The Witcher 3 Is Totally White

Ian Boudreau / June 11, 2015 / Critic / 26 Comments

One of the most interesting things – out of a wide field – that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has done is reignite the ongoing discussion about race in video games. While CD Projekt’s latest outing does many things so right, race is something it gets quite wrong: the cast of The Witcher 3, it cannot be denied, is uniformly white.

Critics argue that this is at best a missed opportunity and at worst, deliberate erasure of people of color. Why else create a fantasy world – a world full of monsters and magic – that fails to include people of non-European ethnic backgrounds?

There are a couple hypotheses that I think can be dismissed out of hand: Developer and blogger Luke Maciak writes “[CD Projekt] literally forgot that non-white people even exist, which is something that happens when you are a white person, living in predominantly white culture, and consuming predominantly white media.” Meanwhile, at FuriousFanboys, Jeremy Conrad seethes about Polygon reviewer Arthur Gies’ “completely boneheaded” failure to understand the “historical” context of The Witcher universe.

To Maciak’s point I would simply say that in a game that shows as much attention to detail as The Witcher 3, it’s fairly disingenuous to automatically mark something down to laziness on the part of the developers, especially a reality as important as race.¹ No, let’s give CD Projekt due credit and assume this was an intentional choice. In any event, the game is explicitly aware of racism: the conquering Nilfgaardians refer to the people of the Northern Realms derisively as “Nordlings,” whom they consider to be unwashed and unlettered.

Conrad’s point is also fairly easy to dismiss – Medieval Poland may not have been home to many Black people, but it also wasn’t home to things like griffons and wraiths, both of which feature prominently in The Witcher 3. The argument for “historical accuracy” in a game where characters are capable of casting teleportation spells is laughable – it makes as much sense as the fanboy furor over seeing a Black man in a Star Wars stormtrooper costume in the first reveal trailer for The Force Awakens.

Take away the insistence on historicity, however, and there’s a fair enough thematic argument to be made. In a pre-industrial, medieval society such as Witcher’s, where people probably rarely traveled more than a couple miles from where they were born over the course of their lives, it might make a certain amount of sense to have a fairly ethnically homogeneous population. In game terms, The Witcher 3’s map is enormous, but in sociological and political terms, it’s a very constrained area – about 52 square miles all together, making The Witcher 3 just slightly larger than the Bronx.

But this defense falls apart a bit when you look at the broader landscape of fantasy titles – films, books, and games: When there’s a homogeneous society used as the basis for a fantasy world, it’s a safe bet it’ll be a white society. When nonwhite characters appear, it’s as “foreigners.”

More to the point, the lack of people of color in the game can’t be solved simply by adding a couple darker-skinned traveling merchants or a ship captain character – that would be tokenism on a par with “…but I have a Black friend.” This is a problem that’s bigger than The Witcher 3, and bigger than BioWare’s Dragon Age: Inquisition, which did include people of color in the main cast. It’s a problem in fantasy as a genre, which since Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has been stuck in a sort of Kipling-esque paternalist colonialism. Since Tolkien, fantasy has often been keen to portray racial prejudice as happening between humans and, to take the most common examples, dwarves and elves – both the Dragon Age and Witcher series are examples of this. Tauriq Moosa, writing for Polygon, explains the problem:

This is literal dehumanising of people of color. We are relegated to non-human species, their treatment is supposed to mimic real-world racist policies. This sci-fi/fantasy trope of dealing with racism by showing inter-species treatment could work — if all the humans weren’t all white.

If anything, making us short, bearded white Scottish men, or very white, pointy-eared thin people reinforces how dismissed we are — by not even being considered human.

Tolkien’s orcs are a central feature of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and Austin Walker wrote a fantastic piece in Paste about how that game’s “Nemesis system” gave NPCs a new kind of emergent agency that made them a real step forward in game design. However, he notes the troubling aspect of this portrayal as well:

They hate beauty. One of the Orc captains I fight has the title “The Literate One”—the joke of course is that these dark savages don’t even read. It’s unavoidable: the characterization of “Orkish” society is caught up in a history of white, European military and cultural colonialism, with narratives of the “dark continent” and the “mysterious east.”

