Guild Wars 2

Do me a favor and type “Minstrel” in a google search. Then click the image portion of that search. Now what do you see? There is a primary theme.

Ok now after doing that take a look at my elementalist in the screenshot below. You can probably guess at this point where I’m going to go with this.

The meta says that Minstrel’s is the best healing gear, but I just can’t bring myself to acquire and equip it. I’ve been running Magi gear telling myself that it has more +healing but that’s not the real reason I use it. I really dislike the idea of giving my elementalist a full set of Minstrel’s gear or stats implying that my elementalist is a Minstrel, one of the blackface entertainers that pretends to be unintelligent for laughs.

I am quite aware of the term’s medieval roots designating a musician, but we don’t live in medieval times. That word means something else to many people today. Quite frankly, I think Minstrel is a very poorly chosen word that could easily be replaced by something like “Bard”, “Jester” or “Friar”. We’re not talking about calling a character in the game a Minstrel, which I would understand more, we’re talking about creating player controlled characters that wear the label of this stat set. Player characters of all races, some of them happen to have dark skin, some of them happen to wear this stat set.

Ideally, I would like to see a name change on the stat set. If this cannot be done, I will probably still play the game as it’s really fun, but I don’t think I ever will equip Minstrel’s gear on my elementalist. I feel like Arena Net is a forward thinking game company representing multiple racial identities with strong and interesting characters. It just seems like a needless small break from that to include something like this.

I’m sorry if this post sounds like I am trying to make something out of nothing but it’s something that has legitimately been bugging me and I figured I would share the sentiment out.

Ever heard of transmog?

Seriously ?!

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable at all.

I think you are reading too much into it.

that’s the problem with this world, people try to twist stuff when there is no need tbh.

In the UK its chocolate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Minstrels

I see a lot of different images on that google search from medieval paintings and cosplayers to the Black and White Minstrel show that you’re alluding to. I know which one ArenaNet are referring to. You know what they’re referring to.

If, despite knowing that, you still have a problem with equipping Minstrel gear then don’t. However, equipping Minstrel gear doesn’t make your Elementalist a Minstrel it just means an Elementalist is wearing a type of gear for the stats. When you see characters in the world you see Elementalists and Tempests, not Berserkers and Minstrels. Well you do see Berserkers but those are warrior elite specs. Put it another way, equipping Balthazar Runes doesn’t somehow make your character a follower of Balthazar.

PS Emmalouise, Galaxy Minstrels are great! For those who are unfamiliar; they melt in your mouth, not in your hands! So that means clean hands and mouth full of chocolatey goodness.

bigchunk.5190:

Do me a favor and type “Minstrel” in a google search. Then click the image portion of that search. Now what do you see? There is a primary theme.

Ok now after doing that take a look at my elementalist in the screenshot below. You can probably guess at this point where I’m going to go with this.

The meta says that Minstrel’s is the best healing gear, but I just can’t bring myself to acquire and equip it. I’ve been running Magi gear telling myself that it has more +healing but that’s not the real reason I use it. I really dislike the idea of giving my elementalist a full set of Minstrel’s gear or stats implying that my elementalist is a Minstrel, one of the blackface entertainers that pretends to be unintelligent for laughs.

I am quite aware of the term’s medieval roots designating a musician, but we don’t live in medieval times. That word means something else to many people today. Quite frankly, I think Minstrel is a very poorly chosen word that could easily be replaced by something like “Bard”, “Jester” or “Friar”. We’re not talking about calling a character in the game a Minstrel, which I would understand more, we’re talking about creating player controlled characters that wear the label of this stat set. Player characters of all races, some of them happen to have dark skin, some of them happen to wear this stat set.

Ideally, I would like to see a name change on the stat set. If this cannot be done, I will probably still play the game as it’s really fun, but I don’t think I ever will equip Minstrel’s gear on my elementalist. I feel like Arena Net is a forward thinking game company representing multiple racial identities with strong and interesting characters. It just seems like a needless small break from that to include something like this.

I’m sorry if this post sounds like I am trying to make something out of nothing but it’s something that has legitimately been bugging me and I figured I would share the sentiment out.

Ok, for starters, Google images isn’t reliable evidence for this sort of thing, the results can and have been shown to be heavily distorted.

More importantly is the very basic fact that when a person in “The Current Year” hears the term “minstrel” typically they are going to think of a musician, not a person in black face. Be honest with yourself, how many people today even know what the Minstrel Shows were? More likely, in a time when some of the most popular shows and movies are Medieval based fantasies, they are going to think of a traveling musician. Also, Bard =/= Minstrel. Bards were of an older, almost exclusively Celtic, cultural period. They were more poets and composers of epics than the traveling musicians minstrels were. And they fit the semi-late Medieval/Renaissance period much of Guild Wars 2 is based on.

