Characters that aren't your race that you relate to.

[Frokane]

In light of the recent CM webcomic touching on race relatability in popular media, I want to know what characters stay relatable no matter what thier ethnic background to you.

I'm of a heavily mixed, carribean british and south amarican background, so there is damn near no character that I'm the same race as, so this is quite easy for me.

I suppose I'll go with Jason Brody from Far Cry 3, even though he has a bit of a yuppy douche-bro backstory, I mainly identify with him having to learn on his feet how to deal with a strange new area and volatile people, learning to adapt to his surrounding quickly and eventually enjoy it, all the while trying not lose himself in the process.


just to note, I know the majority, of the escapists are white and I have a good feeling that I will see a lot of Lee Everett (just saying)

 

[Kaendris]

I would have to say, Lara Croft.

I spent a lot of my youth on excavation expeditions and always fancied myself a bit of a treasure hunter. I can quickly identify with the necessity to understand both your surroundings and what opportunities they will provide. I also have substantial firearms training. But most of all, I believe wholeheartedly in a "never die" attitude. Lara is truly emblematic of a warrior spirit.

 

[LaoJim]

What exactly do you mean by 'relate' to. Do you mean which character do you think has a similar character or faces similar problems to you? Or do you just mean a character that you like? Since I play games mainly for the gameplay or world, I don't tend to focus on story a lot, and most of the characters in games face world-threatening challanges, I don't really go around identifying with them on a personal level, no matter what race or gender they are.

I guess the answer I'll give is that I thought the story in Sleeping Dogs was well told and so the main character Wei Shen , the undercover cop, was well developed and you could see some of the emotional changes as he started to identify with the other gang members.

Japanese game development over the past few years has probably given us quite a few good characters, but I'm genuinely struggling to come up with any who are black or from other races. I'm sure I'll be kicking myself a few posts down the line.

Had to google Lee Everett, haven't played the Walking Dead game or seen the series, so no comment.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Neither Lee Everett or Clementine from the Walking Dead are white and I absolutely loved and empathised with those characters.

The idea that someone can't find common ground with someone because of their race, is frankly, absolutely fucking ludicrous.

 

[Caiphus]

Trying to rack my brains to think of the last character I played as that wasn't white...



This really shouldn't be as hard as it is (giggity)

Uuuuh, pass, actually? Wow.

 

[Zhukov]

Spoiler: Surprising absolutely nobody...

Spoiler: Surprising absolutely nobody else...

(Note to self: Turn on safesearch before google image searching female characters. I don't think I needed to see Alyx sucking off a dinosaur. I think my day would have been quite complete without that, y'know?)

I kinda want to add Jade from BG&E, but I can't tell what race she's actually supposed to be.

Also, some of the characters from Sleeping Dogs were alright, but no real standouts.

Aaaaaand that's all I got. I'm as white as a white thing, so I don't really have much to choose from. Once you filter out the white characters and the shit characters, the remainder is a very small selection indeed.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

Well, there are only three races, Europeoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid and I belong to the latter. So, this omits all characters from Persona. Damn it.
Okay, let's go! Lee and Clementine, Joel and Ellie, Jose Astrada, Markus Armstrong, Pham Luis, Junpei IoNONONO, Princess Amelie. THere are more probably, but I can't remember right now.

(Note to self: Turn on safesearch before google image searching female characters. I don't think I needed to see Alyx sucking off a dinosaur. I think my day would have been quite complete without that, y'know?)

All these years on the internet, and you still didn't learn!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I kinda want to add Jade from BG&E, but I can't tell what race she's actually supposed to be.

Nobody can! That's the beauty of it. But I identify with her, up to the point I really, really like her. Even though I'm not a motherly surrogate to anybody nor am I saving the world with my camera.

 

[The_Echo]

I uh, don't really... relate to any of them.

Though I'm not sure why race would make a character any less relatable (unless they're portrayed as a one-dimensional stereotype, I guess).