It’s difficult – or maybe impossible – to use Tolkien’s framework without also adopting his British sense of colonialism. Characters in The Lord of the Rings can actually be measured in goodness by the lightness of their skin. While orcs are now usually portrayed as being green, Tolkien originally described them as literally black-skinned.

Back to The Witcher 3, though. What’s the answer? Addressing the controversy at his new home at Giant Bomb, Walker says just having the discussion helps:

So no, a few Zerrikanian traders or merchants or alchemists wouldn’t fix the problems games have with race, but no single game will ever do that, in the same way that no single film solved the problem of representation in Hollywood cinema. But each time a dev takes a moment to think about how diversity might fit into their game–or, no, better: how it might have always been there, ready to be uncovered, ready to make their worlds feel more alive, more real–they add a brick to a wall of overall improvement. And sometimes that brick looks like a few brown faces in a crowd. Sometimes it looks like character creation. Sometimes it looks like a bi-racial lead character whose racial background is identifiable, but not directly addressed and sometimes it’s a game that tackles the racial identity of its characters directly. It’s all of these things and more, and none of them are perfect, and none of them can do it alone. How could they?

There is no silver bullet, no grand plan for creating diversity in games. There’s lots of little steps that we can applaud, and that we can remind developers that they have access to. We do this constantly with other bits of games (Oh my god, please put the Nemesis System, or something like it, in a bunch of other games by this time next year, thanks). Why not also do it here? And if the answer is “Because this isn’t as interesting or valuable or meaningful as X game feature,” well, it is to me, so I’m gonna keep writing this stuff.

After playing a few hours and enjoying the game immensely (a couple mechanical quibbles notwithstanding), I’m encouraged by what I’ve read by others discussing race in The Witcher 3. As far as the “games as art” arguments go, I can’t think of a better one than a piece of media acting as a launch-point for a larger discussion about how race is seen – and not seen – in pop culture. The Witcher 3 isn’t the first game to do this, and it certainly won’t be the last.

CD Projekt’s home is in Poland, and commenters have often pointed out that the country is more than 96 percent white. Well, CD Projekt is a high-tech company that also owns the international digital distribution service GOG.com, and the claim that the development team suffered racial amnesia during the process of creating the game rather beggars belief. ↩

Share this post

tell a friend

FollowtheDough

Solid well-stated analysis on Game Industry developers & the division of race. Seems like the valid response is the marketplace. Some of these game developers are going to have to feel sales decrease before they get the message of game inclusion as a important one..
- Pop
  
  “Solid well-stated”
  No it’s actually sad, racist and poorly thought out.
  First of all as I already stated here, this is a SLAVIC game and Slavic people are NOT WHITE !
  If the characters were all Asian or all black would you still complain? I know you won’t. I just know you won’t.
Pingback: Osibogun and Partners - Law Firm()
Anna Dawson

I think the problem with this point of view is that it’s largely American-centric. You stress throughout the article that black people should be included in the game, because for Americans who live in a country with a large black population and an African-American cultural heritage, it just seems strange and unfair not to include black characters. For Polish people writing a game that is based on Slavic mythology, however, it makes less sense. Why do they specifically need to add black people to their game that is about their own traditions/culture? Do Japanese games about Japanese people need to include more races even if it’s a game based on feudal Japan? Yes, it’s a fantasy game, but fantasy reflects the culture it is created in. Furthermore, why is it only black characters that the Witcher 3 needs more of? Why not Indian, Chinese, Native American, Arab, Jewish?
- E v i n h e r k o n
  
  “Do Japanese games about Japanese people need to include more races even if it’s a game based on feudal Japan?”
  
  Why not?
  
  It isn’t as if the entire population were Yamato, or that Europeans weren’t establishing a trade hub, or that there were’t Koreans and Chinese involved in the domestic politics of feudal Japan, etc.
  
  Likewise, medieval Europe had Romani, Turks, Moors, Mongols, etc.
  
