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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8114299" data-attributes="member: 6790260">The problem isn't "is this identical to this bad thing?" It is, instead, "Is this coded like this bad thing?"Consider the game Detroit: Become Human and the response it got. It was...a really, really thinly-veiled "let's talk about the Civil Rights Movement without all the icky racism." Except...you can't do that? You can't talk about civil rights without racism being part of the conversation, because the movement would never have happened if racism weren't a thing. Acting like you CAN have such a conversation may not have any negative intent, but it sounds like "we're just gonna ignore the existence of races and racism."Again, the intent can be COMPLETELY legitimate and positive and even pro-equality, but intent isn't the only thing that matters. A message can be hurtful even when it was meant purely positively. Consider that scene in the DCAU Justice League, where Green Lantern--a black man--goes to a parallel universe and meets someone who seems to be one of his childhood's completely-fictional comic book heroes. The guy is, unfortunately, pretty racist but well-meaning, and this was a very intentional move on the creators' part; they have him say, "You're a credit to your race, son," and GL is, shall we say, not enthused. The whole meaning and impact of the scene depends on the fact that a statement can be 100% genuinely meant as a compliment/kindness/positivity/whatever, and still be hurtful and racist, because words have meaning outside of the intent behind them.A common example of racial coding in fiction is to portray Asian cultures...but to do so with reptilian characters. This can be very hurtful, even though no hurt is intended, for a variety of reasons. It is, quite literally, dehumanizing. It's one of the reasons why some more recent works try to do things like portraying classically powerful/historically hegemonic cultures (such as ancient Rome, early-medieval Vikings/Anglo-Saxons, medieval France, Age of Sail Spain, etc.) with primarily non-human sapient representatives, to break up the hurtful implication that "Western European cultures = humans, non-Western-European cultures = not humans." Again, it can have literally zero intent or effort to imply something hurtful, and still end up hurtful because of unfortunate implications or fitting into a broader pattern that is hurtful.As another example that isn't racist, but still uses species for coding: Space Lesbians. It's a trope that's existed for a long time, and which was handled...with debatable effectiveness by the Mass Effect series. The asari are all "female" (in the sense of being able to carry and nurse young) and, in general, classically attractive to humans (or possibly all species, which isn't really better, just differently concerning). They're also coded in exclusively female ways, and sexualized to hell and back, making these implicit lesbian icons...the subject of primarily male gaze. Consider: asari have a taboo about producing children with other asari, and the vast majority of partners we see for asari are male, so despite their species having been implicitly lesbian for millions of years, upon entering the galactic stage, as far as we can tell, they mostly hooked up with dudes? That's...not exactly great as far as representation is concerned. Especially in a game series primarily targeted at middle-to-upper-class male twenty-somethings. In fact, other than Liara's parents (whom we never get to see together) and potentially Liara and Fem!Shep, I don't believe we see any female/Asari couples in ME1, and the first we see in ME2 is Morinth, the vampire serial killer asari, which draws on all sorts of concerning tropes and coding about how lesbian women are seen in IRL society.I sincerely, sincerely doubt that even one of the people who worked on Mass Effect meant the slightest bit of ill will toward the lesbian community through the inclusion and development of the asari species--they are, after all, shown to be powerful, dangerous, refined, highly technological, etc. But the work does not simply stand on its own. It exists in our world, where bad things have happened and people have been really naughty word toward a variety of groups in identifiable ways for a very long time.And, again, this is why I think the 13A approach splits the difference in the right kind of way. It recognizes that (for example) it could be possible for a Neanderthal to be stronger than a human (the way chimpanzees are, for example), or that humans might have an advantage in hand-eye coordination. Physiology is not ignored. But, at the same time, it says, "You're an Orc who studied to be a Wizard? Then you must be smarter than the average Orc." It enables people to play what they want to play, while still permitting differences in physiology. Anyone can aspire to great success, while still having an ethnic and social identity that precedes them, follows them, and will in some sense outlast them. Indeed, one could argue that a flaw with "anyone can have any stat boosts" runs a minor risk of the "diversity that never matters" problem with certain lazy forms of inclusion, where sure, you have a black character on the show, but her blackness never matters and is thus "safe," or you have a gay character for whom relationships and sexuality are literally never relevant (see: JK Rowling's post-canon reveal that Dumbledore was gay) and thus sanitized for mainstream appeal. The 13A method makes being an Orc Wizard somewhat different from being an Elf Wizard, without saying that either person is worse at being a Wizard.</blockquote>

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