Why wasn't Dragon age declared racist?

[Ensiferum]

Did I miss it at some point?
Clarification: Most of us have probably seen the fear-mongering pricks that will take any and all oppurtunities to call games devilware, calling them racially insensitive being a popular form. As such, why didn't they pick up on Sten, the Qunari? (Coon-ari, weird?)

He's a dark-skinned, muscular person rescued by the player and follows them as a kind of mercenary without pay, an indentured servant if you will. He even acts (or at least urges the player to act) like a complete homocidal manic, insisting on ending lives at nearly every chance.

Let us review:
Dark skin
Depicts his people as bad through psychotic behavior
Member of a foriegn, but proud people that was spirited away from his nation. (or did he travel to ferelden himself?)
Acts as a kind of servant
First seen in a cage

Shouldn't some GEAMS R BAD group have jumped at this?
I'm aware of how silly a thing this may be to ask about, but still it won't leave me alone. Thoughts?

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not saying they should jump in to ruin things, it just seems odd, like watching airport security search everyone but the guy with the beeping breifcase.

I never even once considered the portrayal of his character as being "racist." On top of that, it's not like we don't have enough politically-correct knee-jerk overreactions to videogames as it is. I'm grateful that they didn't blow this one out of proportion.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I would just point out that Sten follows the player because he seeks redemption. He knows he committed a crime, he admits that it was weakness. The player is on what would appear to any sane person as a suicide mission in that he hopes to rally the remaining fragmented armies of Ferelden to stop a blight when no blight had been stopped without the combined military might of many nations. Sten seeks to atone for his crimes the only way someone trained from childhood to be a warrior can: by fighting a war for the very people he committed a crime against.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

And Qunari aren't black people. They're Islamic. Also, Elves are Jews.

Why are Elves jewish? because they were persecuted on a racial scale? Lots of races have had that done to them at some point in history. Furthermore, the elven nation was sacked by DA:O's allegory of the 'Church', so that doesn't REALLY hold up as well.

 

[nick n stuff]

it's thinking like this that causes anti-video gaming rants. if they missed a potential argument leave it be don't highlight it to them

 

[Weaver]

His skin isn't really that dark for one.

 

[Double A]

And Qunari aren't black people. They're Islamic. Also, Elves are Jews.

Why are Elves jewish? because they were persecuted on a racial scale? Lots of races have had that done to them at some point in history. Furthermore, the elven nation was sacked by DA:O's allegory of the 'Church', so that doesn't REALLY hold up as well.

Let's see... city elves live in ghettos, like Jews. Elves lost their homeland like the Jews. Both were/are being persecuted racially. Church got pissed at both. Also, BioWare said somewhere that the elves in DA were like Jews in real life.

 

[thenoblitt]

Did I miss it at some point?
Clarification: Most of us have probably seen the fear-mongering pricks that will take any and all oppurtunities to call games devilware, calling them racially insensitive being a popular form. As such, why didn't they pick up on Sten, the Qunari? (Coon-ari, weird?)

He's a dark-skinned, muscular person rescued by the player and follows them as a kind of mercenary without pay, an indentured servant if you will. He even acts (or at least urges the player to act) like a complete homocidal manic, insisting on ending lives at nearly every chance.

Let us review:
Dark skin
Depicts his people as bad through psychotic behavior
Member of a foriegn, but proud people that was spirited away from his nation. (or did he travel to ferelden himself?)
Acts as a kind of servant
First seen in a cage

Shouldn't some GEAMS R BAD group have jumped at this?
I'm aware of how silly a thing this may be to ask about, but still it won't leave me alone. Thoughts?

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not saying they should jump in to ruin things, it just seems odd, like watching airport security search everyone but the guy with the beeping breifcase.

