sleeperkid
165716
3267
75
Jul 30, 2023 10:03 AM
sleeperkid
165716
3267
75
PrincessWendyB
If the game happens in an alternate reality THEN ANYTHING GOES. Once you depart from reality you have no right to demand it. ANY CONCLUSION FOLLOWS FROM AN ERRONEOUS PREMISE! So if you open that door by building an alternate reality, with it's own rules, THOSE are the only rules that must be followed. So black samurai are A-OK.
SpaceMarineWithAnUrgeToPurge
Jumbly Hambeast is being a racist idiot? It must be a day that ends with Y.
Hukkie
Based on a real person with historical significance, that was a samurai serving under one of the most famous and influencial feudal lords Japan has ever seen. On top of that his appearance stands out making him very striking and unique. I mean that sounds like main character material to me. If they made him up entirely I would have disliked it, forcing something into history that never existed, but they DIDN'T. Looking forward to the game, hope it has a baller collectors edition with figurines.
BluePaul
MC2018MC2018
Midgarmerc
"No, this is fine you see because..."
GlenL
Being a dumb piece of shit is kind of the quarterings entire brand
AeonQuasars
DeDeMegaDoDo
Stolen
FacelessAce
This comment is woke.
axelfive
Reminds me when people were calling Nioh whitewashing for having the main character be an irishman. When said main character was William Adams, a real life irishman who was, in fact, a samurai who personally served Tokugawa Ieyasu.
kadaeux
You know, historically speaking I don’t think people really get how recent that period was. They picture way back 1200s odd, instead of the 1500s.
Rodenbeard
Quartering is a massive piss baby anyways. Who gives a fuck what that bloated sack of dogshit says about anything?
Idrinkforevil
the uneducated are easily deceived. Mainly because they dont/cant read books
dontrike
And even if this isn't based on a real person who the fuck cares if there's a black samurai in a game? Holy shit those neckbeards.
EnigmaticEmpress
lo
EnigmaticEmpress
l
dudeinjapan
African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan Book by Geoffrey Girard and Thomas Lockley - written by a guy I know here in Japan. He knows how to do real research . https://www.amazon.co.jp/African-Samurai-Yasuke-Legendary-Warrior/dp/1335141022
ionicseraph
They wouldn't be saying fuckall if this were some 'white savior' bullshit. Tom Cruise can be a samurai but not this guy? Granted The Last Samurai is a dope movie but my point remains.
RayneOfSalt
TheQuartering got banned from playing a kid's card game cos he kept sexually harassing one of the company's employees. Remind him of that if you run across him in the wild, he will cry and scream.
orangeyougladididntsaypoop
Nobunaga was a ruthless cunt. Interesting tho
FailureFactory
Oda Nobunaga was quite notable for choosing the people he worked with based on merit, instead of social standing. The conclusion is that Yasuke earned his rank through reliability and hard work, which is more than we can say about whoever that asshole is.
titaniumsnail
Yasuke was also a novelty, Oda even commanded him to be washed because he couldn't believe that Yasuke's skin was actually that dark. Many believed him to be an oni. But Yasuke did do well and was rewarded for it. Sadly his fate might now have been the best after Oda's death, as he was returned to Europe, where all traces disappear, but it is believed he returned to a life of servitude/slavery.
GnomeDeGuerre
Don't support twitter content, make their numbers drop.
darkchiron
Quarterpounder is a rage baiter and complete idiot. Another one of these people who just say things, knowing they are lies, to spin a narrative and get views.
thrashingcows
DerpMeister
That's a good one. I know exactly which person I'll be rubbing that under his nose the next time he goes off about things being "woke".
thrashingcows
Awesome!👍
Gorgrim
"I'm not sexist/ racist/ homophobic, I just don't like the woke agenda"... I mean, it's nice they out themselves at least. Then again, the red hats were starting to give it away.
Nivvi
Quarterpounder is a fucking moron who pisses in his basement, lied about his coffee company being hand roasted by him while being white label stuff with his logo. He is rotted brain rightoid
Trassation
Wait! What happened with his coffee?? What'd I miss??
Nivvi
He started his own coffee brand claiming he works his ass off in the warehouse, hand roasting all the beans etc and charging premium. Then it came out it was just a white label, basically anyone can buy bulk from them and will even put it in your packaging. He kept lying to his fans.
Gorgrim
I feel "brain rot" is a common issue among the far right, and is spreading across the entire political party.
wylkyn
I'll bet this guy was silent when God's of Egypt came out with its cast of white actors as the gods. One excuse I heard? It was filmed in Australia, so they couldnt get many Egyptian actors. The whitewashing criticism was over the top, said Gerard Butler, Scottish actor who played the god Set.
