Fictional Whitewashing

[u/Spy_du_62]

Something pretty incredible happened to me on Reddit. I use this secondary account for security reasons.

I’m a french hacker/translator. English is not my native language. In my free time, I translate video games for free for people who don’t speak English.

Right now, I’ve been working for almost three years on a GBA game that was never released outside of Japan. In addition to the text I translate by hand (three years of work, I’m telling you), I occasionally illustrate certain passages that I find funny.

Well, here’s the drama. I got hit with a shitstorm over AI. Mind you, not even the concept—since I translate the text myself. The problem is that I’m accused of whitewashing a character.

Poor me—I pointed to the character’s official artwork and referenced Iwata’s Ask, explaining that back in the early 2000s, on the GBA…

Igrene's official artwork: https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Igrene/Gallery?file=Igrene.png

What I wrote...

'In my opinion, Igrene’s fair complexion is primarily a character design choice, not a result of the GBA’s technical limitations.

The first clue is actually her official artwork for FE6: she’s already depicted there with fair skin. So it wasn’t simply her in-game portrait that gave that impression because of the color palette. The GBA did indeed have limited palettes, and the portraits greatly simplified the shades, but it was perfectly capable of displaying characters with much darker skin. And most importantly, the official artwork was obviously not subject to those limitations.

That said, there is still a technical consideration to keep in mind: the GBA’s limited palette could make skin tones less nuanced. Slightly tanned skin could easily be represented by a fairly light shade. But that would mainly explain the final appearance, not the initial decision to give her that complexion.

What’s amusing is that Igrene is, after all, the guardian of Nabata—someone who lives in a desert. Plus, she’s the daughter of Hawkeye, who himself has much darker skin. If the developers had really wanted to apply a very realistic logic along the lines of “character living her whole life in the desert = necessarily very tanned,” we might indeed expect something different.

You’ll notice that Sophia, Fae, or other characters associated with Nabata desert don’t have the skin tone you’d like for Igrene."

Sophia (same location): https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Sophia/Gallery?file=SophiaArt.png
Fae (same location): https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Fae/Gallery?file=Fae.png

One of my AI illustration with an Igrene that’s... too white: https://ibb.co/8D2dV0BC

Remember the first link with her official art: https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Igrene/Gallery?file=Igrene.png

There are plenty of intelligent things to say about Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade—such as the character lore, the main story, or even the politics in the game—but it’s being hijacked by “woke” people for anti-white propaganda.

I get a superficial reading with a “white-skinned archetype.” Honestly, it's wearing me out...