Aztec - Montezuma I Thread

[Socrates99]

if that's directed at me, the unfortunate answer is "yes."

Not directly really. There are plenty of "fist-shaking" type posts this thread alone. Actually the thought mostly started with the French leader debate going on in a couple other threads and all the daily Eurocentrism harrumphing.

 

[Leugi]

I think the skin colour is fine... I just don't like the headdress that much and he looks a bit older than he should imo... but it isn't so terrible, he looks great regardless.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Yeah, if there is only one Civ to represent the (native) people of an entire hemisphere, there's a problem. For what it's worth I think the animation of Monty looks really good, realistic or not.

 

[kaspergm]

We still don't know whether there'll be another native american civ. I agree I'm surprised they chose Aztecs not to be part of base game, but there has been speculation that B5 is a native north american civ, so that would even the balance slightly.

 

[evanaurora]

?????



You seem to have found the darkest representation of someone named Monteczuma. I'm sure it's pure chance.

that's one picture- European!- and this is by no means an exclusive deal on whitewashing depictions of nonwhite people. also, the image I posted is both literally the first image that pops up when you google him and the image the devs had on their wall poster. i didn't have to dig.

So I did do an image search on "Aztec people" and honestly his color looks pretty spot on.

modern Aztec people? After centuries of.... well, to be blunt, forced assimilation into white society, right down to the obvious "attempting to whiten the native population?" yes, their skin is lighter than the picture I grabbed. That wasn't Montezuma's skin color, though.

also:::

Spoiler :

not to mention that these

Spoiler :

are the first images that I got when searching "Aztec people"- both significantly different than our new Civ leader.

anyway I'm logging off- don't need to cause more controversy.

 

[ehecatzin]

Just thought I'd weigh in evanaurora. I'm a designer for a modpack that focuses quite a bit on representing indigenous cultures, especially native Canadians. We have quite a few leaders that people complained were "white washed", when in reality what happened was we took source images from darker skin colours, but it was the lighting of the scene that made them look lighter.

Take our takes on Henri Membertou of the Wabanaki or Cosijoeza of the Zapotecs - their skin tone is affected by the light and made them look lighter than normal.

In these Civ VI leaderscreens, there is a bright light coming from the left hand side of the screen and an additional camera light shone on the character themselves. I don't need to explain what happens to leaders skin tone's in that regard.

There's also always modding that can tweak Monty to become a bit darker.

The one thing I will agree with you on is the lack of Native civs in the base game. It may fit the whole Age of Exploration thing - but I find it pretty distasteful. Amongst our top priorities for modding Civ VI will mean the addition of a FN, NA, PNW or indigenous Australian ASAP to rectify this. It's probably the only thing really disappointing about Civ VI to me personally so far.

Also, I can pretty much tell you there was no whitewashing of our portraying of Benito Juarez. His skin colour was pretty light and was a native Zapotec to boot.

I was also thinking the contrast between the dark backgrounds and well lit characters is also to blame.

PS: Loved your Zapotec and Mexico mod

 

[sukritact]

With regards to Monty himself, I'm fine with everything but the animation. Why the heck did they decide to make him act like an uncultured barbarian?

 

[AriochIV]

Please take your politically correct garbage somewhere else.

Moderator Action: Statements like this are entirely inappropriate.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Aukhenaten]

ok. OKAY. so I just got home from a (non-serious, thankfully) surgery, and... this is what we get????
warning: my patience is (i hope understandably). Limited. but. what the frak is this whitewashed nonsense??????????
newflash: it's not enough to make a character just 'vaguely nonwhite if you squint.' montezuma i lived in a pre-european world. his skin was frigging dark. what the. frak.
also the weird ''''indigenous'''' headdress and... hm. hunched over animation.????????????? combined with the fact that the apparently only native american civ is DLC???????????????????
i'm just. very unimpressed.

That portrait isn't Monty I, it's Monty II, and was apparently created over a hundred years after his death. The headdress appears to be a hybrid of the common Aztec crown depiction and this Aztec headdress, with an added jaguar motif. He has a slight hunch, although it can probably be attributed to both the pamitl-like thing on his back and exaggerated art style. Skin color doesn't seem inaccurate, the Codex Mendoza shows people with different skin tones and represents Monty I as lighter skinned compared to others.

 

[TPangolin]

I guess it's how you interpret it really. One might look at it like an uncultured barbarian, another might say sage old grandpa that cares nothing of what people think and therefore can act as brash as they want. My interpretation is that he's the type of person who is vastly intelligent, they're just the type of person to pick up an apple and throw it at you if they disagree with what you're saying (almost like the embodiment of idgaf).

