This is a game about race- yet Atlus seems scared to make it about RACE.

[Intern Waffle]

The intro is basically "Racism? ugh" every 20 minutes. EVERY character in the game faces some form of racism (except maybe strohl) to their face. The entire game is about race, culture, equality, etc.

And yet...

Unless I'm forgetting something, Neuras is the only not-paripus with darker skin, and otherwise, all dark-skin characters are Paripus, the race delegated to...uh...living in the streets and being criminals as a result. Oops.

Meanwhile I just got the second-to-last party member whose skin is the color of bleached cardboard and I think maybe she's supposed to be a token POC. Which...woof, atlus.

How can you be so all-in on a story about race and not address it in terms of skin color? It's a really embarrassing line to draw.

[Lynfinity]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

Unless I'm forgetting something, Neuras is the only not-paripus with darker skin

Grius and Brigitta (both of Rhoag tribe) would like to know your location.

[Clown Reemus]

News flash, racism is not about the skin colour only. What you know as racism is just one of its ugly manifestations. It's embarassing that someone would try to create a false narrative of this game not addressing racism due to the sheer ignorance of that individual.

Take my good will advice and delete this thread. There is enough fake-virtue-signaling around and if you honestly care about not being a tool for the racist crowd, delete your low effort jab at thin air.

[Griever]

So what you're saying is you want to make it about American left issues (Afro Americans being the "victims") rather than the general criticism of all types of racism which Atlus presented in this game.

Got it.
Also, Paripus come in all skin colors including White skinned in this game.

[Baphled]

Oof, the entire concept completely went over this guy's head. So in the game, different tribes are different tribes. There is literally nothing about skin color. Even in the Paripus tribe there doesn't appear to be consistency about animal type let alone skin color.

The game actually gets a bit more accurate with the race metaphor. In the game, it is later revealed that all tribes are actually descended from humans. Which is similar to reality, as 'race' isn't actually a thing. There are no races, only clines. We're all human and the only difference is the frequency of traits between populations.

[Mouiiyo]

It's a game about any random guy can be king too, meanwhile it's the prince who won

[archonsod]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

How can you be so all-in on a story about race and not address it in terms of skin color? It's a really embarrassing line to draw.

How would that even work? The light skinned Clemar, Rhoag, Paripus et al don't care whether you've got horns, wings, tails, pointy ears or any of the distinct physiological difference between the clans, but get really worked up over the colour of your skin/scales/fur/whatever?

[Dunbary]

I'm going for the racism% speedrun

[Ivas]

"Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because - what with trolls and dwarfs and so on - speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green." Sir Terry Pratchett

[Gameplayer134]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

The intro is basically "Racism? ugh" every 20 minutes. EVERY character in the game faces some form of racism (except maybe strohl) to their face. The entire game is about race, culture, equality, etc.

And yet...

Unless I'm forgetting something, Neuras is the only not-paripus with darker skin, and otherwise, all dark-skin characters are Paripus, the race delegated to...uh...living in the streets and being criminals as a result. Oops.

Meanwhile I just got the second-to-last party member whose skin is the color of bleached cardboard and I think maybe she's supposed to be a token POC. Which...woof, atlus.

How can you be so all-in on a story about race and not address it in terms of skin color? It's a really embarrassing line to draw.

I don't know how you can complain about racism but then look at Eupha being mildly brown and be colorist about it and try to gatekeep being POC to her. Considering Mustari are inspired by South Pacific islanders, they'd be considered POC in my book. Also the protagonist is literally also brown.

[Splinter of Chaos]

The game was never about racism to begin with, racial discord in the game is used as a vehicle to discuss the central theme of anxiety, hope, despair, and how these feelings motivate people to make change in the world.

Even works which are explicitly about race tend to have themes deeper than "racism bad" and use depictions of racism to drive other narrative themes or discuss aspects of racism, but racism itself isn't usually a strong enough theme to support a story on its own. So not showing people of different skin colors isn't necessarily a failing of the work unless it fails to instill in the audience its central theme and message.

What I feel Metaphor failed to do is that the racism and prejudice themes are so overpowering that the more central themes become basically invisible.

[AkaRai]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

-snip-

Your furry avatar is genuinely horrific. I'm wondering what happened to their "community" that it seems to have been completely co-opted by people such as yourself.

The game isn't about racism as you know it, that's the entire point. There are forms of racism other than what you know, it goes both ways, and it makes topics like this much easier to relay in fantasy/sci-fi when it's different. No one cares what someone's skin color is in a world where some of the races aren't human at all anymore.

Just a few examples, in the Stormlight Archive series social standing is determined by eye color rather than skin color, and people of any race can have lighter eyes for a number of reasons. First, the spectrum of possible eye colors is much broader, orange, purple, silver, etc. Second, without going into too much detail there's a power people can obtain which among other things makes their eyes glow. There's a specific main character who for a time outright refuses to accept this power for this reason, because he wants to succeed with his dark eyes and fears he would become like those he hates. There's a classic episode of the original Star Trek which features the last survivors of two "races" of an alien species, one has black on the right side and white on the left and the other is reversed. To the crew they look the same, and the concept is baffling to them that they would even see eachother as different, and that was literally the point. One Piece has a recurring story arc between the humans and the Fishmen which makes a point of showing how hate creates hate generationally and it works both ways. I could keep listing examples, but I think you get the point.

