Yeah I know it’s hard to find games with a furry protagonist that is good usually you don’t get many to choose from except if you count Pokemon but the games that let you use the Pokemon to their full strength one of my favorites was a spin-off called Pokemon Conquest I felt like the Pokemon were not the warriors Pokemon but mine with some funny methods to use as well
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For fetish content like on this site, there’s the problem that people can have off switches as well as on switches. Diversity and trying to cater to many may end up with catering to none or to a select group with wide interests everytime. If a game tries to encompass male/female, wg, vore, pregnancy, slob etc. some will find it “problematic”. I for one stay away from vore, bestiality and male content and find pregnancy/slob a bit off putting. If games tried to put all these things in I would probably stay away from them even if they had female wg, which I prefer. I think it is better to have a diversity of games than diversity in games. There is also very few content creators and I want all of them to focus on what makes them happy rather than pleasing everyone.
As for regular media, I care more about lore and cultures than what the characters look like, but I do agree that having some orcs or other species create some diversity that can make it more interesting and it does allow you to create cultures that wouldn’t be as easily created through a human only scenario.
I’m not sure I agree completely with you that media has a tendency to make humans good and and other species evil. It definitely used to, but black and white characters aren’t as popular as they once were. In japanese Isekai for example it happens more often than not that the main character realizes that the human kingdom is rotten and that the demons/antropomorphic creatures are actually good guys being persecuted.
I’m not sure about modern games, so I’m guessing you’re probably right. Most people would probably find a game where you kill “mindless” monsters more morally acceptable than one where you kill sentient beings.
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This, depending on how motivated the game is by kink, it becomes harder and harder to include things unrelated to what you fancy, seeing as how that’s seemingly girls for 90% of the forum, I dunno how furry chars could get a foothold where human males can hardly stand.
@Baalf Your criticism is more suitable for greater entertainment industry, which I’m still not sure how your missing out on all the humans vs nature narratives, plenty games/movies have em (especially japanese ones). Sonic, Final Fantasy, Almost every studio ghibli film, Ni no kuni itself in the first game had the most industrial human kingdom covered in smog, machines and with undead monsters crawling outside. I’d say its used enough to be a trope at this point.
Not to call you out or anything, but if your complaints about themes are just to mask your want to play as the types of characters your attracted to, I can comfortably say that I like playing opposite gender characters for the similar reasons but my desire doesn’t really trump other peoples creative visions. Its on me to create what I want to see in the medium.
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Honestly, it kind of isn’t. A lot of times, when I see a story with an anti-environmental theme, or a humans=good/everything else=bad type story or a story that goes out of its way to portray humans as so far above all other life-forms that they are the only good and valuable creatures in the world you’ve created, I do legitimately feel like a sick, disgusted and frustrated. I have stopped supporting media that buys into those cliches because I literally cannot stand those cliches, and a big reason for that is because they do not let me escape from reality where humans do kill a lot of animals and destroy a lot of habitats, and it does kind of remind me of the people that just don’t care about creatures other than humans, which honestly seems to be increasing at times. A big reason that I want non-human playable characters in video games is that it’s one of the easiest and it debatably best way is to avoid that cliche, that and your character is just going to look way more interesting, and I just have more fun with them.
But let me try and set up an example of a way to tell a particular story. Let’s say you have this race of creatures that resembles large, muscular elephants with a somewhat human anatomy. They have intelligence close to humans, but generally do not trust or like humans. It is possible that these creatures evolved from elephants and do not like humans due to past experiences regarding humans and elephants. Here are two different scenarios.
Scenario A: despite having the intelligence of a human, they are ruthless creatures that only wish to kill the humans without any reason. Just that they hate humans, cannot forgive them and want to wipe them out. This results in a war that they inevitably lose and also results in them getting slaughtered and wiped out by humans.
Scenario B: despite their disdain for humans, they are actually capable of understanding and reason. It is possible for a human to gain their trust as long as the creatures know that that particular human is not responsible for what happens between humans and elephants. They could even come to an agreement to help protect elephants, and if all goes well, they could be an integration into society.
Which sounds better? Just an honest question. Or maybe you’re the kind that might want to see both ideas to an extent. Like, have them be capable of reason, but not without a lot of hard work. They will kill humans do to their lack of trust, but not all of them will do so. This could result in both a war between some of the elephant creatures and peace between others, sort of a happy medium between the two scenarios.
