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Enjoy.Quote:
Aside from Barett Wallace and more recently Sazh Katzroy there's other black characters who have been given roles in their respective series be it minor, supportive or next to nonexistent. So let's take a look back at the black characters throughout Final Fantasy's history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw7Dh-NH-FQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw7Dh-NH-FQ
Good video, thanks for sharing. Like a lot of other people Barett and Sazh are the first two characters to come to mind when I think of black characters in Final Fantasy. I always forget about Kiros to my shame.
I was going to say the video forgot Raijin, but then I realized from his photos he was white... I thought he was black this whole time...
I don't really have anything to say, other than I think that it's weird that a company can make a fantasy series full of a huge variety of spells and monsters and intricate worlds - and yet almost every character is white. It's even more strange to me that there seem to be no Asian people at all, in a franchise made by Asian people.
Props to Sazh as a character who is middle aged but in good shape, suicidal but not angry or even really rash, and a gun-toting minority as a determined single parent. Easily my favourite FF character, in my limited experience. Will give a standing ovation the day they give the lead role to an Asian woman character, or include other people of colour who aren't Black or simply "ambiguous category".
Isn't Yuna half Asian?
General Leo is black according to Amano's artwork. Perhaps an argument could be made for Kimahri representing some kind of tribal culture. Anyway.
Final Fantasy characters are predominantly white, with some having a slight asian flair. I suppose you could say that various characters are inspired by various European ethnicities but, really, it would be much easier and probably enhance their character creation if they tried to draw inspiration from characters who are different.
While I would appreciate more variety in characters, you must also consider than Japan is fairly insular and I don't expect older Japanese men to really hang out in crowds with any real diversity. They're building for their Japanese market and their foreign market which is probably primarily white people anyway. So I can't entirely fault them.
Reddas, Fran and other Viera.
Hey, yeah, those are good ones, Sephiroth. I guess SE isn't as bad as first thought.
Of course there is the question about being dark skinned and black however many dark skinned characters exist and many of them seem to be black.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiro
There is a lack of black characters but you can see they do indeed exist.
The prevalence (or lack thereof) doesn't seem natural, though. Strange to have like a half dozen black people in an entire world. Doesn't line up with ordinary concepts of, like, whatever, sociology or anthropology or something.
It is not more of a wonder than just seeing 200 people on entire planets or characters wearing the same clothes for their whole journey which is normally at least a month long. There could be other black characters, we just do not know them but yes, not seeing them is the problem, of course.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiro
Does Fran count as a human character?
As long as we're talking about how "natural" the population distribution is, let's get around to the discussion of an entire planet being entirely populated by about a hundred and fifty people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiro
Presumably you're looking at a somewhat representative sample, though. Sure, there are only 150 people you can actually interact with, but they are a placeholder for a larger presumed population. It's still really weird that there's 1 black guy in an entire population of white people.
I never really noticed it. Might be because I grew up in an area where I had seriously AT MOST seen 20 black people my entire life. Not saying they should have that few people of different races, I'm just explaining why it was never really something I'd thought about.
I remember reading a while back that Asian cultures were offended by those with darker skin, which would explain why there are few black characters in the game. But I can't confirm that.
I never forget Kiros. He's one of my favorite characters.
I always thought for the longest time Rude from FFVII and Reddas from FFXII was black. Who knows. But I think canonically, only Leo, Barret, Kiros, Sazh, and Dajh would be considered the only named black humans in the series. No black women at all. In fact, very few people of any human ethnic groups other than White/Asian have appeared.
I know this has nothing to do with anything, but were the Al Bhed supposed to be reminiscent of European people with their fair skin, blond hair, and green eyes? Because the vast majority of non-Al Bhed Spirans have a mostly Eastern (specifically Okinawan) design.
I will always consider Xande to be black... because his skin is black.
EDIT: I forgot about ZEMUS!
Also, I consider Artemicion to be a "black mog."