Northwindlowlander
I liked Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's response, "A lot of people are getting really worked up online about the fact that I'm a white actor. I'm not even playing an Egyptian; I'm an 8-foot-tall god who turns into a falcon" TBH the whitewashing mostly seemed less squicky than the whole slapdash fantasy-isation of real culture to me.
ickyickywoopwoo
That's interesting, I just learned about this now.
inchoroi
Not commenting on the stupid, but mother fucking Yasuke as the protagonist of an AC game? You had my interest, but now you have my attention.
OGshogun
Hey I learned about this guy too! Homeboy was a rarity though, like Japanese barely allowed outsiders in their culture.
siccoyote
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-48542673
FakeOrcPoints
I appreciate the source for more info, but that article also mentions Chadwick Boseman was set to play him in an upcoming film...
KingKelloggTheWaffleHaggler
I was really excited for that movie :/
JackHL01
yeah, thanks, but fuck you!
EveryGuyonImgur
It’s crazy how bigotry is so internalized that when we see a black person in a period film, we just naturally assume it’s some token casting diversity move instead of understanding we’ve erased minorities from actual history
SilkyAvenger
I remember when The Quartering just gaming content. Dude has become so wildly unhinged.
ElectricSlideOrchestra
There's been a bunch of these vloggers that do this; start out with normal content but go off the rails with conservative parroting. I'm guessing it's because that bullshit gets views and thus "sells."
wadatahmydamie
Yup. It predates the Internet. Rush Limbaugh started out as an ordinary DJ with no real political views. Then he told a shitty joke about women. Some of his listeners went away. The rest cheered so loudly he never looked back.
Zhesion
Yeah, go where the money is, then it just consumes your brain. Now he's a total fuck head
jackal12345
Only thing I'm asking for in assassin creed games is they not have that damn level system. Go back to the days where the world was actually open and not soft locked through undefeatable enemies unless you do quests.
BrandoCalrission
That’s what Mirage looks to be doing this year. Really hoping we get that old school feel back
swedeonamoose
They kinda made an oopsie with Origins since they created a whole new fanbase for a very different brand of asscreed games, personally i never played any of the older games but loved Origins, Oddy and Valhalla.
Idsertian
1 was good, 2 was better. Brotherhood and Revelations weren't bad, but kinda blur together for me, and at that point, I was getting 1/4
Idsertian
heavily burned out on Ezio. 3 is where they *really* fucked up, imo, because they made this HUGE game, with a map to match, with lots of 2/4
Idsertian
checkbox list side content, some of which were fucking *hard* to complete. By the time I 100%'d that game, I was *done* with AC. I've 3/4
Idsertian
heard AC IV is supposed to be pretty damn good, though. 4/4
Crowlands
You gotta get your numbers high enough, otherwise a knife in throat is only a mild irritation.
notacobra
Yasuke is a weird figure in pop culture - the entirety of his historical footprint is about three paragraphs across 5 letters, plus a handful of drawings inspired by him that were produced after he died. But the novelty and fame of his patron have made him a hugely significant historical figure. He's one of the few people who has become progressively MORE famous as time passes, rather than fading into obscurity.
Irbricksceo
Tbf, that's basically the entirety of Arthurian Canon
CarpeMofo
What I want to see is a movie about a retired Yasuke who is committed to a life of peace in a small village where no one knows who he is. Then his village is attacked by a gang of criminals and he has to travel to their headquarters to whip some ass. And he's played by Samuel L Jackson.
FiftyShadesOfCauliflower
Letters are the gold standard compared to myths and legends. We only have the latter for a great many historical figures. Someone here mentioned Vikings, where half the cast including the main character was based on contradictory sagas and poems without a single piece of believable, mythology-devoid historical evidence.
[deleted]
[deleted]
3Davideo
Not to be confused with the piece of orthodonture equipment.
XRay0976
Kinda like Jesus??
KatieVick
Wasn’t Mulan referenced once in a 5 line poem? And Disney got 3 movies out of her.
kitamuramiike
It turns out Mulan started with a lengthy ballad that got anthologized into books a couple hundred years ago, with various embellishments and retellings since (mostly in China) that added to the pop culture "lore". Scholars generally concur she was entirely fictional.
Osgarth
That's kind of what happens with most famous people from the past. We wouldn't know or care to know who half of these people were if some writer, poet, filmmaker or whatever hadn't decided to put a spotlight on their story centuries later. Anybody Shakespeare chose like Julies Caesar and Cleopatra are prime examples. Same happens with monuments. Nobody cared about the Notre Dame until Victor Hugo wrote about it.
Moose79
There is an anime series about him, it's pretty good
Lampmonster
Like Imhotep. Went from a pretty powerful or at least connected guy in Egypt to being a god to a horror figure in modern fiction lol.