Honestly, it’s hard for me to even tell anymore, because it feels like in a lot of media, anything nonhuman is automatically bad. There are some franchises I really don’t like it that I hear aren’t as bad as I think they are. I always thought the Dark Souls franchise followed the humans good everything else bad cliche, but apparently some of them do have Good dragons and creatures that you do not fight or don’t die. But then there are others like Genshin Impact which struggles to make anything inhuman be a good guy, with one of the characters having a bird familiar that may or may not be a living creature being the only example off the top of my head where any non-human is strictly a good guy, but none of the actual playable characters are anything less Human Than Just a human with the ears and tail of an animal.
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As far as how I feel with the 3 scenarios. I definitely like scenario is B & c more than a. Maybe it’s because I have a lot of respect for elephants as a species, but b feels like a safe story. It appeals to me as someone who likes elephants, and it’s enjoyable to see the two creatures get along. With scenario c, there’s a little bit of tension and anticipation. It’s something that might not be enjoyable till the end, but if I can make it to the end and things do turn out good, then I can appreciate the details more.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to get out of the first scenario. Honestly, it just feels like shallow storytelling. The same could be said for the second scenario, but at least the second scenario isn’t hard for me to endure. I’m not going to enjoy it watching one of my favorite animals become villainized to a creature that, in real life, can be their villains. It’s the same reason that I wouldn’t enjoy a cartoon about a rabbit fighting marsupials, or cats fighting birds. Because humans do have an impact on elephants, seeing humans=good/elephants=bad does not let me escape from what I try to escape from, and it kind of comes off as disgusting. That’s just my take on the scenarios I gave.
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I mean honestly with the amount of times you’ve specifically used it as an example it sounds like a big part of your beef is genshin impact.
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I don’t think I’d really dislike any of the scenarios but they would all feel pretty boring since they are all kinda overdone, C sounds closest to ideal where maybe some are motivated by this specific hatred but not all because in the end I’d like a Beastman race that has more to them than an obsession with humans, a vast culture, interesting biology, there’s a ton of things that can be done when you create a fantasy civilization that is kinda lost if they are written as an weak analog to what is essentially a human’s ideology regarding their existence vs animals.
Its kinda reductionist to break it down that way anyway, because humans aren’t exactly a single entity, its just a scientific classification, some individuals are more responsible for things like ecological damage over others, like myself who is born into a massive city, growing up i only knew how to use its resources and became comfortable living in a way that really burns away at the earth but others like my parents who were born in the Caribbean live their lives off of the land and enjoyed having clear skies and blue oceans.
And at the same time your kinda disregarding the fact that animals in the same way are all very different, animals are known to wreck whole ecosystems or die trying, if you look at the long lists of extinct animals some of them became obsolete in their environment and unable to eat starving to death, which chain reacts to their old prey multiplying wildly and reducing food for other grazers. the human anthropomorphization of animals as upset tree huggers is massively inaccurate on its own and based more on the writers feelings, animals who are made bipedal and given five fingers would most likely get up to the same stuff as humans, which is ensuring their tribes continue to grow at any cost but with a massively reduced gap in capabilities with the ability to use tools and machines just the same.
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@Baalf But Genshin Impact doesn’t have humans as the good guys?
The storyline of that game is far more complex than that.
Warning, contains spoilers!
In game you have Elemental Lifeforms, like slimes and Hypostases, which are just manifestations of elemental energy without even the ability to form conscious though. The only intelligent lifeform there is the Oceanid, which we only fight because she confused us with an Assassin from Fontaine, her homeland, and thus attacks us upon getting close to her. None of these are evil at all.
Another type of enemy are the Mystical Beasts, which so far contains carnivorous flowers that feed on animals and humans alike, Geovishaps, which are dragons and simply naturally aggressive, and Cicins, which also attack us on sight. Just like you can’t begrudge an animal to attack prey and defend it’s territory, you also can’t begrudge someone being attacked by them for retaliating.
Then we have Hilichurls, which by popular theory are cursed humans from Khaenri’ah, a nation destroyed by the gods for rejecting them, and probably for technological advancement. It’s hard to call them evil for that though, it’s more like the gods are the bad guys here as far as current information indicates.
Then there’s the Abyss Order. They are led by our own sibling. That fact alone makes it questionable whether or not they are ‘bad guys’. They are certainly the enemy of the gods though. In this manner it is highly probable that our sibling was living in Khaenri’ah as well, and that this nations was allied with or otherwise involved with the abyss.
