She'd probably need to be redesigned in either case because her design as is is heavily tied to Shinto which is similar/related to but not the same as both Ryukyuan and Ainu traditional beliefs; her miko-inspired outfit and abilities of course in addition to the whole fox thing (likely a shisa if she's Okinawan, and I suppose an Ainu Kiriko could have the fox spirit retained in relation to Chirronupu it could also be changed to a bear or owl spirit) another thing: tattoos are stigmatized in Japan due to association with the yakuza; both Ryukyuan and Ainu culture have traditions of tattooing (in both cases done specifically by and on women) and are negatively affected by this stigma, which reaches to a point that some places like public bathhouses and gyms will ban you for having them. i feel this could be used thematically in relation to Kiriko's animosity toward Hanzo (and how she feels differently about Genji; we don't know if he even has tattoos of his own, as there aren't any visible on the Young Genji skin and it's possible that the Shimadas never bothered having him get one because they cared more about Hanzo, and even if he does it's not like anyone's seeing them anymore) however from my very limited knowledge it's possible that Kiriko's portrayal could be iffy if she were explicitly Ainu (not that it isn't...slightly questionable as is) since i belieeeeeve the Ainu are sometimes subject to mysticism stereotypes, but this could entirely be my American ass making assumptions
I wish to have more slavic heroes. I am Czech myself, so I'd like a Czech or a Slovak one, but I'd be happy with a Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian or any other slavic hero. I wouldn't even mind a second Russian hero, though the Serbian and Croatian and Ukrainian and Russian heroes might be controversial, so the west slavic heroes or Slovene or Bulgarrian heroes would probably be safer. An Italian hero and a Greek hero and a Spanish hero would be very nice to see as well. An Argentinian hero too.
I just started imagining how a conversation between Lúcio, a hero from Portugal, and a hero from Spain (not castellano per se) would go like, starting with the awkward "Oi" he has to say hello and lets just say its 3 versions of a language with the same root where Spain Hero awkwardly deciphers Portugal Hero to understand what Lúcio asked or is even speaking about. And the Portugal Hero probably ends up arguing about football. (And as much as this is a steryotipe, honestly almost everyone here has some opinion on futebol so it wouldn't be culturally incorrect.) Anyways, I need to hear Soujorn say croissant. Does she have a croissant line?
You can see a clear trend in Blizzard/Overwatch team to release as diverse cast as possible, which...just because there is a false notion among Americans that Canada and the US are not "diverse" enough (as in "uh, we can't have more American characters, we need like a Thai or Polynesian one")...it basically means that they will keep releasing characters from outside North America and we will not get any more American or Canadian characters for quite some time. And if you look at American characters, they're not diverse either. If you make the case that OW would need 12 characters to represent all Canadians, it would need like 20 to represent all Americans...yet what do we have? Soldier is your typical Midwest military guy, Reaper is a hispanic from LA (so unique :D), Ashe is a wealthy southerner and Cass...well Cass is a cowboy. You don't have any African Americans, Cajun people, Native Americans...etc. I think it is clear that to them diversity only means "from other countries" and they kind of overlook what they have at home, despite majority of players being from the US or Korea (just one character).
To be fair the characters being from around the world is part of the whole shtick, so if a third of the cast were American even if they were all diverse would still be like "hey what gives"
personally, i like these really stereotypical heros bc they are funny . The only thing i dont like that much is how they repeat the theme, like they do with japanese and USians heros, but its ok when it shows differet cultures of the same culture (like soldier and cree).
It was really cool to learn more about Canada. You're so right about us Americans, but I'm really interested in the historical events you mentioned. As always great video!
that would be just as difficult as making a japanese character that isn't either a yakuza member, a ninja, or a samurai (basically it isn't hard but writers and companies seem to think it is since they don't try)
i was gonna say that most of the cast use guns but then realized that all the American characters minus arguably Soldier use Gun-Ass Guns as opposed to laser pistols or ice guns or grenade launchers
We Australians seem to be in the same boat as you (no surprise). Two young countries with a colonial history, with indigenous peoples fighting for recognition. I'm not one to complain about representation, but since I'm here watching this... I'd be lying if I said I didn't appreciate it. I don't mind the fact that the Junkers are based on the Mad Max stuff but it would be so nice to see a foreigner who gets things right... When I talk to Americans about my country, some are genuinely concerned about the state of living here with the animals and whatnot... I said I'm not the type to complain about representation, but I'm starting to think it's more important than I realise. Everyone needs to know Australia is a perfectly fine place to live, and it's got plenty of cultures and stories to explore. The idea of, say, an Aboriginal character in this game sounds like a pipe dream, but it would be quite the surprise.
