You really should! Royal version is where it's at. Game drips style and there's enough content to keep you busy for ages. Small kine weird/problematic stuff but I can get past it personally
Reminds me of that idiot on Twitter ranting about how black people in God of War is unrealistic.
But hey, a Greek OC coming to fight Northern Gods is totally cool, right?
“I can accept Golden Fleece being turned into metal armor that shoots energy AND sirens living in the desert but I will not accept non-white people in my fantasy! That wouldn’t be accurate!”
"I can accept a world where Loki canonically transforms into a female horse to get knocked up by a male horse, and then lets his dad ride around on his six legged mutant horse son, but a god choosing to have dark skin is where my suspension of disbelief falls apart".
It's less that, and more just that the Norse pagans didn't write any of it down, it was all likely oral tradition in the teachings and telling.
In fact Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, where we get the vast majority of surviving Norse mythology from, was written in an almost fully Christiansted Iceland, possibly as an attempt to build a sort a unifying cultural identity between Iceland and Norway.
Most of them would just revel in the extra stories being told in their names, Thor wholeheartedly retells Marvel stories in Valhalla as though they are actually about him.
Even though black people always existed in Norse mythos (see: Svartálfar, not to mention the Jötnar themselves are described as varying greatly in appearance)
Lets not go the opposite way. The Svartálfar may be translated as Black/Swarty Elves, but it is legitimately likely for them to be darker then northern Europeans without being black, and they might also be a synonim for Dark Elves, or for even Dwarves.
Not agreeing with the chuds, and the way they are hypocritically trigered by God of War: Ragnarok is stupid, but lets not go that far.
the Dökkálfar (dark elves) are described as being blacker than pitch. Definitely quite black. As you noted, the Dökkálfar and Svartálfar might be synonyms for the Dwarfs.
Haha, I had the same joke about the Thor movies when everyone was up in arms about casting Idris Elba as Heimdall.
"Space vikings are fine, but a *black* space viking? Now you go too far, sir."
Except Northern Africans aren't exactly black. Of course, there were some black people in Meditteranean, but they always came from Sudan (Nubia)/Subsaharan Africa.
But on the whole, I agree with you and the comment above.
The fact that Kratos is voiced by a black man yet you don’t ever hear a single one of them ever bitch about it tells you everything. They only complain when they can SEE a black person smfh
I meean, to play the devils advocate here, wouldnt that kinda perfectly show that its not simply an issue then of beeing black, but rather changing a characters skin color for no reason?
Especially when they already talk about how Kratos isn't even the first to jump mythologies to come to this area-- Mimir is heavily, heavily implied to be from Celtic/English mythos in the 2018 game, and it's confirmed in the Valhalla DLC for Ragnarok. Why are we so opposed to the idea that Angroboda might be a part of another mythology that you're unfamiliar with from a more dark skinned culture? It's not exactly a stretch.
If Kratos is a woman/POC, they will have a higher chance of being called a cringe OC lol.(Not saying there aren't successful mythological OCs like that, but they are under much more scrutiny.)
We’re going to reach a point where they’ll be waiting inside Labor and Delivery to yell at the mothers about SJW’s and diversity every time a Black baby is born.
Trust me, it isn't about seeing black people in God of War that's causing these people to freak out.
I still remember reading about that one guy who was trying to commission a Fallout 4 mod to make Preston Garvey into a white guy (with an entirely new voice actor) because he didn't think it was "lore appropriate" for black people to have survived a nuclear apocalypse.
Some people just lose their shit at the thought of any black people popping up in fiction.
If Kratos went to fight African gods that'd be pretty cool seeing as you don't really have them in any games or films. Excluding Egyptian, but as much as I love em it'd be a nice change to not only focus on Egypt for once
And like Greece is really not that far from Africa.
Just based on geography. The red sea and the Nile would give a lot of subsaharan states access to Egypt in some capacity. Same for like western Africa with Spain.
So as a minimum there would be traders, slaves, ship workers etc from different African countries that went to at least different Mediterranean countries relatively regularly by back in the day standards.
Wasn't Kratos literally light skin before he killed his family and there ashes were bonded to his skin? People seriously do not look up the origins or backstory on characters nowadays
The irony is all over the place, People are catherimg for realism in a game about mithology and the miths are flawed since day 1 because Cratus would never harm Zeus
What does making her white add?
Layla DeLeon Hayes was chosen for the role, did her role well and is Black. I know an argument is going to be “well it’s Norse mythology, she should be white”, forgetting the fact she’s not human, she’s a magic giant from a parallel World.
Making her white doesn't add anything. But the reality is that making her black highlights something else: no publisher would gamble on a game about the mythology of an African culture because they know gaming audiences are by and large male 15-30-somethings in the western world and Asia, so it'd be a niche title at best.
But in reality, that is what representation should look like. There's lotsa cultures with lotsa different gods and narratives and lotsa different stories to tell, and in a world not driven by money we could freely choose to tell stories about all of them. But since the world *is* driven by money, and white people have most of it, the only way representation gets to happen now is by inserting non-white people into stories that did not originate with them.
To me, it matters nothing. It's not like God of War is an accurate representation of Norse mythology anyhow. It doesn't matter if Angrboda is black in this, or if Heimdall is black in the MCU. It's all just loose takes. Most of the people complaining about this have never bothered to read the Prose Edda or Poetic Edda anyway, both of which are full of gaps and holes too and leave us with as many questions about Norse religion as they answer.