  There’s a natural role for non-whites in a world like the Witcher’s. Slavic fairy tales are full of examples.
  - Suada
    
    I guess, but there wouldn’t be anywhere near the same number of people complaining if it were Japan. I guess it wouldn’t be too unbelievable for Novigrad to have some Zarakanian traders/diplomats ets (there were some non-whites in Europe), but I think their absense was justifiable in this instance (the number was still very small). Also, Koreans and Chinese aren’t racially distinct from the Japanese in the sense that the people complaining about The Witcher mean, and you could argue that this sort of ethnic diversity is reflected in the dynamic between the Skellige Islanders, Northerners and Nilfgaardians.
    
    A comparison might be Mulan, or Jade Empire. Both are fantasy stories, but both are very obviously set within a fictional China analogue and are heavily influenced by Chinese lore. Jade Empire has literally 1 non-Han Chinese character, and Mulan has none. Yet nobody complains about these, and rightly so.
    - E v i n h e r k o n
      
      “there were some non-whites in Europe”
      
      There were a lot of non-whites in Europe. Since antiquity.
      
      “Also, Koreans and Chinese aren’t racially distinct from the Japanese …this sort of ethnic diversity is reflected in the dynamic between the Skellige Islanders, Northerners and Nilfgaardians”
      
      Skellige is an interesting point, the Witcher is explicitly broader in scope than the fantasy Baltic venue.
      
      Presumably then a Japanese approximation could similarly extend beyond a Japanese archipelago venue,
      
      …So that still leaves Turkic, Indian, Siberian, Austronesian, and European possibilities kicking about in Asia too, outside the Chinese/Korean dynamic. That sounds great, throw them in!
      
      That said, non-Europeans do figure more dominately in Europe’s history than non-Asians in Asia’s, hence the particular feeling of a lost opportunity in the Witcher’s case.
      
      Point being, granting the Polish cultural perspective, the West has always included a robust non-European element; it’s an easy natural addition to accommodate, and adds more interest anyway to see the occasional foreign merchants, or pirates and mercenaries, hostages, or the odd foreign embassy at court, etc.
      - Suada
        
        Example of a long established non-white community in Europe in the time period?
        
        As I said I know there were on-site people in Europe at the time. But I think the lack of POC in The Witcher was justifiable, and the historical accuracy argument can’t simply be dismissed.
      - E v i n h e r k o n
        
        “In the time period”
        
        Medieval? …sure Tartars, as well as the perennial effort they represent among historical Asiatic steppe peoples (Huns, Alans, Kiptchak, etc).
        
        Also,
        
        …the early Jewish diaspora, Moors in Spain/Southern Italy, Turks in the Balkans, Barbary pirates along the Southern European and Atlantic coastlines, all come to mind as well.
        
        Individual non-Europeans of note have married into European nobility, been canonized as saints, featured in various prominent roles as merchants or military figures, etc.
        
        As well as historically, those foreign elements were not insignificant in the cultural development of Europe either:
        
        there’s no shortage of non-European characters in the mythology or folklore, going back to antiquity, e.g. Andromeda (Aethiopian), Europa, and Cadmus (both Levantine) are ancestral to Greek mythology …just as Aeneas (Anatolian) is to Roman mythology.
        
        Steppe people feature from Scythian references in Ancient Greece, to Huns in Nibelung Saga, to the Tartars in Ilya Muromets.
        
        One of the Arthurian romances concerns a black Moor, and Moors in general are sprinkled about in the romances quite a bit (.e. El Cid).
        
        … and that’s just from my limited memory.
        
        “the historical accuracy argument can’t simply be dismissed”
        
        I certainly don’t think it should be, hence a sensibly proportioned and selectively placed non-European element would be warmly welcomed.
      - Suada
        
        Most of the examples you give are well outside the time period and location the game takes place in. Huns and Alans had been assimilated several hundred years before the 13th century and were indistinguishable from the rest of the population, though I’ll grant you the Kipchak (though they never reached Poland). It’s important to remember as well that Jews, Turks and Tatars didn’t look any less European than Italians or Greeks.
        