Beybeykukududu
Because thats what heros do
EveryGuyonImgur
Sounds sort of like Jesus, actually.
kongfuchicken
The sengoku jidai and fall of the samurai periods in japanese were incredibly rich in cool stories and figures who made for great romanticized fiction but who ultimately didn't accomplish much. Princess Tomoe Gozen was the inspiration for countless characters. The rivalry between the monks of the Usuegi clan and the horse riders of the Takeda clan have multiple animes. Tom cruise's character from the last samurai was inspired from a real but seldom heard-of french dude.
kongfuchicken
The cultural influence of all of these characters grew far more from the loosely-inspired fiction based on them during the golden age of information rather than from their contemporary historical footprint.
NiceGreenArrows
I dunno, a few other people got more famous over time. Tesla, Picasso...mythos is fun that way.
MickeyCallahan
Van Gogh, maybe. Picasso was super famous in his own lifetime.
NiceGreenArrows
...oh my god. Yes, that is who I meant.
Anarchduke
I bet he could have become more famous if he had sold bad copper
Eiladar
So he's OG Boba Fett?
ministerm
If you end up becoming almost certainly the only person of your ethnicity in a country, serving one of that country's most famous leaders, isn't it understandable why your fame would only increase after death? It's not rocket science here.
notacobra
I didn't say otherwise. I just find it conceptually interesting that he was little more than a novelty within a few circles in his era, yet has since grown into almost a mythology creature in the centuries since.
talel81
Did he also sell shitty copper?
SirBonSama
Fucking hate Yasuke. Whenever he and his boss would team up, I always end up dead in Nioh.
Kylarus
Haven't seen the clay tablet Yelp review yet.
ForlornFennec
Not that we know of... yet.
aloysiuscentauri
UmAcshually
People like to build expanded universes around characters that are just barely referenced. That way almost nothing they do could conflict with the original source. Like Mary Magdalene: The bible references her a couple of times, impliedly as some independently wealthy early follower, and as the first witness to the resurrection... And from that pop culture extrapolated a whole mythos of who she could possibly be. And don't get me started with how pop culture extrapolates e.g. norse mythology.
TiredSnowball
She's actually referenced a lot in the writings that, what is now Catholic Church, did not include in the New Testament. Since can't have women with any importance at all, or women will think they matter. /s She was referenced as "above" the apostles in some, too. None that made it to New Testament. Basically what we know as New Testament is "pick and choose" around 2nd century, to serve that time powers.
eadanke
Extrapolates from what? Most people reference Snorri Sturluson's Eddas, and he clearly fudged everything to look more Christian.
DeusExSpockina
People also tend to find otherwise notable or interesting people in history who have been overlooked due to traditional cultural prejudice.
leodavinci1
Well, if you think about it, Mary is "expanded universe" built on an already existing "expanded universe". How much historical evidence exists for Jesus Christ... not Christianity, but Jesus? The Bible? Nope. The New Testament doesn't count as proof anymore than the various Eddas are proof of the existence of Norse gods.
potshot
The New Testament does count as evidence, however. A huge amount of apocryphal sources are used in historical research, including the Eddas.
WorstPostEver
There are, of course, large groups of historians dedicated to this very topic. I strongly recommend "Zealot" by Reza Aslan on what we know about Jesus from historical records. ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth https://a.co/d/15yz859
LuminoZero
It is widely accepted by historians that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person. The two historical events that are considered near certainty are his Baptism (the existence of John the Baptist is similarly a matter of historical record) and his Crucifixion. Everything else is questionable.
CheeseWheelJuggler
On the one hand, that makes him an ideal protagonist for a game: he existed but so little is known of him that it gives the developers a lot of creative room to work with.
CheeseWheelJuggler
On the other, making a black guy the protagonist of your Japanse history inspired game setting is really straining credulity.
notacobra
Yeah, especially when strong Japanese historical characters are distinctly absent from most western media. Lots of cultures get explored from time to time, but historical Japan seem to only really be published in Japanese media, or included somewhat problematically in jiu-jitsu combat in action movies.
potshot
With Japan it's partially a weird subculture problem. There's a lot of media on Japan, produced in Japan, and there's a big following. But the following tends to be dismissive of anything not of Japanese origin, and the market is already relatively saturated, so it's not an easy subject to focus on.
nspriest233
Don't forget samurai warriors which is vaguely historical in that it is set during the sengoku era. While koei is a japanese developer it does regularly get ported to the west
KingKelloggTheWaffleHaggler
Wasn't he known to only be in service of Oda as well? The whole samurai thing being added later?
infiniteflux
Samurai is a hereditary title. It meant that you were part of the warrior class and your duty was to carry weapons and serve a Lord full time in a martial capacity, and your sons would do the same. So this argument is semantic. Yasuke was effectively a samurai. He did not farm or do anything else to earn a living but serve Nobunaga in a martial capacity.