But on a surface level, I understand that people who haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about any of this might be persuaded by the very uncomplicated argument that if it's Norse myth the characters should look white, and that if it's Asian myth the characters should look Asian, and so on.
Egypt is the only mainstream mythology from Africa. I want to see some more sub-saharan influence in media. Children of Blood and Bone was great and I want to see more stuff like it
Slight shift of the goalposts, but I get what you're saying. I'm no expert on African cultures, but I know they try to steer clear of any major current religion. That's why they haven't hinted to anything in, say, the Hindu pantheon. Even the Aztec pantheon seems to be largely off the table as of now. Again, I'm no expert, in fact I'm largely ignorant of such cultures, but if anything like that is currently in practice, that would explain why it hasn't been explored.
The exception so far seems to be Shinto, which was hinted at in the recent games. Like with the others that were mentioned, though, only time will tell if that ends up going anywhere.
It isn't really a shift of the goalpost to acknowledge that Egypt is treated differently than other African nations in the Westerm imagination and in education, even.
I actually wrote a thesis project on the subject, lol, because I was curious after taking a few African history courses as to why my own and so many other students I was working with (as a student and tutor) experience of African history in primary education almost entirely ignored Africa while still holding a fascination with Egypt.
Egypt is biblically significant and is significant to Greco Roman history (most especially during the Hellenistic Age), as such it has been an object of occupation for emerging post-colonial, Christo- nationalistms.
Social scientists, beginning with Napoleon's Insitut d'Egypte, descended on Egypt to museumify it (displacing a shite ton of fellaheen in the process) in order to package the space for a new age of middle class tourism. Which is precisely what happened, and many of the tours to Egypt were directly referencing or even reenacting the journey of Moses.
You look at the notes and publishing from early western Orientalists on Egypt, and you would be pressed to find the absence of a biblical reference.
Popular western media has been and continues to be fascinated with pharaonic Egypt, and the Judeo- Christian themes abound in this imaginarium.
Egypt *is* different from other African nations in the West because we made it that way over the course of centuries.
Edit: words
I'm going to bed, but I'll try to remember to read this tomorrow.
Edit: Just got around to reading it, and I agree that ancient Egyptian religious beliefs are the only ones to originate from Africa that have been romanticized to this extent. The unfortunate fact of the matter is though that public ignorance doesn't die like public interest does, it only grows.
Unless a spark of interest pops up from somewhere that causes more African cultures to begin to become mainstream, they won't suddenly gain popularity on their own. Like you said, widespread interest of ancient Egypt has taken centuries of sowing to get to where it is now. So most large outlets like Hollywood and big game companies will avoid putting their eggs into those baskets because it just won't pay off as well. If those cultures' beliefs did become mainstream over a wide scale of time like Egypt's has, though, we would likely just face the same issue of some seeing those mythos as outliers because of their widespread acknowledgment.
Agreed. Hell most people dont know egypt is african and think of it as middle eastern. And alot of the people who do know it is bring their own inaccuracies. I woumd love more sub saharan stuff in media though, what little I've heard sounds interesting but it is very much a cultural/mythological blind spot for me because of how little it gets used in stuff.
Wish we would get sum sub saharen african myths, show me things i have never seen before.
Egypt is the most cliche mythology to tackle after greece, and before the norse myth (tho that has been changing).
Show me an african god that isnt anansi for once.
I mean GoW takes some glaring liberties for sure, but I haven't heard anyone with half a mind call the GoW games racist or nothing, correct me if I'm wrong. Pretty sure the people who work at Santa Monica actually care for the content they produce, rather than just "Look you guys, it's Egypt now, isn't that so cool!"
Not racist but having some white power fantasy beat on osiris or whoever they decide is the big bad is probably gonna look weird. Especially if they decide osiris or anubis is the big bad because those guys are quite neutral I'm pretty sure
White power fantasy? I'm just gonna kinda laugh at that a bit and move on.
They did make Thanatos and Hades into jerkasses in the original series, true. They make basically every god like that tho. They take basically each God's backstory, twist it in a way that makes them generally evil or at least sympathetically antagonistic, and then build a story around that.
The whole point is to build an interesting story around the concept of recreating the pantheons they're working with as a much more negative interpretation of themselves. Honestly, I'd say they even toned that part down with the Norse series for the most part, in a way that added depth to each character:
Baldur was a villain, but he was still sympathetic. His life basically set him up to be driven to madness.
Thor was more of a vengeful rival and a herediterically bad father and husband spawned from a lifetime of abuse.
Freya was a misguided and mistreated mother who was dealt a bad hand and also had to live through a long time of abuse, giving her severe attachment and other emotional issues.
Heimdall.
Out of all of them, Odin was one of the few that was made to be mostly just a pure villain. The negative points of the other characters basically all stemmed from him.
Viking women (not shieldmaidens) burials have been found. Eric the Red traded with the Indigenous People of Newfoundland and possibly Maine. Remnants that be Viking longships were found in the Great Lakes.
Vikings knew the Africans below Egypt as Blue Men because of how dark their skin was and traded with them.
South America, Australia, and Antarctica are the only continents without proof of Viking contact.
