Inclusiveness in Wow and Other Video Games. (and raid update week of 7/21/2014)

I feel this topic has been beat to death.  however, I want to weigh in my two cents.  First, raid update.

      Tuesday we tried starting wing 3.  After some complications etc.. I hopped on my Pally Tank Lag and we managed to down Malkorak.  We managed a couple shots at Treasures but ended up falling short for the night.

      Wednesday we opted to start from where we finished.  Not going to lie, things just wouldn't balance out and we couldn't manage to get the boss down.  It didn't help raid stopped a bit early as the raid leader was sick.  When his sickness finally defeated him, we went home without any new bosses.

      Not going to lie, it was a sadly regressive week, but next week will be better.

      Now on to my topic, and it's considered hot button but here we go.  I am going to try and write this from a somewhat neutral position politically because if I wanted to talk politics, I would make a political blog.

      As a prospective writer I am faced with a choice every time I start a new project.  Who are going to be my characters?  What are they going to be like? How do they talk? How do they act?  How do they look? Who do they love?

      This part of character creation is important because it flavors what you write, what decisions (Good and bad) your characters make.  If you put in something that doesn't belong there with the character it feels forced, and out of place.  This leads to stereotyping and poor characters.  You want to make racist decisions for a black character into your story, work to make him black.  Same goes for LBGT characters, if you want a bad stereotyped character force one in to echo an agenda and most people will end up with a horrible character that is out of place and offensive.

      The truth is inclusiveness is very important.  But not at the price of story or character.  If it makes sense to make a character any race or lifestyle by all means do it.  If you want to add that flavor in anyway, I say write your piece then add the race/lifestyle after you have finished your work if it isn't important to the story.  If the focus of your story obviously is going to be around race/lifestyle don't write your characters to fit the "normal modes."

      This goes for video games as well.  I want good strong characters of different races, sexes, and lifestyles.  I don't want stereotypical lazy writing or characters that seem out of place because they don't fit.  So when it works, do it.

       My worry is that the pressure for games, books, and shows to be inclusive is going to do some damage in the short term as more and more demand for inclusiveness is pushed.  If you are crusading for this, please be careful what you wish for because bad stereotypes can push unrealistic expectations in the real world.  (Because some people do believe all they read and see is real)  I would rather there was a steady and slow approach to this than we were introduced to a bunch of bad characters that damages society's notions of any group.

      I am also going to get myself in trouble by asking this next question.  When will there be enough inclusiveness?

      Looking at the census about 14.1% of the United States is black.  Does that mean that when 14.1 percent of actors in movies and T.V. shows are black we are being representative? Or do we push the bar beyond that?  Same with other races and lifestyles, do we go for a realistic number? Or in order to support minorities do we push further until we get an unrealistic mix of characters in our media all in the name of inclusiveness?

Most of all, what do you think?  I would love to hear feedback on this topic.  If you have a well thought out answer I will listen.  If you leave an answer full of hate and vitriol towards any group, I will delete your comment.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye