Wait, are you implying there are people who wouldn't?I'm sure there are people who'd prefer that ...
PC The Duke, Noah, and the story so far
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Rotor
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ait, are you implying there are people who wouldn't?
/Quote by @VaeliorinSome people have standards...... Maybe.
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khzmusik
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theFlu said:
I have no information about her race/ethnicity. But I remember a dev diary post which said that Jen is modeled after the wife of one of the developers. (Can't remember which developer.)
If I find the dev diary post I'll link it here, but it was before 1.0 so it might as well be lost to the sands of time.
Javabean867
Well-known member
If you think of the walking dead, The Duke could literally be someone who stepped up, secured resources and land, to help his people survive. He needed to be ruthless at times to outsiders, but needed to secure more loot for his ever growing group of survivors. He is the 1 with the bandits under his control right? (i don't play for the lore, but i will be interested in it once the full game is done).
Sure the current lore is that he was/is an owner of an Indian Casino, but it could literally have been his tribes Casino, and it wouldn't make a difference in the Zombie Apocalypse. He would still be the 'owner' of the Casino to any outsider and still fit within our real world laws.
Sure the current lore is that he was/is an owner of an Indian Casino, but it could literally have been his tribes Casino, and it wouldn't make a difference in the Zombie Apocalypse. He would still be the 'owner' of the Casino to any outsider and still fit within our real world laws.
khzmusik
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TFP have compared the Duke to Negan from TWD in some of their dev diaries, which is telling (if players were given a choice between Rick and Negan, not many would choose Negan).
Regardless, what you're doing (intentionally or not) is justifying TFP's choice to make the bad guy be a racial stereotype. Yeah, you can invent all kinds of remote scenarios where this might be plausible, but why would you want to? The end result is that a racial stereotype is in the game, and IMHO that's not a hill to die on.
Also, I mentioned this before, but the Duke isn't the only problematic element.
TFP likely based White River off of the real-life Whiteriver, AZ. That's not just my guess, it's also in the official Wiki entry for Navezgane.
If that's true, then TFP took the political capital of the White River Apache tribe, erased any history of Native Americans from it, and redefined it as "settlements" founded by the main White character. That's pretty difficult for me to justify. (It's just as ridiculous as saying the Duke founded Washington DC, and that "Washington DC is an Apache phrase meaning 'cross the river'.")
But, again, none of this is in the game yet, so there's a lot of hope that TFP won't go in the direction of making all of the "bad guys" be Native American and all of the "good guys" be White. I still do not believe TFP are doing this intentionally, so I am very much hoping that all my concerns are unfounded.
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I am from Russia. And I really have never heard of such casinos. I first learned about it here.
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theFlu
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It's just as good a hill to die on as the opposite; "the white man is the bad guy" has become such a trope in current media that it's basically spoiling the plot for any current day film that even tries to have a plot. "Minorities can't be portrayed as bad" combined with "we need representation of every minority in the film" leaves essentially no room for non-bad white guys. Just stop staring at the race of the characters and you'll be fine..
Dead Smarty
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The thing is the (stereo)typical (American) way this tread is getting polorized: You are either with me or against me. The way you seem imply (at least in the eyes of a non-American) TFP do something intentionaly wrong unless they change it. No one here introduced the phrases "racism" and "political" but you, making it political that way. Wich is not a bad thing: "Political" is more than Red vs Blue, wich party you vote, it is a way of debating so it is inevitable a good debate will turn political.
You started this thread as an interesting history lesson but if you dig deep enough you'll always find a way to take offense on something. We are here to play a fantasy game and many fantasy stories are based on real life events, locations or persons. Give writers some room to create their own story, help them out by feedback but don't call them out for creating a racist story. The only way to avoid that is to turn all people green (hope the martians don't call me racist for that) and avoid any reference to nations, clans or tribes. And even then, there's always something someone will be offended by no matter if it's justified or or not.
Would it be possible to write a story where Washington was founded and kept as independant native american state because actually a few tribes managed to unite and concentrated on keeping a specific territory for themselves at all costs? Would it be possible to make it a joke in that alternate reality that Washington was an apache phrase for "cross the river"? I'd say that would be possible.
But would that be a political statement to make Washington DC an indian state if that tribe where shown in a positive light? In a game? IMHO the answer depends on whether there would be a real political movement to do that or not. As it isn't there is not even an unintentional danger for that szenario to be in any way controversial. Right?
Now at the time TFP invented the story of 7days it seems there was also no serious political movement to close up the reservation of WR, AZ (at least I could not find one on the web). I also can't find any recent one though maybe I didn't look in the right places and also that could change any day. But to actually discuss that we would get unavoidably into dangerous and sure to be moderated waters in this forum. So with your far greater knowledge in US affairs you should at least be able to conclude whether above story detail might be a problem or not.