The next group of enemies are automations, all of which were made by Khaenri’ah as war-machines to combat Celestia, the home of the gods. They attack us because they were made to attack everyone or are defunct now.
The other enemies in game are humans. Those are not the ‘good guys’ at all.
Of all current factions in game, the one that opposes the protagonist the most are the Fatui, a purely human faction. The other factions that matter are Celestia and the Abyss Order, and right now it certainly looks like we will end up on the Abyss Order’s side against Celestia.
Genshin Impact does not have humans as the ‘good guys’ at all. Most conflict in fact seems to stem from them.
As for why most characters are purely human, that is rather simple: It’s a gacha game, so each character has to appeal to the widest audience possible, primarily in china and secondarily global. That is the reason we don’t get more diverse character models. If a character does not sell well that’s a loss for the company, so why would they create a playable character that they know from the start would not appeal to a majority of their audience?
Though what I do not understand is why you seem to put all things into these boxes that are ‘good’ and ‘bad’? It isn’t as if the real world works that way. Individuals make choices, which another can perceive as either good or bad. There is no universal good or universal bad, all of that is subjective, it depends on the observer. An action which you may perceive as good another may perceive as bad.
In the same vein a group of people should not be judged by the actions of an individual. To say all humans are bad because one of them did something you judge as bad is not fair to all others, some of which may have acted differently had they been in that situation.
In most cases I’d say the lack of positive animal portrayal has nothing to do with an innate sense of human superiority or a feeling of them being ‘good’, but rather that the most part of the audience emphasises with a familiar character type easier, which means higher sales or ratings. Furries are a niche group, so why would popular media include them? That would mean less sales or ratings, and who other than fans would make such a decision then?
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But all the nonhuman characters you mentioned are still antagonists. None of them are just good or neutral on their own merit. Plus, even if there are human bad guys, it still doesn’t change the fact that they are the only real good guys, again, aside from the crow follower that is MAYBE a living creature, and some guy has a snake that doesn’t really do anything.
There really is no reason in anthropomorphic character could not sell. Anthropomorphic characters have been used before in Media, and it isn’t like furries are the only people who would buy an anthropomorphic character. If you were that afraid, just stick with what has worked. Bears and wolves have both been proven to be pretty popular at one point, and I’m pretty sure wolves are still popular. Unfortunately, they’ve probably already squandered that possibility. There are other animals that work, such as foxes. You would draw the people in that wouldn’t otherwise play this game with something different. The people playing might also want the character because, again, it’s something different.
And where the heck is the proof that furries are just so rare. I’ve been to a lot of furry communities. There are easily thousands of us, and that’s just in English speaking countries. Apparently, there is absolutely a market for them in Japan. And again, these are not the only people who would want an anthropomorphic character or buy an anthropomorphic character. It really wouldn’t be that much of a Gamble.
Honestly, it really doesn’t feel that way. It really does just feel like humans have become obsessed with humans, and it feels like we have an excessive need to just villainize. I mean, you can’t make ANYTHING a goodguy except humans? Like, EVERYTHING but humans is bad? Not only does that come off as unrealistic and shallow, but again, I strongly dislike the implications.
Also, Genshin Impact is far from the only game that follow is that kind of cliche and ideology, it’s just the one that keeps coming to mind. Fire Emblem, Project X Zone, Kid Icarus Uprising, Lost Odyssey, Hat In Time, Megaman X/Zero, the upcoming Elden Ring probably, the list goes on.
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That is a good point. Who says the anthropomorphic animal race has to revolve around humans, and it would be nice to see one that doesn’t have much of an opinion on humans, or better yet in my opinion, a story that gives you their story without human interference. It bothers me that it feels like people used to be able to create lots of stories that didn’t have humans or had non-human goodguys. Why is it so hard now? And I know it feels like I’m complaining about one particular thing, but it feels like that one particular thing just keeps getting rehashed over and over and it’s blocking out everything else. Just this year we saw the release of Neo TWEWY, and we’re also getting Elden Ring, and while I haven’t looked up reviews for Neo TWEWY, when the first game was released, it was regarded as the greatest game ever, and it pretty much you would all this fancy wording for its story and synopsis, but in the end, I just could not get past the fact that every enemy in the game was based off some type of animal, including animals that we are wiping into Extinction (elephants, for example) but, as usual, humans are the only goodguys.
