darkSpyro

I don't agree that this is a problem...for starters, Gateway to Glimmer was made pre-9/11. What Bombo is throwing is the game world's version of a bomb-they look more like orbs than bombs. Bombs are what the rhino wizard throws at you in Spooky Swamp, YOTD. I don't think people should get offended by this as it's a REMAKE of a game that was made in 1999.

Your thoughts?

It's more so the character is a stereotype, along with him using bombs.

I feel like expressing my real thoughts about this (or the Gnorcs in Twilight Harbor, for that matter) might cause an unneeded amount of chaos and controversy, so I’ll limit myself to the essential.

I think Bombo is perfectly fine as he is, he throws magical bombs which never gave me the impression to look similar to real world ones (not even to the ones Sleepyhead uses) and just looks like that to fit the theme of the level, for example.
That being said I’d have no problem if they tweaked him to look more like a genie with blue skin and magical smoke instead of normal legs.
I just hope the challenge itself will remain as close as possible to the original, especially because I still remember it as one of the hardest ones in the second game.

I understand why he might be controversial, but I don't think that people should make such a big deal from it. Just to be clear, I don't think that all Arabs are bomb throwing maniacs, but getting offended by a video game character from a game that was made two years before 9\11. Yet I have a bad feeling that this thing will cause some controversies.

He's wearing a diaper, how threatening can he be?

TL;DR - Representation of peoples in media matters and constant viewing of stereotypes over time can cause real problems for real people. The fix here is easy as the video and others have said. Make it more obvious he is a genie/magical being, and rename the orbs. The challenge itself can stay the same.

CW/TW - war and the effects of it, discussion on gun violence against children

So I'm actually on the side that I agree that some tweaking/"censoring" to the character should be done. I, and everyone else who has played Spyro the first time absolutely knows that "Bombo" isn't supposed to be a representation of a terrorist or any actual person of Middle Eastern descent; it's a fictional world with fictional, magical creatures after all.

However, even though that the original games, and most of the people who have played the original games, were made and born pre 9/11, this Reignited Trilogy has been made post 9/11 and will undoubtedly be played by people who were born after 9/11. People belonging to Generation Z (people born 2000 and up), does not know of a world pre 9/11. For those that live in America, they have never experienced an America that is not at war. Their entire lives, and honestly, for most of the Millennial generation's life (I was in the 5th grade when it happened), has been filled with news stories of WMDs, War on Terror, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc, etc, etc. And one thing that is not debatable is that representation matters and psychological effects on children matter (especially in the case of twilight harbor).

IF, and this is a big "IF", we lived in a world, where people of different backgrounds had more "normal" or "regular" representations in media, this wouldn't be a problem. Because then the "stereotypes" would be seen as the exception, not the norm. And this matters. A lot. This one instance by itself is innocent and I agree that it isn't a "strong" example of a stereotype. However, multiply that over, and over. Every day, for years on end. And that is how implicit bias is formed. Implicit bias isn't straight out racism, but it is your brain subconsciously viewing certain groups of people as either "good", "bad", "shifty", or any number of generalizations. Allowing these biases to grow, feeding them with more examples, over time then that person will start to believe flat out lies about some of these people, which can have disastrous effects. There are still 6.6 million Syrians displaced inside Syria. And finding homes for them in other countries has been hard. There are numerous reasons for this, but fear and racism shouldn't be one of them.

During the height of the crisis, I worked with a non-profit to help refugees get settled in America. I didn't do much besides keep the kids entertained while the parents talked with the social workers. But I did find out that for a majority of Syrian refugees that were accepted into the US, they came with literally nothing but the clothes on their back, and a family of four would be given anywhere from $500-$1000 and maybe one or two months assistance. That's it. That's all they had to completely rebuild their lives in a strange country.

At the end of the day, the choice of whether or not to censor something like this comes down to a more compassionate reason rather than anything practical. You have to take into consideration that many of the people living in conflict areas have lost their homes, family, or even their own lives to bombs. So it's just a tad uncouth to have such a character fling them around so easily in a city that does have some slight architectural similarities to Arabic or Islamic architecture. But, again, the connections here are very, very, slight. Like the video describes, rename the character, make him look more like a genie or even a wizard, and make the orbs look more magical, or just rename them. The challenge can still stay as it is, but these slight changes will ensure that one less questionable representation is taken out of the media.

P.S. Continue reading for my thoughts on Twilight Harbor

I think that the main reasoning for this is that more and more young children in this time are experiencing gun violence. And I don't mean on TV or some other media, I mean first hand, real life. In parks, movie theaters, schools, in their homes. Just as most people in America had some, even if slight, connection to someone who was affected by 9/11, more and more people are connected to someone who was a victim/survivor of gun violence. Again, the increase among children is important here. Toys for Bob obviously want to have a large audience/market for their game being that it is rated E10 and played by people of all ages, especially small children. The possibility of a child to play this game who first hand saw gun violence is much much higher today than all those years ago. School shootings were the exception, not the unfortunate norm that they are slowly becoming. The guns in the original Twilight Harbor are barely recognizable as real guns being that they're made up of like what, 8 polygons? However an HD version of that prop probably would be. So I feel like that is why they altered the models and their ammunition.

Does all of this seem fair? No. But meeting people who have experienced the aftermath of these situations, seeing how certain things affect them personally, I am able to understand it a lot more now than I used to. And, while it is such a small thing. Instead of looking at it as "why make a big deal over something so small", try thinking of it instead as "look at the positive impact that such a small change has made".