The Issues With Natlan’s Lack of Proper Representation
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- Petition Link: chng.it/fXp2Dc...
Ever since the Natlan teasers people have been very vocal about the utter lack of skin tone diversity in a region that is basically a mixing pot of culutres that tend to have a varrity of skin tones leaning more towards the darker side. Genshin has always had a whithwashing issue, even in region that have primarily light skinned individuals most people aren´t paper white, most people have undertones and tans but most genshin characters don´t have that and this issue has been amplified by how the went about designing the Sumeru and Natlan characters, when people were upset about Sumeru, they were told to wait for Natlan and now Natlan is here…and nothing has changed. We only have one actually dark skiined character, Iansan and she was shown for a few seconds at most in the recent trailer and something tells me she is going to be a 4-star potentially 5-star with a bad kit, ring a bell?
#natlan #genshin #ignitionteaser
![Why Natlan Is So Colorful [Genshin Impact Worldbuilding]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/uKXfQQqMa7U/mqdefault.jpg)
![[DRIP] ‘CLIK CLAK’ PREVIEW](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bcxkcOSbpac/mqdefault.jpg)
Now... I'm on the fence about this. While I knew that Mihoyo wouldn't do right, I'm still upset that they chose to do this. My thing is, if you're going use other cultures as the basis of your lore and market your game internationally, then you need to have a global mindset, which means that you shouldn't create a world that's more exclusive for your fan base. I know people are saying, 'It's just a game,' but the underlying messages Mihoyo sends through the game with skin-dark characters are not. It's about time Hoyoverse answers for what they've done. Thank you for the video!
THIS!!!!
very well said, and also THANK YOU ALSO to Asabi for voicing the opinions very well - *everybody* deserves to be heard.
i do think it's "just a fictional game" - but it's the underlying mentality that is important - it's what perpetuates the real racism when people don't want to face the issue and just "brush it off" as something that's not serious. Profits will always take priority in any company - but in the case of Hoyoverse it also reflects the innate cultural mentality of *China* - it's up to HYV whether they have the guts to *help* change THAT for the better, or just happily collect profits from *existing* society norms.
The thing that weirds me out a bit is how the "dark skinned" characters are getting progressively lighter. Compare Iansan/Kayea/Xinyan, who all were debuted or announced in 1.0 patches, to Cyno/Dehya/Candace, and now the "barely there/literal sun tan" Natlan cast.
7:40 and yep, I've seen this happen to non-American/white people I know. People can't understand many people know English because it's a common language and allows you to communicate with more people over common interests or issues like these.
then those are not dark skinned but brown - light brown, like i know that Kaeya and Xingyan are darker than Cyno, Dehya and Sethos. even Cyno is whiter than Sethos but hey, in the end those characters are not dark skinned but brown skinned and nothing is wrong for that.
i've done the comparison
Xingyan > (darker )Kaeya
Kaeya > Cyno
Cyno < Dehya
Dehya > Sethos
even for the white skinned, they differenciate the skin of Al-Haitham and Traveller, or Liyue's Characters
Alhaitham > (lighter) Xiangling
and etc
Nahida > Klee
same goes with natlan.
Iansan > (darker) Mualani because Mualani is supposed to be white and she's white-tanned while Iansan is an actual dark skinned characters
Kinnich > (whiter) than Kachina as we can see Kinnich is White while Kachina have some red-ish color on her skin or have more melanine than Kinnich.
some characters does have different skintone even if it's close enough to each other.
At this point I've kinda given up caring. Natlan looked really good and it's a shame that so much controversy has sprung up. It's also makes me look at some people in this community in a new light. Obviously some people are taking this a lil too seriously but the other side of people just seem like they're fanning flare just to annoy others. It's just tiring. We can just hope the last few Natlan characters don't follow the same trend and Iansan is actually a good character ( both lore wise and meta ). If they don't do her just well 🥀🥀🥀
The people who “don’t care” sure seem to spend a lot of time arguing against anyone who wants just a few darker-skinned characters in the game instead of just…continuing to scroll and go on with their lives.
Curious.
HoYoverse's excuse is that this is a fictional world and the characters and it doesn't reflect anyone or needs to in our world.
I can understand that but I can't fully accept it. Both sides are correct. This is a fictional world and it doesn't necessarily say it wanted to make the characters mirror actual people (despite doing so very selectively), but at the same time if they're doing so much to take from these cultures why can't they just do so COMPLETELY!