Here is the thing with humans. Yes, humans are capable of doing good, but I rarely see their actions in media influence creatures besides themselves positively, unless it’s meant to make themselves look good and not the creatures they are helping, which I’m sorry for bringing this game up for the umpteenth time, but: Genshin Impact. …and also Witcher 3. I forget what anime was mentioned a while ago, but it honestly sounds like Witcher 3 done right.
While there are some very destructive animals, they make up a surprisingly low amount of the animal kingdom oh, but it is true that some animals that aren’t always destructive can be, such as once again elephants. Then again, elephants Is are one of the smartest and most diverse animals out there besides ourselves. Also, the whole anthropomorphic animals would be just as bad as humans argument does not work because that is purely a hypothetical statement.
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That’s because I only mentioned the in-game enemies, as in directly from the enemy compendium. There are other NPCs that are interactable and non-hostile in the game, such as the Adepti from Liyue, two of which are cranes, one who is a stag and one dragon, though that one is the Archon and currently hides under humans. These are without a doubt allies of our protagonist.
Another example would be Dvalin, the dragon from Mondstadt is also our ally, though after we free him from corruption that he was suffering from.
In Inazuma we get led to treasures by Tanukis, who also play pranks sometimes. Some even help us with an essential mission.
I didn’t say they would not sell, I said they would not sell as much. In other words: the target demographic for most media is far wider than only the group furries, thus pandering solely to them, and those ambivalent, would mean less sales. That’s just business.
From that WG 2 Survey Report Sharing the furry rate is around 25%. That means three out of four people do not consider themselves as furries. While that is certainly more than most niche groups it still means that, if all of these were to make games that include all their preferences, we’d have three times as many games with no furry content.
https://www.reddit.com/r/furry/ has a user-base of 240 000. That’s total. Reddit itself has 52 million active users daily. Reddit Usage and Growth Statistics: How Many People Use Reddit in 2021?
Although neither statistic can be reliably compared, it does paint a rather clear image. A better comparision would be with r/anime, which has 2 600 000 total users.
And again, I am not saying the community is small. I am just saying that it is not large enough for popular media to pander to it.
Why are you again talking as if all humans or animals are one unified group? They are not. Having one villain be an animal does not mean all animals are villains. There are also quite a few pieces of media where things aren’t as clear cut, where the supposed antagonist was in fact in the right. In the same way aren’t humans displayed as villains most of the time anyway?
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But, again, you still have to fight the Dragon, so he is still an antagonist. Plus, the adepti seem to think negatively of humans, and act like stuck up snobs some of the time. Also, define the tanukis. There’s a playable “tanuki” that’s just a human with tanuki ears and tail. If she was an actual Tanuki, I would drop everything and buy her, but she isn’t.
Again, furries are not the only people who would want an anthropomorphic character. An anthropomorphic rabbit or an anthropomorphic fox would also appeal to people who like those animals, furry or not, and a lot of people really do like those animals, So they would not be such a hard sell and have potential to sell just as much as humans. And again, they would also appeal to people who are exhausted with human characters, and it gives them something different. I’ve said it before, but people who want non-human characters are not that picky. Not to mention completionists who would buy every character regardless to get the full roster.
Since your next paragraph kind of melts into what I just said, I think I can just leave it. But I can honestly say that there are lots of people who just do not want human characters. By giving them that one option, you would draw in a person that otherwise wouldn’t play the game. Because the game only has a human characters, I like none of them, and for that, I do not want to play the game because I do not enjoy playing as those characters. And before you say “you are not everyone,” neither is the person that ONLY wants humans. People will buy non-human characters if you just give it a chance.
I can’t believe I’m explaining this again, but it’s never one animal villain. You keep telling me not to lump animals into one unified group, but that is usually what media does.: lumps them all into one human-hating force of evil. Monster Hunter, while I still do not like the franchise, has at least attempted to show that life is valuable By having some of the wildlife not be evil and actually be helpful. And how often are humans portrayed as villains, but they still come out on top, they are still the only protagonists, everything else has to suffer, etc. If it’s portraying everything as evil, then who is it appealing to?
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It’s true that anthros can have mass appeal but media, especially games, are a lot more profit driven these days, where a few years ago we got stuff like Donkey Kongs, Sonics, Crash Bandicoots, Sly Coopers, Spyros, Banjos, etc. For the past 3 years it seems like the blandest of human designs are fine as long as its a open world timesink with microtransactions, so like its been said before in the thread, you gotta be the change you wanna see.
