To start this I’d like to thank you for the reply breaking down what I said as hopefully it will help me clarify what I said, add new information as to exactly what I’m trying to say and help us both understand the other’s perspective since I enjoy looking at another’s reasoning for their opinion, or maybe none of that will happen because I’m not exactly the brightest bulb(if my writing prowess[lack thereof] wasn’t evidence of that) and am not the greatest at articulating my words. Secondly, id like to apologize and thank any who decide to read this, as I realize reading my rambling/ranting writing style can be a bit of a chore but it took me way too long not to post it. Third, I’d like to apologize for not understanding how to properly work the quote systems as I feel that’d help me be clear as to what parts I’m responding to. Lastly I realize that with most of your points you probably aren’t addressing me personally, rather using my points as a vehicle to help deliver your own, but I still addressed them personally as a conversational method helps form my thoughts to a degree, still doesn’t stop them from being a jumbled mess. My clarifi onward with the response.
For the first point I’d like to tackle is to the idea people don’t call out when a white person’s inclusion doesn’t make sense, even though with Matt Damon in ‘the great wall’ it didn’t make sense and only existed to give a historical-fantasy action movie that appealed to China so people called it on that(though China loved that movie) where something like Tom Cruise in ‘the last samurai’, is trying to be historically accurate to a timeframe when America was forcing western concepts and technology on Japan, kick starting japan’s imperialist quest for domination, and is about a captain deciding that trying to preserve them and their way of life is better than forcing them to become like western society so while both feature a white savior type character in Asia one is widely seen as the better story. For the next point, and I’m going to try and broach this in as sensitive a way that I can, point to most cultural contexts, historically, where heterosexuals are the norm mostly due to biological reasons, in most historical contexts a homosexual relationship couldn’t conceive, so from that context it’d make more sense for them to be rarer or “closeted” but say we have it in a fantasy setting where magic exist that say, could transmute the sperm or egg cells of two or more parties into viable young, or something akin to cloning I suppose, then, in an inheritance and feudal based society there would be absolutely no justification, in-world, to deny homosexuals the right to be equal and it’s a neat little inclusion in the world’s lore on how certain Magics can work. to a degree I believe the same train of thought could be taken in terms of how transitioning works for transsexuality could be handled in lore, and more since magic be what it is. I understand the former is partially controversial take as there is a great amount of validity in deciding to adopt but I’m saying that from a strictly inheritance and genetics point of view there would be no cultural validity for any different treatment in that world so then it doesn’t cause the mind to wonder about it since it makes sense. Third, one could easily, in many stereotypical Europe fantasy settings, since there is often a church or pantheon of gods, you can easily have as a small thing mentioned in reference to the church‘s holybook say that,” god liked paint their creations in all colors and genders, that made sense to their wisdom, to help create prosperity on earth,” could justify it no problem since gods are often fact in fantasy ; then according to in world lore you could have actually “colored” people( meaning like blue or maroon) thus increasing diversity past what exists on earth. And by organic, I understand you were likely joking but I am very pedantic about this, in this context I thought it would be obvious i meant naturally occurring, like you, more often then not, WON’T see a ninja in king Arthur’s court without a at least some justification like he came from japan to serve a just and noble lord that was somehow divined and he was the one told about it or in that interpretation of the Arthurian mythos one of the countries of Britain is essentially japan in customs and aesthetic, either way you decide to take it there’s an explanation as opposed to “huh, a whole lot of people in this very European place in geography are miraculously a different skin tone then what would be naturally occurring,” and ,”despite some people literally still smearing shit with herbs on wounds as the leading medical tech, there’s a surprising amount of people concerned with what gender they get perceived as in a world where men and women, for all intents and purposes, are treated the same.” Look I understand it may not seem like much but it helps build the world around as a real, living world where there is reasonable cause and effect relationship pushing events forward as opposed to a place that’s just clearly Europe without as many white people with no explanation as to why the type of person that, historically speaking and whose skin was scientifically proven to be adapted over time to deal with less sunlight from living in those environments so long, would inhabit that land in greater number aren’t there. I’m not even saying all lore and references be shoe horned in without regard to the flow of the story but I’m saying if it has a flow of logic throughout, the work will generally be better and why not be a little creative in handling something like that in a world with magic? I feel like One of the reasons such diversity gets such bad faith is how the advertising treats it, where,” come watch X, because it supports women,” and, “don’t like this then you’re an -ist or -phobe of some sort,” then deliver products that don’t really deserve praise
Your second paragraph doesn’t really conflict with what I say, in fact I agree that a character fulfilling a demographic isn’t an issue at all as long as it is done well, I was just pointing out how it often gets portrayed and executed. I think writers often do a disservice by focusing on the stereotypical fantasy type settings too much with no extrapolations into the other types of cultures existing in that world, game of thrones and d&d setting guides do an alright job at making the world seem actually diversely populated, though in terms of COG type stories the heir of Daria trilogy(I forget the actual name and am not gonna spend the 10 second looking for it so I can use that time to explain that I’m not doing it), which handles the diversity of the different sub-humans, as they’re called if I remember correctly, and the different types of humans really well. So does my previous example of elder scrolls, but that and d&d have teams at this point managing lore but George, love him or hate him, at least is writing those thick tomes himself, regardless of how much needless detail he puts in them.