VonBonegrinder2290
We also know for a fact that Nobunaga allowed more caste mobility than was normal at the time. Hideyoshi rose from Ashigaru to Shogun and part of that is thanks to Nobunaga using some level of meritocracy. So it's even more plausible that Yasuke was effectively a Samurai.
Rogahar
Given how snobbish and privileged the Samurai reportedly were (cutting down peasants to 'test their swords' or just for shits and giggles or w/e else), I fully expect that him not actually having the official title *did* make a sizable difference as far as how he was treated by others. I'd be very surprised if those Samurai from families who had been Samurai themselves looked down on the "newcomer" to no end.
ARESFirewatch
The hierarchical caste system where Samurai became a distinct rank passed down hereditarily was created by Nobunaga's successor, Hideyoshi, and subsequently solidified under the Tokugawa Shogunate. At the time that Yasuke was in Nobunaga's service, as a retainer who served in a martial capacity and earned an annual stipend of rice, he would have been considered a Samurai. Hideyoshi himself started out as Nobunaga's sandle-bearer, but within about two decades became military dictator of Japan
Rogahar
TIL. Thank you, passing Japanese History Nerd! <3
beemarr
Yes. He was a retainer (I forget the exact term) so he served Nobunaga. But that rank of retainer does not automatically grant one entry into the samurai class. It might, it might not. In later years after Nobunaga's time, it did become automatic, but during his time, it was far less likely. So yes, there was a black man serving Nobunaga, but no, we cannot say with certainty that he was a samurai.
infiniteflux
Japan had 4 social classes. Farmers/servants merchants, samurai and Lords. The distinction between retainers amd samurai is that samurai's were hereditary and were strictly warriors who wouldn't be caught dead with a farm tool. If you were a retainer who only practiced warfare, you were effectively a samurai.
beemarr
Post Sengoku period, yes. But prior and during, those retainers were the kashindan. During the Sengoku period, many of the kashindan were focused into the military, which was the time period that Yasuke was in. But it wasn't until the Edo period that the kashindan became automatically a class of samurai. Similar to men-at-arms in Europe. Effectively a knight in that they're heavily armored warriors, but still technically not a knight as per the social classes.
titaniumsnail
I can also point out that samurai literally means someone who serves, in this case a lord, and it was a very prestigious title. But that ofc didn't mean any servant was considered a samurai. It was primarily a title bestowed upon warriors and the sword was their indication of rank, even if the bow and spear was the preferred weapon for most of the sengoku jidai.
beemarr
Absolutely correct. Also worth mentioning that not every warrior would have been of the samurai class either. Just like how over in Europe during the middle ages, not everyone in heavy armor riding a horse and using a sword/lance would be a knight, they might instead be a man-at-arms or other such retainer of a lord. As you said, just serving a lord would not automatically make one a knight/samurai. It *might*, but it's not 100% a given.
titaniumsnail
Yep. If you were not born of a samurai family you would usually start as an ashigaru, foot soldier, and if you did well you could eventually become a samurai. But it wasn't easy, as you were often rated by your ability to gather heads, which often was a gruesome and dirty game. Combat also wasn't fair and the concept of Bushido is mostly a myth created in the Edo-period by old samurai that wanted them to be remembered more fondly and less like bloodthirsty monsters. But it should be mentioned/1
Raoul97533
I can understand some disaproval when real life people or established characters get blackwashed, but for original fictional Characters created for a Story I dont see any problems... Plus, the Black Samurai was actually real, and I hope they go up to scale and make him a giant compared to the natives.
KonamiHatchiborii
Also, unlike other things, let's say that they just randomly decided to make him black. In this case, it is a fictional video game, so would have been a cool thing to make up when if it hadn't really happened! People are weird.
CliffWestern
I can't. Sean connery played an Egyptian with a Scottish accent fascists can fuck off with that mewling.
doesntmatter
That's the kind of shit people who want accurate historical depictions make fun of.
NivalisAngelus
I find it weird if a character from a book is drastically changed for an animated series.. It feels very forced. But for a book or animated character having a different appearance in a live action adaptation.. Well, I've always said I'd rather have an actor that matches the FEEL and personality of a character rather than the appearance.
titaniumsnail
You mean like Astrid will be in the How To Train Your Dragon live action remake?
NivalisAngelus
The who the what now?