Who remembers the favoritism of Liyue? This is a Chinese game and Liyue is constantly their opportunity to show off Chinese culture. Even Yunjin's singing lines are still in every dub just to represent.
If they could do China so well, doing any less for any of the others is blatantly racist. Even if an intentional, it's even worse with Natlan.
I would like it if they were darker. THEY SHOULD BE DARKER. But Hoyoverse is Hoyoverse.... I like the game but they're always so scummy.
Hoyoverse hasn't give any response. those replies they gave from people emailing them are automated. hence the allegations people have by saying that "this is the actual response" is false.
@@sennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn1 Oooooh! Thanks for that, I didn't know. Well it still came from them technically speaking, so~.... 😝
yunjin's singing lines are more a result of cutting costs and the other dub's VA actors not having singing skills. It is less effort to record 1 song and use it for each dub, than to record 4 different songs for each dub.
@@sennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn1 automated messages have to go through the company itself before they are actually approved for use. It is still their actual response, they just don't want to manually enter a different response for each similar question that comes through.
@@crashphoenix6362 yes they go through the company since beta hence why it's using those words. the automated has been since 2021 because lots of incident that people got hacked by russian back in that year was also being sent like that. it's usually a 3 layer message
the top is the "thankyou for reaching us!"
the middle is the team response
and the last is that automated message or templates. though usually people get automated only if there are lots of queue. i had helped my friend to get his acc back and the result are the same! that msg always be for the last.
Hoyo basically: "Oooh we'll take your food, landscapes, hmm...your music, your...terminology, aaand...yup. That's it. You can keep the melanin, thanks!"
Definitely made sure to give appropriate melanin to the NPC and the enemies, aka unimportant characters and the bad guys.
Sadly I don't see any of the vocalizing about this really going anywhere. It's happening now, but a patch or two in everyone will forget and go back to praising Hoyo and saying "oooh absolutely insane character absolutely insane damage must pull!!!! C6R5 showcase!!!" etc.
Yeah. It's almost like you're all just shouting into the void, slow to realize how little the majority of the playerbase actually care
@@Ouroboros619 Shoot. You're right. I'll tell everyone to delete their comments right away. If only you had share your words of superiority with me two months ago.
Thanks, bruddahmanbrodudemahboi.
I genuinely think it’s a problem, but the fact that the first thought for people to do is harass others who are associated with the characters or even say that like the characters is borderline insane to me. Yes, HYV sucks and they’re always disappointing us some way or another, and seeing so many lightskin characters in a country where i originate from is pretty disheartening. The least I mean VERY LEAST I want to see is accurate lore culture and clothing rep for most characters. That’s literally all I plead for.
UPDATE: just listened to some of the OST for the 5.0 beta and I’m pleasantly surprised with the accuracy. Actually I shouldn’t be since that’s one of the things Hoyo does relatively well. The Saurian trailer one was also pretty good to imo 👍🏾. Just wish they kept that same energy for every aspect of it
as brown skin person from latin america, what bothers me the most is the design, they dont have identity? i mean you cannot really tell what is that based on compared with other regions. in topics of skin? i dont care much? they do look like they were brown then white washed, look like that a lot but other than that, the clothes, this like you said is not that medieval fantasy. feels like prada fashion went abroad and tried to make what it saw as new fashion trends. so characters are boring, all in the trailer were. which to be fair... makes it easier for me to save for furina's rerun.
For me, this is the last straw. I've been burned out from the game and have been enjoying WuWa and Hsr so much more than genshin. Even before the controversy got big, I really was not hyped for natlan 😭 basically cause WuWa and Hsr getting quality of life the community has been asking to put in genshin for years. It's honestly exhausting I've stopped trying
Thank you for mentioning how even places like Mondstad and Fountain are whitewashed to some extent.
It's really funny/sad because like there was this whole trend when monarchs were as white as possible (because unlike peasants they didn't need to work in the sun it was a litteral showing of your statuse back then). I mean where do you think the saying blue blood came from?
They literally didn't have any tan so you could see their blue veins (some even painted their faces white).
So while there are characters who do make sense to be paper white (like I wouldn't be suprised if Mona did due to starts being you know mostly seen in night). A lot of the others that do work in broad daylight should have tans (like Jean is out all the time she should have some tan on her and others like Mika too).
It's actually even sadder because while I don't play Genshin anymore I do sometimes just look up the news. And I kid you not when I saw a lot of characters it didn't click with me that they were from Natlan.
