Those are nice pictures, but you are missing my point entirely - have you read my post? - I was talking exclusively about games. Look, I’m not saying that diversity is wrong, be it games or comics or sth else. I am all for it. Yet, sometimes creators choose to not include options to change the skin colours in game. And that they shouldn’t be automatically booed for that. Every game should be reviewed independently. The whole example with Final Fantasy is about that - can you find a singleplayer FF where they included this option? Is it wrong that they didn’t do so? And there is that funny game ‘Child of Light’ from Ubi - you play as a little girl with sword and cannot choose your character. And look at GTA:San Andreas - dude was black yet nobody in Poland that I know of made this an issue. That is my argument - that those games with fixed characters are not inferior only because they excluded black people.
Thanks for the links. For the record, I do not believe that black people are more violent. Why should they be? I say that because you have loose gun control laws (which IMHO are impossible to drastically change, as too many firearms are in the possesion of individuals at this point) AND have racial problems more people are killed. Usually black people - police and white extremists are the ones doing the shooting, judging from the press articles like this one: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/02/politics/kristoff-oreilly-police-shooting-numbers-fact-check/ That is sad, and recently you’ve experienced an aditional upsurge on this front. You implied that not living in multicultural society is a ‘dearth’, I answer that your version of ‘multicultural’ has its own downsides that I don’t have to experience. Nobody is perfect.
And Polish cuisine is surprisingly diverse - we have ‘Russian pierogi’, ‘Ukrainian barszcz’ and ‘Jewish carp’ as staples. Moreover, pizza is superb where I live, as it is made by Italians who live here and stands its ground with the one from Naples. Invitation stands.
The author’s official stance on games is that they are separate entities, more like a fanfics in his view. Gamedevs gave him money to build on his works (already completed at this point) and Mr S. claims that he never checked out the games.
The books are really good and easy to read. I think that they deserve more attention than they get. They are very postmodernist and multicultural - contain references to many historical events and places, like Waterloo, Oxford. Few times Witcher is discussing genetics and climate change. The most surprising thing is that it fits the narrative. Pity that the English translation of the last volume is due in 2017. And stand away from the movie and TV series from 2001 - they are among the worst creations in the world of film, Uwe Boll looks like a genious in comparison. Author’s comment on them is hilarious (it’s here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hexer_(film) ).
Exactly. Pillars at least gets to think about it a bit. And guess what - it is in a lot of ways inspired on American culture. It is clear you are in the new countries born out of rebelion of a foreign colonzing power, that said countries are getting an influx of inmigrants, that there are tensions with the native culture…
It doesnt prevent it to be also about a ton of other things, but there is this running theme of the world portrayed being an analogue of the US.
Same as the Witcher games, following one of the running jokes in the books (where there are references to Snow White and Belle and the Beast and even to film noir) include pop culture references in them, while also being inspired and portraying a different place, with different concerns about what diversity is (and siding on the side of diversity, to boot).
I’m bowing out of this discussion as it is clear the ones that are talking are just saying the same over and over, and the ones that are for the gif memes are just there doing their thing, but just to say a last bit about this… there was a comment later by zikzak about the American public buying or not buying the Witcher based on the whiteness of it.
Which, frankly, would mean the problem is … on the American public willingness, or not, to pay for games where the cast is diverse. Not on the Witcher, coming from where it comes, to have to do the lifting for them.
When I keep reading about the need to “adapt to the global market” in this case, I keep having an image coming to my mind. If you go to Las Ramblas in Barcelona, you will find that it is full of stalls selling tourist crap. One of the articles that is most visible is Mexican style hats. This, of course, have nothing to do with the local Catalonian culture, but the tourists buy them, so they get sold. All because they in Barcelona have to fit what the “global” market demands, so lets become some cheap, phony, fake thing instead of, you know, the tourist grasping the opportunity to live, for a bit, in a real place with is own concerns, background, etc…
Thanks for the info. Reading his statement, the author sounds like a man with a funny, dry sense of humor and the books as you describe them sound really, really interesting to me. I’ll give the film/tv show a wide berth as they do both sound a bit poo. I have a feeling I’m going to race through the first two books and be impatiently waiting for the third!
