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Smash Ultimate has 74 Characters, yet lacks Black/Brown characters (READ OP)
- Thread starter Deleted member 4976
- Start date
On the idea for PoC representation from existing franchises, sure, they don't necessarily have to be main characters. For example, we already have Link & Bayonetta, so branching out to Urbosa & Rodin (if he wasn't already an AT) makes sense. Where the argument becomes questionable is when you have a side character from a franchise whose main character isn't even playable, even if said side character does have popularity (see Twintelle).
This is where the point of Smash's lack of representation being more of a symptom of the real problem comes in. Nintendo has slowly improved, sure, but we need more new IPs with people of color as major characters (or better yet, as the main character). That's how you get real change regarding PoC representation in Smash.
While I generally agree, that Black Panther moment would need to be coming out of Japan to increase the chances of Nintendo being impacted. Granted, such a step forward from a western company could still motivate Nintendo to follow suit, but it coming from Nintendo's home turf would increase those chances.
Including ONLY anthropomorphic cartoon characters with visible skin (this disqualifies a huge chunk of the roster), and discounting the fact that cartoons are not any race at all because they don't exist in the real world:
Non-White Characters:
- Mario, Dr Mario and Luigi are explicitly Italian-American.
- Little Mac is also, explicitly, Italian-American.
- Ganondorf is Gerudo. While Gerudo are a fantasy race and not 1:1 with any real race, they are obviously non-White.
- Ice Climbers are too "cartooned" to determine a race, but with their names, attire, and setting of their game, you can argue they are indigenous Americans
- Pit, Dark Pit, and Palutena are all divine characters based around the Mediterranean (i.e., Greek) and are not White.
- Wario, though a native of the Mushroom Kingdom, is based on Mario and Mario is not White, therefore, Wario isn't White either.
- Pokemon Trainer is from any region that is likely analogous to Japan. It's highly likely that this Pokemon Trainer is Japanese.
- Ryu is straight up Japanese.
- The inklings are alien squids.
- Wii Fit Trainer is of ambiguous race because they are a mannequin. Given that Wii Fit was developed in Japan, you may assume Wii Fit Trainer is Japanese.
- Although Zelda is a "White" Hyilian, Sheik is a transsex, transracial disguise. His inclusion as a separate character complicates matters. Draw your own conclusion there.
- Daisy is from Sarasaland. Although she is White-passing, she is not from the hegemonic Mushroom Kingdom and could be considered a PoC. Consider: are Argentinians White? Are Uyghurs? No.
- Olimar is a cartoon man from the fictional planet Hocotate and is 0.75 inches tall. No one but other Hocotaters know what race he is. He passes as White, I suppose, but Pikmin is a Japanese game so who knows.
- Mii Fighter, Brawler, and Gunner are of ambiguous, player-decided race.
That leaves Link, Zelda, Toon Link, Young Link, Peach, Rosalina, Zero Suit Samus, the Fire Emblem cast (including these particular iterations of Corrin and Robin), Ness, Lucas, Snake, Villager, Mega-Man, Shulk, Ken, Cloud, Bayonetta, Simon, and Richter. I agree that's a lot of White, but 13 "definitely not white" and 7 "ambiguous race" characters is a categorical denial of "not one brown or black character in the base roster."
The thread thesis isn't "there are no non-Anglo Saxon characters in Smash." Its "there are no black or brown characters in Smash."
The argument can be made that Italians and Mediterranean peoples are white-passing but even if you're allowed that, no one is explicitly analogous to African/Middle Eastern/Latin derived peoples.
Italians and Greeks are white, and that Daisy bit is really ridiculous, she looks white af. White =\=blonde.
https://metalgear.fandom.com/wiki/Clark's_assistant
Raven hints at it in MGS1,
originally Big Boss was part Japanese that was later retcon'd out
Final explanation is the eggs used were of the Japanese assistant of Paramedic .
Its Metal Gear,
this character is also half White, half Japanese
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Ganondorf is Gerudo, which is clearly Middle East-inspired. Mario, Dr. Mario, Luigi, and Little Mac are explicitly Latin Americans. Also very weird to dismiss Japanese, Italian, and Greek poc characters because they're not "black or brown" enough for you or the OP. There are clearly "brown" characters in Smash.
I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life
But I have had, and will probably will have a variant form of this argument in the future. But the people who believe that link the european inspired elf boy who looks white , isn't supposed to be and shouldn't look different ever and has a totally defined personality. Will not budge because Nintendo wont call them out on it. They are not gonna budge.
Just warning you.
Italians and Greeks are not White. It is for-realsies bigoted of you to think otherwise. Daisy has dark hair, dark eyes, and is from a country that is not part of the Mushroom Kingdom. She's whatever race Miyamoto wants her to be but she's clearly not the same race as Peach.
Mediterranean people tend to be co-opted into a generic white umbrella depending on the context, particularly in regards to Muslim immigration into Europe. Part of why the white moniker is somewhat misguided in a more global setting.
It's particularly useless in a fantasy cartoon setting where the Greeks in question are two cherubs and a goddess who don't exist outside of the context of beating up flying eyeballs.
I think it's for realsies bigoted of you to count Greeks and Italians as representatives of PoC in this game. Daisy's hair is light brown and her eyes are blue, might want to check your eyes. She's obviously based on the white race. It doesn't really matter whether she's from the Mushroom Kingdom or not, that's completely irrelevant.
At this point I just think you're trolling tho.
I do think there's an argument to be made that Nintendo games seldom star characters with darker skin tones, regardless of whether Palutena and Pit being Greek or not is a valid discussion.
Not sure how it is obvious that Daisy is based on the white race. If you're basing it entirely on her pigment and eyes, well...