I really enjoy your takes and I hope to eventually make my videos some day :). To add on about different nationalities, Im American but both of my parent are Israeli and immigrated over. Im jewish too and while I feel represented with all the 'mericans in the game I always wondered about the nationalities of future charcters. Like will they ever have an Israeli character? Bc I would love to see a character in one of my favorite games speak hebrew but I also dont want a character that becomes like a J.K. Rowling sterotype of a jewish person/Israeli from Blizzard 😅. I also just think they genuinely wont touch the topic with a ten foot pole because I just KNOW the antisemitism would become at least tenfold if they introduce either a jewish or Israeli character :(
bro, the majority of youngs quebecois, who ive meet,spoke , the majority of the time, english or a mix of french and english, meanwhile immigrants and older people tends to speak french with you.
I feel similar with lucio. Except I actively despise him. 95% of him isnt brazilian. Even his portuguese voice lines are clear that they are being said by someone whose main language is english. Kinda like you can identify an indian person speaking english wish a heavy accent. And his whole music thing is actually a stereotype for some reason. Idk what historic event made it so but brazilians are portrayed as music lovers and/or jungle beasts in video games and blizzard fell right into that 1 out of 2 known caracterization which gives an even worse 'you did not do your homework' impression. His only two characteristics that can be seen as brazilian is him being black (most of our population is not white) and him having a relationship with soccer (the most popular sports here + it wasnt shown til way later in ow years).
The description of Canada as a "mosaic" rather than a melting pot is really beautiful from the lens of love and respect for cultural differences, but does leave me wondering if there's a little xenophobia in there as well.
@@TheViveros In the USA there's still a good amount of segregation of communities and cultures, so in that light describing it as a mosaic would mostly serve to highlight that structure. That's probably where the favor towards "melting pot" comes from over here, since that's highlighting the intermingling rather than any kind of separation.
Give Quebec its independence...Then Alberta, Southern part of Ontario and Southern part of BC (to connect with Alaska) to the US and leave the rest to indigenous people. Boom. Solved the Canadian problem right here. Should have done that in the War of 1812 but we got out asses kicked in Canada :D
Sojourn isn't MEANT to be the all-canadian hero. She's just supposed to be a Canadian. Sure, Cassidy and soldier are American, but they don't resemble 98% of Americans. They're not supposed to, they're just American characters. I think that's people first mistake when analyzing media nowadays, not everything is supposed to have an irl counterpart. Characters should exist for themselves and allow people to relate to them, not exist to be representatives for people irl.
One thing I have to give Blizzard is that their characters are excellent entry points into cultures. I fell head over heels for Lifeweaver; his design, his gameplay, his voice, his accent, his personality, his ass, everything. And that lead me to looking up what his Thai voice lines meant in English, which lead me to looking into Thailand's culture, which lead to me spending hours upon hours researching the history of Thailand and its people. I knew literally nothing about Thailand before Blizzard gave me Weavesnatcher and now it's on my bucket list of places I want to see before I die.
be careful of pirates, and streetfood if you visit Thailand!
@@Pandorana67 That’s correct. Because as a Thai person, I have to always be on the lookout for enemy ships trying to steal my treasure.
I think it'd be really nice to see a French Quebecois, since we typically have beef with English people (which I find incredibly stupid), like Widowmaker's voiceline "Ugh, Americans...". It'd make for funny banter, as well as interesting dynamics with the rest of the cast.
I genuinely think it's a colossal missed opportunity that nobody ever tries to do a Quebecois character in a game like this, *especially* alongside an Anglophone Canadian hero. There's so much potential there and it's such a shame that it never materializes.
I don’t think ive ever seen a quebecois character in any medias would love to see it!
@@GarnetDust24The one example i can think of is the iteration of the DC Supervillain Plastique in Harley Quinn
Like her comics counterpart she’s a Quebecois terrorist who’s part of Task Force X but mainly shows up to blow up (because she’s an explosives expert) (and she dies in the same episode she’s introduced)
@@TheViveros Buck from R6 Siege is the only character i know that is from Quebec, makes sense since Ubisoft Montreal is the head studio working on Siege, though due to the nature of the game it doesn't really translate much into him as a character ingame
Well now there’s Venture!
