Relax, there are many kinds of indigenous people I don't think it portraits you. Plus its just a fictional story, just because the author made the story this way doesn't really mean this is the ways of indigenous people
The thing is, how you portray someone in fiction effects reality. If a writer wrote a pedophilic relationship, you'd assume they're a pedophile. It works the same way with race. If they're gonna be racist in fiction, they're racist irl. Plus, the one guy that has dreads isn't even black. Don't tell me to relax either, it's a big deal. Fetishizing race or minorities in general is fucking disgusting. Don't defend a racist writer that thinks rapey vibes in a relationship is attractive.
The moment you said "as an indigenous person" I'm going to stop you there. You didn't have to read this #1. #2 An author wrote Killing Stalking does that make that author a killer or a stalker irl? This author from what I can gather is basing their story off of Tarzan, wanna go off on Tarzan? Dreadlocks are not a black owned thing, Asians and even Whites had dreadlocks. Have you heard of Vikings? If Shaka is whom you are complaining the most about let's just say, the author is also probably basing off of feral children, children who were raised around animals rather than human society. Once again, if it pisses you off real bad as a "indigenous person" then don't read it. Simple as that.
Man racists really out here writing a whole ass paragraph trying to defend a story that depicts indigenous people as animals. Even if it's possibly based off of children raised by animals, it's still playing into the racist stereotype. I am not a fetish, I am allowed to be upset.
Are you really about to silence an indigenous persons voice? What they feel is perfectly valid and they have every right to feel what they feel :P and they’re right, this story does play into the wrong stereotypes. Yes it’s a fictional story, but there are a lot of fictional stories out there that can be considered problematic and can show a wrongful portrayal of POC. The example you used of “Killing Stalking”, isn’t even a valid example as a murderer can be literally anyone, doesn’t matter their race or cultural background. We are talking about indigenous tribes here were their culture is being portrayed in a weird fashion in this Webtoon (as well as many other Webtoons). The commenter just wants good representation that doesn’t fetishize their culture, that doesn’t really seem too much to ask for.
Are you really about to silence an indigenous persons voice? What they feel is perfectly valid and they have every right to feel what they feel :P and they’re right, this story does play into the wrong stereotypes. Yes it’s a fictional story, but there are a lot of fictional stories out there that can be considered problematic and can show a wrongful portrayal of POC. The example you used of “Killing Stalking”, isn’t even a valid example as a murderer can be literally anyone, doesn’t matter their race or cultural background. We are talking about indigenous tribes here were their culture is being portrayed in a weird fashion in this Webtoon (as well as many other Webtoons). The commenter just wants good representation that doesn’t fetishize their culture, that doesn’t really seem too much to ask for
Whoops I didn’t mean that for you, that was meant for Koreanos, but hell even then. You can’t tell someone to “relax” about something they feel is wrong, especially when it relates back to their culture. Like I get where your coming from, but come on.. even if it’s a fictional story it can still push the wrong stereotypes of indigenous people.
Whoops that long paragraph wasn’t mean’t for you, that was meant for Koreanos, but hell even then. You can’t tell someone to “relax” about something they feel is wrong, especially when it relates back to their culture. Like I get where your coming from, but come on.. even if it’s a fictional story it can still push the wrong stereotypes of indigenous people.
Thank you for this :)
I'm glad that other people also care about stuff like this, have a nice day :)
I respect what you said, but I don't think somebody thought about this. It is only a story, plus somebody with a brain will make a difference between the real and beautiful culture and fanfiction.