I’m going to post an article from a similar discussion. the TL;DR version is that slavs are also a discriminated against people and just because they have white doesn’t mean that a slavic game focusing on slavic culture is racist for not being diverse.
How odd. Upon checking, I was tagged in this thread earlier and I didn’t actually get an alert about this. Well, let’s do this one, at least. All for the best, too, since I have a few things I want to say about the ongoing Witcher 3 controversies. First thing to note, though: I have only played bits of Witcher 1 so far, although I own 2. (but not 3) So this is just from the perspective of someone who has read all of the books.
First, though, allow me to have a moment of laughter about that “Slavic regions are primarily Anglo” bit, because there is literally no part of it that isn’t hilarious.
Okay, done.
The TL;DR version is that most arguments being tossed about in this discussion - understood as the broader discussion about Witcher 3, not specifically this thread - are terrible. Outright awful. I could even go so far as to call them The Worst.
All the arguments about historical and mythological accuracy? Garbage. Their only use is actually telling people that groups like Lipka Tatars even existed and that has nothing to do with Witcher whatsoever. Sapkowski cares not one bit about historical and mythological accuracy. This is like trying to have a discussion on Irish textile industry in pre-Christian times through the lens of Cú Chulainn’s jumpsuit in Fate/Stay Night. Witcher’s setting is notoriously riddled with anachronisms, down to having transhumanism as a term used by name and mages specifically discussing “beta versions” of magically-produced monsters after checking their production numbers. There’s plenty of absolutely ahistorical nationalism, industry and military logistics are significantly at odds with real-life history, and to be honest so is the plentiful bigotry, given that ye olde Poland was one of the most tolerant nations in Europe.
Witcherland owes more to 20th century Poland than to 14th century Poland in terms of how it looks. That’s because Sapkowski fills Witcher stories with anachronisms, dislikes archaicing things up and reflects modern Poland (at the time of writing) in his stories. This is not something that someone who does not live here would pick up on easily, but a lot of stuff in Witcher stories pretty much pokes fun at Polish conservatism, religious or otherwise, and bigotry when it comes to, say, Jews, among other things. This is the fantasy for modern Poland, in other words, so to speak.
Talking about race, or anything else, in Witcher 3 by arguing historical accuracy, as if this was some reflection of actual medieval Poland, is pure nonsense. Witcher is not even remotely historically accurate. It does not even try to be. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the setting, and if CD Projekt failed to get that across in three games, something has went terribly wrong.
Same goes for mythology. You know what a kikimora was according to Slavic beliefs? A mischevious house spirit, not a spider monster. Koschei was a legendary immortal sorcerer and pretty much the template of a lich, not a spider-crab murder-monster thing created by magic bioengineering. Witcher is pretty much Nasu-tier accurate when it comes to Slavic mythology.
Sapkowski never really cared about historical accuracy, he cared about presenting a certain world, with a distinct, compelling Slavic taste to it, and a taste that reminded people of Poland in dialogue, not a sanitized, distant place like, say, Lord of the Rings would.
Which is to say, yes, Witcher has a distinctly Slavic taste, in terms of mythological concepts used, the language etc, and as such is going to hold greater appeal to Slavic readers, as it resonates with “home”, rather than works originating from Anglosphere and its cultures, like the aforementioned LOTR, although it should be noted that Slavic mythology did not have elves. (think of drowners etc in Witcher like of fae in anglofantasy. Not necessarily at all mythologically accurate, but recognizable as a concept within the culture) In my experience, the English translations of the books pretty much butchered Sapkowski’s prose, alas. Obviously, I can’t speak for the translations of the games themselves, though.
But the point is – both sides of this controversy are using historical and mythological accuracy as arguments and in case of Witcher this is just a terrible idea. Terrible. This is not a story that takes place in our history and it really shows, even if it is inspired by our culture on multiple levels. (and I am very unhappy with people using Witcher, pretty much the quintessential fantasy series in Poland and a favourite of mine, as ammunition in fights over Anglosphere gaming politics, facilitated by highly dubious arguments)
Which brings us to the whole race thing, doesn’t it.