I was also thinking the contrast between the dark backgrounds and well lit characters is also to blame.

PS: Loved your Zapotec and Mexico mod

This is essentially it. There are massive amounts of light coming from many directions and ample contrast with the BG.

I can totally empathise with the artist on this one. It's tough when people think you're whitewashing your work when in reality you're just playing with lighting in the scene.

Just look at the vast amount of light coming from the right hand side of the screen.

Please take your politically correct garbage somewhere else.

I don't think this helps anyone by saying that

 

[True_Candyman]

Does it really matter that his skin tone is precisely as we assume it might be? There are Europeans with dark skin and African's with light skin, and everyone else with all the shades in between. Nobody should be caring about this, he's in the ballpark and for all we accurately know, he could be correct.

As for the clothing choice and general attitude, that is to appeal to the casual crowd and purposely to make him fill the antagonist role we are used to seeing him in within the civ series. It will likely always remain this way, and I don't particularly see this as a problem as this is a fictional alternate reality game, where stereotypes become the basis for a civs 'unique' traits.

So can we please leave the SJW posts back on tumblr where they belong and have a sensible discussion about strategy gaming?

 

[Socrates99]

That portrait isn't Monty I, it's Monty II, and was apparently created over a hundred years after his death. The headdress appears to be a hybrid of the common Aztec crown depiction and this Aztec headdress, with an added jaguar motif. He has a slight hunch, although it can probably be attributed to both the pamitl-like thing on his back and exaggerated art style. Skin color doesn't seem inaccurate, the Codex Mendoza shows people with different skin tones and represents Monty I as lighter skinned compared to others.

What's over his head in that codex picture? A shade? Maybe there is something to that theory about him being an emperor and staying out of the sun...

 

[Thormodr]

not intentionally, perhaps, and a company can't be monolithically one way or another anyway; one doesn't have to be a Big Bad Racist to do crappy things. They lightened his skin tone from what it historically was. That's objective, and it's not okay.

i'm sorry for assuming you were joking; it seemed comical to me, that was all.

Well, agree to disagree. I'll ignore your classifying my post as comical and leave it at that.

Feel free to do what you have to do. E-mail them, start a boycott campaign, etc.

 

[evanaurora]

alright i lied-- this will be my last post for now

Just thought I'd weigh in evanaurora. I'm a designer for a modpack that focuses quite a bit on representing indigenous cultures, especially native Canadians. We have quite a few leaders that people complained were "white washed", when in reality what happened was we took source images from darker skin colours, but it was the lighting of the scene that made them look lighter.

Take our takes on Henri Membertou of the Wabanaki or Cosijoeza of the Zapotecs - their skin tone is affected by the light and made them look lighter than normal. Same goes with Nonosbawsut of the Beothuk, Sheiyksh I of the Tlingit and anything else applicable.

In these Civ VI leaderscreens, there is a bright light coming from the left hand side of the screen and an additional camera light shone on the character themselves. I don't need to explain what happens to leaders skin tone's in that regard.

There's also always modding that can tweak Monty to become a bit darker.

The one thing I will agree with you on is the lack of Native civs in the base game. It may fit the whole Age of Exploration thing - but I find it pretty distasteful. Amongst our top priorities for modding Civ VI will mean the addition of a FN, NA, PNW or indigenous Australian ASAP to rectify this. It's probably the only thing really disappointing about Civ VI to me personally so far.

Also, I can pretty much tell you there was no whitewashing of our portraying of Benito Juarez. His skin colour was pretty light and was a native Zapotec to boot/

your mods sound very cool, and I'll definitely look into them! As far as the lighting goes, that did occur to me, as he looks darker in some stills than others. still seems like it should have been a priority to fix, but maybe i'm alone in that.

While I agree that Monty seems to be too much on the lightish side,(mainly because he'd be a lot of time out in campaign) you'd be surprised about the range of skin color between indigenous people in Mexico, you can find both very dark shades of brown, redish, to very light brown.

Actually while that painting of Monty II depicts him as a dark brown, the cronicles do make a note about him having light brown skin. (yes the game depicts Monty I, I'm just saying lighter brown skin was not impossible amongst the Aztecs)

Maybe its just me, but the skin is the last thing that bothered me about the overall design.

he's almost white, though. lighter brown and white are two different things. you can acknowledge and depict a wide range of non-brown skin tones without resorting to 'only nonwhite if you squint, in the right lighting.' ~slightly lighter than some of the darkest skinned aztecs~ doesn't imply ambiguousness imo, though I'll admit to blanking on the specific line you're referring to. moreover, i don't believe, in a (all nonwhite) range of possibilities that he Could Have Been a game designer, realizing and responding to the world we live in, should automatically pick the lightest.