        Turks didn’t settle in the Balkans until several hundred years afterwards, same with large-scale Barbary pirate raids. Southern Spain and Italy are nowhere near Eastern Europe or Scandanavia.
        
        The fact that POC featured in mythology or folklore doesn’t really prove anything. Obviously Europeans were aware of their existance.
      - Suada
        
        Sorry for my late reply. I only recently checked this thread again and saw your reply.
        
        “Medieval? …sure Tartars, as well as the perennial effort they represent among historical Asiatic steppe peoples (Huns, Alans, Kiptchak, etc)”
        
        Huns and Alans had long been assimilated into the Slavic/Ilyrian population well before the Middle Ages. Kipchaks are barely distinguishable from Slavs in their appearance.
        
        “…the early Jewish diaspora, Moors in Spain/Southern Italy, Turks in the Balkans, Barbary pirates along the Southern European and Atlantic coastlines, all come to mind as well.”
        
        Moors and Barbary Pirates didn’t live anywhere near or eastern Europe Poland, though you may have a point that they were a POC group in Europe at the time. Ashkenazi Jews (who lived in Poland) are white and it’s quite obvious that they are represented by the Dwarves and Elves in the game. Turks are again barely distinguishable from the Slavic/Illyrian population in terms of appearance. Kosova and Bulgaria still have a significant Turkish population. Line up local Turks, Albanians and Bulgarians side by side and try to identify which is which.
        
        “As well as historically, those foreign elements were not insignificant in the cultural development of Europe either:”
        
        All this proves is that Europeans were aware of the existence of POC, which is obvious.
      - E v i n h e r k o n
        
        Hello Suada,
        
        There’s a certain lack of knowledge and objectivity in your reply:
        
        Regarding Kiptchaks, Alans, Huns, and their assimilation into local populations …the middle ages spans from roughly the fall of Rome till the discovery of the Americas; I’m sure you can work out what flexibility that implies with regards to the degree of assimilation, and consequently the issue of appearance.
        
        And what about those Tartars? If Novograd can be viewed as a stand-in for Novgorod, then that’s right up the Golden Hordes alley, and well into the medieval age.
        
        Regarding Moors and Barbary Pirates …they lived no further from Eastern Europe than residents of the Orkneys (aka Skelligers).
        
        Regarding Ashkenazis …I didn’t mention Ashkenazis. And no, I am from central Europe, have traveled more than most, including Turkey, and Turks do not look like central Europeans Slavs. Are there blonde European looking Turks? Sure. Do Turks, as a whole, look like central Europeans/Slavs? No.
        
        And as far as their similarity to certain southern European ethnicities …well those weren’t in the Witcher either.
        
        And finally, no. It proves that non-Europeans feature significantly enough in an objective survey of European history, that their occasional presence in a fantasy world based upon that history would not be anachronistic,
        
        …nor would their absence be anachronistic really, depending on those pesky particulars.
        But there’s definitely a way to put them in that would be easy and organic, and based upon the history that inspires the fantasy work (a white-washed version of history notwithstanding).
        
        So why not do so?
      - Suada
        
        No serious historian uses the term Middle Ages anymore to describe such a long period in time and that the definition of when the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period begin is still very controversial.
        
        Apart from the fact that the Crimean Tatars are pretty hard to distinguish from Russian Slavs, I’ve never viewed Novigrad as a stand-in for Novgorod. I’ve always viewed it as generic cosmopolitan port-town. Novi Grad is a very common place name in the region. I live in a city district called Novi Grad.
        
        The Skelligers are based on Vikings who were relatively close to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and had repeated contact with them.
        
        You didn’t mention Ashkenazis but you did mention Jews. And Ashkenazi Jews are the ones relevant to the setting, because there were (and are) few if any Sephardic Jews in Eastern Europe.
        
        Once again, travel to Prizren or Gostivar and do your best to distinguish between Albanians, Turks and Slavs based on their appearance. I guarantee you that it will be difficult.
        