For your fun example of the bland white girl in India, there are many such as,” is it being portrayed as a historical or realistic depiction of India and if not, how?” but as long as her reasoning for being there(say it’s during colonial rule so she’s some limey who was raised there by her father who was given a plot of land there due to nepotism or she was brought there by her husband who was on the Silk Road to trade with China then died, leaving her stranded in India, are these examples perfect, H no, but it only took me a couple of seconds to think of them) then there’s no problem her being white the issue would still her being bland. If she becomes a lesbian it becomes a question of how it’s handled, like is playing to any stereotype, or if she’s still a really bland character, her sexuality doesn’t change much if she’s still handled poorly or comes across bland, it’s just a cherry on top to some who already see it as a forced or pandering move to try to appeal to more people focusing instead of on quality.
You realize arguing for no logic when talking about trying to establish something written as a reality makes no sense. unless you think many stories should take place in Alice in wonderland type worlds where nothing truly makes much sense, but even that has an internal logic/consistency to it and usually adheres to that logic unless something else is introduced that affects that reality‘s logic, in which case it proceeds along with the new logic. Most stories written try to portray themselves as realistic or in a world similar enough to ours that could exist; so shouldn’t it be safer to assume that there aren’t fantastical elements until introduced or if something is introduced should we then Immediately assume anything is possible? Meaning, why should I assume it makes sense to see a hunk of tofu running around killing stuff in a zombie outbreak when every other character is a human with no explanation and the game takes itself fairly seriously? My example there has a reason, it was an unlockable minigame after you complete the end game reward in resident evil 2 so it has no affect or bearing on the plot(besides maybe what hunk eats after his mission). That was not a great example. I guess my point is that I feel by the logic of that argument you should forgive a lot lazy writing because it appeals to what you like about diversity with little more than a character filling X real world cultural quota box, by people who don’t want to take the extra few hours to think of creative ways of handling something that could mean a WORLD of difference(shitty world building pun intended). People often find when something makes sense, as established to be in world, they are more satisfied when the conclusion makes sense, in world, and is consistent with previously established elements. I don’t think having aliens breathing helium and drinking acid or mermaids having magic castles, conflicts in any way with my point of view, in fact it bolsters it. because if something plays a major role in Building a world, like an alien well first are they even biological in nature? If yes, then yeah, they developed on another planet with a likely different atmosphere, of course they’d breathe something different, statistically speaking that is more likely than not. And if not then, depending on how soft the sci-fi is, it could still possibly make sense but then if it ever tries to anywhere close to a hard sci-fi it would be often seen as a strange and inconsistent with that rule, I guess you could do something in a hard sci-fi where those things essentially excrete ship fuel since mass effect had their generators fueled by helium but they put far more effort and time into figuring out how to implement sound logic based on certain scientific theories, then I will into explaining here. I suppose my point here is that as long as there are ramifications for things such as that being included in the world it will result in more satisfactory payoffs and we properly understand the stakes. But that’s the thing, if you actually take the time and effort to build your world you will create a world that someone would want to escape to, only because they like what’s there but also because it seems like a real world you COULD inhabit. you’d create a reasonable reality that if some one would want to be isekaied to it wouldn’t just seem as another generic fantasy, it is it’s own world
I agree with your points here except that it has become quite clear many recent major media projects, especially movies and television, are just trying to cash in on those willing to try anything with a diverse cast with how there is often nothing to their diverse characters more than stereotypes and what they look like/identify as.
I don’t necessarily believe you have to justify a “diverse” character but without a reasonable explanation as to why such diversity exists unfettered then it’s nothing more than lip service, especially when it’s in a written form; when all it takes is writing,” they have dark skin,” and that’s the only reason they’re black is to be black and have black people present, or trans or just about any other label you want to put. I see that as tokenism, especially when they often don’t even get characterized enough to be anything more than their labels
I agree that amazing stories don’t have to apply real world logic and rules, but when there is a connection to such consistency it helps sell the world as real. Because without logic what’s to stop next time you’re consuming a story that is portrayed to be a gritty and dark western from having the earth cave beneath the protagonists randomly as gremlins crawl from the earth to wreak havoc During the last 1/5 of it without it ever being referenced as a possibility; it’s creative, I guess, but if it wouldn’t necessarily be good because it has seemingly no cause that you are aware of, it could make sense in world but that was information you weren’t privy to until it suddenly happened
I agree with that idea of dragonology to a degree but, if all that is established leads you to conclude dragons can breath only fire and one starts shooting acid at you, you’ll start wondering what else you don’t know, but if it isn’t addressed then you are left wondering why everyone believes dragons only breathe only fire when you still have the caustic burns to prove otherwise. So if we are lead to believe that a country geographically and culturally are similar to real world Europe only for an unexplained “x” label to appear inexplicably, with no context as to why they are there other than they just are, then it just seems forced just for the sake of saying it’s inclusive and diverse
I’ve spent hours since I got your reply working on this like a madman in his manifesto but I’m just out of energy on this now so I’ll leave it here. I’m not sure if I’ll come back to this since I tried my hardest to lay my perspective out as best I could at the moment, but I’ll be the first to admit I probably didn’t do the best job at points and I guarantee I’ll be kicking myself later for not thinking of a point, example or analogy sooner. either way thank you for addressing me in a fairly respectful manner because a part of me honestly feared that the only response I’d get were people trying to convince me that I was wrong for having the perspective I have. I’m a very tolerant person towards others but when I feel I am disrespected simply for thinking differently I tend to react in a very emotional way and I’d rather keep things relatively civil on this forum since I have a lot of respect for the art medium we all come to this forum to appreciate, so I very much appreciate the manner you addressed me. Regardless of my tolerance or immaturity, thank you to any who takes the time to read another rant by me, as I know in the grand scheme my long winded tirades mean nothing but at least someone took the time to try and decipher my message