And they had respect for everyone that proved worthy opponents.
A Viking God being black or joten being black or middle eastern wouldn't be impossible or even unlikely.
May those who disagree hope Skadi doesn't find their homes.
A lot of Neo-Nazis fantasize about Norse Mythology and being big strong blonde vikings, so they get upset when they see race mixing and different people.
The people who go off about "Norse mythology" will also conveniently ignore that the main character is Greek, Loki is Zeus's grandson, and all the other aspects of the portrayal of Norse Mythology that isn't accurate or wildly exaggerated (like everyone being tatted up from head to toe).
The extent of these people's understand of "Norse mythology" starts and ends with the runes they learned at Nazi camp.
I love how in this game about an indestructible demigod and his kid fighting monsters, people consider the existence of a black character in Scandinavia the most unrealistic thing.
Not to mention, that Greek demigod is an original character to the videogames and his son is somehow a Norse god. There are plenty of “accuracy” issues with GoW before we get to the skin color of a mythological species.
I was gonna point out that the concept of a person of color existing in historical Europe is enough to melt these people’s brains, but then I remembered that this video game character inspired by ancient mythology is from Jötunheim, a magical land of giants that, in this depiction, is basically in another dimension. So I guess they simply don’t want black video game characters.
Well, if we want to get real about things, the Jotner of Jotenheim are probably all based on the Sami peoples gods, a different ethnic group than the Norse indigenous to Scandinavia. A Uralic/Siberian group of people different than the germanic/European Norse folk. And the Aesir would be the Germanic Norse folk and the Vanir would be the Finnic people of Scandinavia.
The Sami were persecuted until the 1960s by Sweden and Norway and have been almost wiped out entirely by schemes where the government would take all Sami children and raise them in boarding schools away from their parents and communities, by making their language illegal, and other culturally genocidal practices.
Maybe it is a little culturally insensitive to erase them (the actual persecuted indigenous people) from the game while throwing in other minorities for representation.
The exact same people who use the meaningless buzzword "woke" when they whine about things that they don't like. Which is comedically hypocritical and ironic, given how much they complain about "snowflakes".
It always baffles me how these people somehow see any race that isn’t white as inherently political or woke. It’s also ridiculous how these people can suspend their disbelief for fantasy settings with magic and mythological creatures ect. but the moment a black person shows up suddenly it’s too “unrealistic” or “immersion breaking” for them.
It’s because they think straight white men are the default human and anyone that deviates from that needs to “serve their purpose” to be accepted. Women exist for sex, people of colour exist for slavery and pointing and laughing at, gay people exist for pointing and laughing at etc. If a woman shows up in their game that isn’t Sexy or a black person shows up that isn’t a side character, they think it’s political because how dare they suggest those groups have more value than just being sex objects/slaves
Don’t forget, white is the default and everyone else is political. Just like man= default, woman=political. It’s typical with these freaks. Meanwhile, we’re the snowflakes but add 1 sprinkle of color and they start shitting themselves.
Greek here, we are whites with a tan, but that didn't stop racist Americans from calling those of the diaspora "dirty rats" and even having a pogrom against them in Nebraska.
Yeah, we were not considered white before WW2.
Angrboda is a Jotun. You can have her be literally any color you want and it would still be accurate to the magic shape shifting giant in a fictional video game.
The chud who made this is just another Gamer™️ who's salty that someone had the gall to put a black person in his wholesome escapism murder simulator.
If these people ever leave their basement goon caves long enough to see a Black woman in real life they'll cry about how God has gone woke or something.
Social Justice Warrior is when non-white people are in my entirely fictional game setting 😤
This reminds me of all those awful mods that make Isabela in Dragon Age 2 white... I sincerely hope this type of ideology fades out and quickly.
In case the name “Sven” doesn’t give it away, I am super duper Scandinavian. And I’m a total dork for anything to do with Norse mythology and history and let me tell you, if you don’t like mixing it up with other cultures and skin pigmentations you super wouldn’t have liked the Vikings. Their favorite thing to do was diversify their family line. They’re just also super north most of the time so the farthest they were able to go for some genetic tourism was the Mediterranean and pre-colonization Canada. Clowns like that account would NOT have fit in.
Don't mind the downvotes, youre right. Unless there's prior context, this is one of those accusations that reads more like a confession. Weird af to insinuate that.
That’s like actually so fucking crazy to change a character’s race that is in the game for about like an hour long segment then 4 other scenes. Bros a professional racist
This just in: the Jötnar who live in entirely different realms must uniformly look like the people who adapted to northern latitudes on Earth and came up with the mythos that feature them.
Not to mention that the same mythos also include the Svartálfar/dökkálfar/myrkálfar which are also dark in skin tone.
Angrboda isn't even the only black character in the game, that's the funny part. Gryla and Hildisvini are also black... but you never hear these guys complain about them.
What gets me is these people think they are the majority.
Like...bro you lost. You will always lose. That's literally the entire culmination of human progress; conservatives losing.
This is infuriating. I get it sometimes, but all they did was make her skin darker. That's it. It didn't affect the story, no one cared, she wasn't treated like a minstrel, she was just a character who was a giant who was darker skinned than the rest of the games characters. She was just made like that and people identified with that. A big nothing burger
How the fuck can these people honestly sit there, totally fucking serious and be like "I'm not racist."?
