Quote: Original post by DrewCaliburClark
I have a question about the design and story of GTA:SA, and I hope I can get some intellectually honest answers. Since all the characters in the past have been un-redeemable, self-centered jerks, why then, when changing to a black main character, do we now have a good-kid-forced-to-be-bad character? Why not keep it thematically consistent with the past games? Was this just a design choice, or choice based on politically correct necessity?

I have to say, that sort of bugged me too. Half the fun of the GTA games is that you get to play a complete jerk who doesn't give a damn about the consequences of doing all sorts of stupid stuff. Playing a 'good guy forced to be bad' seems to go against the anti-hero appeal of the game. It's not like they've been afraid of stereotypes either, since practically every character in the games are a stereotype of some description. It's part of the humour of the game.

So maybe they've done it in order to appease the political correctness crowd, knowing full well that everyone who actually plays the game is going to be just as much of a 'bad guy' as in all the others.

Well, I'm multi-racial myself (a mutt hybrid of asian, caucasian, latin and Persian), so no protagonist has been of my race :)

So really, playing a character of a different race is a total non-issue to me. Growing up, I had to find what I had in common with other people in order to feel a sense of belonging instead of seeing what was different about other people to exclude them.

But that doesn't mean this is a non-issue to everyone. I've often wondered about the same question but about religion. What if the protagonist of the story isn't Christian, and moreover, the game itself has strong elements from another religion?

EDIT-
I thought I should clarify my point more. While I think being able to ground yourself in the shoes of the protagonist can be useful, sometimes being forced to put on someone elses shoes can be an eye-opening experience. As others have mentioned, I would be weary of having a caricature of cultural stereotypes, but as long as we always keep an open-mind about things, then I think it really can't hurt.