That's the whole problem though, that the writer didn't research things properly when they easily could have and instead just did stereotypes that are known to be offensive (even if they didn't realize it or whatever). As I stated before (which I wasn't expecting you to read as it wasn't towards you) fictional shit effects reality. If someone who doesn't know much about indigenous people read this, they might think that some of it is true (I'm sure most wouldn't but there would be a few). Plus, people fetishize asians a lot because of kdramas and manga and shit, and there's a good chance that those reading this put themselves in this situation and are too fetishizing indigenous men, even if they don't realize. It's incredibly upsetting, as we've been through a lot and are currently mourning over the thousands of unmarked graves of children and other issues depending on where you're from, so seeing this just pisses me off. We're not "xxl" we're literally like everyone else. We're not savages, we talk like everyone else, we do everything quite similar to everyone else. Making us seem like a cool uncivilized group of people is harmful, because we've had to deal with racism because of people saying we're more animal than people. We've also had the government force us into residential "schools" that abused kids, abandoned the health funding because they didn't give a shit and let hundreds of children die from illnesses, they wouldn't let them eat properly so they ate spoiled apples and whatever else they could find, if they were in the same place as their sibling they couldn't communicate, they were taught that their culture was wrong and were forced to be white. Then you got mormons that think that indigenous people are darker skinned than white people because they've sinned, and that they can somehow become white if they become a mormon. Writing a story that is inspired by indigenous people is okay when done correctly, and this story was most definitely not done correctly. Take breath of the wild's lurelin village for example (only thing I could think of rn) they're a group of people who rarely interact with other people unless they're trading things. They've made strong houses, they fish all the time, they go adventuring around the area because they're curious, they eat fruit that grows on the trees in front of their houses, they catch crabs and eat them too. They have proper houses and all interact like every person would, instead of the typical Tarzan can't communicate and smells you and shit. It's just a harmful stereotype is all, and those reading don't understand that as they wouldn't be reading it if they did. Thanks for being kind about it though.
I know it's been a few years since this thread stopped but if you're still around and don't mind the emotional labor, could I ask some questions and mention some things I was arguing with myself about? Please of course just ignore me if you don't wanna deal with this!
Such as:
1) Judging by the rainforest and the way the Kudu temple is built, plus some of the fashion, I thought that these forest tribes were based more on South American and possibly central American indigenous peoples, some of which I believe at some point in distant history did wear their hair in "dreadlocks" (perhaps not exactly locks, but at least intentionally-created matts). Given that we can't know for sure what the inspiration for these fictional cultures is, it's... uncomfortable, but would more transparency about the source of inspiration be helpful, in your opinion? Like "this culture is based on this civilization from real-world history, these clothes are based on this other culture" etc.? Maybe then people would even do some of their own research into those cultures!
2) The outsider culture (people with blue hair) which mistreats the indigenous peoples of the forest clearly thinks of them as inferior and as "savages" to use as forced labor and for... pleasure... which is an obvious allusion to colonizer mentality. I feel that the forest tribes disprove the outsiders' beliefs about them. Shaka is ignorant because he has been kept in a cave for years and years, which has negatively impacted his psychological development and maturity (which makes all the seggs super not okay holy craaaaap, but disregarding that convo for the sake of having this convo instead...) but his fellow tribespeople seem to be portrayed as regular, intelligent people trying to protect their home and stuff, so I believe even the characters who fall into the gross "tarzan" stereotype subvert it to at least an extent.
The supposedly "civilized" outsider culture's prince, on the other hand, is a horrible, barbaric, violent rapey racist.
...I want to give the author the benefit of the doubt, but I'm still uncomfy about various things with this series. I feel like if there were more world-building, then maybe I'd be able to solidly say one way or the other. Like perhaps if the world were more clearly extremely different from ours, and the tribes' cultures were actually explored more deeply (and in a sensitive way), it wouldn't be as uncomfortable and problematic?
...But that's probably more than I should expect from this sort of comic. I literally found this after sleuthing around trying to identify a picture of the prince that was posted without attribution or context, and now I've discovered he's just terrible. WHY IS HE SO PRETTY BUT SO TERRIBLE. WHY.
I didn't expect this sort of content or to see this sort of discussion about it but now I'm kinda invested.
As an indigenous person, this shit is fucking disgusting. It's fetishizing indigenous people and playing into the "indigenous people are savage" shit. It pisses me off. It also sucks that this is on here as well. Plus, it's very rapey.