Why is the goddess Athena portrayed with such a dark skin color?

[Genghis Khan II]

Title

[Cyiel]

And why not ? You could say the same for Ares then because they are brother and sister... or Aphrodite pink hair. (yes pink hair ! How dare you monsters !! )

[Trundle]

Oh this thread again. Whatever it is it wont last long here

[Genghis Khan II]

The "black Athena theory" has been discredited as an absolute joke. Look it up.

[Genghis Khan II]

Originally posted by 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞:

Oh this thread again. Whatever it is it wont last long here

Whatever it is? It's pointing out a blatant inaccuracy.

[Genghis Khan II]

Originally posted by Cyiel:

And why not ? You could say the same for Ares then because they are brother and sister... or Aphrodite pink hair. (yes pink hair ! How dare you monsters !! )

I have simply looked at the screenshots posted on the store page and I noticed this, which led to me asking the question.

[sirtheta]

This has nothing to do with black Athena theory, the dev has already discussed their choices twice. See: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1145360/discussions/0/3124867015641411800/#c3124867015641768216

You watched a video and this specific topic was so important you had to come ask about it? Why do you care?

[.//slayer]

Originally posted by sirtheta:

This has nothing to do with black Athena theory, the dev has already discussed their choices twice. See: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1145360/discussions/0/3124867015641411800/#c3124867015641768216

You watched a video and this specific topic was so important you had to come ask about it? Why do you care?

Thanks for the link! That explains it. I tried to Google it myself before, but couldn't find specific threads and let it go until today.

And why wouldn't it be an important topic, and why shouldn't we care? You say that as if the question itself is offensive.

This was my first thought upon seeing the game, as well, because throughout my school studies all the textbooks portrayed Greek and Roman gods as exclusively white skinned. For those of us who weren't studying older mythos, the developers' point of view offers an entirely new perspective on something much larger than the game. It's only natural to ask questions - how else are we supposed to know the reasoning behind the art direction? By guessing?

And I don't know about others, but after reading this thread I've been educating myself on the relationships between the ancient Greeks and the Aithiopians and have learnt a great deal about their cultural practices.

[RasaNova]

Unless somebody has photographic evidence of what the real Athena looks like, it's all up to the artist's interpretation.

[sirtheta]

.//slayer: Let me gently suggest that a person whose apparent overriding priority is to question why Greek deities are not depicted as white does not have the best of intentions. (I am not saying this applies to you, to be clear.) There is ample evidence for this across the Internet, of course, but also in these very forums: the immediate invocation of black Athena theory in this thread, the way the last thread ended, or the way another thread ended (with an unfounded insistence that they were depicted a certain way). I think it's fair to question whether this question is being asked in good faith, though to my eyes that is certainly not true of the OP.

edit: made it clear this is a response to .//slayer.

[BareNakedSlayer]

I mean... so... hmm... how to proceed... lets try this...

This game is not based on any kind of reality, it's pure fantasy. They could make her purple and it wouldn't matter because every single graphic element of this game is a choice in style, not in historic accuracy. I hate SJW crap. And there are many hills worth dying on when it comes down to it... This is definitely not one of them. I realize that I'm probably feeding a troll here, but it's interesting to think about why characters are depicted the way they are. You can either assume the best of intentions from the source material, or the worst of intentions.

[Rockco]

I mean the greeks saw their gods as pale skinned which makes sense. I would have perfered them to stick to the greek version but the game itself is pretty fun and this is like a small nitpick but understandable. Atleast the developers explained their intentions on such change which is guess is good for clarifiction . But honestly I would have liked if they stick with how the greeks depicted her to be rather then it own take but i guess its up the the developers to make these actions.

[Nellvan]

First thing that came to my mind was "bronze statutes", not "black-skinned" ... surely I can't be the only one ?

Originally posted by .//slayer:

This was my first thought upon seeing the game, as well, because throughout my school studies all the textbooks portrayed Greek and Roman gods as exclusively white skinned.

"white" can be pretty relative. In Germany we got the term (literally translated) "southlandish", which can be used in a neutral descriptive way, but also can have a bit of a racist connotation. Those mediterranean folks aren't as white as we are up here, after all.

[DDoom]

A guy with a private profile, a joker movie avatar, who doesn't own the game in question, is questioning why a character in it is black.
You gotta try harder than that, lad.

[Genghis Khan II]

Originally posted by DDoom:

A guy with a private profile, a joker movie avatar, who doesn't own the game in question, is questioning why a character in it is black.
You gotta try harder than that, lad.

Ad hominem is not an argument. And it's a character that is very well established outside of the game.

[Genghis Khan II]

Originally posted by sirtheta:

This has nothing to do with black Athena theory, the dev has already discussed their choices twice. See: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1145360/discussions/0/3124867015641411800/#c3124867015641768216

You watched a video and this specific topic was so important you had to come ask about it? Why do you care?

A video? I didn't watch any video. I saw this while looking at screenshots of the game posted directly on the store page.