User 73706
Banned
After a couple of threads discussing (not asking for a single right answer, mind you) the prevalence of the hetereonormative - the cishet, straight white male, usually buzzcut and militaristic - protagonists in gaming, I thought it'd be worthwhile to make a thread dedicated to protagonists that meet that description who are justified in being that way. Couple of important details to consider here:
Explain and / or justify your case on a character-by-character basis. One at a time, that is. Stick to specific characters - if you want to explain your reasoning on why you think Doomguy or Cryguy or Calladuty Corpsman #239 are acceptable, that's totally fine. Don't just say "it's understandable that most protagonists are hetereonormative because infantrymen have buzzed hair and are mostly white," because that's not justifying a single character, it's band-aiding a recurring trope. On a broader note...
Discuss the games, not the developers. More specifically, don't drive-by post "it's just my opinion, and i'm not a racist or anything, but i really don't see why it's a problem that most protagonists are white males, it's just how it is." Likewise to "most game developers are white males, they write what they know." And, finally...
Keep an open mind. This also isn't the place to say "I can relate to white males better." All balanced humans are capable of empathy. While you may not be able to relate to CJ because you're not about that life, you can still understand concepts such as loss, grief, and things getting away from you, like trains. While you may not understand why wizard is sad because he need food badly and why he doesn't just conjure up some food, you can still relate to him because you've probably been hungry at some point in your life.
With those in mind, I'll start out with some more recent examples:
I don't mind the fact that BJ Blazkowicz (Wolfenstein) is a protagonist even though on the surface he looks about as generic as they get. He's US-born, Polish with a Jewish mother, and is an Army sergeant. Considering the entire game's an alternate-history where the Nazis won, it's kiiiind of understandable that the protagonist would be who he is from an ethnic standpoint.
I'm also down with the portrayal of Michael De Santa in Grand Theft Auto V. He's the bad to Franklin's only-sane-man good and Trevor's rape-pillage-and-burn ugly, classical American Dream guy, constantly guns down government workers, cops, what have you - but was fleshed out enough with the whole dysfunctional family angle and is so healthily (unhealthily?) balanced with Franklin and Trevor that he feels a lot more unique than the usual old guy with guns.
Honorable mention also goes to Master Chief, who while not necessarily Caucasian (it's 2557 so all of the ethnicities are a little more diluted), is technically the whitest of the bunch because he's ghostly pale from spending so much time in armor. Born on Eridanus II (not Earth, surprisingly!) the guy's just trying to save humanity and get back in touch with his "mom," Dr. Catherine Halsey. He's always felt more like a vessel or a force of nature than a real character, stringing events along, causing problems, providing solutions. It's easy to step into his shoes and pretend you're the dudebro. Underneath that metric ton of space-age polymers, kinetic absorption gel and crystalline neural compound mesh, there's the disembodied voice of a Chicago DJ and an old soul longing to meet his mama. D'awww. He's also never really felt defined by his race the way other protagonists have - it's kind of weird that Mass Effect takes place in the future and dedicates itself to exploring the cosmos and all the aliens that entails, yet your (albeit default-option) character is some European model.
EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION - what does "done right" mean?
There's not a fine line between "good white" and "white good." I would say as a whole, someone like Marcus Fenix or whoever's headlining the next Call of Duty title are bad examples because you could change their race and no difference would be made. Now that I'm starting to see some examples, I think examples of "white characters who are good, but contextually justify themselves" can fall into two major categories:
A character is wholesome or good, and being (or not being) a white male would subject them to different societal repercussions. BJ Blazkowicz has an emotional crutch in that his family is Jewish and is being directly targeted by Nazis. John Marston, on the flip side, is white in an era where not being white is a dangerous game. However, Marston is progressive and is overall still a good character from the viewer's perspective. A bad example would be Doomguy or Duke Nukem, because they could be virtually anyone going through a testosterone-poisoned power fantasy and it wouldn't change the game.
A character has unique or otherwise breakout design, from looks to personality, and defies their expected genericism. They are, in some way, flawed. Michael De Santa, while old, white and gun-toting is still interesting because he has downsides and from a legal perspective is still a piece of shit. Likewise, Max Payne is more of a subversion because while he's kinda samey on the outside, he's battling plenty of demons from taking so many people out and his age is catching up with him. Even Professor Layton works thanks to the setting - he's a stereotypical English gentleman and looks (and acts) as such, and him being Pacific Islander or Native American, for example, would be dissonant. A bad example would be Aiden Pearce, because while he's still admist a conflict as the plot demands, he's still falling victim to not really pushing the envelope from a design or narrative perspective and is pretty one-dimensional. I'd say the blurred line or halfway point (between good and bad) for this second option would be Kratos, because while he's Greek and perpetually ash-coated, as well as the epitome of dudebro, he does have some humanity - at least back in Ascension's day and age.