as a brazilian, i can say the same about Lucio. Brazil is also so diverse we have our own stereotypes , even inside the same region, but i whink there are more countries and places that would be awsome to see. What you said about references about the culture, i feel some heroes dont even have that( I cant remember a single cultural reference Lucio says, even when he speaks protuguese are things like "thanks","hi" and "amazing")
Lucio didn't speak *any* Portuguese until they patched in those voice lines like two years after launch. I was thrilled because I love Lucio and felt that was conspicuously missing, but you can definitely still feel the seams of him not being built as a Brazilian character from the ground up. :c
Mlk eu amo o Lúcio mas eu GENUINAMENTE queria um herói brasileiro novo (dps) que fosse construído do zero com nossa representação em mente
@@strongrudder nothing against the actual voice actor, but almost every character have a bit of accent in their English voice lines and i think only Lucio have an accent speak his own and i feel that a lot more when i hear the English versions instead of the portuguese
@@lelis1324 mano, daria tranquilamente pra adaptar um heroi br com quase qualquer tema BR, desde um cangaceiro futurista todo diferenciado e oroentado ao seu tema até simplesmente um personagem mais "padrão" porém com referências culturais de sua região, mas eu acho muuuuito improvavel de rolar. Eu lembro de ter pensado numas ideias, tipo um suporte q usa uma besta ou um dps com uma sniper sem scope
the fact that lucio is a DJ from a favela in Rio de Janeiro and there is absolutely no reference to carioca funk beats on his music is nearly offensive LOL.
It's nice to have a Canadian perspective on Sojourn. You bring to the table a lot of points that I had felt toward Sombra as a Mexican.
Similar to Canada, Mexico is a collage of cultures and people. In fact, Sombra looks more like someone from the center of the republic than the north or the south. Being the south more jungle like environment, the north arid environment and the center having plains, swamps and lagoons.
In fact the Cowboy culture of the US is a great contribution from the migrants from the North of Mexico. Even the word Buckaroo is a deformation of the Spanish word "Vaquero".
PS, all my friends say I look a lot like Cassidy 😂
I think you brought up a good point with how Canada is often depicted by American media. Speaking as a Canadian (in Toronto, no less), I've always found it funny when a Canadian character is depicted with this swelling sense of national pride, sporting red and white and leaving maple leafs everywhere they go. I had always thought that it was just a low-effort way to show off that a character is Canadian, but you've really made me consider that the relationship between our national identity is just different from an American's. Whenever I visit the states I always comment on the sheer volume of flags I see, and I think it really stands out in comparison to literally anywhere in Canada, where you'd find, like, maybe two, even in the most die-hard nationalistic rural Canadian towns.
It was nice to get a glimpse into the complexities of Canadian history and culture.
Also as an East Europeans I relate strongly to never being represented in any major media ever. Especially not in a good light.
Like I am low-key, high-key mad that all the European heroes except for Zarya come from wealthy Western/Northern European backgrounds. And I know getting more European heroes wouldn' be fair when eg. Africa and Asia are still so under represented.
Well said
To summarize, you Canadian character shouldn't represent "THE Canadian", rather they should be "A Canadian". One of many, all unique.
this guy is a better social studies teacher than any teacher I've ever had
fr lol
As a Canadian myself, you have put what it means to be Canadian vs American in perfect form. When you mentioned about how everyone believes Canada is America lite, I remarked to myself that’s probably because most people(or at least myself) know more about American History then Canadian History. Low and behold 8 minutes later you mention exactly that.
The melting pot vs mosaic analogy was not only perfect, but once you said that unlocked memories of textbooks from school as well.
Genuinely an incredible video and so nice to hear someone put (some of) the cultural differences between Canada and USA into words
I feel this way with tracer she does not reflect everyone in the England most of us are miserable or condescending
god i never thought about it but we do need more canadian heroes man, you are spittin
I love the added touch of your model's background being a glorious white and red for this video. I also think it's a crying shame that the US doesn't teach more about Canada. Not just because they're our border friendo, but because there's quite a stark amount of parallels in the histories of our two nations (although those parallels might be why it's not taught, because godforbid we -think- about our history critically for two seconds). I didn't know most of the history lesson in this video, and that was nice to learn. The parallels were so interesting for me to learn about, because they were story beats we kinda went through a few decades before y'all did. Sorta continues the notion that history has a bad habit of repeating itself, and all that.
babe wake up viveros posted an ow video essay
This argument is also valid for Australians, far too much of video game culture see us as genuine wastelanders, I would love to have an Australian character that wasn't a straight up psycho or “must be outback nature character”
This argument could probably be applied to most nations on Earth.
Like, I'm a Ukrainian and even thinking about "Ukrainian representation" makes me uncertain of how that would even look like. There sure as hell ain't the "Ukrainian Boy / Girl", I don't think, even though even our own media will bend over backwards to try and smoosh it all together into some singular "Ukrainian identity". But it also does, paradoxically exist, even as some incorporeal being - a ghost, if you will? The history of the USSR and its fall in particular is where this whole thing gets pretty messy. These sentiments, I imagine, are shared by any people who live in the post-USSR states - there's this lingering feeling of a unified identity that was in both parts imposed and then ripped away from the totality of all these peoples, all these nations, in the wake of that having the political landscape of each one scratch their own heads regarding the single question of "who we even are now?".