Ultimately, are there non-white people in Witcher’s setting? Sure, a few groups get mentions here and there, in fact. Are they common in the North? Not really. Could they have appeared without setting background violation? Sure. A pair of warriors from Zerrikania showed up in a short story and that wasn’t exactly a problem, for example. There’s nothing wrong with asking CD Projekt to perhaps feature some of them in the games, particularly with additional content coming up where they might actually get added based on customer feedback. (but there is problem with arguing “but there totally would have been some in historical Poland” since Witcher nations are not historical Poland and this is, as said earlier, a completely nonsensical argument, regardless of which side of it you are supporting)
However, at the same time, this is also indeed a Polish game made by Polish developers based on a Polish novel series which in turn is rooted in Polish culture. I would go so far as to say that it is one of the very few pieces of Polish culture that people in, say, the vaguely-understood “West” are going to ever even hear about. Is this why some people get the bizarre impression that equating Witcher with medieval Poland makes sense? I suppose lack of exposure would do the trick, and also make this even funnier, so let’s go with this for now.
This said, you can live your entire life in a Polish city and literally never see anyone of recognizably different ethnicity. Witcher 3’s racial makeup is more or less accurate to just taking a random walk through a Polish street. (although we do have one of the biggest Vietnamese minorities in Europe, it’s still very, very much a minority. In fact, I haven’t seen one in my entire life) You are not going to see a Polish work reflect the ethnic makeup of America unless the authors specifically set out to do so, for all kinds of reasons.
The culture argument interests me, though, so let’s go back to that. Ultimately, I went on for several paragraphs in the past of this thread about how it annoyed me that positive, non-caricature Slavic characters barely exist in media not produced in Slavic nations, games being discussed specifically since the movies are bit better off, and how bunching everyone up under one “white” label and complaining about that can also get frustrating. I have literally tens of millions of corpses produced within living memory to show you that were killed because “white” is not actually one big group, and essentially erasing various ethnicities that form it and the various problems that are associated with that is nothing short of seriously disappointing, and, let’s face it, offensive. “Slavic regions are primarily Anglo”, good God.
I get the arguments that in quite a few nations white people are essentially dominant in important roles in media, but would it kill people to offer a little more nuance? Complain about WASPs, for instance, since that is a specific subset of a real group that you can actually point fingers at without essentially trying to toss entire Eastern Europe under the bus.
And this brings me back to Witcher 3. Arguments have been made that it is an example of Slavs making works based on Slavic culture, and as such telling them that they have to fit American culture instead is essentially cultural imperialism. Tentatively, I agree with this. Ultimately, if Western media are not going to bother with actually representing Slavic peoples, it is up to Slavic peoples to represent themselves, and thus those works are going to reflect Slavic culture – more specifically, Polish culture, because by God Slavs are not one happy bunch and even after the West/Southern/Eastern Slavs division you have more differences still – and its various peculiarities. Denying us even that is, essentially, just a further attempt at erasure and eventually turning the mental image of everything east of Germany into one big TF2 Heavy-shaped blob. Or Russian Ultranationalist-shaped blob, perhaps. Given that Poland was a victim of imperialism and was essentially erased as a nation from 1795 to 1918, and despite it being absolutely disastrous to our culture we still managed to persevere, I can spare nothing but a hearty “fuck off” to such attempts, and I imagine most Poles are going to share that opinion.
This ties into the whole “oh it’s fantasy there are dragons aaaaanything goes” dumb argument. No, not everything goes. Just because Witcher makes utter mockery of claims of historical and mythological accuracy does not change the cultural fingerprints it has all over, the cultural elements that it does incorporate and so on and so forth. It takes guts to essentially demand that all fantasy has to cater to modern American sensibilities, regardless of what culture produces it, in what context or what are its key themes supposed to be (and good Heavens Witcher spends a ton of time showing bigotry as awful), or perhaps just being blind that you are trying to erase diversity by wanting works of other cultures to conform to yours. I actually fully agree with what Total Biscuit said and which HBMC linked earlier in the thread.
But! And this is going to be a bit of a pickle. Is asking for more variety in skin colours in Witcher 3 doing so by itself?
Nah.