The great irony here is that all you see is skin color. It's easy for me as a westerner to look at the cast and see blonde hair, white skin, blue eyes and red hair and assume they're all ethnically European, but the game establishes that Virga Island is build directly on top of Shinjuku Japan, so it would be very easy to argue every single character in the game is Japanese. I saw this guide once on how what westerners interpret as different races in so many anime are just different shades found commonly in Japan. You see a character with curly hair and think "black, afro" but they drew them intending "Japanese guy with curly hair." The eye and hair color throws me, but it's important to remember it's very common there for young people to dye their hair. Then there's the layer of the dubbing which gives everyone a European or American accent. Will sounds American, most of the others sound English or Scottish, Heismay sounds Romanian, etc.

Then there's the way they dress. When I look at Neuras to my eyes I either interpret him as "tan-skinned Japanes" or "tan-skinned Frenchman". With the Paripus, most of them don't have darker skin. Basilio is the primary exception, but his brother's as white as they come. Catherina isn't dark skinned, Fabienne isn't dark-skinned, 99% of the ones we see are light-skinned, you're reading something into it that simply isn't there. Meanwhile the noble from Strohl's story who was trying to cheat him and his people was darker-skinned and of the same race as Neuras. Personally, the interchangeability is something I've always enjoyed about anime art style, it's why it's popular in so much of the world. Growing up watching DBZ in spanish, all my hispanic friends (I'm half hispanic) just interpreted them as Mexican. If you're white you tend to interpret them as white, if you're Asian you tend to interpret them as Asian. Now when you get into specific series there's often specific intentions of the creators, and where applicable I tend to guy by what they've named the character and where they live, but the point is you're free to interpret them as is most comfortable for you.

[causality]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

The entire game is about race, culture, equality, etc.

I've never seen such a bold attempt to get a theme of a game so incorrectly.

[Intern Waffle]

Originally posted by Lynfinity:

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

Unless I'm forgetting something, Neuras is the only not-paripus with darker skin

Grius and Brigitta (both of Rhoag tribe) would like to know your location.

I forgot about Grius pretty fast, but good point, I totally missed brigitte's skin being darker.

Either way, there doesn't appear to be any skin-focused themes here, which is...just a bit weird. Like I get that it's "the same thing" to have all these other fantasy ethnic groups, and I know they're going hard on the issue and even calling it racism to its face, but it just seems strange to skip the actual real world version in the process, yknow?

Originally posted by archonsod:

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

How can you be so all-in on a story about race and not address it in terms of skin color? It's a really embarrassing line to draw.

How would that even work? The light skinned Clemar, Rhoag, Paripus et al don't care whether you've got horns, wings, tails, pointy ears or any of the distinct physiological difference between the clans, but get really worked up over the colour of your skin/scales/fur/whatever?

Do you not know what colorism is? Do you think people of a race in the real world all love every single other person of that race and don't have infighting about skin color? A sheltered life. Colorism is rampant in many communities.

Originally posted by causality:

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

The entire game is about race, culture, equality, etc.

I've never seen such a bold attempt to get a theme of a game so incorrectly. :cuphead:

I've got about 30 hours of the characters discussing racial unity to look at for inspiration, but maybe you're right and the final 30 will reveal that was all a trick of the light.

[kyotod]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

Originally posted by Lynfinity:

Either way, there doesn't appear to be any skin-focused themes here, which is...just a bit weird. Like I get that it's "the same thing" to have all these other fantasy ethnic groups, and I know they're going hard on the issue and even calling it racism to its face, but it just seems strange to skip the actual real world version in the process, yknow?

Well look at it like that. Skin colour in our world never would have been a big topic, simply for the sake of colour.
It got important because different coloured people, came from different regions. From a different "kind" of people, in a sense. It wasnt about "hes dark, so he must be bad" , it was about "hes dark, he must be one of THEM, those barbaric savages in the south". In Germanys 1940 time, racism was less about skin colour and more about genetical herritage. In Metaphor the old world (kind of our world) is gone. There is a new world with new rules. And in this new world, the "rasses" arent divided by colour, but by other, more decisive features, like horns, wings etc.


And for the meassages i think metaphor has a lot differnce ones.

1. you have the racism one, about all of us beeing simply humans who shouldnt have reasons to fight and hate each other
2. you have the political one, monarchy, democracy and dictatorship figthing for the voice of the people with all their tasty and ugly sides
3. the philosophical/psychological one, about fear beeing the fule for "magical things" and imagination beeing the deceisive factor for the nature of said magic

[AkaRai]

I think it's worth reminding you that most of the characters you're thinking of as "POC" are really just Japanese. https://ibb.co/W0ZsrHj