First Southeast Asian hero

Just when I thought we have a new Southeast Asian hero, we were given her robot and she doesn’t even speak Singlish.

Hmmmmmmmm

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Yeah I was hyped to have southeast asian rep (we has that guy T. Nguyen appear in Baptiste’s story but he had a small part overall and isn’t a hero)… I like Liao and Echo, but hopefully we’ll get a playable human from Southeast Asia some day (you don’t see many dark skin Asians in media it seems)

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I know, this was my thought too. Sucks that the first person from Singapore in the lore is dead.

It also sucks that its the same trope twice, two woc introduced, but we’re given an omnic instead of them. I like both Orisa and Echo…but, hm.

How dead we talking here exactly, antonio dead, Gerard dead, or like. Ana dead.

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Can’t say I’m that surprised, if you’re not white in this game there’s a good chance you’re dead, a villain, or irrelevant.

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Are you like this on purpose? As in, for a laugh? It’s just so ridiculous that it honestly seems ironic at this point.

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If you ignore Ana, Genji, Lucio, Mei, and Sojourn, sure. I’m also giving you the benefit of calling Baptiste, D.Va, and Pharah irrelevant because as of now, we do not know if they will play a role in Overwatch 2. Also Hanzo and Symmetra, because we do not know which side they will choose going forwards.

Antonio dead. She was killed on screen.

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You literally just named only 5 relevant poc characters that aren’t villains, one of which hasn’t even been released as a hero yet and another which had no place in the story up until now (Lucio). 5 out of a cast of 32, so yeah, thanks for proving my point.

Bruh I hate to break it to you but Genji being relevant doesn’t make up for the story’s shortcomings when it comes to poc rep.

It has no notable shortcomings in this area.

Well how could I disagree with a post containing such thorough and well thought out arguments.

How would you know who is relevant or not, the story have not been told yet. We’ve only got snippets of it.

Seriously, nowadays it’s like people were purposefully looking for reasons to complain and be offended.

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I mean, we can tell by who’s appeared in the most Archives events, cinematics, short stories, etc. Like, you can’t seriously argue that Symmetra has been just as relevant to the story so far as Tracer or Mercy.

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The key words being “so far”. I’d understand your point (though I don’t share it) after the release of OW2, but right now its feels way too early to categorically say who is relevant and is not, so way too early to complain about it.

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I will judge characters importance in lore after I will finish all PVE missions in Overwatch 2.

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If you want me to break down the list of relevance for you, sure. I’ll also put Hanzo in the hero section and Sym in the villain section because of their current alignments with/against Talon (Hanzo having strong intent to decline them, whereas Sym works for Vishkar under Sanjay Korpal). TLDR at the bottom says none of this matters, you can skip there if you would like.

Important Heroes - 15 (12 humans):

  • White - 7 - Brig, Torb, Rein, Solider, Tracer, McCree, Mercy
  • Non-White - 5 - Ana, Genji, Lucio, Mei, Sojourn
  • Non-Human - 3 - Winston, Bastion, Echo

Currently Unimportant Heroes - 8 (6 humans):

  • White - 1 - Zarya
  • Non-White - 4 - Baptiste, D.Va, Pharah, Hanzo
  • Non-Human - 3 - Hammond, Zenyatta, Orisa

Important Villains - 4:

  • White - 1 - Widowmaker
  • Non-White - 3 - Doomfist, Sombra, Reaper

Currently Unimportant Villains - 6:

  • White - 5 - Ashe, Moira, Sigma, Junkrat, Roadhog
  • Non-White - 1 - Symmetra

Overwatch started off with a large number of important white characters. That has already changed over time, with Ana, Lucio, Mei, and Sojourn becoming important since launch (as well as Brig), with another 4-5 prospective heroes coming up under your non-white section, while the white side only has Sombra to rely on for heroes.

That’s also excluding a large amount of good hero or villain candidates coming up.