        “But there’s definitely a way to put them in that would be easy and organic, and based upon the history that inspires the fantasy work (a white-washed version of history notwithstanding).
        So why not do so?”
        
        This is the crux of the matter. And I am arguing that there is absolutely nothing wrong about CDPR’s approach and that it’s nothing to call the creators on.
        
        Again – not saying that POC have no place in this world. It’s just they are not as obviously inherent element of the setting’s DNA as some of the other fantasy stuff is, as such their abscence isn’t really an omission the game can be accussed of, the same way that a white NPC in a game about feudal Japan would not be something which abscence people would cry about (even though a justification for the appearence of such a character could have been just as easily made, as the justifications for POC in Witcher).
      - Pop
        
        First of all Slavic People are not White People.
        Secondly Tatars, Mongolians and Turks enslaved and massacred Slavs throughout their history. lol So the only Tatars is this story should be the villains in the Crimean Raids or the invasion of Poland.
      - E v i n h e r k o n
        
        /summoned from the dead
        
        First of all, no one is innately white, the term has no meaning biologically, it’s entirely a contemporary matter of “caste,” that said:
        
        E.G. Slavs in America were white insofar as, upon arriving in the US, they often ingratiated themselves to the prevailing white authority within the US racial caste system
        There was a reason for this, as foreigners from a different cultural tradition than the Anglo-Western stock of the majority original settlers, they were potentially easy targets for discrimination themselves!
        More specifically, this was often an effort both to avoid the marginalization and disenfranchisement heaped upon non-white status, but also to avoid a competitive disadvantage as in the struggle for jobs and adequate pay within the Eastern industrial cities where most of these migrants ended up in the latter half of the 19th century through the early 20th.
        
        In fact, for these reasons, Slavic immigrants (though certainly not only Slavs) were often the *most* racist “whites”, having the most to prove in order to secure a place within the white caste by distancing themselves as much as possible from non-white groups.
        It’s akin to the observable phenomenon today whereby many immigrants often display their patriotism more overtly and explicitly than most native born Americans so as to avoid being labelled as part of the “other” or out-group.
        
        So there’s that.
        
        Now, Europe is far more tribal, but the earlier debate (if I recall correctly) was more about the viability of presenting *some* POC within a fantasy world largely influenced by northern/central /eastern European medieval history and folklore.
        
        So the, I don’t particularly care if there are “Tatars” in the Witcher world, just don’t use the historical circumstances of Medieval Europe as some sort of argument against the inclusion of any POC within a fantasy setting based upon that period.
      - Pop
        
        My friend you are slandering some of the most peaceful and persecuted people throughout history. I’d be ashamed of myself if I were you.
        White people DO EXIST actually. White People are the people of the West, primarily Germanic and Anglo types. The people who also colonized Scandinavia, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Those are the WHITES. Slavic people have more in common with the people of Persia.
        You American racists LOVE labeling all caucasoid looking people from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe as “white” and blame them for slavery and colonization in North America.
        The most racist country in the world build on racist hate, by racist people for racist people.
        And I mean Americans of all racial backgrounds. Cause you’re all racist and filled with hatred.
      - E v i n h e r k o n
        
        Your Eastern European victim-hood aside …there remains no biological basis for “whiteness,” none.
        
        White people exist in the same way middle-class people exist, it’s a social construct, not a biological one.
        
        It exists particularly as a means to distinguish between colonizer and colonized or in-groups/out-groups for the purposes of denying rights as a justification for the seizing of resources and land.
        
        Its predecessor in many ways were both the feudal caste system and the distinguishing of Germanic/non-Germanic identity after the fall of the Roman Empire and the sweeping across Europe of Germanic tribes as the new cultural power-base.
        
        So in that sense you are correct, but …the prevailing quality of the in-group, namely its enfranchisement and rights to property, was not a universal even within Germanic feudal society:
        
        E.g. the Salian basis for civic inclusion and land rights were tribal in nature and the local indigenous populations of farmers living in the areas newly ruled over by expanding Germanic tribal groups, were frequently not enfranchised as tribal members and therefor barred from those enumerated rights.
        
