#again im white and british. i am also a history student who extensively studied india and particularly the british colonisation of india

[owleics-fr]

okay im probably not the authority to write about this as i am white and come from a place of privilege and i am sure there are better worded explanations about this topic out there but I do wanna say: I keep seeing people mention how they can separate reality from fiction and enjoy conflict and don't understand why devs felt the need to make the change. But regardless of how you felt about the lore and feel about violence in your lore the devs never intended to tell a story reflecting real world colonialism, they never deliberately wrote the lore with how to carefully address this real world history they were reflecting in mind and they ended up with a story that made the colonised out to be the villains and the colonisers out to be the heroes. FR is many things but it shouldn't be a place that intentionally or otherwise condones imperialism and racism. Which is exactly what you are doing when your colonisers are your stories heroes with no narrative to the contrary.

So when they realised just what the lore they had crafted was reflecting they made the decision to correct it. It all comes down to intent: you can absolutely write a story featuring colonialism and imperialism in a well thought out and sensitive way. You can also absolutely tell stories featuring violence and where you protagonists are the villains. But this was never the devs intent and the story as a whole suffered for it. It doesn't matter that you understand the story was fictional, it reflected real world, very upsetting events. And particularly for players who come from a similar real world position that the beastclans were in- of being colonised and forced out of their homes- then seeing that reflection of themselves in FR being portrayed solely as villains? I can't imagine what that must've been like. FR is supposed to be a fun dragon game and thats what it should be for everyone who plays it.