Hi, I just want to throw my hat into the Vanessa ring myself. I'm not going to speak for Nala, but I think she fits in here too, just slightly different since she's more "scholarly" rather than "activist" from what I can gather.
I'm not R, and I don't speak for him, but from a worldbuilding perspective, someone like Vanessa is natural and is to be expected in a game or a narrative that focuses on slavery and forms of systemic oppression. Yes, the voices of the oppressed are important, and the various elves serve their places well. But, a study of history shows that external voices from the "privileged" group are necessary to enact change. Without leaving America, or going straight to macro things like Lincoln, Republican lawmakers in the 1850s, or other general abolitionist movements, we have the Underground Railroad, whose success was reliant on white abolitionists willing to sacrifice their own freedom to aid escaped men, women, and children flee to better lives in Canada or the Northern states. There additionally is the story of John Brown, a white man who led armed insurrections in Kansas and Virginia with the goal of liberating slaves. These "privileged" individuals are important to the narrative of change and the fight for equality, and their viewpoints and actions should serve to further nuance the reality presented in a work and better reflect the realistic flow of history. Without them and their equivalents, history becomes lopsided and less nuanced, with the reverse being true as well. A living world with these issues would have these external members fighting alongside those oppressed. It's not politics nor is it superfluous, it's realism. Vanessa's role in this story is that of a smaller activist type figure trying to get her message across, unsuccessfully it looks like. That type of story within the larger universe, while not necessarily necessary in itself, is a way to portray the struggle on a smaller scale, opposed to the expansion of rights under Cornwall, the actions of the church, or whatever Kali's Dad is doing which is more macro and in line with say the growing economic concerns of slavery in the North as a leading cause of abolitionist thought, or the rise of Republican Party, or new religious lenses born out of a new Great Awakening, which is more high-level political and/or cultural changes.
I'm not going to talk about her politics and the "MAGA and Antifa" stuff, because that's trivial and separate from what I was actually talking about, in my opinion.
Anyways, see you next needless controversy.