NotTheDevilYouKnow
I'd love to see how people react to a setting where the characters have all sorts of different skin tones but are not human nor are meant to represent any human demographic. Just to see what kinda shit they come up with.
ikusame1211
He more than likely wasnt a samurai. This isnt me saying its wrong to have a black samurai in AC, but nothing at all even implies he was a Samurai other than he was in Japan
Crowlands
There's various answers I've seen, as to whether he was a samurai or just a retainer for Nobunaga. One thing to note is that, as a black immigrant, even if Oda made him a samurai, others may well have not referred to him as such. Whether or not Oda would have given him that title, I don't know one way or the other.
SquiggleSquaggleSqwoo
I mean compared to the level of whitewashing in media and history and the Abrahamic religions I saw being on color versions of any character ever \m/
PenchBoy
Dam right. Who in their right minds gives a flying fuck. As long as they portray the character well I'm down
MCNewYorkLives
Either that, or when it doesn't fit the time period/location. It reminds me of the SNL skit about frozen 2 and the prominence of black people in the frigid north.
Raptor2023
The existence of Yasuke as a real historical person means there's more room for cross-cultural travel in historical settings than most people assume.
MCNewYorkLives
Yea, I don't mean THIS specifically, but just in general.
EnigmaticEmpress
Yes, but Yasuke exists as an oddity. It's noteworthy because he is, essentially, unique. He has a story and a reason for why he is there, he is not just 'and now, random black people.' Which is normally what you get.
spacecowboyein
I've heard people complain that they finally made an AC game set in feudal Japan and it wasn't a Japanese MC. I get that if I was an AC fan and waiting for a game like this. At least they didn't make the MC a white guy (Tom Cruise) instead.
HereticNoNumber
AC? MC? Have you noticed that the character limit has been raised. No need for acronyms really.
disgruntledtruckdriver
Assassins creed, main character
rocketsniper
Thank you. I was thinking either armored core or animal crossing ...
EnigmaticEmpress
Personally I'm just waiting for Ghost of Tsushima to get ported to PC anyway.
Youhavinagiraffe
I can't really. If race isn't an explicit part of the story then the character's skin colour doesn't matter, so why not try to open more leading roles up for non-white actors. Especially if it means this ahistorical attitude of "no black history existed prior to the slave trade" can stop being the default thing most people seem to believe
Dagordae
Depends on the setting. And genre. Fantasy? Go nuts. Historical drama? WAY more limits. The recent Cleopatra stupidity, for instance. Her race wasn’t an explicit part of her story but she was actually a known historical figure. If you want a historical piece, you need to be historical. Or drop even the pretense of historical accuracy, such as with Hamilton and go wild.
CoinedWatcher
A friend of mine was pissed about the Ariel. His reason was that his daughter loves the little mermaid and she already has a bunch of white Ariel merchandise that he doesn't want to pay to replace
aThingWithTheStufAndTheJunk
I was just talking about this with someone yesterday. You can't cast a white dude or an Asian dude or a Latina woman as MLK because his race is an inherent part of his story. Macbeth? Go hog wild.
doesntmatter
How is being Scottish not an inherent part of Macbeth's story?
aThingWithTheStufAndTheJunk
Everybody's Scottish in it. Nobody murders Macbeth for being Scottish, punctuating Macbeth's legacy as a strident non-violent champion of Scottish rights in a society structured around the systemic abuse and exploitation of Scottish people. Scottish is also not a race. You want to talk about casting a story about the Highland Clearances or whatever, maybe that's a different conversation.
doesntmatter
"Scottish is not a race" is so close to getting it, but still being too racist to see it.
Youhavinagiraffe
Firstly... Scottish people can be black. Secondly the scottishness of the story is the setting, not the story. Macbeth could be a Daimyo rather than a Thane and the story would still be about the same things. Whereas "To Kill a Mockingbird" would be thematically very different if the characters weren't black and white US southerners. Doesn't mean you can't do a version with e.g. Han and Uighur chinese characters but you'd be making a conscious (and different) statement with that choice
doesntmatter
Scottish medieval people?
lemmerustlethosejimmies
It bothers me when it doesn't make sense in the context of history or the story. For stories set in modern/future times I LOVE more representation; multiethnic or gay characters, etc. But not when in the setting the story is based in, it makes next to no sense for a (insert ethnicity) character to be there and have the influence they do. No, Cleopatra almost certainly wasn't a black warrior. Hard to believe MWFarah would be followed by Muslim men (though she's a badass)
Raptor2023
The existence of Yasuke as a real historical person means there's more room for cross-cultural travel in historical settings than most people assume.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
Cleopatra definitely wasn't either black or a warrior. Her line of descent was pretty much exclusively Macedonian Greek.
