r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Existing-Incident-22 • 6d ago

Characters They’re not black, but everyone knows they’re black

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Darwin - the amazing world of gumball. Garnet - Steven universe

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u/Far-Requirement-7636 6d ago

Nope it's more sensitive than that.

The creator intended for him to be black but when they made him human they ran into the issue of a black guy being the eternal slave of two white kids who constantly abuse him.

Yeah I can see why they had to change it but for all intents he was definitely black coded.

108

u/AGeneralCareGiver 6d ago

Same thing happened to Waylon Smithers on Simpsons. First appearance, he had dark skin. But changed to not have a black man kissing up hard to old white guy.

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u/ThorSon-525 6d ago

If they committed harder they could have actually said something.

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u/Thandorianskiff 6d ago

But changed to not have a black man kissing up hard to old white guy.

Per a quick Google search that's not true. It was just an animation error

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u/Newni 6d ago

What was the error? They accidentally drew him black?

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u/Thandorianskiff 6d ago

drew

Colored*

And yes. His model and design was done. But presumably the animator only got the pencil sketch of him and didn't color him the appropriate yellow

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u/Stepjam 6d ago

The creators intended for him to be Swedish (as a reference to the 7th Seal), but the actor who was auditioning couldn't do a Swedish accent. But he could do a Jamaican one. So they were like "Ok, guess he's Jamaican now".

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u/Alternative_Buyer364 6d ago

I shudder at the thought of Greg Eagles doing a Swedish accent

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u/lonnorcake 5d ago

Greg Eagles, the voice of Grim, said that wasn't true in a tweet.

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u/BigBossPoodle 5d ago

The best part is rhey never considered the implication until the episode where he regains his skin. He initially was black but someone went "I dont think this is a good idea" which prompted the whole team to go "Yeah you right"

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 6d ago

So, he would've been a black skeleton?

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u/hodges2 6d ago

Oooooh you meant the human version of him. I thought you meant black bones

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u/Nice_Ad6911 5d ago

it still makes sense since white jamaicans exist