I didn't think they were pocs I thought they were just really tanned (because for some reason till this day Kaeya is the most dark character).
Well that natlan anthem blew me away, although I'm not of indigenous origin, it was very emotional.
yeah but at the end of the day its about the player base that makes the most profit , also its a Chinese game which means they have to follow the rules of the ccp. so they cant go for a more global aspect because they know they will make way more money from China then from the whole world. They can already see the problem with so many western IP's getting fucked by its core fan base because they are pissed about inclusivity ruining the thing they like. It happened with marvels, star wars and few games as well which probably paints a bad picture for other companies to follow suit
So basically, what most white knight's trying to say. Devs threw the towel of fiction as a shield, admitted they're incompetent, 0 talent, 0 original bones in their body, no ideas, no artistic imagination, NOTHING but stealing everything from real world cultures, locations, etc as "inspiration"? Oh and Skylanders, I can't believe thats a fact since game launch. At the same time, still ignoring 'are they racist' questions. Perfect. What about Dehya? NO!!! We're talking about Arlecchino beta tests! What stopped devs fixing her with 3-4 beta chances? Racism. Everyone does it?! Take inspiration from real world for profit as selling point. Yeah I know. Sonic Unleashed and Street Fighter. Whats different about these games? "It's not the same or good example". Really...?
No seriously, its one thing to not care and just play your favorite game. Its another being racist and defending your billion dollar company. For what? They won't thank you for showcasing your racism in their defense.
Great video on the topic!
I've got mixed feelings about this whole controversy.
While on the one hand I can wholeheartedly agree that adding just a couple few characters of color to a roster that already has many dozens of white skinned characters anyway wouldn't really hurt anyone at first, the sheer toxicity of the people boycotting and demanding Hoyo to do so really makes me rethink this idea so as to avoid feeding on this type of behavior even further. The Western "community" is absolute nuts!
tbf xilonen's clothes are based off of Brazilian fashion
Generic jean shorts ?
This is a good video
I don't really care about the matter since their not FULLY basing their characters on those cultures. Its weird since everyone's just assuming their not gonna release dark-skinned characters later like they've done before. And yet again its just annoying.... I'm not gonna be playing Genshin and looking out for the skintones of the playable characters all the time.
the thing you said about thinking all english speakers are white lmao i had the same experience whenever i spoke up! they'll always mention it's not a big deal bc it isn't an american game and implying i'm being an white knight etc etc... i'm brown east asian and honestly i'd prefer if you'd out right say that you're racist and prefer the characters to be pale than comment on how it's just a game. they don't care and expect everyone else to not care either.
but a question for you guys. if this game was from india and they started from a country based off south asia full of mostly darker skinned characters, moving onto european-inspired countries with majority darker skin and so on, do you think people would make such a big deal or praise it or something else? i'm genuinely very curious.
and don't say it's a fantasy game because liyue and inazuma exists and anyone with a brain can tell they're based off china and japan.
Why is preferring a certain skin color any different than preferring a certain hair color? Race doesn’t exist. It’s a concept created by colonialists to justify their unethical actions in the wake of renaissance moral philosophy that was at odds with concepts of slavery and other unethical practices, the concept of race was created to justify a pathological reason for slavery. Perpetuating the idea that race exists based on skin color or any other pathology does nothing but perpetuate racism. Racism can only exist if the concept of race itself exists
No offence, but nothing is gonna change, petitions barely have any weight in the west let alone in China, majority of players who are asian countries (japan, china, korea, russia...) mostly don't care about these issues, they are going to get away with it like usual, if you truly don't support this just quit the game altogether.
The Neuvilette fix just got reversed because some CN Neuvilette mains wanted to sue Hoyo. And Neuvilette mans are far from "majority".
Hell, with a game as large as Genshin, there's no such thing as a "majority". Most people didn't care about the Neuvilette fiasco either.
Yes people from those countries don't care about these issues but you know what has a majority that also doesn't care? America! A majority not caring does not mean anything because this game is actually gigantic in terms of player count. Does this mean nothing has to change because there's no physical way that a majority can be upset?
And as mentioned in the video as well, there are significant voices in both China and Japan who are speaking out about this. Even the CN VAs of the new characters.
I agree, it's likely nothing is going to change. But that's because Hoyo is very uptight. We can only hope that internal talks finally convince the higher ups to take better steps. They are literally a brick wall that's only threatened by money, and whales aren't keen on abandoning their gacha addiction.
I also agree petitions don't work. It's only a sign of support, not a catalyst for change unlike other avenues people have taken.