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There are lots of furries, sure, likely in the hundreds of thousands. However, they represent a tiny fraction of the 7+ billion humans. Let’s say at best 0.01% of people. The vast majority of furries, say 98%, (unlike OP) still enjoy games with human characters, while many non-furries won’t play a game with a furry character, say 80%.
So:
- regular human game: potential market 6.999 billion
- furry game: potential market 1.400 billion
Why would any business start out by restricting is sales to a fifth of what they could be just to placate the 14,000 (generous estimate) furries that don’t want to play “human” games?
How about instead of complaining about games without furry characters you actually go and encourage people who are creating furry games here? You know, something positive?
I (furry btw) am off to play Satisfactory. Honestly, I can’t believe people are getting their knickers in a twist because the pioneer is female. It’s first person for a start. You only get to see her body on the loading screen and that’s in a baggy work/space suit complete with face-obscuring helmet. There’s no mention of her species even. I don’t know, some people …
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Honestly, I really hope to God you are exaggerating. Yes, I have met people who will throw a tantrum over games having any character besides humans, but if that number really is 80%, then that’s just another thing for me to not like humans about. I am honestly going to assume that that is a gross exaggeration, at least I hope it is.
As I have said before, the whole appealing to furries argument does not work because it assumes that furries are the absolute only people who would want non-human characters. I can think of several animals or creatures that aren’t human and could easily appeal to people that aren’t furries.
-Cats and Dogs both have that familiar feel to them that apparently people seem to like. Personally, I really don’t, But if an anthropomorphic cat or a dog was the only playable character in the game that wasn’t human, I would not complain too badly. Cats and Dogs can remind people of their pets, and they appeal to pet owners, furry or not.
-Wolves are another very popular animal that, again, would appeal to more than just furries. There is a lot of people that are obsessed with Wolf Conservation, for example.
-Sharks are fairly common. They also tie into shark weak, which is this big event that goes on every year on television. Yeah, people think sharks are awesome. Not just furries.
-Give me one good reason a Dragon/Dragonkin would not work? After all, people seem to love putting them in their games as villains a million times, and it’s pretty safe that dragons are widely considered to be pretty damn awesome. Furries wouldn’t even make up a fraction of the people who would want a dragon.
-there are others like bears, lions, rabbits, etc.
Basically, by saying that humans are the only creatures that should be playable good guys, you are basically saying people shouldn’t try new things or diversify their roster. You are basically saying that people should rehash the same characters over and over and over. I know that sounds a little harsh, but with the millions upon millions of characters that happen to be human, pretty much everything has already been done with them. Yet there are so many creatures that we have not exhausted. Do you know how many pieces of media that I have seen that have a prehensal tailed porcupine character? One: a crappy Animal Crossing ripoff called Paraiso Island, and the character is pretty much just a rip-off of the skaven from Warhammer. This is a shame because prehensile tailed porcupines are one of my favorite animals.
Plus, why does Mobile gaming thrive on all the possibilities of what a character can be if making characters other than humans is bad? And why would brawlhalla even consider putting Kung Fu Panda characters in their game if those kind of characters only appeal to furries. Also, I am pretty sure that Crash 4 It’s About Time, Sonic Mania and Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart were pretty good sellers. Personally, I’m just starting to think that it’s a myth that only humans would sell.
And I’m sorry, but it does honestly offend me when a game with a big roster that could easily have plenty of non-human characters chooses to only have human playable characters, but greatly diversifies their villains with all sorts of things. And as I’ve said before, it’s also the implications Behind these games because they often tend to to have a humans=good/everything else=bad complex that wants me to root for the humans just because they are human. For example, nature is fighting back against humans because if they don’t, they will all be wiped out, but I gotta root for the humans who are fighting for their rights to wipe out everything just because they’re humans. While that is an exaggeration, it’s not too far off from stuff like Kid Icarus Uprising, Fight N’ Rage and other games.
But, I get it. If playing as a human is that hard, I should play something else. The thing is a, games that have non-human characters, they exist, but they often feel like they are becoming more and more Uncommon, especially when a lot of media that has them ends up failing or not getting recognized.
I feel kind of bad because I have been trying a lot of different mediums, but I get bored of so many things. So far, the only big project I’ve really stayed interested in is my book, and while it has been fun to write that book and not super stressful, it’s been going slow because I keep getting self-doubts, writer’s block, a lack of ideas and other things. That being said, when I do get an idea, that tends to boost my interest.