  • Non-White Heroes - Hamid Faisal
  • Non-Human Heroes - Lynx 17

  • White Something - Junkerqueen

  • White Villains - Sven
  • Non-White Villains - Sanjay Korpal, Mauga
  • Non-Human Villains - Maximillien, Null Sector Leader

Going forwards, it looks like most of the characters we have that are not yet heroes are villains. And of those listed above, the important characters are Sanjay, Maximillien, the Null Sector Leader, with Mauga leading the liklihood of potential important villains to rival Baptiste. Does this play into your point of ethnic characters being given the role of villain? Yes. But it is important to look at everything rather and then take a position rather than just make one.

As for notable or important dead characters:

  • White Heroes - Balderich, Harold Winston, Gerard
  • Non-White Heroes - Liao
  • Non-Human Heroes - Mondatta

  • White Villains - Antonio, Vialli
  • Non-White Villains - The Scourge

Most dead people are white. The only ones who aren’t are Liao, Doomfist, and Mondatta, and Mondatta is an omnic.

So let’s revisit your original claim.

Non-White Human Important Heroes - 5
Non-White Human Unimportant Heroes - 4
Non-White Human Villains - 4
Non-White NPC Heroes - 1
Non-White NPC Villains - 2
Non-White Dead Characters - 2

Overall, if you are non-white, then you have a 5/18 (27%) chance that you are not dead, a villain, or unimportant.

For completions sake:

White Human Important Heroes - 7
White Human Unimportant Heroes - 1
White Human Villains - 6
White NPC Heroes - 0 or 1
White NPC Villains - 1 or 2
White Dead Characters - 5

If you are white, then you have a 7/21 (33%) chance that you are not dead, a villain, or unimportant.

Non-Human Important Heroes - 3
Non-Human Unimportant Heroes - 3
Non-Human Villains - 0
Non-Human NPC Heroes - 1
Non-Human NPC Villains - 2
Non-Human Dead Characters - 1

If you are non-human, you have a 3/10 (30%) chance that you are not dead, a villain, or unimportant.

TLDR: It doesn’t look like your race matters too much. It just looks like ~30% of the cast is made up of important living heroes, while the other 70% is made up of dead, unimportant, or villainous characters.

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I’m too busy watching Your Name to evaluate this entire post critically but the fact that the ratio of important white + non human characters to important poc is literally 2:1 is a pretty good reason for me to not change my stance. Idk if you people realize this but like…most of the world isn’t white. White people are super over represented in this game if there are more important white characters than every other race/ethnicity combined.

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If you look at nations stereotypes and then look at heroes, you will see connections.

I have to ask, because I’m Latinx, what stereotypes are Sombra (Mexican) and Reaper (Mexican American) supposed to represent then?

Also while I’m at it, as much as I’m interested for a Southeast Asian hero, can we not default to East Asian characters again. We already have Mei, Genji, Hanzo, DVa, and now we’re adding Mina. The only non East-Asian Asian character in the game right now is Symmetra (Ana and Pharah are Egyptians, therefore, African).

Like in this case, go with Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino, Indonesian etc. I’m not denying Mina’s Southeast Asian identity but as someone who grew up in Southeast Asia, we’re pretty over the idea of us being represented is Chinese people who live in our region, who despite being a minority, enjoyed immense privilege over other native groups.

With the regards to the whole white vs non white issue, keep in mind, that OW is formed mostly of white characters while PoC are relegated to villain roles (which is why I’m Team Talon forever). Not to mention, it seems that with the introduction of Sigma, they’re heading towards adding character for each European country whereas us, PoC, will have to settle for regional representation (if there’s any).

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Lmao that too, this game has white characters from the US, England, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, France and the Netherlands, white people have plenty of choices to pick from for national/ethnic rep. Meanwhile, México and Brazil are apparently the only Latinx countries in existence, and as you mentioned above Symmetra is the one non-East Asian Asian character. Oh wait, I forgot, Havana is a nice background for an archives event but Cubans themselves aren’t a thing!