[ SECRET POST #2594 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2594 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 094 secrets from Secret Submission Post #371.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

14. https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/497x373q90/513/qk4l.png

[rapunzelita]

I really like fantasy, but the icky racial undertones it has is a big problem for me - with very strictly separate "races" that are very different from one another and each of them has specificities, not as far as physical appearance is concerned, but even with the type of work they are able to do, etc. It always bothers me so much. (To the point where I would be really interested to write a PhD on racist undertones in fantasy, it's a topic that I very rarely hear mentioned, beyond the "there are no PoC in this fantasy novel because it's not ~historically accurate~ now shut up and look at this burly barbarian fighting dragons with a rapier")

I'm sorry that it's even more personal for you, OP. :(

[hiyami]

Have you read the Discworld novels that are set in Ankh-Morpork? The later ones?
There's a whole bunch that have racism (or rather, specism) as one of the main themes. The Patrician is trying to change people's minds about it by forcing the police to recruit non-humans. Starting with dwarves and trolls.

It's hilarious and it works, though not without some troubles.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Easy solution, don't read that flavor of fantasy.

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen posts about the portrayal of Orcs and the Haradim in Tolkien being racist... If I remember rightly, the arguments were that Tolkien describes Orcs as 'black' (at least once -- I searched a pdf) and presents the entire race as 'bad', and the Haradim are small and dark and from the east. (Though, personally, I think the Haradim are modelled on the Normans, who did, after all, destroy Anglo-Saxon England pretty much overnight).

[scarletmorning]

OMG A SHADOK!

[(Anonymous)]

The inhuman-barbaric-monstrous-cannonfodder Other trope is very common in fantasy/horror/sci-fi as well as... I don't know if there's a word for the genre... those often-19th-century adventure stories where there's a white man battling hordes of offensive stereotypes. Those. You had a very personal experience seeing that trope plastered on real human beings you feel a connection to, and now you can't handle the trope in general. There's nothing wrong with that.

Maybe later you'll decide that the offense is in people applying the template to real human beings, and you'll be able to tolerate heroes mowing down cardboard cutout Evil Monsters, and that's fine. Maybe you'll decide that you don't ever want to put even fantastical beings in that mold, and you'll restrict your attention to fiction which puts people on all sides of a conflict, and that's fine too.

[(Anonymous)]

"I'm part Native American"

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Not exactly what I look like (I have those huge cheekbones you see in photos of Apache warriors), but not too far off. I don't have much of a cultural connection, either, since the tribe was massacred when my great-great-grandfather was a child--he was raised by Mexicans, so a lot of my cultural background is Hispanic. Still, I do feel some connection to that part of my heritage.

[starphotographs]

You know, I never really understood why people get so much flack for saying that. It's an extremely common North American thing, so it doesn't even really register with me.

[(Anonymous)]

This actually strikes me as being incredibly fucking offensive in the sense that you are questioning and mocking another person's heritage.

What is the matter with you?

[hiyami]

(sorry, no accurate icon on this account)

It's understandable that you see parallels between those.

Usually, populations that slaughter entire groups of people are populations where the other group of people is already ostracized and considered as less-than-human. When it's not yet the case, during wars for example, there's propaganda to convince people that the other ones are monsters.

So, similar.

However I think the intent of fantasy writers is to have actual villains that people will not mind too much being killed by the heroes. Because nowadays it's not considered very heroic or ok to kill by the hundreds unless it's self-defense, even in war.

And I think even some writers are bothered about having their darling characters being killers.
It makes it more moral in a way if the adversaries really are inherently evil, and considered as less intelligent.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh fuck. Cannot unsee.

[(Anonymous)]

And this is why I'm so skeeved out by modern fantasy novels that shamelessly rip off Tolkien follow the Tolkien model. You've got the perfect (read: Anglo-Saxon) elves vs. evil savage (read: non-white) orcs, good white humans vs. the foreign barbarians who are usually dark-skinned, and sometimes even dwarfs that resemble anti-Semitic stereotypes.

IT IS THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. THERE'S NO EXCUSE FOR THAT SHIT ANYMORE.

[(Anonymous)]

Solution: Read urban fantasy.

[(Anonymous)]

The orcs were originally elves so they're all white in your analysis.

(Which I don't agree with, by the way. The white-thing or anything else. But hey, it's your thing, apparently.)

[arcadiaego]

I don't think think this is unreasonable. A lot of fantasy books have people fighting an 'other' who isn't given any culture etc and treated as one homogeneous mass, and it certainly has parallels with the real world, even if the author doesn't intent that. I'm sure there are knowledgeable people on FS who would be able to recommend titles that avoid those tropes though.

[starphotographs]

Don't know if OP would be interested in game recs, but I think Elder Scrolls took an awesome approach to the "multiple humanoid races/species" trope. Every group gets their own complex culture. Sometimes several for different regions! None of them are objectively good or evil, and they all have different stereotypes for each other, with various levels of basis in fact.

[rbhudson]

That's so upsetting :( I always thought there were creepy racial undertones in LOTR, like how all the bad guys are dark-skinned creatures and fair-skinned elves and hobbits are good. There were definitely exceptions but the uncomfortableness (totally a word, stfu) is still there.

[ninja_asty]

I've read a few DragonLance books from later in the series (and written by different authors) and the way that different races are treated (all kender need to be eradicated from the earth because the "good" humans don't like them) made me uncomfortable.

It's also uncomfortable to read that the "Plainsman" that saves the world in the first DragonLance trilogy is also the one who looks the most white. Blond hair and light skin as compared to dark hair and skin.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

"all kender need to be eradicated from the earth because the "good" humans don't like them"

What the hell? A kender died to save the universe in book 4! How did they become bad guys?

[(Anonymous)]

Um, I think the "good" humans weren't really any good. That was kind of the point. The audience loves kender and is supposed to be horrified that these people who see themselves as good want to eradicate them.

[i_paint_the_sky]

Interestingly, I don't remember Dragonlance having goblins in it at all. And that was my favourite fantasy series for years.

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair, Dragonlance (and some of the other TSR stories) did make an effort to address racial issues. Not a particularly sophisticated attempt that would hold up well to fandom's standards today, but it was a credible effort for its time. The Heroes represented a grab bag of diverse species and cultures who normally wouldn't have given each other the time of day, many of whom were viewed as 'barbaric,' 'children', 'half-breeds,' 'mosquitoes,' 'witches', 'traitors,' etc. Nearly every other race or species they came across had at least some redeeming characteristics, even the dragons!

Goblins do appear to be where they drew the line, unfortunately, but then the stories were based on a role-playing game, which until around the time DL came out were nearly all about killing things and looting their treasures. I suppose the authors felt they needed to have at least one unambiguous bunch of bad guys (other than the draconians, who were pretty irredeemable themselves but at least had a sympathetic backstory) around for their warriors to fight with a clear conscience.

Eddings man ...

[(Anonymous)]

A while back I tried to re-read my old David Eddings books for the first time since I was basically a kid and wow was it disturbing. The hate for the Murgos (hope I'm remembering that name right) and the 'hilarious' discussions of genocide was revolting. I couldn't believe I'd loved them when I was younger.

Eddings doesn't even hide the racism behind a human/non-human dynamic, these are a race of fellow humans that the 'Alorns'(clearly proxies of various white European peoples) have decided are evil and should be eradicated. The depiction of Murgos alone as sly and yellow-skinned is right out of a WW2 propaganda poster and don't even get me started on the weird gender politics.