Crowlands
There were poets at the time who explicitly spoke of how pale she was.
lemmerustlethosejimmies
Instead of putting minority characters where it doesn't make sense, like the Viking example below, or change fictional characters that were white guys to another ethnicity/gender (like Butler or Dr. Kynes), instead create new and BETTER stories with them. Tell the actual history of the many cultures of Africa and South America. Make fun Pixar stories of African legends. If whitewashing historical figures or fictional universes is wrong, and it is, well so is the other direction
MoonPieTown
I imagine any entertainment higher-ups would give you the Tucker Carlson stare if you suggested creating new stories instead of them constantly recycling/stealing existing stories...
oboemilyf
Butler is described as “Eurasian” in the novels, and I don’t mind Liet-Kynes being a Black woman—the only plot change it requires is that she’s now Chani’s mother, not father. And remember, Dune takes place some 14k+ years in the future, so why would they have the same cultural hang ups about skin color/race that we have in 21st c America (and elsewhere on Earth)?
lemmerustlethosejimmies
...Eurasian is a lot of ethnicities, few of which look anywhere close to black. And Liet Kynes my point is the producers changed the character away from who Herbert wrote. The actress did a great job and the story didn't suffer beyond Chani's parents being a little different, my point is they changed the character's gender for no real reason. And uh in the Dune book the Fremen still definitely had a somewhat sexist society aside from the religious leaders, the "role" of women came up a few times
oboemilyf
Maybe Villeneuve cast Danai Gurira because he thought she’d do the best job as Kynes!
Xenadon
Have you ever watched a play? When creating art you don't have to adhere perfectly to the source material especially where it doesn't really matter.
YouWillNeverFindMe
The black queen on Vikings: Valhalla is the only one that bugged me. Why can't they tell the stories of actual black people instead? There's some pretty amazing ones, but instead they tell white history and just sprinkle in some black actors.
Lifk
I wonder a little if its not purely for marketing reason in a way that the demography target in video game is mainly white and asian. The main market being europe , asia and america. Black people are a minority there and actual african history might no be so interesting for these minority as well. For example no total war yet in black africa. Im curious about the reception of the pharaon one as well.
Lifk
In these place, minority in the mind of marketing people might want more whitish lore with black people as protagonist. At least that's the road they took until now
KawaiiInari
I still want to see a movie based on Mary Fields (first black female postal carrier -contracted). She was a bad ass who fought off wolves and bandits with a gun and would fight her way through snow to deliver packages. Seriously I think it would be an amazing film.
tatischief
She was mixed. She could have easily had mother or father from who came from distant land as a famous trader. Mixed characters make sense.
TiffanyKorta
Norse raiders and traders travelled around the entire Meditattian and beyond, so it's not beyond the possibility for them to have darker-skinned children. It could make for an interesting character if well-written, but I assume it's just basic box-ticking in this case.
Allrighty
Vikings played fast and loose with history to begin with. It may be historically inaccurate, but not more inaccurate e.g. than a Norse village called "Kattegat" in the eighth century, I think. So I won't make a particular issue of this one thing.
Iputthebestinbestiality
Kattegat is the strait between Norway and Denmark. Can't remember on top of my head if it's also a town
Allrighty
Between Sweden and Denmark, in fact. But that name was given to it by Dutch traders in the Hanseatic league during the late Middle Ages. It makes no sense for an 8th century Viking village in a Norse fjord. It's topographically, geographically, historically, and linguistically questionable. There's probably more historical justification for black Vikings, especially later on in the Viking age. It's just less obviously ahistorical, because how many people are as pedantic as I?
Someshithead241
It's tokenisation that's being defended by morons.
barkerjustinw11
I would guess it's bc the empires and time periods most western audiences are aware of is almost entirely northern based (Europe, China, japan). So the problem is that doing the Mali empire etc would be interesting... but to a much smaller audience, then they would lose money etc. Would the people who actually say that media should do genuinely black stories actually then buy it? I just don't know. Then it just comes back around to no black people, or other ethnicities in most media
YouWillNeverFindMe
wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Sundiata somewhat similar to Ivar the boneless, except Sundiata can walk as he grows up. I mean most of what we know about the vikings is from what other nations wrote about them. The show Vikings is not showing a true story, it's a collection of various events - and it shows what it was like in that era. Sundiatas story, while the accuracy might be off (similar to Vikings), could still show roughly how it was like. I'd watch it.
lemmerustlethosejimmies
A perfect example: Adewale in Black Flag. His role in the story made sense, was pretty accurate for the time, he had strong principles and was a badass, and went on to have a greater role fighting against the oppression of the slave trade.
DrunkenMarineBiologist
Not to mention he was at least somewhat based off of the real pirate Black Caesar who was a high-ranking and long-serving member of Blackbeard's crew
titaniumsnail
If you hate that then you are gonna hate what they are doing to Astrid in the How To Train Your Dragon live action remake coming soon.
johnnyboy1996
A mixed girl in my dragon show? That's crossing the line
titaniumsnail
And I agree with you. POC deserve to have their own cool stories told without having to be devalued to token black character in white people's stories.
rubypilgrim
ehrm - you do know that Vikings weren't just blond, blue-eyed Scandinavians?