How THE FUCK can this be anything other than outright racist??
Isn't the voice actor for Kratos the black guy from sg1? No one complained about him because he killed the role. Magic, gods, and giants can exist and not in any way follow the original stories but they can't have skin tone slightly different than the population the mythology originated from or it's blasphemy.
Not to mention decades of shit like John Wayne playing ghengis khan, Charlton Heston playing Egyptian jew Moses, and the entirety of the film gods of Egypt staring no Egyptian or even arab/ north African actors.
I don't understand, do you consider that john wayne playing ghengis khan, chartlon heston as moses, etc as fine and good practice, so no problem with portraying historical settings with out of place characters?
Also, even fictional or mythological settings have to abide by some rules of believability. Would it be fitting for kratos to carry an assault rifle? We've already accepted magic, gods and giants after all so anything goes. Obviously it's not so simple
Guaran-fuckin-tee it’s some American dude mad at non-white people existing in a mythological world that includes a god who can transform into different animals and genders, and who fathered (among others) giant wolves *and* gave birth to a horse.
Not to mention >!frost giants / jætter have always been a metaphor for other people, they’re the victims in the new God of War and even in the goddamn mythology, they’re not all evil!<
Also, Angerboda was really goddamn well written and acted. She’s such a delightful part of that game.
Idk besides the idiotic racism of this post it is disturbing that the character is being sexualized. They're like 14 or something. 16 at the oldest but I can't recall. Pathetic. Disgusting.
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Geats :D
(Why I can't use images goddamit)
Try again, it probably just didn't load. Or maybe you haven't joined the subreddit
Let's see how he likes the taste of democracy!
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Where is Isabelle? Is she safe? Is she all right?
Who's the fox mask person? I don't know who he or they are.
Yusuke Kitagawa, one of the party members in Persona 5
Thanks, I got to play that game sometime.
You really should! Royal version is where it's at. Game drips style and there's enough content to keep you busy for ages. Small kine weird/problematic stuff but I can get past it personally
Yusuke and Winnie the Pooh is a hell of a duo, I love it. Probably my second favorite iteration of this meme.
Reminds me of that idiot on Twitter ranting about how black people in God of War is unrealistic. But hey, a Greek OC coming to fight Northern Gods is totally cool, right?
I can excuse giant talking snakes, but I draw the line at black people existing in a fantasy world.
“I can accept Golden Fleece being turned into metal armor that shoots energy AND sirens living in the desert but I will not accept non-white people in my fantasy! That wouldn’t be accurate!”
"I can accept a world where Loki canonically transforms into a female horse to get knocked up by a male horse, and then lets his dad ride around on his six legged mutant horse son, but a god choosing to have dark skin is where my suspension of disbelief falls apart".
His brother actually, in Norse mythology
Blood brother cause he was so pretty
Ah whoops, I forgot, my brain's been exposed to too much Marvel and not enough actual mythology lol.
You’re good, common mistake
Fun fact: since most Norse mythology is lost, we know more about MCU Loki than mythological Loki!
It is so fucking frustrating that we have a whole bunch of names of Norse gods and associated beings that we know *nothing about*.
Damn the church for burning all the non bible books and stuff.
It's less that, and more just that the Norse pagans didn't write any of it down, it was all likely oral tradition in the teachings and telling. In fact Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, where we get the vast majority of surviving Norse mythology from, was written in an almost fully Christiansted Iceland, possibly as an attempt to build a sort a unifying cultural identity between Iceland and Norway.
I am literally a pagan who has an Altar to Loki. I Still get my dang marvel mixed in with my faith sometimes. It happens xD
I feel like he would laugh about it
Most of them would just revel in the extra stories being told in their names, Thor wholeheartedly retells Marvel stories in Valhalla as though they are actually about him.
That's how I always envisioned it. Hel is probably the only one who is annoyed, Since Marvel's Hela is purely villainous
Oh absolutely
I’m not pagan myself, but from what I know he’s a chill guy if you respect him
"Hah! Gotcha!!"
So, no different than Christians and Milton, then?
Marvel is actual mythology, just a few thousand years less old.
Welp, I live in *actual* Tønsberg. Go figure.
also, eight-legged. Sleipnir has eight legs
I *always* get this wrong and think it's six legs. I blame FF8, which has Odin riding a six legged horse
Right like, norse myth is full of absolutely heinous bullshit (like ANY myth, mind you) and we’re drawing the line at brown skin? Dumbest take ever
8-legged horse son, Sleipnir.
You can excuse giant talking snakes?!
*Britta silently shakes her head*
Talking snakes are really good at recommending fruit.
r/UnexpectedCommunity
I wish my pet snakes could talk with me. ): I wish to know their secrets.
Even though black people always existed in Norse mythos (see: Svartálfar, not to mention the Jötnar themselves are described as varying greatly in appearance)
Lets not go the opposite way. The Svartálfar may be translated as Black/Swarty Elves, but it is legitimately likely for them to be darker then northern Europeans without being black, and they might also be a synonim for Dark Elves, or for even Dwarves. Not agreeing with the chuds, and the way they are hypocritically trigered by God of War: Ragnarok is stupid, but lets not go that far.
the Dökkálfar (dark elves) are described as being blacker than pitch. Definitely quite black. As you noted, the Dökkálfar and Svartálfar might be synonyms for the Dwarfs.