        In many ways, the modern concepts of “out-group” and “in-group” were first clarified in the Feudal distinction between arms-bearing Germanic overlords (and cultural kin/adoptees) and the often indigenous serf, all that changed were the labels.
        
        This became more codified along Western-European/non-Western-European lines as the abuses of feudalism were increasingly projected out into the emerging European colonies abroad (such as America).
        
        Because the social context changed, so did the labels: “White” as opposed to tribally enfranchised and thus having rights (i.e. nobility, burgers, and yeomen), and “Black” as opposed to non-tribally enfranchised and thus having no rights (serfs).
        
        The Atlantic slave trade did much to assist in this transition and it had a profound impact in defining white identity in Europe even though African slavery was mostly confined to the colonies!
        
        This exported caste system was far easier to maintain due to the stark superficial difference in appearance between European conqueror and non-European native which made for easier labeling, and it was more practical due to the greater profitability in exporting this exploitative caste system into resource rich colonies (Europe itself was relatively resource poor and European serfs were a marginal investment).
        
        Point being, it is entirely a social construct bereft of any biological utility, ditto race, they have no taxonomic usefulness.
        
        As for Tartars …are you illiterate? I’ll repeat: Don’t use the historical circumstances of Medieval Europe as some sort of argument against the inclusion of any POC within a fantasy setting based upon that period.
        
        That was the original conversation *you* chose to get involved in and it’s why I brought them up again, please learn what you’re discussing before you venture an opinion on it my friend:p
        
        BTW, I’m European, so carry on with the America-bashing if you like, doesn’t bother me in the slightest!
        America is as racist as it is precisely because the medieval bigotry of Europe was refined and exported to the American colonies to benefit Europe, as I implied above!
      - E v i n h e r k o n
        
        Have you deleted your most recent reply? It isn’t showing, so I’ll reply to this one instead:
        
        Oh Suada, your selectivity is beginning to border on the suspect.
        
        “No serious historian”
        
        We aren’t serious historians, and you didn’t express an issue with the term Medieval earlier did you, not until it became problematic for your position.
        
        “Apart from the fact that the Crimean Tatars are pretty hard to distinguish from Russian Slavs”
        
        Yep, because I totally narrowed it down to Crimean Tatars, never mind the Persians, Turks, and Steppe Asians running about during the hordes heyday :p
        
        “The Skelligers are based on Vikings”
        
        …Vikings who settled in the northern Scottish/Irish archipelago eventually forming a hybrid culture, the Orkneys and Shetland are a great example, and many of the highland Scots clans are of Norse ancestry (McLeod for example).
        Skellige in the game is clearly based on this cross pollination, hence the Gaelic accents, names, and cultural influences in addition to the overt Norse elements
        
        “I’ve never viewed Novigrad as Novgorad”
        
        No matter, as it’s not necessary that you do so for the point to stand.
        
        “Ashkenazi Jews are the ones relevant to the setting, because there were (and are) few if any Sephardic Jews in Eastern Europe”
        
        …more shiftiness, as we were talking about Europe in general: “Example of a long established non-white community in Europe in the time period”
        
        “Travel to Prizren or Gostivar and do your best to distinguish between Albanians , Turks and Slavs based on their appearance. I guarantee you that it will be difficult.”
        
        I’ve been to Kosovo (as well as other parts of the former Yugoslavia) and Albania, but that’s also neither here nor there …let’s say Albanians and Kosovars are indistinguishable from certain groups in Turkey …there’s no one in the Witcher 3 that looks like any of them.
        
        “It’s just they are not as obviously inherent element of the setting’s DNA as some of the other fantasy stuff is, as such their absence isn’t really an omission the game can be accused of”
        
        Unobvious because of the default modern white-wash of history. I accept that historical ignorance as par for course. It’s a poor excuse.
        
        The criticism stands that there’s an absence of diversity in the game; basically there’s none. And the trotted out excuse of “but the history wasn’t so diverse” doesn’t hold up at the scale at which the game contends.
        