Iputthebestinbestiality
True, we have a lot of gingers
titaniumsnail
Thor has often been described as having wild red hair and beard. The Asir and Vanir all had their varied descriptions of different hair colours.
YouWillNeverFindMe
Various hair and eye colors, yes, but DNA from gravesites only show Scandinavian, Sami and northern European heritage. Varying skin color, sure, but there's no proof of a single black person who died there. Could have come some traders via the silky road etc, or they might have joined viking settlements in other areas.
Rivenhelper
To be entirely fair, vikings were actually fairly diverse. It was a profession and culture, not necessarily just a race. They would've been a minority but a lot of darker skinned people ended up in Scandinavia during that period and many of them integrated into those communities. Some were taken as captives, others traveled there willingly.
doesntmatter
Actual research has been done on this. There's absolutely nothing pointing to them being more diverse than any other people, and practically no genetic traces of far foreign people having integrated during this time can be found, with a handful of exceptions such as the north-american woman who ended up in Iceland.
Rivenhelper
History has really whitewashed and over masculinized vikings in my opinion. Simultaneously painting them as savages and poster children for white supremacists, when in reality they were a complex and varied group of people.
Hammerwell
It is known that vikings traveled the Mediterranean Sea. Certainly Morocco. Slave trade was common.
Nikarion
Because they don't actually care about African representation or history, only that gender or race swapping a popular character from an established franchise will generate a lot of media attention and therefore sales.
Nikarion
When they do try to represent African history, it's either blatantly falsified (Cleopatra from African Queens) or heavily altered to remove the nastier elements (the sanitized slave-taking protagonists from The Woman King).
Thecreatorofthejonasbrothers
Not that they don't usually sanitize history, in particular for story protagonists, anyway. I mean the most hilarious thing about 300 for me was the idea that the Spartans were free men, and not slavers themselves, fighting against the slaving Persians.
Nikarion
300 gets a small pass because it depicts the spartans as really shitty people and the whole point of the movie was showing oiled nearly naked men vigorously thrusting and grunting for over an hour, and not the political and social systems they lived in.
FetaForMoses
Wait. Where was her?
YouWillNeverFindMe
Kattegat I believe, not sure how much part of the show she was, but she was in the early episodes. Their reasoning for the black queen was that they wanted to show that black people lived among the vikings of that time.
FetaForMoses
Ah. I was thinking of AC: Valhalla 😂
Thesaya
...They did, but they weren't queens. That is a bit much.
Jattetont
Is there even any positive evidence that they did? Norse people lived (as foreigners) in places where Black people also lived, and it is plausible that some Black people ended up as Viking captives, but are there actually documented examples of Black people "living among the Vikings"? (Ahmad ibn Fadlan doesn't count, as he didn't "live among" them, and there is anyway no reason to assume he was Black rather than Arab or some other ethnicity.) Cursory googling gives poor sources for the claim.
RunanD
Because white stories still dominate the space, and this has real consequences. Think about it: if 80% of stories told are eurocentric, AND we gatekeep race for characters, that means that *in practice* we are creating a white dominated field. It gets even more serious when you break it down by genre - historical fiction (a la pride and prejudice) is a thriving genre that makes millions every year. When we make it appropriate to ban black people from such an established genre we cause real
RunanD
problems in the acting community. Beng black literally becomes a detriment for potential actors. We HAVE to open up historical roles, because we have been seeing for the past 70 years what happens when we don't. People aren't going to want eurocentric stories any less - people want vikings, they want that twentieth Jane Austen adaptation, they want medieval Europe. And so we need to make that space, to make equal opportunity in practice.
Imapseudonym
I'm all for including more black stories, and actively want to see it happen. I'd especially like to see a Disney movie from African mythology. Or a live action Princess and the Frog where Keith David still plays Dr.. Faciliter. The problem is that ISN'T what's happening. Instead of telling black stories they're still telling white stories and race swapping characters. It's cheap race swapping and race baiting.
RunanD
Feel free to create these original character, absolutely! Support is gaining for perspectives from south americans, africans, oceanic peoples and indigenous. These stories are beginning to be told on a bigger scale. But they are still wholly dominated by victorian romance, European medieval fantasy, colonial and 1900s americana, and other black-excluding cultural monoliths which at mot include black people in a subservient light. So the choice is simple: pretend that we can change what sells, or
tatischief
And so? They are our stories not USA stories. If you are taking a story that means a lot to some culture why change it. Would you dare to do the same to other cultures? You couldn't even give a small nod to Polish culture in Witcher series. It's a double standard. If the stories that come from those cultures annoy you, make your own.