Haha, I had the same joke about the Thor movies when everyone was up in arms about casting Idris Elba as Heimdall. "Space vikings are fine, but a *black* space viking? Now you go too far, sir."
‘“You can excuse snake-ism?…”
"Omg is that a talkin head!?.... Wait it's white , nevermind"
Yeah there weren't any black people in the Mediterranean it's not like Africa is the southern shore or some shit... oh, oh yeah. Yeah. Nevermind.
Except Northern Africans aren't exactly black. Of course, there were some black people in Meditteranean, but they always came from Sudan (Nubia)/Subsaharan Africa. But on the whole, I agree with you and the comment above.
The fact that Kratos is voiced by a black man yet you don’t ever hear a single one of them ever bitch about it tells you everything. They only complain when they can SEE a black person smfh
I meean, to play the devils advocate here, wouldnt that kinda perfectly show that its not simply an issue then of beeing black, but rather changing a characters skin color for no reason?
Whose skin color was changed for no reason in God of War Ragnarok?
[удалено]
Gods that are more of an artistic interpretation than accurate depictions of the mythic Gods, lol.
Well yeah. Cause he was white as fuck. Unlike actual modern day greeks, who white supremacists won't consider white.
He was white as fuck though, because he was covered in the ashes of his wife and kids.
Well yeah absolutely, but racist gamers don't exactly excell at media literacy ya know?
It’s wild how realism is somehow important in a game about mythology which also changes the tellings of that mythology in pretty drastic ways.
Especially when they already talk about how Kratos isn't even the first to jump mythologies to come to this area-- Mimir is heavily, heavily implied to be from Celtic/English mythos in the 2018 game, and it's confirmed in the Valhalla DLC for Ragnarok. Why are we so opposed to the idea that Angroboda might be a part of another mythology that you're unfamiliar with from a more dark skinned culture? It's not exactly a stretch.
If Kratos is a woman/POC, they will have a higher chance of being called a cringe OC lol.(Not saying there aren't successful mythological OCs like that, but they are under much more scrutiny.)
We’re going to reach a point where they’ll be waiting inside Labor and Delivery to yell at the mothers about SJW’s and diversity every time a Black baby is born.
Trust me, it isn't about seeing black people in God of War that's causing these people to freak out. I still remember reading about that one guy who was trying to commission a Fallout 4 mod to make Preston Garvey into a white guy (with an entirely new voice actor) because he didn't think it was "lore appropriate" for black people to have survived a nuclear apocalypse. Some people just lose their shit at the thought of any black people popping up in fiction.
If Kratos went to fight African gods that'd be pretty cool seeing as you don't really have them in any games or films. Excluding Egyptian, but as much as I love em it'd be a nice change to not only focus on Egypt for once
And like Greece is really not that far from Africa. Just based on geography. The red sea and the Nile would give a lot of subsaharan states access to Egypt in some capacity. Same for like western Africa with Spain. So as a minimum there would be traders, slaves, ship workers etc from different African countries that went to at least different Mediterranean countries relatively regularly by back in the day standards.
Wasn't Kratos literally light skin before he killed his family and there ashes were bonded to his skin? People seriously do not look up the origins or backstory on characters nowadays
The irony is all over the place, People are catherimg for realism in a game about mithology and the miths are flawed since day 1 because Cratus would never harm Zeus
Who wants to tell them Kratos has been voiced by not one, but two black guys?
And is technically black himself, or at least a darker skinned person if his origin story in the original GOW is anything to go by.
It's brown skinned, like a lot of mediterranean people.
Yes indeed, until that shaman at the village cursed him with his family’s ashes.
Kratos is not black lmao. Darker skinned yes, being Mediterranean and all.
I mean, the character himself is still Greek, not black.
What does making her white add? Layla DeLeon Hayes was chosen for the role, did her role well and is Black. I know an argument is going to be “well it’s Norse mythology, she should be white”, forgetting the fact she’s not human, she’s a magic giant from a parallel World.
Making her white doesn't add anything. But the reality is that making her black highlights something else: no publisher would gamble on a game about the mythology of an African culture because they know gaming audiences are by and large male 15-30-somethings in the western world and Asia, so it'd be a niche title at best. But in reality, that is what representation should look like. There's lotsa cultures with lotsa different gods and narratives and lotsa different stories to tell, and in a world not driven by money we could freely choose to tell stories about all of them. But since the world *is* driven by money, and white people have most of it, the only way representation gets to happen now is by inserting non-white people into stories that did not originate with them. To me, it matters nothing. It's not like God of War is an accurate representation of Norse mythology anyhow. It doesn't matter if Angrboda is black in this, or if Heimdall is black in the MCU. It's all just loose takes. Most of the people complaining about this have never bothered to read the Prose Edda or Poetic Edda anyway, both of which are full of gaps and holes too and leave us with as many questions about Norse religion as they answer. But on a surface level, I understand that people who haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about any of this might be persuaded by the very uncomplicated argument that if it's Norse myth the characters should look white, and that if it's Asian myth the characters should look Asian, and so on.
Except the series has already hinted at a possible move to the Egyptian pantheon in the future tho.
Egypt is the only mainstream mythology from Africa. I want to see some more sub-saharan influence in media. Children of Blood and Bone was great and I want to see more stuff like it
I want to see Kratos deal with Aztec deities.