But more importantly than that, its a single word listed on the info card that shows up when you hold your cursor over the armor icon. It….just doesn’t mean anything. You just can’t let things like this that have no actual meaning in regards to who or what someone is in real life become an impediment (or even what your character looks like in game). Neither you nor your character is going to be harmed or lessened or disenfranchised if you use these stats. You just can’t do this to yourself, or to others, there just isn’t an end to it. It is quite literally possible to connect every name, action, or concept to something…unjust…that happened at some point in the past. You just can’t do that, you’ll be miserable your whole life and you’ll probably make everyone around you miserable.

Just let it go.

Did you have a problem earlier on when your elementalist was (most likely) using berserker gear? It’s not like she was a big hulking brute with a bloody axe, after all.

(also, i don’t get what you’re saying about the name being problematic, apart from your character not being a musician. I have never heard of any different meaning for that word, certainly not about anything you seem to be alluding to)

Some people will just complain about ANYTHING just for the sake of attention. Holy the internet really brings out people’s sad characteristics.

Astralporing.1957:

Did you have a problem earlier on when your elementalist was (most likely) using berserker gear? It’s not like she was a big hulking brute with a bloody axe, after all.

(also, i don’t get what you’re saying about the name being problematic, apart from your character not being a musician. I have never heard of any different meaning for that word, certainly not about anything you seem to be alluding to)

Well, thanks for ruining the word berserker for me….

Berserkers (or berserks) were champion Norse warriors who are primarily reported in Icelandic’ literature to have fought in a trance-like fury,

If you’ll excuse me, I have to go change the gear on my small, slender Sylvari Mesmer now as that name totally doesn’t match her looks, heritage and playstyle of clones and confusion. (At least my Norn warrior is wearing the right gear).

/notserious
__________

To the OP. The average person thinks singers, not blackface. Blackface was for a short period of time in the US and the word minstrel’s connection to it is forgotten by most US citizens unless its specifically brought up, and probably unknown or long forgotten by the rest of the world.

Edit: kitten filter springs out from behind the sofa and shreds a word once more.

No one look up Crusader. Please. No one. Let’s leave that can of worms unopened.

Pifil.5193:

No one look up Crusader. Please. No one. Let’s leave that can of worms unopened.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Long_Reach

When wiki wants us to know information is outdated it has this warning at the top of the page
The information on this page does not apply to the current version of the game or the content is no longer available.

If this warning of expired information was applied to the (U.S. historical) word Minstrel it would say

The definition on this page does not apply to the current version of the world and that word usage is no longer relevant.

@OP for the sense in which the company intended the term to be understood, cf
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Minstrel
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hidden_Minstrel_Finisher
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maklain_the_Minstrel

I can’t speak for what connotations the term might have in your neck of the woods, but as a chap from the UK the first thing that popped into my head was the chocolate, followed closely by the Mikado (which someone at Anet may be a fan of, since that seems to be the origin of the commander’s “Pooh-bah” title.)

If stat combinations are going to be re-named because of unfortunately connotations surely Rabid should be top of the list? I mean, as much as I find my rabid fuzzy panda hat amusing it’s not a great description for a character is it?

Fortunately it’s not a description of the character – it’s just a name given to a set of stats and doesn’t mean anything really apart from being shorter to type and easier to remember than the combo it represents.

Perhaps the item prefixes are merely names to allow players to easily recognize what stats gear has by seeing the prefix. Perhaps it also allows for players to search the TP more easily.

I have at least one character who:

• Wears Viper gear, but is not a venomous reptile.
• Wears Marauder gear, but is not a pillager.
• Wears Rabid gear, but is not suffering from a pernicious disease.
• Wears Knights gear, but has not been knighted.
• Wears Soldier’s gear, but has retired from the Pact.
• Wears Dire gear, but is not warning anyone about a serious threat.
• Wears Assassin’s gear, but is not a contract killer.
• Wears Commanders gear, but has no Dorito over head.

As others have said, the prefix is not meant to evoke who your character is. If serious, I recommend you take gear prefixes with a grain of salt. If troll, I’ve seen better.

As a fantasy game set in a fictional medieval period, why would you ever use a non-medieval definition in an attempt to force yourself to be offended by something completely innocuous?

I’m fairly certain more people associate the word minstrel with the musicians of medieval times than with blackface, even if we don’t “live in medieval times” (also that argument is silly since we also don’t live in the times of blackface either). I’d never once heard the word minstrel associated with blackface before this topic.

