Elven Diversity in Dragon Age: A Look at the Facts

[Omen3608]

There has been a lot of debate about Elvhen skin colours and whether having darker tones is something introduced with The Veilguard. I found an interesting piece from dalishious on Tumblr. They meticulously extracted every skin colour used for each race in Dragon Age: Origins. Their work shows that all races had diverse skin tints from the beginning, refuting the argument that elves in Dragon Age used to all be white.

Given the persistence of this misconception, I decided this topic deserved its own thread for future reference.

Anyways, have fun: dalishious' Skin Tint Tally[www.tumblr.com]

[Fomin]

Originally posted by criffyzou:

Oh thanks for the find ! I didn't know someone made the effort of collecting all that data, that's impressive.

Unfortunately the hate tourists are too far gone to respond to facts and logic, so I fear these stats will go straight into their "lalalala I'm not seeing it" brain folder.

It's interesting to me though ! Thanks a lot for sharing.
I wonder if they posted more about the possibly asian headmorphs they found, because deep down I'm an asian Erlina truther.

As Asmongold said, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. I used to be in the "SBI detected" group (I thought I was defending free speech like a full-grown idiot) before I realized that they are just self-victimizing cancel-goblins.

Also, they are such coomers that their curator gave NEGATIVE reviews to Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Quest (because their gooner senpai thinks that games rated 13+ need to be sexualized) but they gave a POSITIVE review to the most gooner game ever, that being the microtransaction-infested gacha game about a girl with huge T&A who wears heels and a skin-tight bunny outfit.

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44858017/

These angry gooners actually feel like they were wronged by an evil company because the coomer-in-chief was denied when he demanded early access and an interview from the makers of Flintlock (obviously because he was hoping for content for his YouTube channel) yet they have no problem at all praising a game made by a company whose South Korean developer has been fined by the government of that country for consumer fraud related to deliberately lying about the odds associated with lootboxes.

In short, these people don't have principles, they hate free speech (as shown by the fact that they literally reported yours truly and tried to get me banned simply for saying that I was NOT offended)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3211348460

and they don't have a high level of intelligence either considering that they don't mind being taken advantage of by companies that sell microtransactions but DO care if they can't goon over a character in a 13+ game to the same extent that they can when they look up that character on google image with safe search turned off.

The good news is that they apparently tried the same stuff on the forum for Baldur's Gate 3 and met with no success... so if the devs of this game can make the great return to form that I believe they will (I'm biased since I know someone working on it who has been a fan of the old Bioware since childhood) all these angry coomers will just be forgotten like Sauron's orcs at the end of The Lord of the Rings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne2RwxQsb0g

[Omen3608]

Originally posted by criffyzou:

Oh thanks for the find ! I didn't know someone made the effort of collecting all that data, that's impressive.

Unfortunately the hate tourists are too far gone to respond to facts and logic, so I fear these stats will go straight into their "lalalala I'm not seeing it" brain folder.

It's interesting to me though ! Thanks a lot for sharing.
I wonder if they posted more about the possibly asian headmorphs they found, because deep down I'm an asian Erlina truther.

You're welcome! :)

I basically made this thread for two reasons, one of them is for people like you who are actually interested in the information and the other is so we have an easy to find reference when somebody screams bloody murder again.

Those that are too far off to accept reality aren't my concern, there's no getting through to them anyway. They'll just make up something new when you debunk their narratives, if they even bother. I find it entertaing at times though, so I shouldn't complain. :D

[skullymex]

Originally posted by Straight White Male:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf

It is just one page and website, but tell me where are the sub-saharan or afro-american looking elves located at.
Spoiler: Nowhere.

Another european mythology bastardized in the name of brownie points.

Why should game devs care what some wikipedia page says lol. It's their world, they get to decide if there's black elves or not.

[Fomin]

Not trying to brag here (I'm not important at all and I have an ordinary, prestige-free job myself) I just want to disclose that I'm biased.

I actually know one of the people making the game personally and it is my understanding that this game is being made by the old guard and new people who really respect the old guard with the intent to bring Bioware back to the good old days of honest, single-player games with memorable characters.

Everything in this game, including the elves, is meant to be a logical continuation of what came before; NOT a reinterpretation by people who think they can do better than the original.

[Omen3608]

Originally posted by Straight White Male:

Then can we have Ryan Gosling as Black Panther in the next marvel movie?

Yeah, this is your logic, "babe".

We actually could. Black Panther, and the Black Panthers before him, got their powers from performing a ritual, so if the writers wanted to find a way to have Ryan Gosling perform it, and have him be friends with the Wakanda government, it could work out.

I'm not sure why you would want that though, Ryan Gosling is known to stand for gender equality, stricter gun control, is an environment activist, and has spoken out against racism. :P

[skullymex]

Originally posted by vera32_2000:

Not necessary to dig that deep, wiki etc. etc.
There are 3 parts of DA. None of them had black or asian elves.

