The Nintendo "Off My Chest" thread (BE CIVIL)

[Laniv]

Uhh not every franchise needs a black character

Yeah they do

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Why does the Mario franchise need a black character? If it comes naturally, it will. Right now there's no need bc there's no immediate ration.

In fairness, we do have black Yoshis, black Birdos, and black Shy Guys. Also, Morton is the only Koopaling to have dark skin.

 

[BonafideFella]

i think the second-most popular game franchise of all time not having a black character in its forty years of existence {if not just whitewashing characters outright like kid in “mario golf”} is utterly ludicrous

i don’t think it’s a matter of “justification” - even outside of the dubious phrasing, mario is a wide-spanning fantasy world , at any time they could add a black character and have it make sense

idk an idea i’ve had for a long time is introducing an older black adult character who’s an actor , the idea being that mario 3 was a stage production abt mario’s real adventure - and they played mario

an old thespian type , ykyk

 

[fogbadge]

i think the second-most popular game franchise of all time not having a black character in its forty years of existence {if not just whitewashing characters outright like kid in “mario golf”} is utterly ludicrous

i don’t think it’s a matter of “justification” - even outside of the dubious phrasing, mario is a wide-spanning fantasy world , at any time they could add a black character and have it make sense

idk an idea i’ve had for a long time is introducing an older black adult character who’s an actor , the idea being that mario 3 was a stage production abt mario’s real adventure - and they played mario

an old thespian type , ykyk

most popular franchise

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

most popular franchise

Nah, a lot of stuff outclasses Mario in sheer popularity. GTA, Tetris, COD, EA Sports, Pokemon, arguably even Sonic when you take into account multimedia popularity.

Anyway, yeah, there shouldn't have to be "reasons" given for any diverse character. There's no in-universe reason why Mario HAS to be white or male, there shouldn't have to be given a reason for any character outside of the white-cis-het venn diagram either, unless you want to get into ridiculous and transparent dog whistles like "mermaid science"

 

[UserKev]

I mean yeah I guess but unless we're over Niyamoto's no new characters rule, we're kinda screwed. The 1993 movie perfectly inserted a sort of ' always been there' Big Bertha, so there's that.

I'm neutral on it. Mario always worked better with a smaller cast since it leaves a lot to the imagination.

 

[Opossum]

Why does the Mario franchise need a black character? If it comes naturally, it will. Right now there's no need bc there's no immediate ration.

There IS a pretty immediate reason. It's the best selling game series on earth and all ten-ish of its human characters (even without getting into human-like non-human characters like Toad) are like...explicitly fair skinned. At some point it becomes a noticeable problem.

 

[MartianSnake]

Literally all Nintendo needs to do to add a black mario character is make the next new human to show up in a mainline game (because those are the only games that introduce new humans at this point) a black person. It's not that hard.

In the meantime, put New Donker in everything and use the black version as the standard default. But don't settle for him, develop a fully-fledged black character in Super Mario Iliad.

 

[Lenidem]

Question: why a black person and not, say, an Asian or a Latino/Latina?

 

[MartianSnake]

Question: why a black person and not, say, an Asian or a Latino/Latina?

Let's not turn this into a "I love pancakes/so you hate waffles" situation.

 

[Lenidem]

Let's not turn this into a "I love pancakes/so you hate waffles" situation.

Yep, let's avoid explaining why the absence of a certain race is "a noticeable problem" while the absence of others is totally fine.

I'm out.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Yep, let's avoid explaining why the absence of a certain race is "a noticeable problem" while the absence of others is totally fine.

I'm out.

Let me ask you something:

Do you think black characters in a Mario game would be a bad idea?

If not, why are you arguing against people advocating for such a thing? Would you feel the same way if someone singled out a fictional or non-human concept without mentioning other concepts? You wouldn't respond to "I want a horse in Mario games" with "Why are you singling out horses over camels?" or an assumption that camels inherently do not matter to that person, and I can't imagine why someone would argue against that idea if they don't explicitly oppose horses in Mario games - why is it different when applied to race and the potential representation ACTUALLY matters?

 

[HyperSomari64]

Does Kirby as a franchise needs P.O.C. characters?
During Adeleine's disapperence for almost 20 years before Star Allies' DLC, most of the characters are non-human magical extraterrestrial beings.
Maybe there's something similar approach to Sonic (even if it's for the wrong reasons), and the "Dark Matter" fellas are.

 

[---]

Looking at the previous posts, this discussion has been on-going for the past few days. At this point, aside from being a topic that better belongs in the Serious Discussion board, it's starting to take away from the actual purpose of the thread.

Going to have to ask for this current topic to be moved to the previously mentioned board, to PMs, or outright dropped. Further discussion of this topic will result in both warnings and a potential thread lock.

 

[Lenidem]

Let me ask you something:

Do you think black characters in a Mario game would be a bad idea?

I don’t.

If not, why are you arguing against people advocating for such a thing?

I am not arguing against the inclusion of black characters in Mario games, and I am not even arguing against "people advocating for such a thing". I just refuse to see the actual situation as "problematic". That's different.

To clarify:

You wouldn't respond to "I want a horse in Mario games"

The thing is, they didn't say "I want a horse in Mario games" (I can totally get along with that), they said "the absence of a horse is a problem". That's very different: the first person talks about what she wants, which is totally fair, while the second presents the situation as objectively bad, which is debatable.

EDIT. I wrote et posted my answer before the message asking to move the discussion to another topic, so sorry about that. I said I was out and I have no intention to keep on.

 

[UserKev]

I want to add one last touch to the topic.

It was very interesting to see Mario characters square off against black basketball players in the Game Cube addition of NBA Street V3 that gave me a really special feeling. Just something like this again would be very wholehearted.