Colorblind: On Witcher 3, Rust, and gaming's race problem

the tumblr author himself admits that he is assuming the series is based on 1200's Poland. I don't take that as evidence, especially when the wikipedia of the series has no mention of it being based in Poland and in fact The Witcher author didn't want to release a map of the world of The Witcher so any insinuation by fans that the world of The Witcher looks like poland is based on their own interpretation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher

there's also no mention on that wiki of anything about the story being based around something uniquely polish.

Pan's labyrinth has no black or asian people , but has all kinds of fantastical monsters. Should we be taking del toro to task for that? Its obviously drawing from a real setting even with the fantastical elements.

there's a difference, for one. Pan's Labyrinth is explicitly taking place during a real event, in a real timeline, in a real place. The Witcher, as far as anything official or academic has presented, is not.

and yes, I think Pan's Labyrinth wouldn't have been hurt by including characters, at the very least in the fantasy section of the world, who weren't spanish.

but rather than "take him to task", it's better to discuss how, moving forward, more diverse representation in a fantasy product wouldn't be such a bad thing.

just like, regarding the Witcher, I'm fairly certain nobody is asking that the games and books be changed, but that moving forward, this excuse of "but it's supposedly based on blah blah blah so only white people!" can't hold up.

I mean, japanese games and movies and shows that are set in japan or based on japan have been able to have non-japanese characters of varying races and cultures. and japan isn't exactly a melting pot of diversity in real life. so why is it so difficult to expect others to do the same?

again, I'd be willing to give this more leeway if it was explicitly based solely on polish mythology, polish folklore, and set explicitly in poland. but when none of those things seem to be true from any official or academic record, then I'm going to have problems accepting that they could justify zombie babies but couldn't justify a different skin color.

/r/GamerGhazi Thread Parent Link - polygon.com