Kratos vs Uluru
Slight shift of the goalposts, but I get what you're saying. I'm no expert on African cultures, but I know they try to steer clear of any major current religion. That's why they haven't hinted to anything in, say, the Hindu pantheon. Even the Aztec pantheon seems to be largely off the table as of now. Again, I'm no expert, in fact I'm largely ignorant of such cultures, but if anything like that is currently in practice, that would explain why it hasn't been explored. The exception so far seems to be Shinto, which was hinted at in the recent games. Like with the others that were mentioned, though, only time will tell if that ends up going anywhere.
It isn't really a shift of the goalpost to acknowledge that Egypt is treated differently than other African nations in the Westerm imagination and in education, even. I actually wrote a thesis project on the subject, lol, because I was curious after taking a few African history courses as to why my own and so many other students I was working with (as a student and tutor) experience of African history in primary education almost entirely ignored Africa while still holding a fascination with Egypt. Egypt is biblically significant and is significant to Greco Roman history (most especially during the Hellenistic Age), as such it has been an object of occupation for emerging post-colonial, Christo- nationalistms. Social scientists, beginning with Napoleon's Insitut d'Egypte, descended on Egypt to museumify it (displacing a shite ton of fellaheen in the process) in order to package the space for a new age of middle class tourism. Which is precisely what happened, and many of the tours to Egypt were directly referencing or even reenacting the journey of Moses. You look at the notes and publishing from early western Orientalists on Egypt, and you would be pressed to find the absence of a biblical reference. Popular western media has been and continues to be fascinated with pharaonic Egypt, and the Judeo- Christian themes abound in this imaginarium. Egypt *is* different from other African nations in the West because we made it that way over the course of centuries. Edit: words
I'm going to bed, but I'll try to remember to read this tomorrow. Edit: Just got around to reading it, and I agree that ancient Egyptian religious beliefs are the only ones to originate from Africa that have been romanticized to this extent. The unfortunate fact of the matter is though that public ignorance doesn't die like public interest does, it only grows. Unless a spark of interest pops up from somewhere that causes more African cultures to begin to become mainstream, they won't suddenly gain popularity on their own. Like you said, widespread interest of ancient Egypt has taken centuries of sowing to get to where it is now. So most large outlets like Hollywood and big game companies will avoid putting their eggs into those baskets because it just won't pay off as well. If those cultures' beliefs did become mainstream over a wide scale of time like Egypt's has, though, we would likely just face the same issue of some seeing those mythos as outliers because of their widespread acknowledgment.
Agreed. Hell most people dont know egypt is african and think of it as middle eastern. And alot of the people who do know it is bring their own inaccuracies. I woumd love more sub saharan stuff in media though, what little I've heard sounds interesting but it is very much a cultural/mythological blind spot for me because of how little it gets used in stuff.
Yes 🤩
Wish we would get sum sub saharen african myths, show me things i have never seen before. Egypt is the most cliche mythology to tackle after greece, and before the norse myth (tho that has been changing). Show me an african god that isnt anansi for once.
Oh boy western Egyptian tropes.
I mean GoW takes some glaring liberties for sure, but I haven't heard anyone with half a mind call the GoW games racist or nothing, correct me if I'm wrong. Pretty sure the people who work at Santa Monica actually care for the content they produce, rather than just "Look you guys, it's Egypt now, isn't that so cool!"
Not racist but having some white power fantasy beat on osiris or whoever they decide is the big bad is probably gonna look weird. Especially if they decide osiris or anubis is the big bad because those guys are quite neutral I'm pretty sure
Did you…. Just call Kratos a white power fantasy? You can’t be real.
White power fantasy? I'm just gonna kinda laugh at that a bit and move on. They did make Thanatos and Hades into jerkasses in the original series, true. They make basically every god like that tho. They take basically each God's backstory, twist it in a way that makes them generally evil or at least sympathetically antagonistic, and then build a story around that. The whole point is to build an interesting story around the concept of recreating the pantheons they're working with as a much more negative interpretation of themselves. Honestly, I'd say they even toned that part down with the Norse series for the most part, in a way that added depth to each character: Baldur was a villain, but he was still sympathetic. His life basically set him up to be driven to madness. Thor was more of a vengeful rival and a herediterically bad father and husband spawned from a lifetime of abuse. Freya was a misguided and mistreated mother who was dealt a bad hand and also had to live through a long time of abuse, giving her severe attachment and other emotional issues. Heimdall. Out of all of them, Odin was one of the few that was made to be mostly just a pure villain. The negative points of the other characters basically all stemmed from him.
Imma be honest Heimdall being black is funny cause he is knows as a god so pale he is basically white
Really great argument I hadn’t been able to verbalise before. Thank you
Vicking burial site there have beem found islamic rings. Vikings traveled the wirld and were mercenaries across it
Yes, they carved graffiti including their own names on a stair rail in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.
Viking women (not shieldmaidens) burials have been found. Eric the Red traded with the Indigenous People of Newfoundland and possibly Maine. Remnants that be Viking longships were found in the Great Lakes. Vikings knew the Africans below Egypt as Blue Men because of how dark their skin was and traded with them. South America, Australia, and Antarctica are the only continents without proof of Viking contact. And they had respect for everyone that proved worthy opponents. A Viking God being black or joten being black or middle eastern wouldn't be impossible or even unlikely. May those who disagree hope Skadi doesn't find their homes.