When it comes to failed and unrecognized games it’s not really the people’s interests that are making the games fail it’s more of their competition being too big or too advanced the hardest part of getting a huge audience to try a game is that you have to get the time right like how people saw how bad Pokemon sword and shield were a game called Temtem got tons of attention the older companies get more attention because of their successes from generations of being around but when one slips up there are possibilities that can turn the tables. There are other ways as well but I think those are the biggest reasons.
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No, I guesstimated that non-human characters would appeal to 20% of non-furries, and those above are the resulting numbers. Whether someting appeals to furries is irrelevant, as furries are such a small part of the potential market.
Humans are basically genetically programmed to like pretty much all small baby mammals; this is where Big Eyes Small Mouth (BESM) comes from, why anime works, why pets, why domestication, why cartoon animals… Along with that comes the built-in knowledge that the adult animal forms are threats. Layer that with uninformed prejudicies and you’ve how most people think about the animal kingdom.
So, you’re writing a game, an FPS for example, and the player needs to make split second decisions about what is threatening - where do you turn? To their low level instinctive reactions of course! To teeth and claw, to fur and scale, to eyes flashing in the dark, to horror, to tentacle, to gore.
Just because a pet appeals to us does not make it a good player character. They appeal to the nuturing side. Pets are child-like, infantilised, often child-substitutes. People don’t take their pets into war. Most games rely on the risks the player character takes to create a game rather than a story. People don’t want to place their pets in harms way, even by proxy. Having some random lantern-jawed hero PC gunned down is more acceptable than watching a faux child substitute being gibbed all over the map, more so if you’ve ever had to retrieve your ex-pet from the tarmac to lay it to rest.
Anthros are also seen as childish (back to cartoons and why they appeal). There are people who don’t want their games to be childish in any way. Conversly anthros appeal in games where there is no threat, where things need to be cute (BESM again, eg. Animal Crossing), or where to some extent cartoon physics applies. Or it’s a game developed from a bought franchise containing anthros.
In the sense of causing feelings of great fear, yes. Remember that genetic programming? (Also, Shark Week is a wierd US-centric thing from the makers of some of the worst, over-dramaticised reality/documentary programming).
I’m not saying sharks aren’t great creatures though. But here lies more game problems; sharks have some amazing senses that are hard to convey to a human player or through the medium of visuals with secondary audio. A human player has no way to relate to that at all - it’s just not within the realms of their experience. The same sort of problem exists for most non-human characters. To make a game where the PC is a dog or wolf you have to find a way to convey that animal’s primary sense in a medium where it is totally absent and the player has no real experience of it (props to Discworld 2). And if it’s just a skin, what’s the point?
Because it’s a game, and such a creature would be massively overpowered! Hyper intelligent, walks, flies (some can swim/drive), and has a breath weapon. How would you challenge the player, and what with?
Please don’t conflate the facts on the ground with what I think should be the case. I’m all for more diversity, but not just skinning PC characters.
Oversaturated market, and limited screen size (the resolution is there now, but still physically small). With an oversaturated market, it makes more sense to be different and appeal to minorities. Small characters basically require them to be easily distinguishable - and animal forms work here. Also, a larger proportion of female players, so companies try for more “cute”.
Also:
- Kung Fu Panda - existing cartoon franchise
- Crash, Sonic, Rachet and Clank - cartoon physics (or cartoon weapons)
I’ve a lot of time for the new Racket and Clank, and it’s always made sense that the lombaxes are the most appealling characters in that world. Kudos to Sony’s accessibility team for making it playable without stupid level reflexes.
Still, focus on what you do want, rather than being negative about things you don’t like.
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“Focus on what you like.”
Here’s the thing…
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It’s not that I “Don’t like” humans=good/everything else=bad type media. It’s that I literally despise media that falls into that trap. I have pretty much stopped supporting media that does that because I am just so sick and disgusted with it because it is everywhere and I just want to see new media and media with more color and media that has a deeper world than just humans=good/everything else=bad.
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As I have said, that media is EVERYWHERE! Even when something that does have non human good guys get any sort of recognition, it’s almost always overshadowed by humans=good/everything else=bad media. It’s hard to focus on the media I like when the media I don’t like is shoved so deep in my face. And yes, the media I do like exists quite a lot, but again, it always gets overshadowed.
