Talk:Maya and Meena

Influences
I don't see the words "Gypsy" or "Romani" anywhere in this article. Does that truly not come up in the sources? I thought the inspiration was fairly obvious - if we're talking classical gypsy tropes (as awkward and culturally insensitive as they can be), stuff like traveling, dancing, and fortune telling is very common. I don't think it's the bad version of the tropes - the pair are straightforwardly heroic and don't use it to, like, cheat people or anything - but it's certainly in that trope space. SnowFire (talk) 20:42, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The only use of the former came up in their theme, which I avoided due to the problematic nature of the word; for any ethnic inspirations, I didn't find any dev info about that or reception discussing them as Romani inspired. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 22:27, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I think it's Sugiyama's "fault" for using "gypsy" in the track titles, not ours (usual disclaimer goes here about 1990 being a different place, and I have no clue how much knowledge about anti-Roma sentiment is in Japanese culture).  Anyway this makes me worry that our sources aren't deep enough.  I don't want to delve into OR here but even without Sugiyama's track titles, speaking personally, the game is not subtle as far as the NES version on the influences - see Romani people in fiction, fortune telling & dancing are two of the core items of fictional Romani archetypes.  I'd hope that any remotely in-depth dive discussed the connection, but I get that citing TVTropes or random GameFAQs forum threads that come up won't fly on Wikipedia.  I'd say that maybe including the track titles as a nudge & wink in the right direction might help, since IMO them being Romani-inspired is clearly part of their characters.
 * Also, while here, I think the Audra quote isn't really usable? The source is very thin to begin with, and the pair aren't twins.  You can see at https://nayukaaaaa.nomaki.jp/wp/dq4/dq44.html that Maya is the older sister.  Fandom wikis & so on back this up, so I think we shouldn't highlight a quote that makes the writer look bad.  (EDIT: I also took out a complaint about their spells not working in the NDS port - I regret to inform that writer that mechanic was totally in the NES version too, and also impacted their usability there.) SnowFire (talk) 06:51, 1 June 2024 (UTC)