I guess point being - the histories of so many countries are so vastly, incomprehensibly complex that it may very well be absurd to even try consolidating it all into this "representative" figure, whether that be Canada, Australia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Venezuela, Vietnam or Cape Verde.
I'd like to eventually see more characters in such narratives who don't have to be straddled with either explicitly or implicitly "representing" anything, however impossible that may feel in our globalized media market and the variety of yikesy history it carries.
I feel like that might be a product of both Mad Max and the weird pop culture fascination with Australia in the 1980’s that just never went away
Omg the JJ McCullough vibes were so strong with this one. Cool video dude
I like how you keep having rivalries with every Illari and Sombra you faced as Sojourn.
Regardless, as a Black American I really enjoyed this video going into depth about your country and your thoughts regarding Sojourn and representation as a whole, alongside the unique circumstances within Canada, and I learned quite a bunch, and it was a nice branch off from your past video about representation- which I think you did, or did not, unsure.
Also, an Inuit hero would be fucking awesome.
Also, your thumbnail game is really improving.
TLDR: We need Sam (pharah's dad) to be playable
10:25 Not the rigpigs ☠️
I do love hearing about the Canadian cultural landscape considering just how little I actually get to grasp of it from media in the 'States. However the whole "we're not a melting pot, we're a mosaic" thing has always irked me since I first heard it, as it just seems like a slogan pushed by the liberal party to say "Look, see how *not* like America we are? Even our multiculturalism is cooler!" even though when you look at it first hand, basically any instance of a multicultural community is more of a "mosaic" than a "melting pot", the States just happen to be described that way because some bloke wrote it down probably 100 years ago and everyone decided it was good enough for the tourism brochure.
really like the video but the fact that YOUR team is red and the ENEMY team is blue really messed with my head the whole time.
keep up the great work.
Trust me, I feel you. Playing these matches for background footage was *not* my favourite, I was shooting my teammates constantly lmao
This is one of my favourite videos of yours, you did so good with this one❤️
Thank you so much! This was a fun one to work on and talk about, so I’m glad you liked it 😊
I feel like it's kind of a given that no one hero can represent an entire country completely, or even an entire province, but that's just something we all have to deal with until more heroes representing more people are released.
BTW as someone from Nova Scotia who has had this drilled into my head, Mi'kmaq is pronounced closer to "mig-maw" than "mic-mac".
You're right, that was a dumb error on my part. I don't know why I reverted to that pronunciation in this video, but mig-maw is definitely the pronunciation I should've used.
@@TheViveros no worries, not meant to scold, frankly you're doing better than most people outside the maritimes for even knowing about the Mi'kmaq
9:45 I feel personally attacked. I literally got up and stated that thesis before resuming the video for part 2.
I agree but I’d like to apply that also to Germany. Reinhardt is amazing but he is basically a bavarian and that’s it the part he basically try’s to represent but most of Germany isn’t that way I would love another German from northern Germany
I’m happy this video is finally out! I find this topic to be super cool, sojourn is my favorite overwatch character so I love any videos regarding her. That aside, I really do find the topic of this video cool. I was actually talking to one of my friends about sojourn, she doesn’t play overwatch but she is Canadian, she’s also from Toronto just like sojourn so she enjoyed discussing her character with me. I might send her this video once I’m done watching myself :D
As one of your southern neighbors across the border, I learned a lot. Both about Canada and how to think about characters who represent other countries. It's definitely one of those things that you don't tend to think about until it's pointed out. Anyways, another enjoyable deep dive. I always love it when you answer a question by pointing out how the question is flawed and pointing out the real question.
Thank you for making this video! As a Canadian who has lived abroad for most of his life I've never felt too connected to Canada's culture or history and this video has inspired me to look deeper into Canada's past and present.
Im honestly curious about peoples opinions from smaller countries that you know will NEVER get a character in game.
My country, Serbia, or even any of the surrounding Balkan countries, will probably never be in the game or any similar games. Even if we got a character i seriously doubt it'd be good representation, so i cant say im even upset by it.
As a kurdish person I feel your pain 😭
Imam osecaj da bi devovi napravili ratnog zlocinca da prave srpskog lika
this was such an interesting watch! i'm northern european and my best friend is canadian & i always find it enjoyable to learn more, especially if it somehow relates to someone close to me. even if it's not all overwatch related hahaha
great work ! love it
as an american i definately don't feel like soldier 76 represents me either.. . or cassidy or the couche gun lady with bob whatever her name is.
