I just want to start off by saying I looooove this webtoon, and no hate to the author nor ...

U have a good point.
But in this story all the main villains are pale skinned. Like her mother, the emperor and most importantly her brother.

Yess. That was a side character

i think the issue is that “barbaric” villains are portrayed with dark skin and intelligent villains are portrayed with light skin. I feel like a super intelligent, hot darkskin villain wouldn’t be that offensive, but since there’s a long history of people treating dark skinned people like savages, that feels offensive.

Well can't argue with that. Waiting for the day this can change.

But I think its because dark skin is used here to paint the characters even though they're not the main antagonists as barbaric and to a certain degree uncivilized or undeveloped which is a common denomination that Eastern countries in Asia where author/artist is from have towards darker skintone. Not to be political here and I'm not trying to agrue but irl it's a prejudice that East Asia has towards people in South and Southeast Asia, I know because that's where I'm from and we're confronted with it in their portrayals in mass media. So I guess I get what the original commentor says and I'm also quite irked by it.

I'm from India so I totally get what you are saying.

These were my thoughts too when they first introduced the different species monster beings (idk what they are, but the beings that just killed a few soldiers). They were like the first major melanistic beings in the story... and they're basically monsters?! Like... pardon?

That was so out of left field for me too, especially since they're all in a snowy region I.e little to no sun, therefore there's no reason for the darker skin. It was such an "interesting" character design choice for the monster to me, but I really want to give the artist/artist the benefit of the doubt for now.

I believe the only other darker toned character currently is the pirate prince fellow. However based on the flashbacks, he seems to be from a warmer climate with lots of exposure to the sun. So for me, that's a valid choice in character design.

this is my thought as a brown asian. i understand why the author used a darker shade of skin tone on karams and the red haired guy. karams where not humans (if they are, then they wouldn't be classified the same as the people in the evron) so it's natural for them to have darker skin as animals do not usually possess lighter skin unless genes were altered (kindly explain this to me if i am wrong, i'm not a fan of genetics). as for the red haired, he lived by the south sea, and their lifestyle probably revolves on fishing, so it's natural for him to have brown skin. evron is a northern island so it's cold and majority of them would be pale. i think it could've been better if the author showed a variety of skin tone from the start (especially since the setting was in the mainland) but besides that, i see no problem.

I think that we do not read the same mangas/webtoons, 95% of the villains were light-skinned and in most cases coloured people are portrayed as mysterious and powerful or merchants. Just check Ebony as an example. And there are so many more. I read more than 300 mangas, manhuas and webtoons. I have been reading them for more than 10 years. I never got the impression of dark skin = barbaric. The closest thing to that was when there was a manga featuring dark-skinned tribes, which I do not think it was something meant to be offensive. If you want to portray something similar to Africa, you cannot portrayed them with computers, skyscrappers and full-blown modern factories inside the village. That would be offensive to their culture. And there were some mangas with tribes with light-skin. You can rest easy, authors do not get out of their way to make coloured people be inferior.

are you aware africa has computers, sky scrapers and full blown modern factory… i get that thus is ignorance…. but this is a racist way of thinking

No they said all those won't be present in the tribal villages.

i think its an issue when we stereotype dark skin woth tribes tho. even going by their original answer.

Well since I don't know much about how it really is, I'm not gonna give my input lol

I think there is a misunderstanding here. Everybody knows that not all dark-skinned people are living in tribes. However, Africa has roughly one billion people, most of them are dark-skinned and more than half of them live in a rural area. That is a reality, and that is how that stereotype came to be. When you have such a large population (majority) the image of the majority will be wider spread. It is all about numbers. Being in a tribe is a way of living, culture and by no means shameful or barbaric. And again, in all my reading I just took the characters are they were and not apply attributes to other unrelated characters and saw many different and wonderful dark-skinned characters. There are more positive examples than negative. Trust me, I am an avid reader of comics.

ok but these are works of FICTION, which means that the author/artist can draw/describe the characters however they want (like how characters can have naturally green or purple hair, or magic or wtv), and there are no mentions of them being on earth (as we know it) therefore there is no Africa or whavever continent/country with dark-skinned people you want to use. the "reality" as you say, is whatever the author/artist wants it to be, therefore if the author/artist wants the "tribal people" (barbaric monsters that need to be killed, basically) to have dark skin, then thats what they choose to do because dark skin is associated with those things in their mind (wether its subconscious or conscious). I get what you are saying about how the tribal life is just a way of living and stuff, but why couldn't they be light skinned in that case (I don't know if saying 'white' is offensive), there are plenty of tribal people who were light skinned. my whole point isn't about that anyways, its just that the only characters in the story who have darker skin are bad/barbaric/ect. and I noticed that webtoons and mangas etc. usually tend to idolise pale skin and demonise dark skin. I agree that it is not always, and it has gotten better, but it still exists, and to say it doesn't seems kind of ignorant to me.

I get what you mean, but if thats the case, and they are not "human", why couldn't the artist have made the karams green or red or something, you know? my statement still stands that the only darker skinned group of people are depicted as animalistic (or barbaric as I said in the OP) and there are plenty of animals with light skin/fur naturally (rabbits, sheep, polar bears, horses, cows, etc). as for the pirate guy, I agree that there is logic behind his colouring, but it still stands that he is a bad guy, which is my whole point. there isn't a single darkskinned character in the whole webtoon that is a good person (for now, maybe this will change in the future. I hope so).

I can see that you are upset, but I was just pointing out that there is not an only. I can give a lot of mangas as examples. Plently light-skins are drawn as animals, especially very common in beastmen mangas. In this webtoon in particular, I do believe he/she tried to make them as different as possible and chose brown as a contrast to the other norths living in the snow. Green or purple colouring would just look as if they are aliens. And Karam by themselves are not villains, , they have extremist groups that are bad guys with bad rep. The ultimate villain and the worst of all is Lawrence and he has ultra pale skin, white hair and almost white eyes. He cannot get more white than this and he is the ultimate animal in all of this.

bro its not about them being bad guys its about them being potrayed as tribal/ barbaric. there’s nothing wrong with tribes, but stereotyping dark skin people to tribes is harmful

I am not upset, I just don't think you really understand my point (or are even trying to) and I don't feel like repeating myself. I'm just going to say that no matter how much you want to act like colorism and the demonisation of dark skin in eastern culture doesn't exist, it does. its a fact that it does, regardless of the '300 mangas' that you have read and whatever excuse you want to use to defend the artist. do some research, google is only a few clicks away.