[ SECRET POST #2178 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2178 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[Leverage]


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03.
[The Bloggess]


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04.
[Jahmene Douglas/Nicole Scherzinger and James Arthur/Nicole - UK XFactor 2012]


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05.
[Left 4 Dead]


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06.
[Community]


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07.
[The Tribe - Alice&Lex]


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08.
[The Perks of Being a Wallflower]


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09.
[Bioshock Infinite]


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10.
[Inception]


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11.
[Cassandra Clare]


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12.
[Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures]


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13.
[Disney's Sleeping Beauty]


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14.
[Homestuck]


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15.
[xxxHOLiC]


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16.
[Sherlock]


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17.
[Boktai]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 038 secrets from Secret Submission Post #311.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - ships it ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I am getting more and more bewildered at the fact they're all BRUNET. Yeah, that they're male and white, and between 20-30, but why all brown haired? That's such a bizarrely specific requirement. Like, you really think people will turn your nose up on him, because even though he fits the criteria of white, male, young, and attractive, he is also blonde? And they usually have the same kind of hair, too. Either that short, close shave or the more front poofy hair.

That said, is Booker DeWitt an actual character with a personality, or is he just pantomiming the player? If that's case, I can see why someone would want some variety, but he wouldn't be my first pick.

As a side note, I can think of literally three playable black protagonists from video games: Rochelle, Louis, and Coach from Left 4 Dead, and Lee Everett from The Walking Dead. Both zombie games...huh. And I think Ramirez from CoD:MW was supposed to be Hispanic.

I can literally think of no Asian (from non-Asian games) or Arab male protagonists.

[ariakas]

I've been thinking exactly the same thing, and I know I've said on similar threads that I would be satisfied with a goddamned ginger at this point, because at least it would be something different. What gives? Do marketing departments figure that this is the protagonist type that will move the most product, and thus refuse to allow developers to break the formula, or are developers really all that uncreative?

Ostensibly Ramirez from MW2 was Hispanic, but we never get to see the guy. Jackson from CoD4 might have been black, but we never get to see him either, and everyone else but Foley is the part of the Brown-Haired White Man Legion. Seriously, I think the closest a major FPS has come to putting a black man in the driver's seat is Crysis 2, where you play (I shit you not) a black man in a white man's body.

Nope, me neither on the Asian count, unless the game was set in or made in Japan, though I can think of Asian female protagonists. Though, hey, there's at least one Arab male from a major franchise! Altair from the first Assassin's Creed. Hurraaay! One, ever!

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, yeah, Altair! How could I forget him? Probably his extremely white man American voice when surrounded by accents of all kinds. So bizarre. Much better in the flashbacks of him.

I can think of...one Asian woman. Faith from Mirror's Edge (who, again, you barely ever see).

I guess you could sort of count the playable characters from Jade Empire, a BioWare game set in China.

Oh, wait, there's the GTA protagonists. One was Asian, one was black. And the new GTA has one black protagonist.

Still. It's interesting to note the pattern: unseeable in the main campaign, one of other (white) characters to choose from, or criminal. The exception being Altair.

[(Anonymous)]

Gods yes, his voice/accent. I vastly prefer the English version to my country's language version, but I was really glad that Altair doesn't really talk that much.

[(Anonymous)]

Also, Gears of War has playable women, a blonde man, black men, and a Hispanic guy.

[ariakas]

And yet, and the lead guy is still a brown-haired white dude. This shit's endemic.

[(Anonymous)]

Ummm...the Prince in Prince of Persia was Persian, right? Or would that somehow fall under the general Indo-European umbrella...dunno.

...Anyway, I think they pick white brunette guys because they're the default covers-all-the-bases hero: not blond, and therefore they can claim to be not being concerned with the ethnicity of the hero, but not black/Asian/Middle Eastern because HOSHIT what happens if the majority of the people who play our games won't identify with him? It's totally a conscious intent to appeal to as many players as possible, whether or not it's actually a reasonable or even interesting choice...

[(Anonymous)]

In the most generic sense possible. As in, the game is sort of technically supposed to be Persia, but you would NOT gather that from his design, voice, setting, character, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

Well it's better than the blond white guy in white pyjamas from the very first game at least....

[(Anonymous)]

The protagonist of Mirror's Edge is an Asian woman. I don't remember her name because I never played it myself, just watched my husband. I also believe Chell, the female protagonist of Portal, is non-white, although I'm not 100% on her canon ethnicity. I do know that her face/voice model is half-Japanese, though.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, yeah, Chell.

That reminds me of something from the other day. Gordon Freeman is on the cover of Half Life 2. He never speaks, has no personality, and he's basically just a player avatar.

Two robots are the cover of Portal 2. They're who you play in multiplayer. Not Chell. Who is also voiceless--but actually seen more frequently in-game, as you can see yourself in portals.

[(Anonymous)]

iirc, dark hair is easier to render, especially with typical male hairstyles. It's a lot harder to get the hilights on blond hair right, so you frequently end up with something that looks like a solid plastic mat. Short hair's also easier than long hair - less clipping.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, but they still render long blonde hair for the love interests! Not to mention the fact the game often occurs in first person, meaning you never even see their hair or hair color except on cover art or occasionally in a mirror.