I thought there was something "off" about Sojourn and I'm not even Canadian, but I think it's as you mentioned the patriotic flavour she's the counterpart of Soldier for. It just never felt "Canadian" to me, since that's a very American thing, and like Blizzard was going for that stereotypical "American Lite" rather than a Canadian identity designed to be so from the start. They literally plastered maple leaves on her armband and designed an American Lite hero rather than anything that has more of a root to Canada. Obviously, with such a diverse background in identity, she could represent that more American counterpart of the country, but I think doesn't change that "off" flavour about her since she does end up just feeling like Soldier Lite as a consequence. It makes her less of an individual character and more of a character foil, which is unfortunate since she has such a cool design. Your observation of the depiction of Toronto talking about elections and plastering white and red everywhere is an interesting take, I never really considered that with other locations since places like Illios were very modelled after the real place and didn't focus on plastering Greek white and blue everywhere it possibly could, and Lijiang wasn't particularly patriotic either. Makes me wonder if any other maps other than campaign Toronto suffered from this "American depiction". Other than that, I think the video got a tad rambly when it was trying to explain the "all-Canadian hero" concept. Maybe it's just me, but I thought I got the main point about halfway through the segment and it could've been more concise. The content was still good, but I think an editor could've cut that part down just a bit. I think the part about the complicated relationship with a real "Canadian identity" was very good though! Perhaps they could've made an attempt that "less is more" with showing off Sojourn's Canadian identity, that way the audience could interpret if she was more "American Lite" or "aggressively Torontarian". In my case with Mei, I feel like she is Chinese, sure she's not an HKer like my family is, but her personality is one that I wouldn't find atypical of a slightly dorky Chinese science major who just likes cute things and saving the environment. But I think if they specifically told me she was meant to be Taiwanese Chinese rather than Mainland Chinese, I'd be looking for those subtle quirks that might signify the small culture differences between Taiwan and Mainland, and if they weren't there, and were instead some offhand generic thing like "croissants" I'd say she might not feel very Taiwanese. In that same idea though, and she might just end up feeling like "Mainland China Lite". As IMO Taiwan isn't as patriotic as Mainland China just like how Canada isn't as patriotic as the US.
I did not expect a lesson but I enjoyed it, thank you🍍
To add to what you said about tracer. Similarly to how sojourn is only really identifiable as a torontonian, tracer is exclusively representing London and the surrounding area. The North or west of England are about as different from there as the other nations in the union. Tracer is, quite honestly, a terrible representative of Britain. Taking a much more nuanced approach even with the character still being from London would have made the rest of us brits feel a little less sour about her being the poster child of our country in the game.
14:45 at least in ON and QC, ive seen a bunch of maple leafs in logos and other stuff, like everywhere you look you can find a small leaf almost as an easter egg XD
Yeah, I visited Niagara falls and all the touristy areas have maple leaves as apostrophes and stuff. You described it well, it did feel like finding Easter eggs. I wonder if it's a cultural thing, or more for the tourists?
As a game developer I do kinda get why they don't make a bunch of Canadian characters for a small country when there is limited character slots to spare and a lot of countries to go around.
But i do get that the country's states are basically their own country, like how the UK is designed. Definitely makes things complicated in regards to designing a character that represents the country thats for sure!
This is the most Canadian history I've learned in a while, Thanks for saying those words and such.
I kinda forgot this was about overwatch and wanted to go back to learning about Canada after you started about overwatch again lol
best video ever
nvm i found a better video this is now the second best video ever
:(
"As a Canadian we are kind of used to being left out of these sorta things."
Portugal finally has an ally 😂
I would 100% watch an hour long video that's just you explaining canadian history.
this reminded me of my grade 11 canadian history class i was required to take because, well, canadian
Just found out Venture is Canadian! Would love to see an updated video based on that!
As a Québécois, I'll hold myself to just infodump about the complexity of what even being Québécois means, but I'll just add that I'd love to see a game where every characters are candians in their own ways ! I really think that not only having a Québécois character is an amazing idea ( I'm not bias, I swaer c; ) but also an amazing oportunity to show a light to the native's culture and struggles !
Just to say, more representation is always an amazing thing and I do feel that it is a missed oportunity that we are not doing it here and instead ship our talents to the US.