        Likewise the Japan analogy is poor, the role of non-Europeans in Europe was much greater than that of non-Asians in East Asia (east Asia being the proper scale of comparison).
        
        The absence of diversity is particularly conspicuous given modern expectation for an internationally marketed game, and the ease with which those expectations could have been met with just a few POC foreigners such as captives among the Skelligers, or sailors and merchants in Novograd, or as a small mercenary contingent among the Nilfgardians, or a visiting Mage, etc.
        
        It was a bit lazy, and a missed opportunity. The criticisms may be a bit overwrought, but they’re not entirely without merit.
Andrzej Ława

I’m afraid Tauriq Moosa is either insane or a racist himself. Complaining about the lack of distinctly non-European human characters in a game based on a kind of a mix of Slavic and Nordic mythology is as silly as complaining that in movies based on i.e. “1001 Arabian Nights” there is no mention of Santa Claus. Or maybe we should holler that in no serious Wild West story there’s a black, lesbian, female sheriff dating a Chinese lesbian female judge? Hell, let’s complain that when Japanese make a movie about samurais there are only Japanese-looking samurais. What gives? I demand an European samurai in a Japanese movie! 😉 If someone makes a game based on some African legends from the time there were no Europeans in sight you won’t see me or any sane person complain (at least seriously – I could do it sarcastically 😉 ) about the lack of any European-looking characters.
- Pop
  
  1000% true
  But I’m really curious since when are Slavic people white? I thought the whites were the western Europeans. Slavs have more in common with people from Persia like Iranians and Syrians. Oh right… America labels all Caucasian types from Europe, Middle East, North Africa as “white” and blames them for slavery and colonization in North America.
Suada

“Conrad’s point is also fairly easy to dismiss – Medieval Poland may not have been home to many Black people, but it also wasn’t home to things like griffons and wraiths, both of which feature prominently in The Witcher 3.”

This line of argument strikes me as rather silly. Just because it’s a fantasy game, anything goes? There needs to be SOME internal logic and consistency when it comes to the influences the game is drawing from, if you want to create a world that’s even remotely believable. You can’t just have Geralt driving around in an automobile half way through the game and expect people to just accept it (“Medieval Poland may not have been home to many automobiles, but it also wasn’t home to things like griffons and wraiths, both of which feature prominently in The Witcher 3). And it would be an anachronism to put black people into the game in the name of diversity.

Also, comparing the way Orcs are portraoyed in LOTOR to the way non-humans are portrayed in The Witcher is rather disengenious. LOTOR does indeed some rather uncomfortable racial implications, but it was written over 70 years ago, and 50 years before The Witcher, and The Witcher’s values are very different in any case.
Stephen Gomes

Typical racist complaining about race. Go cry me a river you little bitch. All white people in a game about Eastern European mythology? You don’t fucking say?
Andrzej Szerowąs

you’re not serious, are you? it is a game from Poland – the most ethnically homogenous country in Europe. it is based on Polish literature. it refers to myths and legends dating from the middle ages. Why the hell Witcher’s developers would need to add there black people?!? What for? To please some SJW’s? if SJW’s don’t like it, they can go play some other games. There is no single reason to add politics to that game. specially that nobody in Poland gives a damn about western fashioned political correctness (btw: there is not even a single leftist political party in our parliament). Stop lecturing Poland. We are not going to adjust ourselves to your white guilt concept, because we actually don’t have any white guilt and were never involved in black slaves trade.
Remek Elek

Good! Niggers, asians, arabs etc. all can create their own games with whatever races included in their game. So can white people!!! Diversity is a codeword for white-genocide!
Gustáv Kyselica

when Mr Moosa will make a game based in medieval subsaharan Africa based on African tribal mythology, don’t forget to complain that there are no whites. Oh wait you will not. because you are racist as well as him 😉
Pop

First of all Slavic people would have to be white and they are NOT !
Slavic people are originally an Asiatic people and have more in common with the people of Persia than the people of Western Europe. Slavic people also never stole land from “non whites” and never enslaved black people. Slavic people were massacred by Mongolians, Tatars, Turks white Germans throughout their history.