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Every time I explain why I do not like that media, instead of people understanding my points or even possibly agreeing with them, all I ever get are excuses. “Oh, it HAS to be that way because ONLY humans are relatable. Nonhumans ONLY appeal to furries and kids. Yadda yadda yadda.” And with so many years of having this opinion Is and being treated as insane or like I should change my opinion or that my opinion doesn’t matter and what not, then you can understand why it is so hard for me to talk about this rationally. … okay, so maybe excuses is not the right word. What they are our arguments. Here is the thing, I’ve had someone tell me to see the other side and what not, but for almost every argument I have received on the matter, I have a counter argument for it. It’s not that I am not trying to see the other side of the the argument, but that I simply don’t agree with it.
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That’s exactly the shallow outlook on nature that I absolutely despise. We cannot appreciate the beauty of a creature or how it exists in its ecosystem or anything else. We just have to treat them as these evil, dangerous creatures that only exist to be a threat to humans. We focus so heavily on the bad sides of these creatures that we have basically lost sight of how beautiful they can be.
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Cats and Dogs HAVE been used in Media effectively. Repede. Felynes. Taika (Earthlock). Any random game starring cats. Etc. A lot of times, cats and dogs are treated as loyal yet powerful creatures who protect their owners from harm, especially when it comes to dogs like Repede and Taika.
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If we supposedly have this Is disdain for killing anything baby like or cute, then why am I constantly seeing cute animals as villan’s? It Takes Two, for example, has evil squirrels. The dragon quest franchise is filled with a lot of cute monsters that you have to beat up. Project X Zone Is didn’t want any quote-unquote animal or non human playable characters, but apparently was fine with having talking bunnies and fat round colorful aliens as villains. I know I said excuses wasn’t the right word, but it almost kinda does feel like an actual excuse.
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A lot of games have managed to make dragons not overpowered. In fact, in a lot of games where they are playable, they are one of the weakest playables. A dragon is only as powerful as you make it. Sometimes it’s just simply a fire breathing lizard, which really isn’t that overpowered when you have at characters that can use magic and powerful weapons. A dragon kin is basically a bad-ass human that breathes fire, and not much more powerful. As for dragon bosses? You would be surprised how many of them are complete pushovers.
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As for the childish argument commargument, you need look no further than pokemon for as to why that argument is kind of bunk. Many longtime pokemon fans are adults who don’t care that the graphics are just a little bit childish. And while it is true that a lot of people did not like pokemon sword and shield, a lot of those people didn’t abandon the monster collecting genre, but went on to find other monster collectors, ones that may or may not have Childish graphics, and ones that are not even well known franchises. Honestly, monster collectors are my favorite genre because of all the different things the protagonist can be.
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Not everyone cares about relatability. I am fine with my character simply looking awesome, which is impossible to do with humans in my opinion, and is also why I am fine with anthropomorphic animal and monster characters just being a skin (Though I would prefer them to have actual animal abilities). I also don’t care if my character looks just a little bit childish, which isn’t even an inevitable when it comes to non human protagonistic characters. And if we are going to talk about relatability, then I can guarantee that I do not relate to zoosadists who just go out and slaughter everything that doesn’t look like them in a quest that only benefits humans and will probably not benefit the planet in the process Because it’s pretty much a given that other life will suffer if the quest only benefits humans. Again, media expecting me to side with humans just because they’re humans. I relate to people that protect nature. I relate to people that are kind to animals. I relate to the idea that animals can be Beautiful Creatures in the right light. I relate to the idea that not only humans are valuable, and that saving the life of a creature can be just as if not more heroic. But those are all things I rarely see in Media anymore, And even when they are used, they are either put into hunters, people that while I understand their importance I do not have a lot of respect for, or it is used for fluff just to make the person look good, but nature still looks bad/evil/antagonistic. When animal lovers ARE in a game, they’re usually villains as well because we REALLY have to show how evil nature and nonhumans are by showing that only evil people care about animals and nature. It’s at the point where it doesn’t even feel like relatability when it comes to humans. It just feels like straight up narcissism.
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Even outside of media, humans are constantly demonizing nature and the environment, Or just non humans in general. It’s hard for me to feel comfortable about what is about watching a bunch of humans slaughter a giant elephant or a giant rhinoceros when in real life They are endangered mostly because of humans. Every time the goals of human characters in media only benefit humans Is birthday go on this tangent about how wrong it is to kill humans (which it is) but it’s perfectly fine for everything else to stuffer, it reminds me of real world issue as I play video games and watch media to get away from.