Rotor
Well-known member
Dead Smarty
Active member
:classic_angry:Well you seem to have a pre conceived notion that all martians are green
Hey, Bethesda got away with an alternative reality since the 50's that led to the Falout universum.
Don't even mention the multiverse from the MCU...
So YES!
Fallout was made by Black Isle Studios. Bethesda simply bought the trademark and continued the franchise. The original idea was not theirs.
Dead Smarty
Active member
Bethesda is still getting away with it, Black Isle Studios is gone for over 2 decades. Name might still exist, the real studio is long gone.
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khzmusik
Well-known member
This is not like Fallout or some fictional alternative U.S. history.
The "corrupt casino Indian" trope is not a creation of The Fun Pimps. It has been around in modern media for decades. Casino Indians have been portrayed as the "bad guys" in South Park, Family Guy, the Sopranos, Longmire, House of Cards, and many more. (I also mentioned Z Nation, though IMHO that show handles it better, since they weren't the only Native Americans.)
In fact if there are any Native Americans at all in modern American media, it's likely that they will be casino Indians. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions, not the rule.
It was also satirized in It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. In a couple episodes, the gang makes fan sequels of Lethal Weapon. The bad guy in the movies is Chief Lazarus (played in-show by Frank, real actor Danny DeVito), who is a corrupt casino Indian that poisons the L.A. water supply. It's clearly a satire of racial stereotypes - these are the same episodes where both Mac and Dennis play Murtaugh by donning blackface, which Frank says is OK if they get the right color of shoe polish.
The Fun Pimps also did not invent the "savage Indian raiders vs. innocent White settlers" trope. That trope has been around as long as America was mythologizing its Western past, from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to the Lone Ranger to 20th century Western movies to kids playing "cowboys and Indians."
And, it is not me calling these tropes negative racial stereotypes. It's sociologists, scholars, and Native Americans themselves. It's not a matter of opinion - denying that they are negative racial stereotypes is just factually incorrect.
I'm not asking for Native Americans to all be "good guys," or that the "bad guys" have to be White. I just don't want these stereotypes to be uncritically incorporated as the main story line in a game I love.
I already gave several scenarios where the Duke could be basically the same character, including being Native American, without needing the "casino Indian" trope (he could be a tribal government leader, chief of police, sheriff, military leader, whatever).
I also would prefer if the game didn't erase all Native Americans from a place they lived in for millennia, seemingly in order to advance an "Indian raiders vs. White settlers" story line.
I really don't think this is very much to ask.
The "corrupt casino Indian" trope is not a creation of The Fun Pimps. It has been around in modern media for decades. Casino Indians have been portrayed as the "bad guys" in South Park, Family Guy, the Sopranos, Longmire, House of Cards, and many more. (I also mentioned Z Nation, though IMHO that show handles it better, since they weren't the only Native Americans.)
In fact if there are any Native Americans at all in modern American media, it's likely that they will be casino Indians. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions, not the rule.
It was also satirized in It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. In a couple episodes, the gang makes fan sequels of Lethal Weapon. The bad guy in the movies is Chief Lazarus (played in-show by Frank, real actor Danny DeVito), who is a corrupt casino Indian that poisons the L.A. water supply. It's clearly a satire of racial stereotypes - these are the same episodes where both Mac and Dennis play Murtaugh by donning blackface, which Frank says is OK if they get the right color of shoe polish.
The Fun Pimps also did not invent the "savage Indian raiders vs. innocent White settlers" trope. That trope has been around as long as America was mythologizing its Western past, from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to the Lone Ranger to 20th century Western movies to kids playing "cowboys and Indians."
And, it is not me calling these tropes negative racial stereotypes. It's sociologists, scholars, and Native Americans themselves. It's not a matter of opinion - denying that they are negative racial stereotypes is just factually incorrect.
I'm not asking for Native Americans to all be "good guys," or that the "bad guys" have to be White. I just don't want these stereotypes to be uncritically incorporated as the main story line in a game I love.
I already gave several scenarios where the Duke could be basically the same character, including being Native American, without needing the "casino Indian" trope (he could be a tribal government leader, chief of police, sheriff, military leader, whatever).
I also would prefer if the game didn't erase all Native Americans from a place they lived in for millennia, seemingly in order to advance an "Indian raiders vs. White settlers" story line.
I really don't think this is very much to ask.
theFlu
Well-known member
There plenty of ways to deal with negative stereotypes, racial or otherwise. You (or whichever faction you like to hide behind this round) are trying to make this one taboo; it doesn't really do anything, other than give the stereotype unearned power. Other ways to deal with it include, "ignore it", "take it over", "have fun with it".
For a "take it over approach" here, the Duke may have started as an actual casino indian, but rose into leadership. The "badness" of him may just be the other side's opinion - there's promises of a faction system, you can actually side with the Duke. Assuming the sides are actual sides, and roughly "equal" - that can make his side straight up just as "good" as the other. I'd hope you'd be for such things showing that even casino indians can be human, deflating the unearned power of a stupid trope?
