Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

You're not the only one.

 

If you played the Republic Trooper on TOR on Balmorra you would get my drift

 

Agreed Lost.

 

I heard the ending to that show was dissatisfying.

 

Dammit. I lost the Game.

 

So, with the new Legacy, things look promising on the diversity front; female character centre-stage on the initial picture there, Mon Cal character, and the male human character is non-white also.

 

Yeah, between this and Knight Errant, DH has been pretty impressive in committing to female protagonists. I wouldn't be so sure that the man in the background isn't just a tanned white guy, though (in fact, I'm putting my money on his being a Fel).

 

He looks Asian though. Could still be a Fel, but not Emperor Fel II, unless Jag has been Asian this whole time.

 

I suppose I can see how you could come to that conclusion, but the combination of the fact that the girl has a pretty good shot of being a Fel and the fact that the guy looks like Soontir Fel leads me to think otherwise.



I would love for Star Wars to finally get a proper Toshiro Mifune character, though.

 

I've always thought it'd be interesting if one of the Infinities comics had gone with a Mifune Kenobi, just for fun.

 

Somehow I had to think Organa, but that might just be me

 

Bail Organa lived a double life as Soontir Fel? Ha... so that is why he survived TFU and the Emperor kept him going!

 

Bail was the first thing that came into my head when I saw that face yesterday too.

 

Comics, in general, seem to be including more female leads. This is not a bad thing, but I hope they're not doing it soley for the sake of having female leads. The story has to fit the character.

I really am excited about new legacy though.

 

Strangely, it seldom seems to come up as a question of "does the story fit the character" for a male main character...

 

As opposed to?

 

Don't you know this one? The Fictional Character Guild is 99% male, and every female lead chosen for a story puts a male lead out of work. They'll starve, the poor fellows, if female leads are chosen too often!

 

Hutts! As all them would be both none white male and female leads, whilst also being Aliens, netting an easy 300% diversity per character

 

But I don't want to see frivolous Hutt lead characters. The story has to be crying out for Hutts--like, from the ether or something.

 

But isn't every story crying out for Hutts?

I mean, how can you go wrong with Hutts? They're Hutts.

 

In all seriousness, 203, I want to engage that line of reasoning a little.

Let's look at Kerra Holt--despite the whole "Lone Female Jedi" tease, we have no idea, I don't think, whether the impetus for KE to center on a woman came from JJM or DH. And even if it definitely came from JJM, we can't really say whether his original notion of the story demanded that it be a female character, or if he decided to make her that way further along the line. But ultimately, does any of that really matter? Does any of it retroactively enhance or reduce Kerra's strength as a character?

The scenario you seem to be wary of is one in which some editorial mandate wrenches a male character out of the author's hands and staples a vagina onto him without any further thought given to how that changes everything else about the story. But no one wants that. In fact, I think it's self-evident that no one wants that, because then all you're really saying is that you don't want bad characters.

You've given me no reason to think you're philosophically opposed to strong gender diversity in SW, but when the "story fits the character" concern, as Rilwen said, only comes up with female characters, it comes across as a double-standard that I don't think you really believe in.

 

Well, based on the cover, we can assume a pretty good diversity score for the new Legacy.

Human male of non-white origins? Check.
Human female lead character? Check.
Mon Cal lead Character? Check.

I can't wait for this to start. I will commit to keeping a running tally on the score as each issue comes out. Hold me to it, CooperTFN

--Adm. Nick

 

Is the cover indicatative of the content?

 

My idea is that if they include more female leads, eventually people will get used to writing female characters. Because more often than not I find myself completely disinterested or annoyed at gals in sci-fi, mostly because they fall into a few basic stereotypes (y'know... "butch woman," "innocent love interest," "know-it-all b****").