Not directly really. There are plenty of "fist-shaking" type posts this thread alone. Actually the thought mostly started with the French leader debate going on in a couple other threads and all the daily Eurocentrism harrumphing.

in keeping with my obnoxious personality, I'm required by law to say eurocentrism is real and i'm pumped for Catherine.

 

[Urdnot_Scott]

I don't think the way Monty is dressed is a problem at all; none of the leaders we've seen so far save Teddy, maybe, have actually been dressed in a realistic way whatsoever. Cleopatra is caked in makeup and has some fairly ridiculous jewellery on but heck, she looks cool. Thats what the art design in this civ is going for and its very conscious and omnipresent, its not just a lack of research specific to montezuma or anything. Looking cool seems to be way more important right now than accuracy.

Whether you agree or not with that direction is up to you, but I don't think its an attempt by the devs to be offensive or oblivious to native culture. They're not claiming that that's how they actually dressed, they're just making a nice picture. Chill.

 

[Thormodr]

That portrait isn't Monty I, it's Monty II, and was apparently created over a hundred years after his death. The headdress appears to be a hybrid of the common Aztec crown depiction and this Aztec headdress, with an added jaguar motif. He has a slight hunch, although it can probably be attributed to both the pamitl-like thing on his back and exaggerated art style. Skin color doesn't seem inaccurate, the Codex Mendoza shows people with different skin tones and represents Monty I as lighter skinned compared to others.

Good post. There is nothing wrong with the detection of Monty.

 

[evanaurora]

So can we please leave the SJW posts back on tumblr where they belong and have a sensible discussion about strategy gaming?

/headdesk

once someone yells about SJWS!!!!!!! i'm pretty sure any discussion is done.

as someone with many thousands of hours logged in Civilization I care about this stuff! other people on this forum do as well! Moreover the forum is not some sacrosanct thing but merely a group of people with a common interest who all still exist in the real world! discussing strategy and being disappointed with racially... insensitive dev decisions are not mutually exclusive! thank u and good night.

 

[ehecatzin]

that's one picture- European!- and this is by no means an exclusive deal on whitewashing depictions of nonwhite people. also, the image I posted is both literally the first image that pops up when you google him and the image the devs had on their wall poster. i didn't have to dig.

Don't tell me the Aztecs painted this then:

Spoiler :

It's also european and made post conquest, you can find both very dark and light skin representations for whatever point you may wish to make, luckily we have both indigenous people and the chronicles to give us a better picture.

Now as an interesting side fact, we have some examples of mural paintings during the early colonial period made by indigenous people telling their own story (mainly about allying with the Spanish against the Aztecs), obviously they have a lot of European influence, but I thought these are rather interesting in showing how they saw themselves.

Spoiler :

 

[Inhalaattori]

IMO its ridiculous to the base Montezuma's looks on paintings or pictures made by Europeans. They often made them look just like Europeans so these pictures cant be trusted at all. There are tons of examples of this. We should rather look what "pure" Native Americans in Central-America nowadays look and it seems CIV VI Montezuma does not look like typical Central-American Native. Modern Mexicans are heavily mixed and even they look more Native than CIV VI character. He is maybe better than CIV IV Montezuma, but still... I think many Americans have very wrong idea what Native Americans looked like before European colonization, because almost all "Native Americans" in USA today are actually largely genetically European. I dont say this is a huge deal, but portrayal of Montezuma in CIV IV especially was just very weird IMO.

Also important to note that there are no pictures of Montezuma I. He never met any Europeans so we naturally have no pictures of him painted by Europeans. The pictures we have are from Montezuma II.

 

[Aukhenaten]

What's over his head in that codex picture? A shade? Maybe there is something to that theory about him being an emperor and staying out of the sun...

I'm no specialist, but similar images of Aztec "kings" have some item stemming from the back of their head or neck, but they don't seem to be shades. I imagine it's symbolic of some sort. That said, the idea that nobles or priests had lighter skin because they were not out in the sun so much makes sense. I believe the darkest skinned individuals in the Codex Mendoza are some of the warriors, who look like they're covered in maybe war paint, soot, or dirt.