A character who remains nameless until the next game, that is if they continue on with this story for her.

It would be dumb to scratch it.

I'm gonna roll the dice on, "Sex Goddess".

With a face like that? Lord I hope not lol.

Hey, at least she's no Mileena, lol

And now, we should come closer to the truth. Could we finally come to a decent conclusion on what race Jade most properly is, and answer the opening poster's one-year-old question once and for all? Is MKO as a community able to finish what has been started and face what is true?

What race is Jade?

Edenian-Caucasian

Edenian-Negroid

Edenian-Asian

Edenian-Mixed

Tan Edenian

Edenian

If you aren't interested in concluding the fuzz, please don't affect the poll. All others, be my guest. It will be essentially MKO's outcome, not mine or anyone else's for that matter. Riyakou's point was fundamentally that it is hard to recognize in which main race Jade falls into because from the looks of her she could be many races mixed, and therefore suggests that we ought to treat her as a dark Edenian. However, RazorsEdge701 thinks that this answer (Edenian) is like saying "roses are red" to the inquirer and that this alone doesn't suffice. My input in this thread can be reduced into two points; 1) you can use real world race terminology and 2) the official race of Jade is the latest canon one. In a way I got tangled to hinting at of what race she could be, but may the poll's results be a more deliberate answer to this on my side too. This was just me analysing the progress of the thread – may the poll speak for itself, it's fair and unbiased a method.

The name origin of Jade ultimately is Chinese and in MK: Annihilation she was Asian yet later on her look has changed to something closer to an Indian or even a black mixed Latina. The poll herein is about Jade MK9.

I agree, Jade has mostly maintained a shade of brown, but there's also a MKII promo picture which depicts Jade about as pale as a Caucasian.

You are right, Icebaby, it would be too soon for any prolific discussion.

---

The vote may take some time for enough votes until you can draw to conclusions.

I was paying attention, which is why I have also been stating since the beginning of the thread that:

A) Nobody else was ever talking about "identity" each time you brought it up. You were repeatedly being off-topic/trying to change the topic to suit your preference.

and B) Even if you don't accept A as true, a person's appearance is a defining part of their identity anyway, which you've repeatedly ignored. "It's what's on the inside that counts" is a bullshit concept that was created mainly to artificially boost the self-confidence of people who aren't happy with their looks, the truth is that both the inside and the outside determine who you are, how you think and act, and how others treat you.

And that's the funny/ironic thing. I KNOW the reason you keep summing up her identity as "Edenian" is because you want to eliminate ethnicity from the conversation because you think it's enlightened to be blind to race (which is not actually how equality works, by the way. You can't ignore people's differences, feigning blindness will never successfully advance society because it's built on a lie. You're instead supposed to embrace the differences. We're not "all the same", that's simply untrue in a myriad of different biological and psychological ways, the true idea behind "equality" is that we all have the same WORTH), but what ends up happening when you keep doing that is you're doing the same thing racist people do, equating a person's whole identity with ONE LITTLE THING about them.

By saying her "identity" is Edenian, you're ignoring that an identity is supposed to include personality and backstory, not just where you're from.

That's why the rest of us aren't talking about identity, we're talking about physical appearance. If we were talking about her identity, we'd be having a conversation about her personality or her storyline, which "where she's from" is a part of because it's an element of her origin story.

I guess the thread COULD be about that at times now, ever since the topic title was changed to "Discussing all things Jade"...but you're not really participating in the times when people talk about her storyline, are you? You still keep timing your posts so that they interrupt discussions about her appearance/ethnicity. Which is kinda a form of trolling. That's what bothers me about your posts, you're trying to control the flow of the conversation because you don't like what it's about, in a really dickish way.

That artwork's from the Malibu comics, it's not an official Midway piece.

My point was not that it is hard to recognize which race Jade falls under, as I feel it is pointless to try to figure it out.

My point is that she only has one identity, Edenian, and she so happens to have dark skin. Going any deeper than that is, to me, a waste of time.