@@Eurasian_ I disagree, the majority does in fact have an impact when it comes to companies, if majority of the player base don't spend enough to generate profits on dark skined character banners they won't make dark skin characters, this extends beyond just proper representation, China and most Asian countries have a huge colorist culture, they prefer pale skin characters, they censor or ommit black actors from western imported media, what makes you think they wouldn't do the same for games? Hoyo's priority is to satisfy those players, it doesn't matter which significant voice talks, the money always wins, i didn't say "nothing has to change" I simply described the reality.
Im more focused about that team on the gameplay 👁👄👁
CCP Culture and representation is weird. I believe in Fate Grand Order (game devs based in Japan), the Chinese Myths and Heroes are all changed to servant numbers because Fate is known to genderbend or caricaturize historical figures and China doesn't like it when their culture is misrepresented and apparently they just don't care about how other cultures are represented in media.
Imma just say they paid more attention to the Neuvillette drama than this.
Just saying people, start accepting that this won't change, people should've known this since Sumeru.
Oh and btw, stop encouraging VA's and CC's of jumping into this, I legit saw a tweet from a VA commenting they got 2 kids to take care of, reason why they won't do shit, they aren't a banner nor a messenger for this lost cause, we could perfectly lose THE ENTIRE ENGLISH DUB for this.
It's not even about fighting for race anymore, most people don't care and even are annoyed at others because they don't learn that this issue especifically won't be changed, Hoyo itself is censoring this topic on their platform, the fuck makes the players think this might change anyway?
western players seem to forget that 1) it's a chinese studio -- a lot of tactics in the west won't persuade the studio to make changes, cultural or otherwise. 2) the game is a work of fiction. Before we criticize it, we should take the time to figure out the why dont you think?
They took great care into making ALL THE OTHER CULTURES well represented in their clothing, specially. You see a liyue chara, you can tell they are representing "China", the same goes for all the other nations. But these Natlan charas looks like... Whatever.
1. other chinese studios have made characters with dark skin tones (eg dislyte having dark characters), while yes it's understandable that things like petitions won't make changes this isn't a new issue, people have been talking about it for years yet they have done nothing about it.
2. fiction thats taking inspiration from reality, the nations are all inspired by real life places and cultures, characters from liyue, inazuma, and mondstadt i can tell what culture/region inspired them. characters from sumeru, I can tell but they look very whitewashed, yes there are light middle easteners but they aren't all light. When I saw the natlan trailer I couldn't tell anything about the characters culture, it was devoid of so muhc of it. I think it's ridiculous that the archon is named after a maori god when she looks white as a ghost, of course maori people can have light skin, and many do, but that lady had absolutely NOTHING to do with maori culture except for her name.
Diversity shouldnt be a reason for a critic xD
Honestly all the characters have such ridiculously light skin, like I've never seen people as white as some hoyo characters. It's so blatantly unrealistic that the darkest skinned character isn't even that dark skinned compared to actual peoples skintones.
Fr. My pale never leave my room white ass isn’t as white as nearly all Genshin characters.
Why is preferring a certain skin color any different than preferring a certain hair color? Race doesn’t exist. It’s a concept created by colonialists to justify their unethical actions in the wake of renaissance moral philosophy that was at odds with concepts of slavery and other unethical practices, the concept of race was created to justify a pathological reason for slavery. Perpetuating the idea that race exists based on skin color or any other pathology does nothing but perpetuate racism. Racism can only exist if the concept of race itself exists
The concept of race didn’t exist in Asia. Light skin is a beauty standard that has existed for centuries, it is a beauty standard because it denotes that one was wealthy and didn’t work outside in the sun. You people are injecting your own learned racism into something that isn’t racist and you’re making it racist by perpetuating it
Race doesn't exist but racism does. Race doesn't exist with culture but from melanin so why not have the characters in a sunny region be darker skin? What is the harm in wanting darker skin characters in a game inspired by the worlds cultures.
Racism, regardless if race is made up, still exist, just like colorism and favortism with lighter skin tones. Preferring certain skin doesnt have to be racist but it is if the ressons harbor back to talking points such as "They sre dangerous, they arent right in the head, snakes, or terrorist."
Also racism needs no justification cause it has none, we're still forced to interact wifh it even if it is made up because laws abd othrr things put in place force that reality onto people of color.
@@xenrusxenomorph2268 Racism can’t exist without the concept of race - without the concept that we are fundamentally different from one another.
