I missed out on the contest because I came to ME post-contest, but that is a steaming pile of bullshit to begin with, BEFORE the heaping amount of erasure/sexism/racism on top of it. This is such a cogent write-up of WHY.
I just got into ME last year so I completely missed out on all of this too and I’m definitely coming to it five years too late haha. so I’m sure this has all been said before. but sometimes it feels like I have five years’ worth of anger to catch up on
I totally grok this, even though I'm the hypcrite who writes about a default white redhaired "default" shep, arguably because of some shallow self-projection as a white, red-haired fan (I am not proud), but I own that. And GODDD you are right on every point, and I felt all the same discomfort in that beauty contest and her subsequent, like... guhgaghgh sexing up??
In my core though, I really strongly believe there is no "default" shep. It is SO important that this character - as she or he functions in the game - be a lens through which the player may project themselves, and thus, connect with the characters and universe. "canon" interepretations just fuck that up, and all that gets further complicated in fan works, which take on all their own rules and regs depening on what fantasy is being fulfilled.
I completely relate to the urge to have one “default” character to use consistently for the purpose of fic and art, even if your playable character is different (like it is for me -- I usually use Marian in fic/meta but further break down her character in “my headcanon realm” and turn that Hawke into my OC) but somehow even knowing that it’s always default femshep that I just can’t get over lmao.
there are some things that I do think make the most narrative sense for some of these protagonists to be, based on narrative and contextual clues of the story: Hawke as a mage, Inquisitor as a human (who else would embrace the Herald of Andraste thing so easily) or an elf (with all the elf history and Solas stuff). and that’s absolutely not to say OCs who don’t fit that are wrong (like, rogue!Hawke is my all time favorite class and background). but there’s a lot about Shepard that opens itself equally to all of the six backgrounds they make available, and of course you could headcanon one or a combination make the most, but ultimately they don’t have much influence on the story or the depth of Shepard’s character (save except for Arrival, if you had colonist and/or ruthless background). anyway all of this is to say I agree with you, though I would be willing to fight BW in a dark alley over my belief that it makes way more sense thematically, if not within the confines of their own world building, for Hawke and Shepard to be moc or woc
mmMMM also tbh bioware's thing abt how in the future everyone's more racially diverse always bothered me? like I personally love it, but w/o the actual in-game support/worldbuilding like w/ default shep, it just seems like a way to cop out of actually srsly engaging with race and whiteness etc. and kinda seems like that thing where white ppl "want" to be "oppressed" or be the minority, and also kinda harkens back to racist/eugenicist fears of the white race dying out??
that is a really good point and now I’m surprised I didn’t connect these dots sooner, but now that you mention it I’ve been thinking a lot about how human centrist movements almost undoubtedly stem from white supremacist movements (not just in the sense that the BW team copies their language to write Cerberus propaganda, but also in that I literally believe white supremacists would’ve started human-first movements in the ME ‘verse, and it makes complete symbolic sense to me that Cerberus is being run by an old-fashioned older white man with a genetically-engineered-to-be-perfect white woman as his right hand). running with that, I’d think that puts POC!Shepard’s relationship with Cerberus on thin fucking ice (especially if they’re a sole survivor like my Shep) and to me that’s another avenue to explore, like, what does it say about Shep that they agree to work with them anyway? but also, POC!Shep is now put in an infuriating and compromising position working with terrorists, that would undoubtedly color her relationship with TIM and probably also Miranda, at least until she gained her trust or defected.
on one hand I can understand preferring to cover this in codex entries and side notes in a video game because the main plot is an alien race attacking, not human sociopolitics, but also... if you present a status quo for the human race that differs from today, you should engage with it a bit. like, in one codex entry in kasumi’s loyalty they mention a second american civil war being fought over the usa expanding to include canada and mexico. i guaran-fucking-tee you a major trigger for that war would’ve been due to confederate loyalists and racism against mexicans. and yet we don’t see it mention of it ever again, lol.
as for BW using that canon as a cop-out, that’s true too. it always seemed to me that ME1 had more poc NPCs, and even though we got more with Sam and Steve, by ME2 and 3 the NPCs you don’t interact with were mostly white again. I feel like they addressed this somewhat in Andromeda but as it is it’s mostly inconsistent.
