To be honest it's a great feeling to see characters like Sazh and Barret represented in the FInal Fantasy series because they definitely bring something different to the table as opposed to their more popular counterparts. Anyway here's a look back at black characters in Final Fantasy, enjoy.
Black Final Fantasy Characters
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To be honest it's a great feeling to see characters like Sazh and Barret represented in the FInal Fantasy series because they definitely bring something different to the table as opposed to their more popular counterparts. Anyway here's a look back at black characters in Final Fantasy, enjoy.
Red Wizard
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Sazh is my favorite character in Final Fantasy 13 (though most like Lightning the best). He kinda reminds me a lot like Jim Kelly for some reason. Not sure why. Also I started to worry a bit when it was just him and Vanille..... alone.....
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That’s an interesting video. I’d like to see similar things for other ‘minority groups’. Sometimes the creators have used particular archetypes or draw from elements from particular ethnic and cultural backgrounds to produce particular feelings and effects, or simply to add variety to the population of the fictional world.
A particularly interesting thing is that unused dark-skinned female character from FFIX. I wonder who she was going to be, and why they decided not to use her. I’ve never seen that concept art before. Perhaps she morphed into Lani?
That’s a nice collection of characters on the video anyway. Some of those characters I’d never considered as black as such (dark skinned, yes, but not the African-ancestry black that people more typically refer to as black). I think there’s quite a mixture of ethnicities (or fictional ethnicities that are clearly heavily modeled on those of our world) that I’d never really taken into account before this video.
For example, Lani I take to be more native Caribbean or Central/South American in style. And Dona I take to be drawn from Indian concepts (not just because of the bindi spot, but possibly because of the very Hindu and Indian inspired look and themes of the world of Spira in general).
I’ve read some criticism of Square (and whatever other names it has used at its various stages) for representing black caricatures and racist stereotypes, but I think this criticism hasn’t been particularly heavy when compared to other franchises (and I don’t know how many people are actually offended)… Barrett (as stated in this video) essentially being Mr. T and given ‘black speak’ and much swearing/cursing, which some people have taken as offensive (however, Cid Highwind mitigates this last point somewhat). Likewise, a few words have been said about Sazh essentially having a pet chicken that lives in his afro. Personally, I find that these two characters are some of the strongest characters from their respective games. But that aside, this video reminds me of a whole host of other, more minor, dark-skinned and black characters used in various ways and drawing upon various themes.
In addition, a couple of other characters could be considered black, if some versions of their sprites or character / face art are to be taken as the true representations of their characters.
Leo’s skin colour is debated. Which sounds like a ridiculous thing, really, as how can a skin colour be debated? His sprite is white, but his faceart and Amano artwork leaves his ethnicity unclear, and some people believe he is meant to have been black, but due to issues with the palettes for spriting, his sprite had to be white. It doesn’t really matter either way.
I would say that Fran from FFXII is black. In fact, all of the Viera in that game appear to be black.
I'm sure there are some more too, but I can't think of any.
A particularly interesting thing is that unused dark-skinned female character from FFIX. I wonder who she was going to be, and why they decided not to use her. I’ve never seen that concept art before. Perhaps she morphed into Lani?
That’s a nice collection of characters on the video anyway. Some of those characters I’d never considered as black as such (dark skinned, yes, but not the African-ancestry black that people more typically refer to as black). I think there’s quite a mixture of ethnicities (or fictional ethnicities that are clearly heavily modeled on those of our world) that I’d never really taken into account before this video.
For example, Lani I take to be more native Caribbean or Central/South American in style. And Dona I take to be drawn from Indian concepts (not just because of the bindi spot, but possibly because of the very Hindu and Indian inspired look and themes of the world of Spira in general).
I’ve read some criticism of Square (and whatever other names it has used at its various stages) for representing black caricatures and racist stereotypes, but I think this criticism hasn’t been particularly heavy when compared to other franchises (and I don’t know how many people are actually offended)… Barrett (as stated in this video) essentially being Mr. T and given ‘black speak’ and much swearing/cursing, which some people have taken as offensive (however, Cid Highwind mitigates this last point somewhat). Likewise, a few words have been said about Sazh essentially having a pet chicken that lives in his afro. Personally, I find that these two characters are some of the strongest characters from their respective games. But that aside, this video reminds me of a whole host of other, more minor, dark-skinned and black characters used in various ways and drawing upon various themes.
In addition, a couple of other characters could be considered black, if some versions of their sprites or character / face art are to be taken as the true representations of their characters.
Leo’s skin colour is debated. Which sounds like a ridiculous thing, really, as how can a skin colour be debated? His sprite is white, but his faceart and Amano artwork leaves his ethnicity unclear, and some people believe he is meant to have been black, but due to issues with the palettes for spriting, his sprite had to be white. It doesn’t really matter either way.
I would say that Fran from FFXII is black. In fact, all of the Viera in that game appear to be black.
I'm sure there are some more too, but I can't think of any.
spoonyrogdrumps
Blue Mage
I'm hoping for the day when the topic of color isn't news. I'm hoping for the day when minority isn't a word used to describe a race. There is only one race and it's human. The human race.