Explain and / or justify your case on a character-by-character basis. One at a time, that is. Stick to specific characters - if you want to explain your reasoning on why you think Doomguy or Cryguy or Calladuty Corpsman #239 are acceptable, that's totally fine. Don't just say "it's understandable that most protagonists are hetereonormative because infantrymen have buzzed hair and are mostly white," because that's not justifying a single character, it's band-aiding a recurring trope. On a broader note...
Discuss the games, not the developers. More specifically, don't drive-by post "it's just my opinion, and i'm not a racist or anything, but i really don't see why it's a problem that most protagonists are white males, it's just how it is." Likewise to "most game developers are white males, they write what they know." And, finally...
Keep an open mind. This also isn't the place to say "I can relate to white males better." All balanced humans are capable of empathy. While you may not be able to relate to CJ because you're not about that life, you can still understand concepts such as loss, grief, and things getting away from you, like trains. While you may not understand why wizard is sad because he need food badly and why he doesn't just conjure up some food, you can still relate to him because you've probably been hungry at some point in your life.
With those in mind, I'll start out with some more recent examples:
I don't mind the fact that BJ Blazkowicz (Wolfenstein) is a protagonist even though on the surface he looks about as generic as they get. He's US-born, Polish with a Jewish mother, and is an Army sergeant. Considering the entire game's an alternate-history where the Nazis won, it's kiiiind of understandable that the protagonist would be who he is from an ethnic standpoint.
I'm also down with the portrayal of Michael De Santa in Grand Theft Auto V. He's the bad to Franklin's only-sane-man good and Trevor's rape-pillage-and-burn ugly, classical American Dream guy, constantly guns down government workers, cops, what have you - but was fleshed out enough with the whole dysfunctional family angle and is so healthily (unhealthily?) balanced with Franklin and Trevor that he feels a lot more unique than the usual old guy with guns.
Honorable mention also goes to Master Chief, who while not necessarily Caucasian (it's 2557 so all of the ethnicities are a little more diluted), is technically the whitest of the bunch because he's ghostly pale from spending so much time in armor. Born on Eridanus II (not Earth, surprisingly!) the guy's just trying to save humanity and get back in touch with his "mom," Dr. Catherine Halsey. He's always felt more like a vessel or a force of nature than a real character, stringing events along, causing problems, providing solutions. It's easy to step into his shoes and pretend you're the dudebro. Underneath that metric ton of space-age polymers, kinetic absorption gel and crystalline neural compound mesh, there's the disembodied voice of a Chicago DJ and an old soul longing to meet his mama. D'awww. He's also never really felt defined by his race the way other protagonists have - it's kind of weird that Mass Effect takes place in the future and dedicates itself to exploring the cosmos and all the aliens that entails, yet your (albeit default-option) character is some European model.
EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION - what does "done right" mean?
There's not a fine line between "good white" and "white good." I would say as a whole, someone like Marcus Fenix or whoever's headlining the next Call of Duty title are bad examples because you could change their race and no difference would be made. Now that I'm starting to see some examples, I think examples of "white characters who are good, but contextually justify themselves" can fall into two major categories:
A character is wholesome or good, and being (or not being) a white male would subject them to different societal repercussions. BJ Blazkowicz has an emotional crutch in that his family is Jewish and is being directly targeted by Nazis. John Marston, on the flip side, is white in an era where not being white is a dangerous game. However, Marston is progressive and is overall still a good character from the viewer's perspective. A bad example would be Doomguy or Duke Nukem, because they could be virtually anyone going through a testosterone-poisoned power fantasy and it wouldn't change the game.
A character has unique or otherwise breakout design, from looks to personality, and defies their expected genericism. They are, in some way, flawed. Michael De Santa, while old, white and gun-toting is still interesting because he has downsides and from a legal perspective is still a piece of shit. Likewise, Max Payne is more of a subversion because while he's kinda samey on the outside, he's battling plenty of demons from taking so many people out and his age is catching up with him. Even Professor Layton works thanks to the setting - he's a stereotypical English gentleman and looks (and acts) as such, and him being Pacific Islander or Native American, for example, would be dissonant. A bad example would be Aiden Pearce, because while he's still admist a conflict as the plot demands, he's still falling victim to not really pushing the envelope from a design or narrative perspective and is pretty one-dimensional. I'd say the blurred line or halfway point (between good and bad) for this second option would be Kratos, because while he's Greek and perpetually ash-coated, as well as the epitome of dudebro, he does have some humanity - at least back in Ascension's day and age.