Riel mention! We love him here. Thank you for talking about the Metis so much. Tomorrow is Louis Riel day in Manitoba, and we have a week-long festival celebrating Metis culture in the cold. Riel is a topic of discussion this time of year and its amazing to me that his legacy changed within a mere generation from my parents being taught that he was a traitor to my generation being taught all that he did for our Province.
this was very wide opening and interesting!!! i love listening to this while cleaning
It would be great if a french speaking canadian was added. Then maybe a french speaking new orleans character. Just so baptiste and widow could all have a chat with no one fully understanding each other because of the dialects
And a french speaking Swiss :O
I absolutely love Lucio, but he (and every brazilian representation really) and up having the same problem, Brasil is a vast and multicultural country so everything boils down to the most famous/steroidal: Rio de Janeiro, carnaval and football. Which is just a micro portion of all cultures in the land
Sadly this is often the bottom line for multicultural countries in western media, be a stereotype or be from the US
Almost every Brazilian fighting game character is either a capoeira practicioner (Eddy Gordo, Richard Meyer, Christie Monteiro) or some sort of jungle-person (Blanka (though he isnt even Brazilian by birth i dont think?), Liza from Kaiser Knuckle, Rila from Breakers). some exceptions I can think of though are Sean Matsuda from Street Fighter, Marco Rodrigues from Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and Nelson from KOF
Im a Torontonian (GTA technically) and sojourn feels like an American that moved to Canada 5 years ago and says they are Canadian... I wish Lucio was our Canadian hero
I think Métis revolutionist descendant is genuinely such a cool idea and could fit right in with the theme of ow. Also, as I fellow Canadian, I too understand the pain of colouring in Nunavut 😢.
As a Swiss person I am kinda upset that Mercy speaks Standard German rather than Swiss German, the language we actually speak in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland (French, Italian and Romansh would be the other national languages). We generally do not speak Standard German unless forced at school or due to somebody not understanding it :/ [add-on: like they could have had her say "thank you" as "merci vilmal" as we do in Swiss German, showing off the French-language influences on Swiss German + depending on the dialect it would sound really similar to Mercy]
I'd be interested to hear your take on Letterkenny, even if it's a bit outside of the scope on your channel currently. I'm an American and I got most of my Canadian education from that show(and now, your channel), and although they do in include characters that are Native, Quebecois, Australian, Irish, and American, the purpose of that show is obviously not education. I also would not be mad at all if this channel turned into a film, television, and other media analysis channel, but that's your path to follow and I'll be subscribed either way.
Thank you so much for saying that, I really appreciate it! On the topic of Letterkenny, I think they're great ngl. Their skit with the hockey boys who took their sisters out on a date is permanently etched into my brain because of how close to home it hits lmao
Its always so unnecessarily exciting when canada shows up in media
Its like "omg I know that place!!!!!! They acknowledged our existence!!!!!"
Shout out to celeste
wow, i felt personally attacked for the video subject of "Elo hell & why we cope" 😅
Ugh it's exactly the same with Reinhardt and Germany. Our soldiers & patriots are not heroes, they were Nazis. Applying this American style patriotism to Germany comes across as extremely tone deaf and honestly borderline offensive.
It's also a thing with Mercy. She's swiss german, but what about the 3 other language groups in the country? It's a very small countries, but there's quite different cultures between french- german- italian- and romanche- speaking swiss.
yes yes but what about ketchup chips\crisps?
The real ones know that the true Canadian delicacies are actually Ruffles all-dressed chips.
We need a Newfie hero immediately. Make them the most egregious stereotype possible.
A Newfie hero would genuinely go hard and I think Blizzard are cowards for not embracing the idea already
I've never played Overwatch, but this video was neat. And finding out that not only has a second Canadian character been added in the time since this video was made, but they're from the Maritimes as well was cool. Like, let's goooooo, Atlantic Canadian representation in a game I haven't played and probably never will regardless.
Vancouver islander here. Damn straight on the crystal girlies, it's fuckin rough out here man 😂
I speak from experience, I lived there for a few years and know it all too well lmao
As a canadian I want to see a canadian lumberjack-inspired hero wearing plaid. I know it doesn't really fit OW's standards for humor but I would really like it.
i would REALLY like the beef between sojourn and an albertan, i think it would be interesting. just like the beef between ashe and cass.
There's evidence that humans were here in North America long before the land bridge btw. Search up those footprints in the white sand desert.
What's the part of Sojourn that makes her Canadian enough to realize she'a from Toronto? If it wasn't for her accent and her jacket, I'd probably not rven realize she's Canadian.
in terms of Canadian fighting game characters, there's Wolf Hawkfield from Virtua Fighter who's a pro wrestler of First Nations descent, technically Wolverine thanks to Marvel vs. Capcom, Sasquatch from Darkstalkers (who's really more of a yeti tbh), amnesiac oil platform worker Rig from Dead or Alive, and King of Fighters's Maxima who is a kickass cyborg. There's also Abigail from Final Fight/Street Fighter, but we don't talk about him (he's not a racist caricature or anything I just hate his character design)
Has Sojourn ever hacked a dart or gone out for a rip? Inquiring minds want to know.
I’ll need to do more research, but I suspect that nobody invited her out for a rip so she feels like it’s stupid.
