#i just. lovelace is black and that can't be said of any other wolf character in the same way and i'm not really sure

[commsroom]

sorry if u answered this before but do you hc Eiffel as any particular race? I know him being white would probably match how he sees himself as the everyman. But on the other hand he gives me light skin vibes and I can't explain why. (Also no matter what he has long hair but curly haired Eiffel just speaks to me)

mm. i know you're just asking for my opinion, but that's a complicated question. and i am not the right person to be talking about this, so please take it with a grain of salt. one of the few legitimate criticisms i have of wolf 359 is that it's a show about personal identity, resisting dehumanization, and recognizing that other people navigate the world in different ways, but it tries to be raceblind. which. it can't. particularly when something like minkowski's identity as a polish immigrant is addressed.

i think one of the reasons that wolf 359 characters feel as real as they do is how collaborative the character development process was; they are really roles that are shaped by and belong to those actors. lovelace is played by a black actress, cecilia lynn-jacobs's input determined a lot of things about her, and the audience reaction to lovelace getting shot near the end of s3 was the way it was because there was an understanding of her as a black woman. whether she was initially written to be black is kind of irrelevant in that case, i think - she still is, and she resonates with people that way.

but every other main character in wolf 359 is played by, and similarly influenced by, a white person. and that's a problem. no matter how you approach it, wolf 359 is not a diverse show: if they were written as non-white, then being played by white people would be a problem. raceblindness also enforces a default assumption of whiteness. i think if eiffel wasn't meant to be read as white, then there are aspects of his character arc, his assumption of himself as the "default" person and general ignorance of how it feels to be "other", that probably could've been explored from a different angle.

i know people who see him as white because of that, and i know people who see him as another race because of how they connect with him as a character. and i can understand both perspectives on that, but i don't think there's a right way to approach it. i think the show unfortunately, in this one specific way, kind of dug its own grave. gabriel urbina has said however you see these characters, that's correct, and i can agree with the sentiment, but it's also mired in a lot of difficult context, because these are specific people, and these things should matter to them. it can't be interchangeable, and so it can't be that ambiguous. it could be handled a lot better. and based on his more recent work + politics, i wonder if he would've approached it differently, if he had all the information then.

about how i see eiffel: i've said many times before that i see him as a man who could be reasonably played by zach valenti, so the eiffel in my head is white. the eiffel in the art i commission, or the art where i'm like "oh!! eiffel!!" is not necessarily. the second most eiffel-like guy i can think of, who i also use as a reference sometimes, is iranian. but for me to say that eiffel was iranian is not really a claim i think it would be right for me to make, and i think it is probably not true.

the main features that i think eiffel must have are dark, wavy/curly hair, prominent nose, noticeable body hair, generally expressive. he absolutely cannot be light haired, clean shaven, or pale. and from a general standpoint, like... a wide variety of men could meet those qualifications. i don't want to reinforce an assumption of whiteness, but i'm also extremely wary about treating race as functionally cosmetic, since. again. it can't be. no show is removed from real life social contexts, and wolf 359 is about a lot of very real things.

i think if you do interpret eiffel as specifically a cis, able-bodied white guy, there's something very real and very unfortunate about the fact he initially ignores lovelace and hera, two marginalized women, and seeks reassurance from minkowski that they were overreacting. he listens eventually, but the person who gets through to him is presumably the Next Most Visibly Privileged Person, and that's... hm.