Collected, unfinished thoughts on players, race and OC’s in Dragon Age
(Just collecting my tweets and futher pondering on a topic that keeps cropping up in my fandom discussions)
ETA: I’ve added a polling post on POC players who play default (read as white) characters in DA games. (as of this post there are 0 responses)
If you recall, twitter eons ago I was pondering the results from an informal poll I threw out on tumblr. http://bit.ly/1XIuDIL.
It was two posts, literally reblog if this condition is true, or other condition is true. No additional info required. My summary post rolls through my dash so I did a check of numbers still an overwhelming response on one inquiry.
hat was reblog if you are non-POC and primarily play a POC Warden, Inquisitor or Hawke. Earlier it had 1,848 responses. Compare it to the opposing question, if you’re a POC who primarily plays a POC Warden, Hawke and Inquisitor. That netted 809 replies.
Now keep in mind this was merely sp,e updated numbers, I need to revisit the article idea I had for this unscientific poll. Unsurprisingly I saw more Reblogs of the non-POC playing as POC post. Again with a whole lotta extra info that wasn’t asked for. One persons tag essay both admonished other white fans & admitting bias was longer than the two sentence post
So post Wiscon I need to put my ducks in a row, pull together some data and put a pitch together. I also need to figure the main point; is the response rate indicative of casual racism? Unconscious bias showing in the elaborate explanations on why they play as POC?
Is it digital blackface where players get to play with skin colour as a mere aesthetic? That they can put on & take off w/no consequence? Cause right now, a lot of my take away is there’s a lot of DA fandom that likes to play with pretty brown skin in game because no repercussions are to be had when they turn off the game, unlike POC who don’t get a redo in the character creator. We get what we get and have to deal.
So tl;dr, this is on my mind again and when I have time to sit for five minutes, I’ll write something. Hell maybe on Medium, IDK.
Post that came around and had me pondering again:
Of how many POC have POC Wardens, Hawkes and Inquisitors; count of replies as of this post: 270 notes (including likes)
But the numbers on the NOT POC and have a POC Warden, Hawke or Inquisitor: 681 notes (including likes)
Very, very interesting. I know there have to be more than just 270 POC gamers with POC OC’s out there.
I’ll probably write up something on the responses, response rate, and my own pet theory on why the response rate for NON POC with POC OC’s is 2X more than the response rate of POC’s with POC OC’s to this terribly unscientific, slaking my own curiosity polling.
Thoughts welcome here or whenever I throw these thoughts into one post. For those following along, I am WOC and there’s nothing insidious as to me wondering about this but I am curious.
Unscientific guess: It’s assumed that people play characters of their own ethnicity mostly, so it’s like stating the obvious if you’re POC and have a POC main character? But a white person can express support for POC and/or make a statement for diversity: “Look, white people want diversity too” and/or present themselves as open-minded and non racist by reblogging your post.
I think a post stating “I’m POC and have a white Warden, Hawke or Inquisitor” would get almost 0 reblogs. And “I’m white and have a white Warden, Hawke or Inquisitor” would get billions of reblogs by 73 people with multiple accounts.
Interesting, and I might throw out a post asking that question to ponder the question about how normalized whiteness is among people. IE If POC folks create a non POC OC because whiteness is so engrained as the default.
Super interesting poll going on! You should participate if you haven’t already. ⭐
So I was pondering this more on Twitter this AM so searched for the poll and wanted to see updated numbers:
Q1: How many POC have POC Wardens, Hawkes and Inquisitors; count of replies as of this post 560 responses since I put the post out in August of 2015
Q2: NOT POC and have a POC Warden, Hawke or Inquisitor: 1,544 responses
Go look at the responses to the NOT POC and have a POC Warden post. Not the simple reblogs as requested but people who did some amazing mental gymnastics to quantify WHY when I didn’t ask for that. Or the people who expanded it to other games, when again it was a simple A or B inquiry.
I’ll probably pitch this to Ontological Geek in the near future; possibly do that follow up question of if you are a POC and don’t have a POC OC please reblog that post. Maybe even ask why. But that’s opening a floodgate, I know. Cause we can’t have nice things in fandom sometimes.
Some updated numbers since this post rolled by again:
Q1: How many POC have POC Wardens, Hawkes and Inquisitors; count of replies as of this post 809 responses since I put the post out in August of 2015
Q2: NOT POC and have a POC Warden, Hawke or Inquisitor: 1,848 responses
So yeah, I still got this on the backburner and may put it out there as a pitch but I’m so swamped with stuff till mid-June, I don’t even know when I can realistically write the piece I want to, with back up data and not just this incredibly unscientific, born of omgwtf early pondering on my part.