And its clear what Anet was going for with the name, considering there IS a character in the game that IS a Minstrel. And he’s a goofy musician dressed in very medieval-esque garb. Heck, the Ascended version of Minstrel’s gear is literally named after him, so that’s very definitely what they had in mind when they named the gear.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maklain_the_Minstrel

And that’s not even hitting on how silly it is to not use a certain type of gear because it has a word attached to it that you’re only going to see brief glimpses of on the stat screen. Its not like it flashes a giant neon “MINSTREL!!!!” above your head during actual gameplay or anything. Its not a title assigned to your character, its just a name for the gear itself to make it clear what stats it has. No one identifies their character based on their stat setup, you identify yourself by class, listing the stat name just tells people what stats you’re using more easily than saying “Oh, I run +Vit +Tough +Healing +Conc”.

Man I wish there are more kittenty armors for heavy. Or just good looking armors in general.

Pifil.5193:

No one look up Crusader. Please. No one. Let’s leave that can of worms unopened.

Come on now, why let a little image search get in the way of a good crusade? :P

This is interesting.

If there were an armor which gives you 150 power, 150 precision, 150 condi damage, 150 expertise and 150 concentration, with the prefix “Steaming Pile of Idiot”, would you use it?

Oh, and, OP’s elementalist wouldn’t have “black face” if he/she just used 1 of the new human faces that were recently added to the game. Although I haven’t tried, it seems the faces might not be exclusive to makeover kits and may be choosable during character creation.

The recent hairstyles and faces for humans that came with LW3 E6 launch look more African-American than any previous faces and hairstyles. It’s nice they finally added more cultural variety to the game.

But, some people just want to make a mountain out of a mole hill I guess.

minstrel is just musician, any other thing you associate it with is unrelated.

now google “minstrel gw2” and be happy……

To the people telling the OP to just “let it go,” some things to some people aren’t easily just dropped. Let’s just leave it at that.

To the OP: While I understand your concern, Minstrel in context toward GW2 does not reflect what you feel it does. As stated above by others, this is a reference towards the goofy musician seen time and time again throughout GW2.

Before today, I hadn’t released Minstrel was used in that way, even though I was familiar with one of those ads you describe. So while I, again, understand where you’re coming from, I do think this is a non issue. Context is key my friend.

The original connotation of the word Minstrel is so light-hearted and fun though. It even sounds whimsical and airy. Seriously, say it out loud.

Most gamers associate that word with a dude in tights and a pageboy haircut, not an unfortunately racist period of US history. I can dig that it’s bothering you but you seem to be in the minority here, and this change is not likely to happen.

Wow, there’s a lot here since I’ve been gone. I’ll just address a couple things.

1. I’m not posting this thread because I am playing a victim or seek attention. I’m not even that offended about the whole thing honestly. I just don’t like the idea of my black character wearing Minstrel’s gear because it sounds messed up. I posted about it because I thought others probably did too and I wanted to see what people had to say.

2. If you’re not American, you probably don’t know about the reference of a Minstrel as an entertainer in blackface. When I type the word In google, over half of the images are of a guy in blackface performing a show. I personally hear the word Minstrel and think blackface entertainer over medieval musician even though I am aware of both definitions. For some people in America, Minstrel = blackface is the primary definition. Sorry about the miscommunication.

Context is important. In the context of GW2, Minstrel means neither vaudeville entertainer nor medieval musician. It means Toughness + Healing Power + Vitality + Concentration. That’s all it means. None of the gear prefix titles are accurate to any degree when it comes to who or what a character is in the immersion sense.

If you cannot get over it, then live with your choice of Magi’s.

Wanna know what I think about when I read the words Big Chunk? :^)

Context makes your ability to read actually have value. Without context, everything can mean anything

bigchunk.5190:

I really dislike the idea of giving my elementalist a full set of Minstrel’s gear or stats implying that my elementalist is a Minstrel, one of the blackface entertainers that pretends to be unintelligent for laughs.

The minstrel was a medieval performer, not whatever you may have found via Google in more recent (racist?) American history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel

bigchunk.5190:

I am quite aware of the term’s medieval roots designating a musician, but we don’t live in medieval times. That word means something else to many people today.

Only if you live in America. In Europe, it’s part of our cultural heritage.

It’s like saying that “Kung Fu” is now to be associated with a cartoon panda, only because, you know, “We live in the modern age.” C’mon now.

edit for forum bug

Really? Now we want to ban the word minstrel? A word that has a perfectly normal meaning to it to most of the world. And I actually want Anet to make a Minstrel elite spec for Mesmers.

bigchunk.5190:

I really dislike the idea of giving my elementalist a full set of Minstrel’s gear or stats implying that my elementalist is a Minstrel, one of the blackface entertainers that pretends to be unintelligent for laughs.

It implies no such thing, since there’s a long, long history of the use of Bard|Minstrel|etc as an RPG trope; that started well before the age of computers.

bigchunk.5190:

I am quite aware of the term’s medieval roots designating a musician, but we don’t live in medieval times. That word means something else to many people today.