She has called Pharah ten-ply on the basketball court, though. I’m confident about that.
I swear there's a barbaric cultural practices joke in there somewhere, but I'm currently too drunk to put it together.
Nah, she's a card-carrying Liberal Party member. She would *never* publicly joke about that (in private, that's how she describes Alberta).
I feel like I would find Kiriko a more interesting character if she was from a different part of Japan than the Shimadas. She could be Okinawan/Ryukyuan (not the same but Okinawa is part of Ryukyu) or even Ainu (the indigenous people of northern Japan, primarily Hokkaido; the predominant Japanese culture is to basically pretend they don't exist because part of Japanese nationalism often involves pride in a perceived ethnic homogeneity). She'd probably need to be redesigned in either case because her design as is is heavily tied to Shinto which is similar/related to but not the same as both Ryukyuan and Ainu traditional beliefs; her miko-inspired outfit and abilities of course in addition to the whole fox thing (likely a shisa if she's Okinawan, and I suppose an Ainu Kiriko could have the fox spirit retained in relation to Chirronupu it could also be changed to a bear or owl spirit)
another thing: tattoos are stigmatized in Japan due to association with the yakuza; both Ryukyuan and Ainu culture have traditions of tattooing (in both cases done specifically by and on women) and are negatively affected by this stigma, which reaches to a point that some places like public bathhouses and gyms will ban you for having them. i feel this could be used thematically in relation to Kiriko's animosity toward Hanzo (and how she feels differently about Genji; we don't know if he even has tattoos of his own, as there aren't any visible on the Young Genji skin and it's possible that the Shimadas never bothered having him get one because they cared more about Hanzo, and even if he does it's not like anyone's seeing them anymore)
however from my very limited knowledge it's possible that Kiriko's portrayal could be iffy if she were explicitly Ainu (not that it isn't...slightly questionable as is) since i belieeeeeve the Ainu are sometimes subject to mysticism stereotypes, but this could entirely be my American ass making assumptions
I wish to have more slavic heroes. I am Czech myself, so I'd like a Czech or a Slovak one, but I'd be happy with a Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian or any other slavic hero. I wouldn't even mind a second Russian hero, though the Serbian and Croatian and Ukrainian and Russian heroes might be controversial, so the west slavic heroes or Slovene or Bulgarrian heroes would probably be safer. An Italian hero and a Greek hero and a Spanish hero would be very nice to see as well. An Argentinian hero too.
now theres venture whos canadian mexican!
who - in fact - doesnt seem to represent the diverse culture of canada much either!
Wait, there is more to Canada than being frech/british usa?
I just started imagining how a conversation between Lúcio, a hero from Portugal, and a hero from Spain (not castellano per se) would go like, starting with the awkward "Oi" he has to say hello and lets just say its 3 versions of a language with the same root where Spain Hero awkwardly deciphers Portugal Hero to understand what Lúcio asked or is even speaking about. And the Portugal Hero probably ends up arguing about football. (And as much as this is a steryotipe, honestly almost everyone here has some opinion on futebol so it wouldn't be culturally incorrect.)
Anyways, I need to hear Soujorn say croissant. Does she have a croissant line?
I had to make sure youre Canadian before I clicked on this video lmao
You can see a clear trend in Blizzard/Overwatch team to release as diverse cast as possible, which...just because there is a false notion among Americans that Canada and the US are not "diverse" enough (as in "uh, we can't have more American characters, we need like a Thai or Polynesian one")...it basically means that they will keep releasing characters from outside North America and we will not get any more American or Canadian characters for quite some time. And if you look at American characters, they're not diverse either. If you make the case that OW would need 12 characters to represent all Canadians, it would need like 20 to represent all Americans...yet what do we have? Soldier is your typical Midwest military guy, Reaper is a hispanic from LA (so unique :D), Ashe is a wealthy southerner and Cass...well Cass is a cowboy. You don't have any African Americans, Cajun people, Native Americans...etc. I think it is clear that to them diversity only means "from other countries" and they kind of overlook what they have at home, despite majority of players being from the US or Korea (just one character).
To be fair the characters being from around the world is part of the whole shtick, so if a third of the cast were American even if they were all diverse would still be like "hey what gives"
im pretty sure roadhog is maori.
personally, i like these really stereotypical heros bc they are funny . The only thing i dont like that much is how they repeat the theme, like they do with japanese and USians heros, but its ok when it shows differet cultures of the same culture (like soldier and cree).
It was really cool to learn more about Canada. You're so right about us Americans, but I'm really interested in the historical events you mentioned. As always great video!