As I said, the world of Witcher does have a variety of ethnicities, including those with different skin colours (though for instance Nilfgaard has a ton of internal ethnic issues between people with the same), so if people are going “boy I sure would like to see some Zerrikanians about, or maybe those NotMongols that Sapkowski mentioned off-hand once”, or just someone else from another human group that arrived elsewhere on the planet during the interdimensional travel affair that brought everyone over in the first place, well, that’s okay, isn’t it? There are already existing options, and sure enough, people should be allowed to ask about them. Or even new ones, for that matter, CD Projekt hasn’t exactly been shy when it comes to making stuff up.
There is a line here, you see, between people wanting to see more variety in their game, and people who are implying that CD Projekt is essentially racist because Witcher 3’s ethnic makeup reflects the one you’d see when taking a few hours of walk through basically any city in Poland and of course Polish people should not be able to do something like that. Why, that’d be simply outrageous.
So yeah, this went on for long enough already, so let’s sum this up.
A lot of the arguments made about this are terrible. Witcher is not even remotely trying to be historically or mythologically accurate and it’s pointless to use that as an angle in serious discussion, regardless what your argument actually is. It feels like using Witcher as a battleground in the ongoing Internet Social Justice War by people who actually aren’t really familiar with Witcher and what it is supposed to be like, and I can’t say I’m enthusiastic about it.
Slavs, Poles and otherwise, should be allowed to make games inspired by Slavic culture and what life in their respective Slavic nations looks like. Implying that this is racist is both dumb and imperialist, because it further contributes to the Slavic erasure discussed earlier in the post. Every nation, in fact, should have the right to represent itself and its culture in its own media, and if it is essentially monocultural and monoracial, then that’s how the ball rolls. But on the same note, people who would genuinely like to see more variety in ethnicities etc without implying that reflecting ethnic makeup of modern Poland in a game produced in modern Poland and many of whose themes reflect modern Poland is racist should also be allowed to ask for such, without being branded as dumb, intolerant or imperialist. There is a very big difference between “it would be cool if” and “you are a bad person if you don’t”.
The guy who talked about how there is barely any “Slavic mythology” is kind of right, there is in fact a dire lack of sources compared to say, Greek, Roman, Egyptian etc mythologies, though there is enough to compile books about it and discuss it.
Total Biscuit is essentially right, and “Slavic regions are primarily Anglo.” is hilarious(ly dumb) and probably going to be my go-to comedy quote for months to come.
And yes, Silentcrusader, the one you quoted is also essentially right. Witcher, for all its fully intentional anachronisms and Nasu-tier mythological accuracy, resonates more with Slavic audiences, since it has Slavic cultural fingerprints on it and is recognizably Slavic as a work of fantasy. Reading something produced in your culture can be a very different experience than just reading a translation of a product of a foreign culture. This is still a comment about the books, mind you, since my exposure to the games themselves has been limited due to lack of time. “The Witcher” is the quintessential Polish fantasy series and probably my favourite fantasy series in general because of it. Slavic culture has quite limited penetration into the English-speaking parts of the Internet, and the non-Slavic continental Europe is not that much better off, so it is good to see Witcher games bring any kind of recognition of it and particularly the Poland-shaped slice of it. Perhaps it will aid in further attempts to familiarize Western audiences with Slavic cultural products, too.
Which is why I am willing to type over 2400 words of post about this.
Also, still shaking my fist at what CD Projekt did with Adda. Never forget. (but nobody complains about that because I guess that would require actually being familiar with the books, while it sometimes feels like China has more cultural penetration than Poland does in the US)
For what it’s worth, I’ve heard that the english translations for the Witcher books basically sucked all the fun out of them and weren’t really that much worth reading. I’ve seen them on sale, but have heard so many “meh” things about the translations they never seemed worth picking up.
Also, I don’t think anyone is really calling the developers of Witcher 3 racist. The “How dare you say we’re racist” stuff is just the natural defensive attitude of the people who ARE racist, and insist any sort of cultural criticism has to be an insult against them, because white supremacist fantasy is what they want…
Edit: The background info you provided is really excellent, though. Thanks.
If it’s heavily marketed in my country, I really don’t mind anyone criticizing it. It’s not like it’s a person with feelings or anything.
Ketchup is, in fact, a Chinese loan word,
So if I was in a restaurant in china, I might ask for that very thing. I could even get western ketchup at a western-styled restaurant.