She has many identities. Slave, bodyguard, assassin, military commander, Kitana's best friend, master of a magical bo-staff, "green ninja", dead person, etc.

Your reasoning is reductive.

Yes, but it is one of your points if you feel that it is pointless even to delve on it, right? This is what this thread is about after all, I just thought I'd bring forth your stance on it. mwgrant0 could have put it this way: "If you knew no backgrounds of this woman (showing Jade's render), in which race would you categorize her?" in my opinion. Clarity is vital for healthy discussion.

Reductivity can be a positive thing so long as the remaining statements are true. If somebody had to reduce her to only one identity, the most describing answer would be Jade. That'd be rather uninformative though.

There's no need to be a snot at all in this conversation. And it's kind of stupid to mention that people here don't use Mortalkombatwarehouse.com as a source to back their stuff up when eh... I've BEEN using the site for my voting thread. And that's not just all what I use the site for. So please, leave your snottiness out of this conversation for once and actually be nice.

I don't think she's had the same skin tone in every game that she has appeared in. And yeah, my eyes aren't the greatest pair in the world, but I'm not colorblind. Her skin looks different. And I had to do this so I put her three appearances in Photoshop to see the difference. And I see them. And it's not due to the lighting. I looked at more than just one sprite and compared them. Her first appearance has more of a chestnut shade while her Ultimate has more of a just a brown shade. Deception, she's light, more tan than brown.

I mean, I put it in photoshop and this is what I got out of it. If you can't see it, fine I guess you don't. But I do.

You're so sensitive all the time, jeez. I don't even agree that the way I said that was rude or "being a snot", so
Congratulations for the fact that you did bother to check in this instance, but I wasn't talking about just you, I was reacting to the fact that LOTS of people in this community all make the same statement, which I say is visibly not true, and for the MOST part, those people don't check the internet first to see if they're right. And I think that considering how often I've seen it happen and how frustrating it is to me, my reaction was perfectly fair and even-tempered.
I'm sorry if it bothers you being lumped in with all those other people who don't check, because you did and apparently we have a new problem that you and I can't agree on whether or not colors look the same. Which honestly, is kinda silly IMO.
I say those three pics are totally the same brown, or close enough to it not to be called inconsistent. I mean, the UMK3 one is maybe the tiniest touch more yellowish than the other two. I honestly don't know how you can say you see a difference between her MK2 sprite and the Deception pic. Even the areas of shine and shade match impressively well for comparing a pixelated graphic from 1993 to a 3D render from 2004. Her skin color's more consistent than Goro's is from MK1 to MK4 to Deception! Nobody ever seems to mind that he keeps changing from tan to yellow and back, but everybody seems to think Jade switches between black, white, and tan each game when that was really never the case before MK9. She's clearly dark brown in every game with only the most insignificant variations in tint.
It's nowhere near similar to how in the render that was released to promote MK9 she looked almost like a white chick, or how her retro costume in the game doesn't match the others. THAT is actual inconsistency.

It's not being sensitive, you're just an old snot. Whether or not you were directing your statement at me or just in general, you replied like a snot.

So there, nah nah na boo boo to you too.



Except, I see a difference. Yeah, they're close in colors, but it's still different skin tones. Say what you want, I still see a difference in tone. If you find this to be silly, then don't reply to it anymore because obviously we both know where this is going to lead and to be perfectly frank, I have neither the time, the motivation, and the life to argue about something that is completely bullshit. I just threw this out there because I wanted to. So

And hooray for editing messages to make last minute points that the person didn't catch when they quoted you! That's such an awesome feat you have!

I apologize if the fact that this board allows a person to reword what they're trying to say to make it more clear (I am sorry to lump you in with people who don't check pictures first before making wild claims about what something looks like, but those people still need to be told they're wrong), or correct themselves when they make a mistake (Deception came out in '04, not '06, that's my bad) is an inconvenience to you.

Or add other topics, in your case.

I really didn't.

If you wish to include my stance on the subject of her appearance, please list it as my stating Jade is merely an Edenian with dark skin. Thanks. :)





This doesn't help you at all, because you are merely using this in an attempt to eclipse a point you very well understand.