This is a more interesting argument. Lots of words mean something to different people. And that meaning can vary a lot depending on the audience. Would, for example, GW2 players in Singapore be even aware of the usage from the earlier century? And in contrast, Richard Claxton Gregory might have grand- or great-grandchildren who are all too aware of those usages.

At what point should a manufacturer draw the line at using such words? How many people must ‘see’ an issue before it’s bad business? How many fewer before there’s a strong moral argument to be made? Should we defer to those most affected by the wording? Or the majority who don’t see the issue at all?

I’m not in favor of worrying about this use of the word, since the GW2 connotation so clearly relates to its medieval origins. But let’s be careful not to assume that there aren’t reasonable people out there, perhaps not RPG or MMO fans, who will first see the 19th century meaning, without recognizing the trope.

One thing that the OP has not noticed, it’s not Minstrel but Minstrel Shows or Minstrelsy that was used to refer to blackface.

I’m from the US, born and raised in the South and what he’s talking about was always referred to as Minstrel Shows or Minstrelsy. The word Minstrel alone wasn’t used to describe the blackface entertainment.

Context and specific word useage matters.

Er…well if you have issues with minstrel. Then I wonder how you feel about Valkyrie gear being worn by male chars?.

CalamityO.2890:

Er…well if you have issues with minstrel. Then I wonder how you feel about Valkyrie gear being worn by male chars?.

There’s nothing wrong with a male character who freely chooses to wear a woman’s armor. There are some people who are born this way. But with the stat name issue, it’s merely stretching to say that Anet meant wrong by it.

CalamityO.2890:

Er…well if you have issues with minstrel. Then I wonder how you feel about Valkyrie gear being worn by male chars?.

Why not? What is wrong with their heavy armor? Doesn’t look much different, or any “less manly”, than some armor sets that are already in the game.

Heavy armor examples:

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/0/09/Glorious_Hero%27s_armor_%28heavy%29_human_male_front.jpg
• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/ff/Oaken_armor_sylvari_male_front.jpg
• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/1/1b/Zodiac_armor_%28heavy%29_human_male_front.jpg
• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/3/34/Guild_Defender_armor_charr_male_front.jpg (and all the other “Charr skirts”)

bigchunk.5190:

I just can’t bring myself to equip Minstrel’s as healing gear on my black character solely because of the name and the racial history of the word in America. You have to admit, it would be a little strange to do so if you understand the other definitions of the word.

As much as I think you are reaching with your argument, there is a very simple solution for your problem: use the ascended version. It’s called Maklain’s [armor piece]. It has the stats, but not the name you so clearly have a problem with. It solves your problem. ANet will also most likely never change the name so it would be best to leave it at that.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

bigchunk.5190:

I just can’t bring myself to equip Minstrel’s as healing gear on my black character solely because of the name and the racial history of the word in America.

I urge you to print this statement out on a sheet of paper and put it under your pillow. Then, as soon as you wake up tomorrow morning, pull it out and read it with fresh eyes. I’m not kidding. Do this for your own good before you start following this kind of life methodology in other things.

Why?

Obviously OP has either come to terms or resolved all his other perceived injustices in the world and has nothing left that is more egregious than this to champion.

A true demonstration of his outrage would be to delete his account and never return.

If something as simple as the word ‘minstrel’ can offend you so much then maybe you should stay off the internet….

bigchunk.5190:

Xenon.4537:

So you’re basically saying Anet is a bunch of racist bigots because of the name of some armor…

Not at all actually. Arena Net has shown a good effort to represent a multicultural world celebrating many different human and non-human races. They also make good development decisions for making a great game which is why I play.

While I still think it’s a poor choice to name a stat set “Minstrel’s”, it’s probably an oversight on their part, and I don’t really fault them for doing so since the other definition of Minstrel is benign. Some forum replies to this thread have explained very well that we can’t assume the most offensive definition of a word which I can kind of agree with to some extent. I just can’t bring myself to equip Minstrel’s as healing gear on my black character solely because of the name and the racial history of the word in America. You have to admit, it would be a little strange to do so if you understand the other definitions of the word.

No actually I don’t have to admit that because it wouldn’t be true. And I am very familiar with the definitions of the word and how its been used here.

I seriously have doubts that you are not a troll at this point.

It can’t be explained any clearer. The only meaning of the term as it pertains to the game and the armor is that of the bard. That’s it. Full stop.

There used to be a cleaning product and turn of phrase that included what is also known to be a common slur for those of my ethnicity. Not once in my life when someone said the term did i think they were trying to be racist or even insensitive because i knew the context in which it was being said.

We are closing this thread as it has run its course.