The harm is in that 90% of the games revenue comes from Asia, and Asian players don’t want to pull for dark skin characters.
@@rickybobby5153 it's a global company as well. Trust me, global revenue can matter just as much
@@xenrusxenomorph2268 Revenue outside of Asia literally makes up like 10% of Genshins revenue.
As a Mexican I honestly don't really care it's mostly people with white guilt or white savor complex that are complaining about this.
I fucking know right
It isn't
@@Pastryome it is
did you watch the video
Just because you don’t care doesn’t mean others don’t. Its almost as if the video stated this. You are not the only Mexican, and you do not speak for all of us or those of other Latin or African descent.
If you don’t care then cool, keep it to yourself and move on with your life. I’m sure you have bigger problems than this if you as an individual don’t care. For others this issue is such an easy fix that has continued to be brushed off in lots of media, hence the frustration of many. If you can’t understand other people’s pov and don’t care to learn about them then do yourself and everyone a favor by not saying anything.
Seriously? Amidst all of the REAL WORLD problems we are having nowadays, THIS is what we have to lose sleep over?????😅😅😅
The controversy is stupid. It's a game, and there's no concept of representation in a fantasy world. People need to grow up
It's not stupid, what hoyo is doing is basically representing and using cultures EXCEPT representing the people of said cultures, and the people from these cultures have a right to complain abt it cuz it's misrepresenting. And have u seen the npc leaks from Natlan?? LMFAO It's a frkn joke. They gave white characters African braids, they can do this but not give the characters more melanin and color?? 💀 It's rlly clear now that hoyo's racist, and dont use "it's a Chinese game" as an excuse, so what? There r multiple other Chinese games who HAVE darkskinned characters + plus it's not only the international ppl that r complaining, the Chinese r too.
It also just rlly doesn't make sense for these characters to be so paper white when they live in a region of pyro 💀 which is supposed to be a hot region. Unless they have some rlly good sunscreen over there
What part of "A work of fiction" do these people don't understand it's not related to any real world event person or organization... Sure they could take inspiration but due to "A work of fiction" they have creative freedom" it's no reason to "represent" a part of the real world in a fictional world.
For God sake people wake up to the real world this is not a good mind set.
If you want a game with Western-like representation, then sorry to say it to you but you won't get that with Hoyoverse. If I have a say in all of this as a Latin American, I really not care about the character's skin tone, but I do appreciate that there is some representation of our overall culture in a game as big as Genshin Impact. I am just happy with Natlan and that's it.
it’s fiction. Creators have the right to take as much or as little inspiration as they want from the source material. Nahida and raiden both are extremely different from their origin (nahida's origin isn't a small radish child and raiden's origin isnt a pretty purple lady, but an oni/demon like god), yet nobody cares because it is a fictional interpretation. It’s an interpretation, and more often than not it doesn’t matter how much is changed because it’s fiction. By your logic, something like zeus from the latest percy jackson tv series would be considered offensive because a black actor is playing a greek god, doom eternal portraying heaven as full of corrupted angel like aliens would be offensive, and having an asian actor play jesus would be offensive. But here’s the thing, it’s an interpretation. You don’t need to stick to anything. That’s the entire point of inspiration. All you are doing here is gatekeeping reference material for artists. You obsessing over skin color in a video game does nothing except make you look even more racists than the people you are calling out.
: )
It doesn’t represent anything, it’s just a game.
wrong try again
If it's just a game why does it bother you that people want to see themselves in a game?
They use real life cultures. It’s completely disrespectful for them to take cultures but strip the representation of the actual people (i.e. their skin tones, hair textures, facial features). This is literally cultural appropriation..
@@shedotshearts they base certain aspects but come on we haven’t even seen the story who knows how much of it will be actually based this could be based of of certain tribes with more white leading skin tones for all we know.(highly unlikely) I think it’s horrible that people are judging these characters based of of there skin color. Also we have to take in too affect that it’s a Chinese company and there country is still struggling with racism. I wouldn’t be suprised if it is hareder to pass stuff with more black leaning characters in it.
@@pandaperson8682 they could have just not used the culture at all then, if they knew they wouldn't be able to properly represent them in a way that isn't disrespectful to the culture, they could have just not done it at all to begin with or at the very least get the clothing correct
I dont care avout this drama. I like genshin and I wont stop playing because of racism. Im also a racist so?
The video literally said you can continue playing without issue, did you just not watch it?
at this day and age ur racist? That's crazy