Since EBA nicely summed up everything that I was arguing for…
Let’s talk about the translations - I have them in front of me, both versions (of the first few volumes). A little is lost, true, as it is always the case when translating from more flexible language to the one with more fixed structure. Some of those anachronism are impossible to translate, as they depend among other things on the Polish declension and declination that are on par with the ones found in Latin. But other than that the translation is precise, the plot stands and the books are still very enjoyable. To someone who reads both languages, Polish version is better, but the differences are minor. Maybe you people should have stuck with Old English grammar 
As for your later point, at least some people were calling them racist - the original article from Polygon came close to this. And in comments, too. People like me were mildly offended mostly because of the absurdity of the accusation and the implied superiority od US culture over our own. I actualy stumbled upon this issue on a satire blog where people were making fun of Polygon story (In has only 22 comments at this point, so let’s say that it is not that popular here)
And I think that I know why we tend to abuse the word ‘racist’ a lot in internet discussion - mostly because of lacking vocabulary. This sort of language is not taught at the univeristies, so we lack proper synonimes to talk about this. This is actually a very funny way of saying that we are not ‘racist’ - that we concer ourselves so little with this issue that we lack the proper words to discuss this in English. I can only speak for myself, but I studied grammar, idioms (some of them really obscure), technical jargon, linguistic terms, phonology, yet many of our teachers did not know what acronym PoC stands for. And I’m still learning some new words - few days ago discovered at long least what’s GG.
sorry to be obtuse. you wrote:
what are the downsides of multiculturalism?
because of extremism? what about your own home grown groups… falanga(?) i think they’re called? extremists are everywhere. and they all seem to hate diversity.
from my little knowledge, and now quoting from wikipedia:
For many centuries, until the end of World War II, the Polish population was composed of many significant ethnic minorities. The population of Poland decreased due to the losses sustained during the Holocaust, and became one of the most ethnically homogeneous in Europe as a result of radically altered borders after the war.
your country was made homogenous. that means you have your own issues to deal with, just as america has issues dating all the way back to slavery.
multiculturalism and diversity are not the cause of either of our country’s problems. quite the opposite in fact. and, encouraging diversity is part of the solution.
games which reflect the diversity of its players, games which allow people of all backgrounds to experience the actual diversity that exists in our world – these things can only help.
whitewashing the past, and denying – or overlooking – diversity in games can only hurt.
To clarify, those ethnic minorities are often also what you would consider ‘white’. Ashkenazi jews had a very very large community in Poland. Ashkenazi are white. They are also jewish. Skin color and facial features isn’t the only indicator for culture or even ethnicity.
I also want to be clear, the article I posted wasn’t mine, it’s a repost of a response to… well the polygon article on another forum that sums up the issues I find with polygon’s article and the beliefs behind them very well.
How odd that you didn’t provide a link. It wouldn’t be because this originated on a pro-gamergate forum, now would it?
Ah, I see, so more white supremacists telling us what we should think about race…
… I wouldn’t call SB pro gamergate. Have you read the gamergate thread there? It got pretty heinous. I didn’t link because… bringing up the cultures of other boards is a sideline from the importance of the message. Also, I wouldn’t want some people here to show up there.
I’ve been playing Irish Traditional music for 27 years. I’ve been asked to be faculty to teach it for a US 501c3, and I qualified once to compete in the All-Ireland. Somehow, it’s still a big deal to some people that I’m asian. Strangely enough, it’s not a big deal when friends of mine who aren’t of Irish descent at all, but who pass as “white” are playing Irish music, but it’s almost required for people to ask me about how I got into the music. I think it may reveal one of two things: Either they don’t quite think of asians as standard people – like we have a “ching-chong” gene that affects auditory perception, maybe – or they don’t have the aesthetic and intellectual wherewithal to recognize that music, though it may have come from a particular cultural context, also exists as an epiphenomenon of the human sensory apparatus and brain – like any form of art. (That is, they’re the kind of yahoo who only thinks of traditional and folk musics as a auditory tchotchke based on nationalist jingoism.)
But to be fair, most people do judge their musicians largely by their looks. Most people really are that shallow. We’ve been processing visual signals for far longer than we’ve been sentient, so it’s no wonder we fall into doing that in preference to using our entire minds.
thanks for your thoughtful post. I’m not going to be quite as thoughtful, but only pick a couple nits because i think they are important points.