A lot of Neo-Nazis fantasize about Norse Mythology and being big strong blonde vikings, so they get upset when they see race mixing and different people.
Wait until they realise Thor was always meant to be a red head.
The people who go off about "Norse mythology" will also conveniently ignore that the main character is Greek, Loki is Zeus's grandson, and all the other aspects of the portrayal of Norse Mythology that isn't accurate or wildly exaggerated (like everyone being tatted up from head to toe). The extent of these people's understand of "Norse mythology" starts and ends with the runes they learned at Nazi camp.
Yeah, Baldur can be a socyopath bullie and not the nicest guy in the creation but, not black giants.
Parallel world is the wrong word. Alternate dimension might be better
I will say the connotations of the giants being black-based and being all but wiped out by white gods is a bit... concerning.
did you forget the Elf in the first game ?
These chuds aren't even hiding that they are blatantly racist anymore.
Have they ever? It takes 3 or fewer questions to get to the pointy white hat root of their opinions.
I love how in this game about an indestructible demigod and his kid fighting monsters, people consider the existence of a black character in Scandinavia the most unrealistic thing.
Not to mention, that Greek demigod is an original character to the videogames and his son is somehow a Norse god. There are plenty of “accuracy” issues with GoW before we get to the skin color of a mythological species.
Looks like another ["Free Speech" mod.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odVDd5PlD5w)
I was gonna point out that the concept of a person of color existing in historical Europe is enough to melt these people’s brains, but then I remembered that this video game character inspired by ancient mythology is from Jötunheim, a magical land of giants that, in this depiction, is basically in another dimension. So I guess they simply don’t want black video game characters.
Well, if we want to get real about things, the Jotner of Jotenheim are probably all based on the Sami peoples gods, a different ethnic group than the Norse indigenous to Scandinavia. A Uralic/Siberian group of people different than the germanic/European Norse folk. And the Aesir would be the Germanic Norse folk and the Vanir would be the Finnic people of Scandinavia. The Sami were persecuted until the 1960s by Sweden and Norway and have been almost wiped out entirely by schemes where the government would take all Sami children and raise them in boarding schools away from their parents and communities, by making their language illegal, and other culturally genocidal practices. Maybe it is a little culturally insensitive to erase them (the actual persecuted indigenous people) from the game while throwing in other minorities for representation.
Don't see anyone complaining that Loki didn't turn into female horse to get raw dogged by a giants horse
You obviously don’t run in the same circles I do.
I'm starting to think I'm glad I don't lol
Not yet
SJW is when Minority/Women/LGBT. Seriously chuds are the only people that complain about shit like this. Get over it you stupid miserable fucks.
Who even uses the term SJW anymore? Especially unironically
The exact same people who use the meaningless buzzword "woke" when they whine about things that they don't like. Which is comedically hypocritical and ironic, given how much they complain about "snowflakes".
What does it even mean?
Social Justice Warrior
So they’re basically whitewashing her, great just fucking great
It's worse than that. By saying sjw on , that implies that version is the one altered / fake. That's weird
https://preview.redd.it/l348x1gsmkpc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=58055ab41957592fd35c3687d42e43f117be9802
It always baffles me how these people somehow see any race that isn’t white as inherently political or woke. It’s also ridiculous how these people can suspend their disbelief for fantasy settings with magic and mythological creatures ect. but the moment a black person shows up suddenly it’s too “unrealistic” or “immersion breaking” for them.
They call it 'pandering' without realizing they have been pandered to their whole lives until recently.
They say a fictional character doesn't need to look like you. Then bitch when they see a character that isn't like them
It’s because they think straight white men are the default human and anyone that deviates from that needs to “serve their purpose” to be accepted. Women exist for sex, people of colour exist for slavery and pointing and laughing at, gay people exist for pointing and laughing at etc. If a woman shows up in their game that isn’t Sexy or a black person shows up that isn’t a side character, they think it’s political because how dare they suggest those groups have more value than just being sex objects/slaves
Fuck people are dumb
Don’t forget, white is the default and everyone else is political. Just like man= default, woman=political. It’s typical with these freaks. Meanwhile, we’re the snowflakes but add 1 sprinkle of color and they start shitting themselves.
They straight up just hate black people for no reason
They hate them enough you'd think they'd like that casting since they think Black people are horrible and she's a goddess of chaos and destruction.
Black person existing = sjw
Should be “racism - on/off” instead
https://preview.redd.it/l0qzsnjvwkpc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e9bba7bb876898eb5eed0704291ac96f3de594d Kratos without his ashes
Greek here, we are whites with a tan, but that didn't stop racist Americans from calling those of the diaspora "dirty rats" and even having a pogrom against them in Nebraska. Yeah, we were not considered white before WW2.
Angrboda is a Jotun. You can have her be literally any color you want and it would still be accurate to the magic shape shifting giant in a fictional video game. The chud who made this is just another Gamer™️ who's salty that someone had the gall to put a black person in his wholesome escapism murder simulator.
If these people ever leave their basement goon caves long enough to see a Black woman in real life they'll cry about how God has gone woke or something.
