p2535748

@soundlug: Can you point out where him being an albino is important in the game in terms of discrimination? I don't recall people bringing it up other than incidental dialog, but it might be later in the game? And, to be clear, someone just calling him pale doesn't count. The discrimination against magic users is clear and prevalent, it's certainly part of the story and the themes. Discrimination against Geralt because he's albino doesn't really seem to crop up very much.

Honestly, how much of the game would actually change if Geralt was black? How much of the game would change if you had a wide mix of races running around? From what I've played, I just don't think it would make any real difference.

@soundlug: Not because of his race. There's a ton in there about discrimination based on the fact that he's a witcher, and discrimination toward other magic users, and yeah there's some throw away dialogue here and there about his white hair or how pale he is, but if Geralt were black (for example), you could still have all the same interactions. Yes, they'd have to change some stuff that's incidental to the experience, but nothing fundamental to the story or themes would change.

I also feel like there should be some consideration for how fundamental what you're discussing is to the media you are criticizing. Two recent controversies are the race stuff in the Witcher and what happened at the end of last week's Game of Thrones, which I won't spoil. In both cases, critics have pointed out that the "history" argument isn't really valid, which I agree with, but I think they're fundamentally different arguments because the changes required to address the criticism are very different.

If the Witcher had a more diverse cast, it really wouldn't change anything. Hell, other than his nickname, Geralt could be black, and it just wouldn't matter (from what I've seen 25 hours into the game). You could also gender swap all of the roles, and it wouldn't matter (and you could certainly excise the nudity). The fact that he is a white male is unimportant to the story or the themes of the game. It therefore feels a lot like he's white and male because that's the "default" choice, not because it actually matters. It would be nice if more developers stepped back for a second when making games and said "does it matter if our main character is a man/white?" If it doesn't, consider making them something different.

OTOH, with something like the recent GoT stuff, people are complaining about things that very much do speak to the themes and story of the show. You can't just excise what happened last week and tell the same story. While that sort of thing doesn't need to be there for historical accuracy (as if that matters in a show with dragons), it needs to be there because that's the story and those are the themes they've chosen to tell, and it's been that story and those themes since day 1. Of course you can still criticize it, and of course you can say "this isn't for me" or "here is why this is problematic", but unlike something like race (or gender) in the Witcher, changing this aspect of the show would fundamentally change the show. Maybe that's what people want, but we should at least recognize that asking for that sort of change is very different.