I don't like the way you wrote your story, rewrite it for me. Yes, it's a lot to ask.
It definitely is if we for example assume that TFPs White River is the actual White River. You yourself showed that 7d2d does not line up with reality. Or the alternative is true, that the names are just used because they are somewhat familiar names you would or could see on a map of Arizona (Navezgane for example is pure invention, right?).
We also have greedy cooperations, dumb blondes and practically all casino owners as tropes. All negative and commonly used in comedy because you don't need long introductions to set up new characters in it or make jokes about it. The other common use of tropes is in action series, half of them have a greedy cooperation as enemy, together with lawyers, though naturally we can't really hurt the feelings of cooperations (or lawyers
)But drop the "indian" from "indian casino owner" and you still have almost the same trope. How many movies and series do you know where a casino owner was not doing something illegal or part of the mafia? Compared to the other way round?
Notice that you are freely switching between the "crooked casino indian" and "casino indian" tropes in your description, and only the former would be really problematic. And we also don't know whether the duke was a crooked one when he still owned a casino. I can immediately remember a Mentalist episode with "casino indians" where the culprit was the non-indian head of security.
You do know that 7d2d tries to be humorous or even satirical itself? When satire is not in-your-face (like in "Always.." as far as I know the show) it can be hard to differentiate between using a trope and making fun of it. Best example is "starship troopers", the book as well as the movie. I would assume for most people it is perfectly clear that the society in the movie is satirized, but on release lots of people and reviewers didn't get that.
As we don't know the details of the story we can not even guess here. A lot depends on details or if details exist at all. If the Duke and Noah are just cardboard figures whose names turn up in a few sentences I would call the potential damage minimal, likewise if they are well-rounded characters with positive and negative traits (like The Flu mentioned quite correctly).
You are asking that they rewrite the story after probably having written it down in detail years ago. I think your warning has some merit, TFP should be reminded that they are handling a hot iron that could potentially do damage, but we can't know whether there is a need for change at all (they could already have had satire in mind for example). And we also know that even if there is need for some change or correction that TFP won't let us decide which change is made that still makes the story work as intended.
I don't know how much that trope is ingrained in US society though, from my point as non-US consumer of lots of hollywood products I am confronted with hundreds of tropes, many of them negative, and many also about race. And if I had to rate them for how problematic they are the casino indian would be very very low on my list and the "crooked casino indian" still quite low. But I am looking from the outside, sure.
PS: I would assume that currently nobody is working at all on story, so it might be useful to mention this as a potential problem again when that time comes.
khzmusik
Well-known member
The problem with all this theorizing is that none of it is in game right now.
Here is what is in the game files (I don't think any of this is spoiling anything):
(Emphasis mine.)
There is no indication that this is satire; no mention of alternate timelines; no indication that the Duke was ever anything other than a casino "owner," or that White River was ever anything other than settlements founded by a White guy.
So, when you are suggesting that TFP could do something else, you are also suggesting that they change the story.
Since we're all doing that anyway, why have them jump through hoops (complicated alternate histories, changing the main storyline so it's a satire of American racial stereotypes, whatever) just so the stereotypes can remain in the game?
Why not suggest they do the bare minimum to avoid those stereotypes - have the Duke be anything other than a casino owner, and acknowledge that Whiteriver was founded by Apaches and not White-led settlers?
In any case - if TFP do change the story in any way (your suggestions, my suggestions, or otherwise), that's great! We can see what they come up with.
But it's problematic right now, and will remain problematic if they change nothing.
Here is what is in the game files (I don't think any of this is spoiling anything):
- "The most powerful man in Navezgane before the war was an ambitious, crooked Native American of Apache decent named 'Duke Cassadore' which means Warrior and Chief in Apache."
- "Me and the Duke go way back. I used to gamble at his casino before the @%$# hit the fan." (Trader Rekt)
- "The Duke owned a casino before the apocalypse started. He's been rigging the game his entire life." (Trader Jen)
- "The founder of the White River Settler's Outposts, Noah White stood up to the Duke and is now on the run from the Cassadores."
(Emphasis mine.)
There is no indication that this is satire; no mention of alternate timelines; no indication that the Duke was ever anything other than a casino "owner," or that White River was ever anything other than settlements founded by a White guy.
So, when you are suggesting that TFP could do something else, you are also suggesting that they change the story.
Since we're all doing that anyway, why have them jump through hoops (complicated alternate histories, changing the main storyline so it's a satire of American racial stereotypes, whatever) just so the stereotypes can remain in the game?
Why not suggest they do the bare minimum to avoid those stereotypes - have the Duke be anything other than a casino owner, and acknowledge that Whiteriver was founded by Apaches and not White-led settlers?
In any case - if TFP do change the story in any way (your suggestions, my suggestions, or otherwise), that's great! We can see what they come up with.
But it's problematic right now, and will remain problematic if they change nothing.
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