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Nonhuman characters Can often be used in the same way as humans, but I can usually ignore that kind of stuff when other creatures do it because they’re not the creature that’s causing those issues in real life. I am fine with fighting an elephant monster as an otter because our daughters are not causing elephants to go extinct. I’d still rather not, but I can take it (Mystic Marsh is my least favorite Spyro level for that). I can tolerate a dragon torching a bunch of sheep because dragons do not exist. I thought media was supposed to be a way to escape form the grim harsh realities that that get you down that you have no control over, not have them shoved right back in your face. Humans don’t let me escape, Especially when they are the only good guys. This is why having a diverse roster is so important to me Is and why I absolutely cannot tolerate all human character rosters.
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I get that people want to make the games they want to make, but I have to ask you: do you really want to keep rehashing the same stories that have already been told? Do you really want to keep making the same generic humans that have been made hundreds of times before? Do you really have such a narrow minded outlook on nature that you can only make nature look evil? Or just non humans in general? Do you really have that narrow of an outlook on creatures besides humans that you can’t make any of them except possibly cats, dogs or horses look even the slightest bit protagonistic? I mean, maybe that’s unfair, but that’s how it feels. I really just don’t get it. Why would you just want to rewrite what has already been rewritten a 100 times. Just about everything has been done with humans, and there really isn’t a fresh idea left with our species. There are hundreds of human characters that are grounded in reality but exist in a fantasy universe it’s with dragons and evil monsters and what not. And yet, there is so many things that haven’t been done with plenty of animals. It’s not even like we don’t know that much about animals, because the human species knows more about them than ever, and certainly a lot more than just how “savage and evil” they can be, Especially when we constantly villainize animals that aren’t even remotely savage.
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As I have also said before, I also really do not like the implications behind that kind of media. I mean, I know I have been talking about how people constantly portray nature as savage and evil, but that’s because that is a mindset a lot of people that genuinely have BECAUSE that’s how it’s constantly portrayed. And don’t even get me started with the game Fight N’ Rage. Despite actually having a non human playable character, that is one of my absolute least favorite video games of all time because it goes out of its way yet to admit that humans are destructive and would probably destroy the planet eventually if they didn’t learn a lesson or something, but I am not SUPPOSED to want to see that just because they’re humans. Plus, Most of the villains are anthros, which also gives the game an anti-furry feel that WOULD HAVE been salvaged by Ricardo was he not just a puppet of human cowardice. The humans in the game are actively fighting to avoid getting any sort of punishment for their actions to the world oh, and I am supposed to like that just because they’re humans, Is when in reality I absolutely despise the message that humans can basically do whatever the f*ck they want to the planet And get away with it just because they are humans. Honestly, I just hate misanthropic villains in general because they tend to result in that kind of message.
Like I said, this is a topic that is very hard for me to talk about in a calm manner, and I felt like at least up until now I have been doing a decent job, but I can tell you it has not been easy. I used a little bit of anger because I can’t help but feel like I’ve been a little too nice about the cliche Cause that is just how much I hate the whole concept of humans=good/everything else=bad. If it wasn’t everywhere and it wasn’t what keeps winning awards, maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but the concept is dominating media And honestly, it is a concept I am just exhausted and frustrated with.
Also, I know I have been editing the crap out of this post, but that’s because I keep realizing that I have more to say on the matter. If anything, you can tell that this is something I am passionate about .
To be honest, mate, this entire thread feels like you’re not just disagreeing with it, but attempting to preach or browbeat others into agreeing with you.
What I hope you’ll realize is that others understand your argument. They also disagree, but because of how forceful you’ve been about your views others here have replied with both their own view in opposition or veracity to yours. Especially when you’ve expressed this:
And that’s because… what, you didn’t want humans? You still had the original game, but because the devs were being business-savvy with a game people wanted to play, they made an alternate for those who didn’t want to play as furries. This didn’t take away from the original at all, and you (likely) feel it did.
This feels entirely emotionally driven, and while your views have been both expressed and repeated in various forms, this thread feels like we’re running in circles at this point. I feel this is doubly so with this line:
At this point it’s feeling like you’ve gone from passionately discussing it to (calmly) arguing for the world to change just for disagreeing with you.
So I’m going to repeat what Juxtaterrestrial said at the beginning:
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Take all this energy, all this anger and passion about biased animal-directed discrimination and lead by example. Make something GOOD. Then keep making something good, whether another game or show or story or whatever you decide! Be an example of the change you want to see in the world.
But please, for your own sake, stop arguing about it.
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