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Realism
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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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I agree, and there are other historical inaccuracies as well, which no one seems to talk about, for example how they are overproportionally colored/PoC. one could suspect hypocrisy
Not nearly as much.
From what I’ve seen, settings are either fantasy/fiction, or they handle the local mix of ethnicities pretty well.
As I brought up in the last thread, KCD2 is a great example, shining on the “cultural mix” part yet having quite unblemished women for some reason. To be fair, many men are conspicuously attractive too.
you can't put everything you want into a setting just because it's fantasy/fictional. you wouldn't want a BMW in your medieval setting just because it's fantasy, it's the same with an overrepresentation of PoC.
that's almost never the case. I don't know about KCD2, but Witcher 3 did a good job. in the wheel of time (the show) for example, every "culture" looks the same and the worldbuilding is not believable, and that's the case for most modern media
Yes, you can. That is literally the idea.
But it has to be believable and fleshed out. I never read the WoT book, but the TV show I half finished did feel like a mess, heh, though I didn't stop midway because of cultural weirdness. It just felt... boring, and the world wasn't interesting.
Witcher is largely drawn from celtic lore, and in the world it sets up, people being kinda pastey faced makes sense. But I brought up KCD2 because it's mostly white Europeans is a more grounded and historical (Germanic?) region, yet there are still distinct local subcultures and distinct travelers, like gypsies and that turkish guy. There is plenty of PoC. You should play KCD2 if you haven't already, as if you're going for 'authentic medieval,' no other game comes close.
...On the other hand, look at the setting of Avatar: The Last Airbender or the Kyoshi Novels. It's transitioning out of middle-ages tech and culture, yet has a mash of different skin tones and inspirations. Chinese, Japanese, Southern US, Inuit, Mesoamerican, Indian, you name it. And it works perfectly, because they build those people up and flesh them out.
In other words, authenticity doesn't matter in fiction/fantasy because you're building the world. The reason for a mix of 'PoC' is whatever one makes.
fair enough. but that's most of the time not compatible with "it has to be believable and fleshed out". you can add PoC, but they should have their own destinct cultures, like GoT did with the Dorne or the magical city in Essos; or the Ophiri in Witcher 3. the people of Dorne were all a homogenous group of people, as is to be expected in a medieval setting where traveling is hard, the same with the Ophiri. if half of the population of Dorne was white, it'd be odd.
like I said, that's because of the worldbuiling, every group of people looked the same (except for the costumes, which were pretty bad), every architectural style looked the same, there were no distinct culural differences. the whole world is one homogenous blob. just compare it to GoT
ATLA is another great example of diversity done right. every faction has their own unique identifiers, which make sense from a geographical point of view
yes, diversity has to be done right, like in GoT or ATLA. just throwing a bunch of PoC into a random setting and calling it a day doesn't cut it, but that's exactly what is done most of the time and if you critisize it, you're racist
I'll eventually play KCD2 if I find the time
Fair warning, it is hardcore and time intense, heh, but also an incredible labor of love. It's so medieval it hurts.
I guess this is the hair I'm trying to split. It's not "PoC" that's jarring for me, I don't like that term at all. People don't have to be white, or any skin tone; that's just skin deep, and that's never been a factor turning me away from media. They can be mixed even if cultures are distinct.
But just... blah worldbuilding is boring. And yeah, sometimes bad shows get some token diversity cast that's frankly insulting to said cast. But that feels like a symptom of deeper problems, not something specifically turning me away.
Otherwise I largely agree.
yes, but I think it's the most obvious and consistant problem for most shows. another one for example is in the case of WoT the lack of architectural styles in different culutres.
yeah I agree
I only made it through the first like 3 episodes of the WoT show, and it was the worst for that. Not surprised to hear it didn't get better
Same.
Yep!!!