Taako

Character
Name:	Taako
Occupation:	Wizard
Relationships:	Lup (twin sister)
Fandom:	The Adventure Zone: Balance
Other:
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Taako is one of the main characters in The Adventure Zone: Balance. He is controlled by Justin McElroy.

Discussion & Controversy

Race and Skin Color

With no true canonical character design, Fanart fandom has long debated about Taako's race and skin color (and occasionally personality), and the possibly harmful tropes associated with various depictions. This debate resurfaced in 2017, with the reveal of Blue Taako in the graphic novels.

This is about the general fanon/fanart discussion. For discussions specifically around the graphic novel depiction, see Blue Taako.

Antisemitism and Green Skin

Because of certain fanon tropes, there is much conversation about green-skinned Taako in fanart, as well as other antisemitic stereotypes on the podcast itself.

your green taako has antisemitic undertones:

Green/olive skin = witches/wily natures was once/still is translated as Jewish people to antisemites

#taako taaco #taako #taz cast #taz #adventure zone #the adventure zone #talkin #not saying you did it on purpose but you should know where it comes from

velvetwyrm on Tumblr

I saw people going “TAAKO’S DESIGN IS ANTISEMITIC” before I even got to see the pages. And I was bracing myself for the hurt, I really was.

Then the pages finally came up on my feed and I was hunched over in the break room at work to stare at them all “??????”

I live in South Florida. I live with antisemitism. These days, I’ve removed certain phrases from my vocabulary in public because I don’t feel safe having that label even remotely assigned to me by strangers. When my uncle passed and my entire (INCREDIBLY jewish) family came down for the funeral, I fucking sat in a car with my cousin and talked to her about how the student at her school who dressed up like Hitler for Halloween and followed her around was a disgrace and should have been suspended immediately.

I…. don’t understand this. I do not understand it. I do not see where it is coming from and for every time I see people implying that if we disagree with the backlash we should shut the fuck up, I see red.

SORRY I GUESS I’M NOT JEWISH ENOUGH, WHOOPS. MY OPINION IS INVALID, HUH?

Miss me on this shit.

callmearcturus on Tumblr

having a character with green skin is okay. having a character with green skin and a pointy wizard hat is still fine. having a character with green skin, a pointy wizard hat, and an exaggeratedly long nose? getting a little uncomfortable. having a character with green skin, a pointy wizard hat, an exaggeratedly long nose, and a tendency to steal things? feels bad scoob. having a character with green skin, a pointy wizard hat, an exaggeratedly long nose, a tendency to steal things, and also speaks Yiddish on occasion? blatant antisemitism. #taz #taako taaco #wanda.txt

trickstarlilybell on Tumblr

Latinx Taako

There's longstanding fandom conversation on whether Taako, whose name is a play on "taco", ought to be Latinx.

[mononsnidali on Tumblr]
folks the reason taako’s ethnicity is important to be mexican (and I mean specifically mexican) isn’t because justin named his god damn wizard after tacos. in fact his name has zero to do with why I interpret him as mexican. the reason is that part of taako’s arc is to invent in this world the concept of tacos, which is a traditionally mexican style dish. this was explicitly stated to be part of taako’s development from episode 1. it’s not that big of a deal (under these circumstances, imo, but correct me if I’m wrong) that a mexican character is named after mexican food, taako’s a vain character and in the context of the story I can completely see him naming a dish after himself. what is a big deal is having someone outside of that ethnicity invent something from a culture that doesn’t belong to them. that’s honestly worse than having mexican characters named after latinx food.

[sometimesgoescaw reblogging from mononsnidali]
No yeah is is exactly how I feel about this? Being like, Mexican myself, I can’t wrap my head around how white people tend to think “He can’t be Hispanic because his name is Taako, and it’d be racist” when like, him being white is not really any better? Like, having Mexican twins named Taako and Chaalupa is really, honest to god not the issue, and it seems to be like, the one thing they actually sat down and thought abt? Like, no, the issue is people deciding that Taako’s sun elf ass would be light skinned or whatever. Don’t even get me started on ppl drawin wizard hats that look like sombreros only to put them on a legend of zelda lookin white elf. The problem is people see whites in fantasy as being the “safe default” instead of being the “unfortunately unavoidable.”

i’m not caught up with that drama

but, speaking as a latinx, i would be uncomfortable with a character named taako being Mexican. …

like think about it does that sound right to you?? It would feel like making a joke of us “haha his name is taako and he’s mexican”

moonlandingwasfaked on Tumblr

Example Fanworks

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Meta

• Pudding is a non-Newtonian fluid. by charmandhex (archive)

Links & Resources

• Taako on The Adventure Zone Wiki