And it is bigoted of you to want to erase PoC identities in order to win an argument on the internet.
You based her race on her (incorrect)colours as well in your last post ;)
Your post count and registration date tells me all I need to know, have fun trolling while it lasts :P
She's a Sarasalander and my registration date is 6 days after yours.
Hold up. PoC objectively doesn't apply to your argument. For what you're arguing, neither Mario or Daisy are "PoC."
i really hate this myth. how many non-feminine female characters are there in video games? like, zarya, and that's about it? let's stop this "~capable female characters can be feminine too uwu~" crap. we know. they almost always are.
Mario is Italian-American, which makes him a PoC. Daisy is from Sarasaland; we don't know what race she is. That's why I listed her as racially ambiguous.
They know this, but they really want that gotcha moment for the OP
Is this real life? Italian American is not a PoC. And even if it was (and it's not) the thread is about lack of dark skinned characters.
And you only have six post and probably all of them in this thread :P
I like how you decided that Sarasaland = PoC and Mushroom Kingdom = white out of nowhere. Why is Peach white according to you?
Europe is a big place, bud. Not everyone who lives there is white or even close, culturally or ethnically. You may as well say Shantae (who is definitely in as DLC) is white.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/person_of_color
I'm pretty sure the context it's stating that in should be apparent.
Which is why the first part is relevant.
It's already pointless when we're devolving into inane semantics. How about "white passing," as was suggested earlier? This is the usual tangent people like to go on in threads like these to totally sway away from the point of the subject.
This is the single up-shot to Spring-Man being an AT. If Sakurai never comes around on upgrading AT's to playable during a DLC cycle, Twintelle's chances skyrocketed.
I would love to See Travis Touchdown in Smash, and they could easily have Shinobu join him, as she is also a protagonist from NMH.
Needless to say, I agree that PoC are seriously underrepresented in Smash. And as a Native Canadian, and as discussed in another topic today, this is the only (and very offensive) representation my people have in Smash Ultimate:
I love Travis, but screw it. Shinobu was supposedly meant to be the face of the series after NMH2, so let's just cut straight to what's important & add Shinobu.
You can say the same about every single country on this planet.
You're right. All those Italian immigrants who faced historical persecution and discrimination while living here, who knew they were actually white!
I know I'm right
It's 2018 and implying the Italian American and a whole host of other Europeans who in the past were considered racially separate in the US are not considered white currently is literally disingenuous bullshit.
The OP is really damn clear about what he/she meant and this shit you're doing is not cute, it's transparent as fuck.
I fully understand wanting more diversity and representation in video games, but Smash Bros is one of the most blatant corporate products ever and I feel like this kind of energy is more productive going towards creating new art from people who are really passionate about having more diversity in games instead of being really concerned with activism about your corporate products being woke enough
What significant major Nintendo franchise has a character of colour to choose from?
There are none in Nintendo across the board, period, certainly cannot think of an example that has missed out.
Nintendo does an awful lot of ambiguous white/asian characters, intentionally, which is connected to its background as a Japanese studio and the mores of JP and the commercial importance of cross appeal to JP and Caucasian players. If you think about how black people are seen in Japanese society it probably explains a lot.
Otherwise it does not engage in proactively representing minorities, ever. Just not its corporate policy plus underlying Japanese treatment of black people.
There are none in Nintendo across the board, period, certainly cannot think of an example that has missed out.
Nintendo does an awful lot of ambiguous white/asian characters, intentionally, which is connected to its background as a Japanese studio and the mores of JP and the commercial importance of cross appeal to JP and Caucasian players. If you think about how black people are seen in Japanese society it probably explains a lot.
Otherwise it does not engage in proactively representing minorities, ever. Just not its corporate policy plus underlying Japanese treatment of black people.
Here's a book some of y'all might find interesting: https://www.amazon.com/Are-Italians-White-Race-America/dp/0415934516
Pacouranga is bringing up a valid point here that's supported by folks in the field, but Smash absolutely passes off its Italian characters as white (something that has a long history in the US at least). I know era hates folks who don't take sides, but there is truth to both points.
Pacouranga is bringing up a valid point here that's supported by folks in the field, but Smash absolutely passes off its Italian characters as white (something that has a long history in the US at least). I know era hates folks who don't take sides, but there is truth to both points.
You can count the number of Smash characters who are described as coming from Earth countries on one hand. Most of the "white" characters in this game are from fictional worlds that don't even recognize race as a concept.
I think this is a legitimate criticism to have about the game.
I don't agree with putting in side characters over main characters just for diversity and representation.
I do agree that Nintendo needs to make more series staring minorities so we can get more diversity and representation in Smash (and Nintendo and gaming as a whole) that way.
I don't agree with putting in side characters over main characters just for diversity and representation.
I do agree that Nintendo needs to make more series staring minorities so we can get more diversity and representation in Smash (and Nintendo and gaming as a whole) that way.
To all the people saying this is just a gaffe, an unintentional omission, remember that Shantae, M. Bison, Twintelle, and many more PoC characters were consciously passed over, in favor of two washed up, white or white-coded has-beens from Castlevania that literally wield whips. You can't make this stuff up. Nintendo, where is the representation?
I guess if by Italian Americans you mean people named Tony with Brooklyn accents and by the whole host of other Europeans you mean the UK, France, and Germany, then yes europeans are considered white
Accusing the game of having "no black or brown characters" and categorizing all light-skinned characters as White (like actually Anglo or Northern European) while none of the PoC or even literally just brown characters are black or brown enough for you, is transparently weird and the mental gymnastics you'd have to go through to make it work out are mind-boggling.