Slavs, Poles and otherwise, should be allowed to make games inspired by Slavic culture and what life in their respective Slavic nations looks like.
freedom of speech and freedom of expression means, loosely, you are allowed to create what you want.
no one here is talking about outlawing witcher.
just as equally, critics and players are allowed to critique the media they consume.
There is a line here, you see, between people wanting to see more variety in their game, and people who are implying that CD Projekt is essentially racist
yes. 100% agreed. i don’t know the people at CDP, but i’m guessing they are not racists. some people might be verging on saying something like that, but that’s not what most people here are talking about. moreover, that’s not what the author of the boing boing article was saying.
criticizing the game – which obviously was intended for a worldwide audience – for its lack of diversity is still valid. discussing the problems inherent in the “white male neutral” viewpoint is still valid.
structural racism does not single out individuals as racist. instead, it looks at the system – the structure of the world – which perpetuates racism, classism, and hate while the participants themselves are passive – even theoretically neutral – actors.
to overcome these structural issues, we can’t be passive. we have to be active in working against them.
witcher was used by the author of this piece – so far as i understand – because the author liked it. and it is not the only game where the neutrality of the white representation is in question. it was created in the context of a world full of games where this is a problem. ( and this issue exists for women in games as well. sarkeesian, for instance, often talks about the default male view. )
Every nation, in fact, should have the right to represent itself and its culture in its own media, and if it is essentially monocultural and monoracial, then that’s how the ball rolls.
of course, and no one is being denied that right.
instead, the ball is rolling in a way that says: hey companies, pay attention. you have players of diverse backgrounds. think about these actual human beings who are marginalized in the world and underrepresented in mass market media. and then, consider the virtual humans they get to play. hey companies, you can do better.
maybe CDP can handle this virtual gauntlet being thrown down. maybe they can prove to be clever and inventive. maybe they can find interesting ways to include the voices and faces of people of color.
or, maybe they can’t. maybe they can’t handle the challenge. maybe they aren’t as great a developer as we all think they are. i guess we’ll see.
Also, one of the members of my dissertation committee is writing a book on bluegrass in Japan. His research consists of flying to Japan and playing with bluegrass bands.
Once again, you are taking in the lens of americentric race and diversity. Poland suffered just as much under the regimes of Imperialists as places like India and China and even Africa did. Just because their skin happens to be white doesn’t mean bigotry and racism haven’t been directed at Poles. Poles face a significant amount of discrimination within western europe.
This is a game made by poles that celebrate thier culture, a culture that is essentially made invisible outside of Poland. And then you demand they must include ethnic diversity because their skin happens to be white. Would you make the same demand in reverse if some day an Ethopian company makes a video game reflecting celebrating Ethopian culture? No, because it would be populated by black men. But in terms of discrimination, the slavs of poland have faced and STILL face their fair share. So why must a game that celebrates their culture that has won mainstream acclaim be changed so that its inclusive to everyone else, especially in a not internally consistent way? This is a celebration of their culture, not America’s.
Also the game probably treats women better then any other mainstream game I’ve come across in… ages. Though I do wish I could have spent more time playing Ciri, as she is, in my opinion, a better character then Geralt (And plays more fun). But it certainly represents step forward in many ways, from diversity to narrative in games.
I think the online-commenting portion of the gaming community has fallen into what Eliezer Yudkowsky calls “an affective death spiral.” Defensive knee-jerk outrage is consistently mislabeled as a “logical” response, and double standard pseudo logic is mislabeled as a worthy intellectual activity. Anyone who disagrees is then attacked. This effectively drives away anyone with the wherewithal to know the difference. It has happened to large parts of the gaming community, and to a large subset of “Social Justice Warriors” and many other groups online – who then feed the outrage machine further by mutually attacking each other, generating yet more outrage.
What concerns me most are the number of young people who have internalized such mislabeled activity as somehow noble and intellectually worthy. Lots of young people who have tenuous grips on certain aspects of reality and who think their anger is noble and worthy – what could possibly go wrong? (Historians have the answers!)
reddit.com’s epitaph. (Slashdot, Hacker News, and others too.) It almost works – enough to keep people trying. That’s probably the most dangerous kind of “doesn’t work.”