No you are the racist one, i saw the game and played it and saw nothing wrong, your the person pointing it meaning you were looking for it and saw something wrong and nothing was it was just a guy in a cage for doing bad things and you are racist for looking out for stuff like that

*EDIT* also to prove my point again why the hell whenever someone calls out a group with no name they have to put something stupid like GEAMS R BAD

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

[
Let's see... city elves live in ghettos, like Jews. Elves lost their homeland like the Jews. Both were/are being persecuted racially. Church got pissed at both. Also, BioWare said somewhere that the elves in DA were like Jews in real life.

You know what, you're right there is something about them that connects them to Jews. but i don't 'fully' agree because of their current predicament. The Jewish people have had some REALLY hard times, true, but at this moment they inhabit one of the most influential nations in the world. whereas the Elves in Dragon Age are in an inevitable downward spiral of destruction and cultural ruin, and i kinda think of DA's elves as the middle ground/turning point of how the graceful/half-naked elves of Warcraft became the House elves of Harry Potter or Santa's Unpaid, slave labor force.

 

[Double A]

[
Let's see... city elves live in ghettos, like Jews. Elves lost their homeland like the Jews. Both were/are being persecuted racially. Church got pissed at both. Also, BioWare said somewhere that the elves in DA were like Jews in real life.

You know what, you're right there is something about them that connects them to Jews. but i don't 'fully' agree because of their current predicament. The Jewish people have had some REALLY hard times, true, but at this moment they inhabit one of the most influential nations in the world. whereas the Elves in Dragon Age are in an inevitable downward spiral of destruction and cultural ruin, and i kinda think of DA's elves as the middle ground/turning point of how the graceful/half-naked elves of Warcraft became the House elves of Harry Potter or Santa's Unpaid, slave labor force.

Well, when you look at the time period represented by the game, it makes more sense. They're in the medieval equivalent of our world in Dragon Age.

Also, I remembered a new thingy. You know the elves' second homeland that got Exalted Marched to death?

Spanish Inquisition.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Ok first, if you talk to Sten, you find out that he came to Fereldin of his own volition. Also I never got the impression you describe. He and his people are warriors, kinda like the Klingons from Star Trek or the Mandelorians from Star Wars (circa Knights of the Old Republic).

 

[rabidmidget]

Usually those lobbies only find the most obvious/shallow sources of controversy, they wouldn't look far enough into a game to see a character as a representation of anything.

An example was the lobbies who sought to ban mass effect because it had sex scenes.

 

[spartan231490]

I just played Dragon Age myself, and I never got that impression.

I think you're just being over-sensitive.

This, so much this. He was an extremely proud individual who was extremely lawful and wanted to atone for his actions during a fit of extreme rage. I could scarcely imagine a better emisary for the qunari people.

 

[ace_of_something]

Okay, listen very closely... IT'S SET IN A FANTASY WORLD.

Has NO-one else noticed that there is ONE common thread, ONE thing that all the games that end up on the 'it's destroying our children' chopping block have in common?

Can we guess?
yes?
anyone?

It's GUNS.

Dragon Age Origins doesn't have guns and therefor to the Jackial Thompsatkinsons of the world don't really give a shit because they don't perceive the behavior as illimitable.

Kinda odd considering table top games are the other way around.

 

[ace_of_something]

double post.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Yeah Sten had darker skin, but it definately wouldn't be what we consider black. And he didn't really seem to be the Dragon Age: Origins' black. The Qunari come of as a really different people then the humans, dwarves, and elves. They have an almost alien view of the world when compared to the other races. If the other races have a black and white morality, then the Qunari (from what I could gather from Sten) have more of a Blue and Orange morality [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality].

If any racism was in that game (and there was) it was with the elves. And it was obviously put in there to make you think a bit. The Qunari are the really foreign, almost alien races that seem so different from the other races of the game. Not hostile, just odd and out of place.

 

[GreyKnight3445]

uh huh, please find a real case before you call racism.

 

[Denariax]

Because Capcom wasn't involved.

 

[Warmoon]

Just beat my second playthrough of DA:O and I tried to use mostly some party members I ignored the first time. This game me a to try out Sten and Leliana and I discovered how Much I ended liking Sten. I still hate oghren, stupid dwarf drunk