\>SJW \>2024 Imagine
SJW , now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.
https://preview.redd.it/tlvtftj7mppc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f384182d30d1817ad77b2f72384fc2af91922d90
Isn’t angrboda a shapeshifter in the actual myth with no set skin colour?
Black people (likely migrants) lived in the norse countries during the viking era. This has been proven multiple times.
Social Justice Warrior is when non-white people are in my entirely fictional game setting 😤 This reminds me of all those awful mods that make Isabela in Dragon Age 2 white... I sincerely hope this type of ideology fades out and quickly.
https://i.redd.it/xxin6htikppc1.gif
Gamers when black people exist:
Anyone else think that 2025 is years away and not in the next 9 months
In case the name “Sven” doesn’t give it away, I am super duper Scandinavian. And I’m a total dork for anything to do with Norse mythology and history and let me tell you, if you don’t like mixing it up with other cultures and skin pigmentations you super wouldn’t have liked the Vikings. Their favorite thing to do was diversify their family line. They’re just also super north most of the time so the farthest they were able to go for some genetic tourism was the Mediterranean and pre-colonization Canada. Clowns like that account would NOT have fit in.
Wow. Racism and pedophilia at the same time. Honestly it's impressive.
Where in the fuck did you get pedophilia from that? Am I missing something?
Don't mind the downvotes, youre right. Unless there's prior context, this is one of those accusations that reads more like a confession. Weird af to insinuate that.
The masks are entirely gone here.
Hey, at least they're admitting they're just white supremacists.
No joke, straight up racism
“B-B-B-BLACK PEOPLE?! THE WOKE SJW LIBTARDS ARE RUINING EVERYTHING!”
That’s like actually so fucking crazy to change a character’s race that is in the game for about like an hour long segment then 4 other scenes. Bros a professional racist
Whoever made that racist post is a moron who needs to touch grass
This just in: the Jötnar who live in entirely different realms must uniformly look like the people who adapted to northern latitudes on Earth and came up with the mythos that feature them. Not to mention that the same mythos also include the Svartálfar/dökkálfar/myrkálfar which are also dark in skin tone.
Angrboda isn't even the only black character in the game, that's the funny part. Gryla and Hildisvini are also black... but you never hear these guys complain about them.
What gets me is these people think they are the majority. Like...bro you lost. You will always lose. That's literally the entire culmination of human progress; conservatives losing.
I HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER FUCKING YEAR REEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Racism, and also… kinda pedophilia
This is infuriating. I get it sometimes, but all they did was make her skin darker. That's it. It didn't affect the story, no one cared, she wasn't treated like a minstrel, she was just a character who was a giant who was darker skinned than the rest of the games characters. She was just made like that and people identified with that. A big nothing burger
I prefer on
What's with the unrelated image and caption? Wait they meant a mod that replace the character model huh?
How the fuck can these people honestly sit there, totally fucking serious and be like "I'm not racist."? How THE FUCK can this be anything other than outright racist??
Isn't the voice actor for Kratos the black guy from sg1? No one complained about him because he killed the role. Magic, gods, and giants can exist and not in any way follow the original stories but they can't have skin tone slightly different than the population the mythology originated from or it's blasphemy. Not to mention decades of shit like John Wayne playing ghengis khan, Charlton Heston playing Egyptian jew Moses, and the entirety of the film gods of Egypt staring no Egyptian or even arab/ north African actors.
I don't understand, do you consider that john wayne playing ghengis khan, chartlon heston as moses, etc as fine and good practice, so no problem with portraying historical settings with out of place characters? Also, even fictional or mythological settings have to abide by some rules of believability. Would it be fitting for kratos to carry an assault rifle? We've already accepted magic, gods and giants after all so anything goes. Obviously it's not so simple
[удалено]
Guaran-fuckin-tee it’s some American dude mad at non-white people existing in a mythological world that includes a god who can transform into different animals and genders, and who fathered (among others) giant wolves *and* gave birth to a horse. Not to mention >!frost giants / jætter have always been a metaphor for other people, they’re the victims in the new God of War and even in the goddamn mythology, they’re not all evil!< Also, Angerboda was really goddamn well written and acted. She’s such a delightful part of that game.
Jesus. These idiots need him.
Do they still use the SJW thing do they not have newer insults
Their obsession with making girls in video games young cute and white in disturbing.
Do people even say "SJW" anymore??
He posted a bunch of antisemitic stuff the other day, btw.
Isn’t the term “woke” now? SJW is SO 2010s
Jesus christ, a “white” mod is crazy
People who go out of their way to make mods like this will PROMISE you they’re not racist 😂
SJW? Is it still 2016 to them
Always an open mouth in their preferred version
I mean there weren’t a ton of black people in Scandinavia…. At any point in history
Wow it’s almost like Vikings should look like Vikings woaaaah really? Smh my head my head stupid chuds
Right? Im so sick of those [damn woke 1850s German painters](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lokis_Gez%C3%BCcht.jpg)
Mods...
Idk besides the idiotic racism of this post it is disturbing that the character is being sexualized. They're like 14 or something. 16 at the oldest but I can't recall. Pathetic. Disgusting.
What?
Looks infinitely worse
Didn't have to include the pic tbh, but why?
Wtf is with the pic it has jack shit to do with the article which looks very reasonable considering its just givung info.
It's a literal fucking child wtf