So?

[pr1mus]

Originally posted by Omen3608:

Their work shows that all races had diverse skin tints from the beginning, refuting the argument that elves in Dragon Age used to all be white.

there was never an argument that elves were "all white", the argument being made was that elves now take after human ethnicity rather than just being elves that happened to be white, black or whatever, "black" or "white" in this context not meaning African or Caucasian.

people continually misconstrue the argument by filing black as being synonymous with African.

Adaia for instance is a black elf while Davrin is an African elf, my argument is that elves should represent elves rather than represent human ethnicity; we already have humans in the game to represent those, why should elves (and by extent, Qunari) now get redesigned (again) to look less like their own species from the previous games are more like humans? that's boring.

not only is it bad from a design perspective, it isn't exactly lore friendly either, i'm still dying to find out where these Asian and African elves were hiding for the past 15 years, these new writers certainly didn't have trouble finding them and conveniently cramming them in the party roster lest someone accuse them of not having any "black" or "asian"* people in the roster and thus being discriminatory.

edit: *which by the way, tons of people have given David Gaider ♥♥♥♥ for because they've accused him of being racist towards Asians for all these years when he said it wouldn't make sense for one continent to house all these cultures.

suddenly he isn't writing the game anymore and magically we now have Asian elves, lol.

[Omen3608]

Originally posted by vera32_2000:

Not necessary to dig that deep, wiki etc. etc.
There are 3 parts of DA. None of them had black or asian elves.

Well, this is evidently not true. All data collected is from models actually used in the game. Unused data has been syphed out as is clearly stated in the article.

[Omen3608]

Originally posted by vera32_2000:

I PLAYED all 3 games. I do not need any "data" exactly as the game I loved being turned into fantasy California.

I hope you'll play the 4th game too, I think it will be good. :)

[Omen3608]

Originally posted by vera32_2000:

Originally posted by Omen3608:

I hope you'll play the 4th game too, I think it will be good. :)

And the reasons for thinking so are?

I like what I see. The graphics are great, the atmosphere seems on point, I like the companions bar the skeleton, and the gist I got of the gameplay is promising and in my eyes a move to the right direction. 700 voiced characters implies that there's a lot to discover.

I'm pretty sure it scratches my itch.

[Sannro]

Originally posted by Omen3608:

There has been a lot of debate about Elvhen skin colours and whether having darker tones is something introduced with The Veilguard. I found an interesting piece from dalishious on Tumblr. They meticulously extracted every skin colour used for each race in Dragon Age: Origins. Their work shows that all races had diverse skin tints from the beginning, refuting the argument that elves in Dragon Age used to all be white.

Given the persistence of this misconception, I decided this topic deserved its own thread for future reference.

Anyways, have fun: dalishious' Skin Tint Tally[www.tumblr.com]

Ohh.. that was interesting. Thank you for posting!

[Fomin]

I'm hoping to see a good conclusion to the story with hopefully at least one option to get a happy ending for the elves once and for all.

The fact that there aren't going to be any microtransactions in this one means perhaps a happy ending for people who like good, honest, single-player games as well.

[TairaSayo]

Originally posted by pr1mus:

there was never an argument that elves were "all white", the argument being made was that elves now take after human ethnicity rather than just being elves that happened to be white, black or whatever, "black" or "white" in this context not meaning African or Caucasian.

Any gentlebeing with taste knows that the back elf is an Underdark elf. But those peasants have their own opinions now, how dare they use incorrect terms!

Originally posted by pr1mus:

Adaia for instance is a black elf while Davrin is an African elf, my argument is that elves should represent elves rather than represent human ethnicity; we already have humans in the game to represent those, why should elves (and by extent, Qunari) now get redesigned (again) to look less like their own species from the previous games are more like humans? that's boring.

Humans think they have sub-species, how novel. I wonder how they differentiate, color of the pants probably.

[󠀡󠀡 󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Fomin:

Not trying to brag here (I'm not important at all and I have an ordinary, prestige-free job myself) I just want to disclose that I'm biased.

I actually know one of the people making the game personally and it is my understanding that this game is being made by the old guard and new people who really respect the old guard with the intent to bring Bioware back to the good old days of honest, single-player games with memorable characters.

Everything in this game, including the elves, is meant to be a logical continuation of what came before; NOT a reinterpretation by people who think they can do better than the original.

Well, that was a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lie

[¤ OpN ¤]

Originally posted by Fomin:

As Asmongold said, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. I used to be in the "SBI detected" group (I thought I was defending free speech like a full-grown idiot) before I realized that they are just self-victimizing cancel-goblins.

Quoting your internet bf has no value here.