Never really saw why people look for that. I tend to completely segregate a game's (or book or film) world and characters from my own world and life. So relatability has never been an issue for me.

 

[Saltyk]

Sazh. From Final Fantasy 13. I know. "That game is shit! Burn it. Heretic! The characters were horrible!"
I'm not here to defend the game. Partly as I disliked it by and large.

But Sazh was one relatable character. While he seems to be a bit lost at first, we soon learn that he's trying to save his son from a fate worse than death. Even if it puts himself in danger. After becoming a L'Cie he even plans to turn himself over just to see his son one last time.

Then, he sort of stumbles into the boy, who looks ecstatic to see his father before turning into crystal. Now, confused and heartbroken, he learns that the girl with him was more or less responsible for his son's fate. And for a moment, he considers killing her. And himself.

So yeah, I understood him. Even without sharing something as trivial as skin color.

 

[Wraith]

Alex Mercer of Prototype. I'm a black guy, he's a viral mass of flesh, bone and blood disguised as a white guy. I enjoy his story and his powers. There you go.

 

[Rainforce]

Anyone really, as long as the plot/conflict is alright/relatable?
Anything else is just ridiculous.
In fact, having the straight white male lead makes it LESS relatable because of how often it crops up (feels more generic that way).

 

[gorfias]

Harold of Harold & Kumar He's Asian. I'm considered Caucasian. What can I say. He is living the story of my life.

 

[BrotherRool]

Lee and Clem were good, but I also liked the young hispanic couple

Sazh. From Final Fantasy 13.

Oh Sazh was a good one, his arc was pretty touching with everything that happens

 

[lacktheknack]

I kinda want to add Jade from BG&E, but I can't tell what race she's actually supposed to be.

Anglo-Spanish-Latina, I think. Unless she's Latina-Eurasian with an occasionally flawless English speech pattern.

All I know is that she totally sounded like my derpy Latina friend when she said "Secundo, scan this for me, will ya?"

OT: In "Beyond Atlantis", you play a Tibetan dude who gets his soul launched into a Mayan scout, an Irish monk and a Chinese ambassador, respectively.

He reacts to each situation completely straight-faced, including things like a skull suddenly growing a face, whistling at a man who thinks he's a blackbird to make him "fly down" from a tree (read: falls on his ass), getting berated by the world's least masculine bat, and wandering through bureaucratic hell with no instructions. While I want to say that I'd have some good "OMGWTFBBQ" reactions to these things, I'd probably actually become as emotionally dead as him in mere minutes.

 

[MysticSlayer]

There's Lee from The Walking Dead. Actually, most of the best characters in the game are minorities. Lee, Clementine, Omid, and Christa are four of my five favorite characters from the game.

 

[white_wolf]

Well for me its not just race it's also opposite sex that I can relate to Most male heros I can relate to on some level there are some exceptions like the hero of BSI sorry I'm just not fallowing him or his AU persona's at all there. Now for some fem leads Chell, fem grey warden, fem Shep, Nillin, Faith, Ayami, Maya (SoD)

 

[Blunderboy]

Firstly, there's only one 'race' and that's Human. What you mean is Ethnicity. But everyone makes that mistake so I'll forgive you.

Moving on.

Neither Lee Everett or Clementine from the Walking Dead are white and I absolutely loved and empathised with those characters.

The idea that someone can't find common ground with someone because of their race, is frankly, absolutely fucking ludicrous.

Darn tootin'.

Also CJ from GTA San Andreas. I could connect with a man in a tough situation trying to do the best he can for himself.
On a similar note.
John Luther.

 

[Ticklefist]

This would be so much easier if I wasn't white and minorities in games weren't either overdone with stereotypes or just white people in a different shell. I always thought Rochelle from L4D2 was a solid representation. Not over the top but still distinguished from her white counterparts. Just how it is in real life.