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I honestly wish if they were gonna do the whole dark-skinned thing and bring it up, they stuck with it. Like the drawings of the dark skinned women are gorgeous and if you want to bring up a race issue, then keep the race in the manga, otherwise just start with them being discriminated against for red hair. Like personally I wish she was dark skinned since it would be so refreshing and beautiful, but alas they must white wash everything
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Although I dont like the change of skin color either but I can explain it though if this is what happened. This has happened before during colonialism where they would keep either forcing them to have children with others with the intend on lessing the features that they were known for. if their race is mixed enough it can happen(plus they said this is many generations down the line) . It said they were persecuted and most likely enslaved and sold into slavery. they mentioned a massacre so a lot of them may have died. Leaving those who were enslaved. the women would probably be raped by their captors and could possibly end up pregnant. (It is also a good chance that only the children who retain enough features of the rapist would live longer) This does happen in real life (it happened to African Americans and Native Americans and other races so I don't doubt that this could have happened to them)
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I must say I can also agree with your statement. If they were going to go that route with racism about the dark skin & hair then they could have stuck with it. Having the FL be dark skin with black hair would have been a refreshing change. They just basically went from one type of discrimination to another. They stuck with the red hair and gypsies because they were now pale(white washing). I have yet to see a nice manga with a dark skin man or woman being the ML or FL. Usually their just support/side characters. Maybe one day there will be some more creators who diversify their main characters in this space and for anime as well.
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It happens, in fact in my country there is this festival in a province called "fiesta de san Baltazar" pretty much the province has the most amount of afro decedents, it's also called the "black people festival without black people" because of meztizaje the dark skin was lost, most of them don't really have traits of the race, maybe the hair, but the festivals exist because the descendants wanted to pay respect to that heritage.
https://www.cultura.gob.ar/por-que-se-celebra-san-baltasar_5274/ is in spanish but you can see the photos.
https://www.google.com/search?q=fiesta+de+san+baltazar&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiI0Yvp6fLrAhWzMrkGHfwsBu8Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq=fiesta+de&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQARgAMgQIABBDMgQIABBDMgQIABBDMgQIABBDMgQIABBDMgUIABCxAzICCAAyAggAMgUIABCxAzIICAAQsQMQgwE6BAgjECc6BwgAELEDEENQjQZYuQ5g1hRoAHAAeACAAWmIAaMGkgEDNy4ymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=S7hkX8j_MbPl5OUP_NmY-A4&bih=657&biw=1366 and here more photos
While reading that first part it really reminded me to this, except the ginger hair of course.
ngl I was also disappointment, I thought for a split of second she was going to have a dark skin.
So, I just started and intend to keep reading but had to stop and comment on something. Are we all ignoring the complete colorism/racism in the first few pages of ch 1? A race of people were considered the personification of sin because of their dark skin & hair? Then they were targeted until the remaining people evolved, through the generations, into fair-skinned ginger gypsies who still carried the discrimination of their ancestors? Really? Was this backstory necessary?
To specify further, I get that this backstory was used to humanize the FL and express her former plight/current power. I'm just frustrated, as a Black man, that colorism/racism was used for a throwaway plot device. After all, the story didn't need the "300 years ago there was a genocide" part. It could have just started with the FL, her murdered mother, and the evil King. Again, I still intend to read & I have the feeling I'll like the story. Just, in spite of the beginning.