Amidst the excitement of the new season, new characters, and new cards, we gotta talk about something that is sadly still an issue, even after Solmare talked about inclusion.
Adding Mephistopheles and Raphael to the cast has increased the number of PoC characters from three to five - which is a great thing!
What isn’t great, is that the two new characters have joined Mammon, Diavolo, and Simeon in being lightened and whitewashed in the in-game card art, and their skin tones made grey when in shadow, and WHITE when in light.
All the pictures on the right above are not how darker skin looks.
Mammon and Raphael are given white skin. Mephistopheles is given grey undertones. Simeon is lightened, and greyed. Diavolo is portrayed as white more often than he is with his actual skin colour.
Dark skin tones do not look like that in direct light or in shade.
And given that some of the card and game graphic artists can clearly manage this task very well, why are Solmare not making sure other artists adhere to the correct colour palettes?
Colour picking from the sprites does not work for these characters - it does not work for ANY characters - as those are extremely small file sizes, small resolution, and small detail.
But it is not difficult to find real world references for any skin tone.
[Please do not infantalise artists in cultures that have institutionalised colourism and/or racism. If you would not excuse it happening in an English speaking country, it is not excusable anywhere - especially in a game that was originally released for an international English speaking audience!]
And note, I am not directly blaming the artists.
I have absolutely no idea what privileges or marginalisation apply to any one individual, and that is a very important thing to remember.
Butas a company, Solmare does bear the responsibility to ensure that all the game art matches, both for aesthetic design purposes and, in this case, to avoid characters being white washed.
Racist and colourist coding can occur in any society that has institutionalised racism or colourism.
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Sidebar: Fanart
The fault of the above lies with Solmare.
The fault of fanart though? Yeah, that’s on fanartists and those who support fanartists who whitewash.
Because again, there is art in the game that shows the right skin tones, that matches the diversity Solmare seem to be striving for (that they aren’t consistent with).
And there are no shortage of fans who support fanartists who know that whitewashing is wrong, and yet… Many fanartists who whitewash still get support from the fandom.
Every time you reblog or RT any art of an artist who whitewashed, you are endorsing and popularising whitewashing and racism in art.
Every time an artist blames their tools, their medium, their style, their lack of knowledge that other people(??) of different skin tones exist(???), they are endorsing and popularising whitewashing and racism in art.
You don’t need to start or join in a dogpile but at the very minimum, you should not be supporting such people.
Otherwise, next time that artists opens commissions? How many people have you advertised a whitewashing artist to? How many people think whitewashing is okay because a popular artist does it, with support?
Nope.Do not support.
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tl;dr
No, I highly doubt Solmare is doing this to be intentionally racist.
But yes, the effects of white washing media characters are still harmful regardless of intention.
And yes, it is easy to fix!
Some of the artists who work on the cards past and present seem to have no trouble managing different skin tones.
Solmare should ensure all art shows all characters as they are meant to look. Artistic interpretation does not extend to changing skin tone.
And they absolutely need to remove the canonical skin tone difference Diavolo has in his human and demon forms. If he has darker skin as a demon, he should have darker skin as a human. Easy!
WithSMTIV:A finally westward-bound it’s about time we put the finishing touches on our semi-ongoing coverage of the designs introduced therein, courtesy of artist Masayuki Doi. But hey, at least we’ll be going out on a high note with Mephisto, golden boy of Faustian legend and apparent purveyor of ignominious anime beach scenes!
RIght off the bat, Doi’s rendition is tilling heavily from the traditional theater dress worn in play and opera adapted from the Faust legend: a varying ensemble of red and black replete with pompous frills and occasionally certain jester-like features (notably emphasized in Kaneko’s original design employed in Megami Tensei II). But to narrow it down a bit, Mephisto’s primary inspiration appears to be the illustration pictured above, taken from a series by artist Leon Salut titled L'Art du Travestissement, circa 1885. Just about every feature of the torso is faithfully reproduced, while the less contiguous elements, such as the admittedly dapper cap, are simply culled from other takes on the iconic costume. Throw in some horns and such to suggest more hell-spawn than theater troupe and you’ve got one of the game’s more compelling fresh faces.
Mephisto himself is unfortunately locked away in some decidedly, uh, divisive DLC; practically a Faustian pact in and of itself. It’s a shame, seeing as, for our money, Mephisto stands among Doi’s greatest contributions to the roster.
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The Demon Mephisto is an Infernal Spirit of great intellect and knowledge, a diverse Spirit that enjoys arts and verse as much as bringing destruction to the enemy of the Satanist. He resides in the second tier of the Boullan Echelon, that of The Hierarchy Of Keys and is also known as the Demon Mephistopheles.
Made infamous to most through the Faust and immortalized in the writings of Christopher Marlowe and his work Doctor Faustus the Demon Mephisto is widely regarded among Classical Satanists as the Demon of Pacts and is said to bestow great knowledge of any subject (particularly those related to Philosophy and the Occult) to those willing to trade with Him.
Mephisto is deeply involved with the Workings of the Kingdom Of Shadows - that realm which connects our World to the Spheres of Hell - and enters the mortal plane more often than most Demons, it is said (and it is true) that Mephisto will come to the Seeker without the aid of Evocation or any form of Ritual attracted alone by the desire in the individuals heart.
A Demon of unyielding loyalty to the Satanic Practitioner His wrath is insatiable if betrayed, He Governs the Spheres of Death, Pacts, Trading, Intellect, Knowledge, Protection, Conjuring, Empowerment and Vengeance.
The below artistic impression of Mephisto is typical of His portrayal in the Faustus legends and is very similar to how this Spirit appears, although at times this Demon will also take the form of a black skinned being, horned, cloven hooved and with piercing red eyes.
SO, Decomakke @ Twitter and I have been working on a lot of collab merch and I just got the first batch up on my shop now!
Our first sets are for Identity V and Obey Me!! For the Obey Me button set, we’ve got every character that has a visual reference from Obey Me (Except for Little D…. sorry to all the Little D fans out there) including the new characters, Mephistopheles , Raphael , and Thirteen !!
If you go to my shop link and look to the left, all our collab merch will be listed under the DECO*shrimp section !!! We’re also currently working on a second batch of IDV character buttons and are 100% open to character requests!
me foaming at the mouth the moment an essay says something bad about Shylock — I saw that play once upon a time in high school and throughout I wanted that man to get his revenge so bad! the whole trial at the end is a ruse. literally willy shakes is having the law of good Christianity™ be defended and won by a ruse trial, we know it. and this essay comes into my house and says that Mephistopheles (in Faust, yes, again) is right the way Shylock is right, which is to say, they are getting attached to the word of their pact, almost sophistically without considering the dramatic change of the story’s intial perspectives. and without even getting into comparing Shylock to a literal devil — so you’re saying that Faust being saved is also a ruse. which sure, it is. he doesn’t deserve it. salvation intervenes without even providing an argument against Mephistopheles, it simply happens for certain Reasons™. if your argument is trying to prove that Mephistopheles is being wronged here, sure. that the whole thing is a joke that surpasses the concept of who’s right and why, sure. but how do you compare it to Shylock’s position as a full character, I’m biting the table