RunanD
If the skin color of a character bothers you and not the content of the plot, the characterization, the nationality of the actors employed, etc. you are not an activist out are just racist. When we bitched about what they did to H.C. Andersen's works in The Little Mermaid it was not about skin color but about everything of substance they changed. The issue with Cleopatra's new show is the shakespearean misinformation about her politics and life not the skin color of the actress. Don't be a fake.
tatischief
There is nothing wrong with that. But disrespecting someone's culture and their heritage to use it as an American political propaganda is not right. Those stories, myths, legends mean a lot to to those countries. They are considered national heritage. The fact that USA is purposely using them as some sort political agenda is disrespectful. USA needs to understand not everything should be political or propaganda. And they do love propaganda there.
RunanD
I don't know anyone who grew up with Den Lille Havfrue who bitched about the new mermaid being black. Instead it was "why is the story still so fucking wrong?! Leave HC alone, disney!" it is nothing to do with race unless you're a racist. Wanting america to treat source material well or leave it alone entirely is fine as long as you don't use it as a veil for your racism.
LincLoud
It seems to be that Hollywood does it to check a box rather than put in the hard work that legitimate representation takes.
Imapseudonym
Its because a few years ago they made minority representation a requirement if you wanted to be considered for an Oscar. https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-establishes-representation-and-inclusion-standards-oscarsr-eligibility
Raoul97533
cool cool cool...
srsfaceI8C
I have less of an issue with it in live action stuff because you have to hire real life actors, and Hollywood has a history of telling stories that don't involve non-white people as an excuse to not hire non-white actors.
LincLoud
Hollywood is a place of money. They have always chosen profit over people, whether it be anyone who isn't white or creators (though the two aren't mutually exclusive). The irony is that in the 50s, I Love Lucy was the most popular show on tv for years. A show about a woman married to a Hispanic man. If it were made today, all the internet nazis/Republicans would cry "woke".
srsfaceI8C
I don't even disagree, but just saying at least these kinds of things in live action still employs people who traditionally do not have roles written for them at all. It may not be perfect but I think it's ultimately a step in the right direction.
Youhavinagiraffe
Nobody likes tokenism or shallow representation. I will however take shallow representation over a complete rejection of any representation. I'd much rather be complaining "do better" than "can you at least pretend to care"
LincLoud
A valid point of view but I feel it acts as an easement to Hollywood's laziness toward representation
MajorasTerribleFate
Progress is progress. There are not many times we can move from Bad to Perfect in one fell swoop. We try to move forward every day, and if the job isn't done, we get up tomorrow and do more work. Can't lose hope in there or the work won't get done at all.
Youhavinagiraffe
I think it's the opposite that contributes to the laziness. Right wing commenters will blow-up tiny nods to representation into huge apocalyptic outrages which provides all the "allyship" free advertising that a Hollywood studio would ever want.
blainetog
They absolutely should tell Black stories as well, but a lot of little black and brown girls saw the new Little Mermaid movie and were excited to see an established character who looks more like them. Nick Fury was originally a white guy in the comics, but I can't imagine anyone playing him better than Samuel L. Jackson. Maybe there's room for both.
plainoldfool
David Hasselhoff played Nick Fury in a really crappy SciFy original, "Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. I really want a multiverse moment where both Sam Jackson and The Hoff share a scene as Fury (especially since Hasselhoff is already in the MCU)
Sylphyyy
As long as they don't devolve a character to And Ken levels of "he's black". Like cool, what ELSE? So many characters get a black version that would work great for their personality/story and then they get the Some Black Guy treatment where the actor doesn't even get to Act as them.
DutchBoeremeisie
I think what the other guy meant, re: Viking Queen, is that it historically made very little sense for the person to be dark skinned. Some roles are tricky to be played by a different race. Harry Potter can be basically any colour and the story would work perfectly. Black Panther kind of needs to be black and Atticus Finch was specifically written to be white. These are extreme examples to illustrate my point, so of course this occurs to varying degrees.
EnigmaticEmpress
Then why didn't they adapt the Disney flick with an actual black princess rather than blackwashing *another* iconic redhead?
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
To be clear, Samuel L. Jackson plays him because they modeled the "Ultimates" universe version of Fury on Jackson. Jackson turned out to be okay with their using his likeness without asking first, as long as he had dibs on playing Fury in any film adaptations. For obvious reasons I don't think they objected to that deal.
blainetog
I'm well aware. My point is, this treatment was given to that character and it worked out.
WilliamHuskerAdama
Hell, Lucy Liu plays John (Joan) Watson in Elementary, and I think she nailed it.
blainetog
Right, she's awesome in that show!
WilliamHuskerAdama
She really is! And I haven't seen a single right winger upset about it. I wonder why.