As for your other post, I am not at all trolling or being dickish. I have well been on the subject of her appearance. What I have been doing - which is what you don't like - is disputing the idea of referring to Jade as anything other than an Edenian with dark skin.

With each post you make, I continue to dispute with my statement that Jade is simply an Edenian with dark skin. It is clear that you are unwilling to accept the idea of Jade merely being referred to as an Edenian with dark skin. Returning to something you stated early on in the thread:



If we are merely focusing on skin color, why does it bother you so much to simply call Jade "dark-skinned?" Why must you call her black?

And in case you intend to reciprocate that question, I refuse to call her black because she isn't black; she's not even human. I believe you agreed to this statement before, prior to your counterargument.





With that being said, I think it's about time we leave Jade to be what she is: an Edenian with dark skin.

I thought we could move past the Jade/race thing. Next, I demand that we debate Kitana's ethnicity.

Also, related...I'm curious. How would you describe a fictional race like a Klingon to someone?

That's not why I argue with you. She IS an Edenian with dark skin. That's not in dispute at all.



THIS is why I argue with you. "Black" MEANS "Dark skinned". It doesn't always mean "of African descent", though it CAN ALSO mean that. And even if it did, guess what: Latinos and Middle-Easterners with dark skin? They ARE of African descent. EVERYONE comes from either "Caucasoid", "Negroid", or "Mongoloid" ancestry and most ethnicities are some mix.

The way you use the English language is downright Orwellian. You can't just change what words mean or delete/deny the existence of certain definitions to suit yourself and then try to convince everybody else on the planet to speak YOUR language instead of the one that already exists.
Remember that time in this topic months ago when you said Zoe Saldana isn't allowed to call herself "black" because she's Latina, as though the two things are mutually exclusive? That's your problem in a nutshell.

The pale Jade renders were also drawn by another firm than the actual game developers, it was Atomhawk Design. Aside that, they added visible veins to Kintaro's hairy thighs, suggesting that they may not be entirely accurate with their products anyway. I'd deem the MKII/UMK3 costumes of Jade in MK9 non-canon, much like scarred Sub-Zero is. I mean, they could have also given UMK3 Ermac the tan, if only for nostalgia, but apparently they didn't bother to put too much weight on the palette-swap retro suits.You are welcome. :)

NRS themselves published the renders and the "non-canon" costumes in the game though. There's a difference between that and the Malibu artwork.

The Malibu art never appeared in any officially licensed Midway products, only in Malibu's comics and some strategy guides released by a third party, not by Midway itself.

I know.

So, is recess over?

This amuses me greatly.

Even after agreeing with me that Jade is neither black nor human, and that she is merely an Edenian who so happens to have dark skin, (and my reiterating your agreement), you continue to combat my stance on not calling her black.

That is something I am very curious about. Why is it that you do that? Why, after agreeing to my stance, you rage against?

Even more so, if you can agree that Jade is neither black nor human, and that she is merely an Edenian who so happens to have dark skin, why can't you refer to as merely such?

Alright, alright..if we're still on this help me out here. What are we debating exactly? Because the way I see it, Jades physical appearance in MK9 is obviously based on assorted "brown skinned" real-world ethnicities. You want to get anthropological...that's cool. However, if we're talking what Jade's canon ethnicity is, I'm really having a hard time understanding why it wouldn't be Edenian/Dark-skinned Edenian (simply because it's never really expanded beyond that) from a nerdom canon perspective. I think that's the most significant point of contention to establish here. Are we talking about Jade's real-world ethnic influences in her aesthetic design OR are we talking about her legitimate, in-game, canon, ethnicity? These are important distinctions.

Now, if we're talking Jade's different incarnations I would argue that she used to have more pronounced ethnic features in her broad nose and fuller lips. This was changed in Mk9 however.

A large part of the confusion of this debate lies in the semantics I think. Using the physical anthropoligical definitions Razor pointed out (Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid) makes sense however, even within the anthropological community those classifications have come into question.