We need an American hero that doesn't use a gun
We need a gun hero that uses an American
@@pennyforyourthots exactly
that would be just as difficult as making a japanese character that isn't either a yakuza member, a ninja, or a samurai
(basically it isn't hard but writers and companies seem to think it is since they don't try)
i was gonna say that most of the cast use guns but then realized that all the American characters minus arguably Soldier use Gun-Ass Guns as opposed to laser pistols or ice guns or grenade launchers
2:04 As an American myself, I don’t even know what goes on outside my state much less neighboring countries
We Australians seem to be in the same boat as you (no surprise). Two young countries with a colonial history, with indigenous peoples fighting for recognition. I'm not one to complain about representation, but since I'm here watching this... I'd be lying if I said I didn't appreciate it. I don't mind the fact that the Junkers are based on the Mad Max stuff but it would be so nice to see a foreigner who gets things right... When I talk to Americans about my country, some are genuinely concerned about the state of living here with the animals and whatnot... I said I'm not the type to complain about representation, but I'm starting to think it's more important than I realise. Everyone needs to know Australia is a perfectly fine place to live, and it's got plenty of cultures and stories to explore. The idea of, say, an Aboriginal character in this game sounds like a pipe dream, but it would be quite the surprise.
Good video but the gameplay in the background hurts my eyes
As long as Sojourn chugs maple syrup then she's adequate Canadian representation
Really nice video but please don't shoot your railgun at 20 charge especially when you still have ammo left on your rifle 😭
My argument is that my bad gameplay is engagement bait, and I'm sticking to it lmao
@@TheViveros and here i am getting baited, FUCK
I argue that's what it should mean to be a part of any country, one person can never represent any country.
I really enjoy your takes and I hope to eventually make my videos some day :). To add on about different nationalities, Im American but both of my parent are Israeli and immigrated over. Im jewish too and while I feel represented with all the 'mericans in the game I always wondered about the nationalities of future charcters. Like will they ever have an Israeli character? Bc I would love to see a character in one of my favorite games speak hebrew but I also dont want a character that becomes like a J.K. Rowling sterotype of a jewish person/Israeli from Blizzard 😅. I also just think they genuinely wont touch the topic with a ten foot pole because I just KNOW the antisemitism would become at least tenfold if they introduce either a jewish or Israeli character :(
bro, the majority of youngs quebecois, who ive meet,spoke , the majority of the time, english or a mix of french and english, meanwhile immigrants and older people tends to speak french with you.
I feel similar with lucio. Except I actively despise him. 95% of him isnt brazilian. Even his portuguese voice lines are clear that they are being said by someone whose main language is english. Kinda like you can identify an indian person speaking english wish a heavy accent. And his whole music thing is actually a stereotype for some reason. Idk what historic event made it so but brazilians are portrayed as music lovers and/or jungle beasts in video games and blizzard fell right into that 1 out of 2 known caracterization which gives an even worse 'you did not do your homework' impression. His only two characteristics that can be seen as brazilian is him being black (most of our population is not white) and him having a relationship with soccer (the most popular sports here + it wasnt shown til way later in ow years).
The description of Canada as a "mosaic" rather than a melting pot is really beautiful from the lens of love and respect for cultural differences, but does leave me wondering if there's a little xenophobia in there as well.
I’m not sure where you get that from, tbh. The mosaic idea is meant to be inclusive of immigrants, not exclusionary towards them.
@@TheViveros In the USA there's still a good amount of segregation of communities and cultures, so in that light describing it as a mosaic would mostly serve to highlight that structure. That's probably where the favor towards "melting pot" comes from over here, since that's highlighting the intermingling rather than any kind of separation.
So true king (jk I did not know any of this before but cool to know!)
Give Quebec its independence...Then Alberta, Southern part of Ontario and Southern part of BC (to connect with Alaska) to the US and leave the rest to indigenous people. Boom. Solved the Canadian problem right here. Should have done that in the War of 1812 but we got out asses kicked in Canada :D
Sojourn isn't MEANT to be the all-canadian hero. She's just supposed to be a Canadian.
Sure, Cassidy and soldier are American, but they don't resemble 98% of Americans. They're not supposed to, they're just American characters.
I think that's people first mistake when analyzing media nowadays, not everything is supposed to have an irl counterpart. Characters should exist for themselves and allow people to relate to them, not exist to be representatives for people irl.
Actually, Pharah isn't full blooded Egyptian. She's half Egyptian and half native Canadian from Canada
I'm aware, and I even acknowledge that less than a minute into the video (at about 0:56) so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here.
The fact that there's more than one representative of Canada and Sojurn isn't the only one
I never realized she was Canadian. I only saw she as boring so this is interesting.
I meannnnnn Canada doesn't really have their own culture so really it's impossible to have an all Canadian character unless we make them indigenous.
How does Canada not have its own culture?
same way the us doesn't i guess